Pros & Cons
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- Low price
- Sufficient memory and storage
- 120Hz refresh rate
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- Tepid performance
- Chintzy keyboard
- Wi-Fi 5, not 6E or 7
- Dim display
Dell Inspiron 15 (3535) Specs
| Boot Drive Capacity (as Tested) | 512 |
| Boot Drive Type | SSD |
| Class | Budget |
| Class | Desktop Replacement |
| Dimensions (HWD) | 0.75 by 14.1 by 9.3 inches |
| Graphics Processor | AMD Radeon 610M Graphics |
| Native Display Resolution | 1920 by 1080 |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Home |
| Panel Technology | IPS |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 5 7520U |
| RAM (as Tested) | 8 |
| Screen Refresh Rate | 120 |
| Screen Size | 15.6 |
| Tested Battery Life (Hours:Minutes) | 16:22 |
| Variable Refresh Support | Manual |
| Weight | 3.59 |
| Wireless Networking | Bluetooth |
| Wireless Networking | Wi-Fi 5 |
Even Donald Trump's tariffs don't fluctuate like the prices on Dell's lowest-priced laptops do. When we started our review, the Inspiron 15 (3535) was a thrifty $249.99 with an AMD Ryzen 3 processor, or $299.99 with a Ryzen 5. But after a week, the former model jumped to $379.99, and our Ryzen 5 test unit to $449.99. (At the time of publishing, it's on sale for just $349.99.) That's still reasonable, especially since the laptop avoids some budget pitfalls: It comes with real Windows 11 Home, not the disappointing Windows in S Mode, an adequate 8GB of RAM, and a roomy 512GB of storage—instead of a skimpy 4GB and 256GB. But the price hike from shockingly low to merely modest and back down again, coupled with some lacking features compared with Chromebooks, takes the Inspiron out of Editors' Choice consideration in the budget laptops category. The Acer Aspire 3 (A315-24P) remains the top cheap PC laptop to buy, though this Dell model can be a decent deal if you catch the pricing wave just right.
Configurations and Design: Wi-Fi 5, Stayin' Alive
The only difference between the $379.99 and $449.99 ($349.99 on sale) Inspiron 15 models is the choice of quad-core processor: AMD's Ryzen 3 7320U or Ryzen 5 7520U. Other components include AMD Radeon 610M integrated graphics (part of the CPU), 8GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive, and a 15.6-inch non-touch IPS screen with full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) resolution. The screen has a 120Hz refresh rate instead of the usual 60Hz for smoother video viewing, though I guarantee you will not be fast-twitch gaming on this system.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Cost-cutting measures include a keyboard without backlighting and a 720p webcam instead of a 1080p model with no privacy shutter. The list continues, with neither a face recognition camera nor a fingerprint reader to avoid typing passwords with Windows Hello. Also, you get a Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) radio instead of the more modern Wi-Fi 6E or 7 standards. Compromises like those leave me less impressed by Dell's eight-core Ryzen 7 7730U model of this machine, which includes 16GB of RAM and a 1TB drive for $529.99 (marked down from $699.99 when its siblings were marked up).
Dell's 3535 model has the same Carbon Black plastic chassis as its 2023 3525 model, measuring 0.75 by 14.1 by 9.3 inches and weighing a reasonably portable 3.59 pounds. The system doesn't feel flimsy—lifting the lid feels downright thick by current slimline standards—but it shows an unnerving amount of flex if you grasp the screen corners or press the keyboard deck. Dell says the keyboard is spill-resistant, but I didn't test it.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The laptop's left flank includes the AC adapter connector, an HDMI port, and two USB 3.2 Gen 1 connections, one Type-A and one Type-C. The USB-C port is for data only, with no charging or DisplayPort capability, and the HDMI output is limited to 1080p resolution at 60Hz, though most buyers in this price zone won't have a sharper screen than that. On the Inspiron's right side, an old-school USB 2.0 port joins a headphone jack and an SD card slot.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Using the Dell Inspiron 15 (3535): The Bare Necessities
Dell's webcam doesn't support Windows' recently added Studio Effects, such as auto framing and background blur, which require AI processing hardware on the processor die that this laptop lacks. Its 720p stills and videos look reasonably well-lit and colorful, but blurry and vague.
Sound from the bottom-slit speakers is hollow and rough, with adequate volume but a flat response. You can make out overlapping tracks, but you'll hear neither treble nor bass to speak of.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)It's not easy to look pale and dark simultaneously, but the Inspiron's screen manages it: Its colors are bland and washed-out, while an overall lack of brightness makes everything dim and muddy. The screen's viewing angles are reasonably wide, and the details displayed are fairly sharp in brighter areas but swallowed up in darker ones. Its contrast is minimal, and its white backgrounds don't pop more than primary colors. The screen is usable for word processing and spreadsheets and tolerable for videos, but it basically screams economy class.
Dell's keyboard has a numeric keypad and a midsize, buttonless touchpad with decent glide and a comfortable click. You'll find dedicated Home and End keys on the top row, but Page Up and Page Down are relegated to the Fn key, plus the hard-to-hit, half-size up and down arrows; as with too many laptops, the arrow keys are arranged in an unwieldy HP-style row instead of the easier-to-finger inverted T.
On the Inspiron's keys, I managed a respectable typing speed with few errors, but the keyboard felt flat and lifeless, more like a tablet's type cover than a snappy laptop layout. The keys' travel is shallow, and their feedback is minimal. I also missed backlighting more than I thought I would. On the plus side, you'll find no Copilot key here.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The preinstalled MyDell software provides movie, animation, sports, and no-blue-light display color profiles. The app also includes undetectably different audio presets for various kinds of music and a choice of power and cooling modes. Finally, Dell's preinstalled SupportAssist app centralizes system updates, drive management, and network optimization.
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Benchmark Performance Testing: A Big But Basic Contender
The Inspiron doesn't choke and seize up if asked to multitask a few apps and browser tabs, but it feels sluggish—five seconds from double-clicking an MP3 to the song starting in Media Player, for instance. Direct comparisons are scarce since only two other comparable budget laptops have run our new benchmark suite: the almost identically equipped $349.99 Asus Vivobook Go 15, and the $599.99 Acer Aspire Go 15. We filled out the charts with an under-$850 business system, the Intel Core Ultra 5-powered Lenovo ThinkBook 16 Gen 7.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, tests a system in productivity apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput.
The Inspiron's and Vivobook's AMD CPUs with integrated graphics failed to run our Cinebench image rendering test, leaving just two CPU-centric or processor-intensive exercises: Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro, which simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning, and the HandBrake 1.8 video transcoder, which converts a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.
Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's editing prowess with various automated operations in the seminal image editor Adobe Photoshop 25.
The Dell managed the 4,000 points that indicate acceptable productivity in PCMark 10, but most laptop scores nowadays are in the 5,000 to 7,000 range, and its storage proved markedly slower than the pack's. The Photoshop workflow needed nearly two hours to complete, which usually takes a quarter of that on systems that cost a bit more. (The ThinkBook dominated in Photoshop, which was definitely happier with 16GB of RAM.) You'll get through the most basic computing tasks with this laptop but not much more, which is what this price generally delivers.
Graphics Tests
We challenge laptops' graphics with a quartet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K) use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. The Steel Nomad Light subtest—the Dell balked at the primary, higher-stress Steel Nomad benchmark—focuses on APIs more commonly used for game development, like DirectX 12, to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. A fifth test, Solar Bay, emphasizes ray-tracing performance.
None of these notebooks' integrated graphics comes within miles of a gaming laptop's discrete GPU. The Dell landed at the back of an already lackluster pack. It'll handle light touch-up image editing, but you can forget about after-hours entertainment except video streaming and solitaire.
Battery Life and Display Tests
We test each portable's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and Windows software to measure a screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
The Dell's display narrowly topped its rated 250 nits of brightness, but it's still murky (we like seeing 350 nits or more from an IPS panel) and produces poor color coverage. This can be said for all the screens on these affordable laptops. At least the Inspiron delivered decent battery life, which is an essential feature at this price, much less any other.