Dell Inspiron 16 Plus (7620) Review

The most recent iteration of Dell’s Inspiron 16 Plus is not an ideal replacement for a desktop computer; nonetheless, it does provide substantial features at an affordable price and delivers good performance thanks to its 12th Generation Intel H-series processor and Nvidia RTX graphics.

Dell Inspiron 16 Plus (7620)

★★★★☆

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PROS
✔ Strong performance across the board considering the cost.
✔ The GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU is able to manage everyday graphic operations in 1080p webcam resolution.
✔ Long life span for the battery
CONS
❌ Dull design compared to more premium-feeling competitors
❌ Quality of display that is around average
❌ There is neither a touch screen nor an OLED option.

DELL INSPIRON 16 PLUS (7620) SPECS

As a powerful big-screen laptop, the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus (7610) impressed us with its value and features, and we selected it as an Editors’ Choice product a year ago. The new Inspiron 16 Plus model 7620, which retails for $1,599.99 after being tested, improves upon and replaces its forerunner by including a new 12th Generation Intel processor and upgrading to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics processing unit (GPU). (You can also get it as a convertible in addition to the clamshell version that you see above.) It is a superior sequel that has less drawbacks than its predecessor and has a longer battery life, a sharper webcam that records in 1080p, and overall good performance. The Inspiron 16 Plus has a larger price tag than its competitors in this price bracket, and its build quality is not as premium as that of some of those competitors. As a result, it does not receive an Editor’s Choice award this time around, which causes it to lose part of its value argument. However, as a general replacement for a desktop computer for tasks that require productivity or moderately demanding creative work, it has a lot to recommend it.

16 Inches for Each and Every Workflow

Despite the rather powerful components that are housed within, the build quality and aesthetic design of the Inspiron are relatively understated. It has a clean, basic style with a splash of subdued color. Although this design has been quite successful for Apple’s MacBooks and Dell’s own XPS line, the 7620’s design and materials are not quite up to par with the premium feel achieved by those other products. Although there is, of course, a price-cutting upside to keeping things simple, the Inspiron 16 Plus ends up seeming more like a run-of-the-mill consumer notebook than the rather powerful and somewhat pricey machine that it actually is. This is because the company chose to keep things simple.

The new Inspiron 16 Plus is extremely comparable to the model from the previous year, however it is not an exact replica. The Dell has a height, width, and depth (HWD) of 0.75 by 14.1 by 9.9 inches and a weight of 4.51 pounds. It is fairly thin (tapering to an even thinner 0.67 inch at the front edge), but the 16-inch display and onboard components prevent it from being extremely lightweight. Despite this, it is still rather portable for a laptop with such a large screen.

In reference to the display, our evaluation model has what Dell refers to as 3K resolution, which consists of 3,072 by 1,920 pixels in a 16:10 aspect ratio. Even though the colors and brightness (which are rated at 300 nits) don’t blow me away, the IPS display is a great size and has bezels that are only moderately thick. This is especially the case when we compare it to the incredible OLED displays we’ve seen, but the screen on the Inspiron doesn’t stand out even when we compare it to screens on other consumer laptops.

The remainder of the construction is sound but does not stand out in any way. The keycaps feel a little bit smaller than you’d expect on a laptop of this size (especially considering there is no numeric keypad), but the keyboard is comfortable to type on and has sufficient travel and feedback.

The buttonless touchpad is likewise functional, but the structure that it has been cut out of is interesting: The pad’s boundaries are defined by three grooves: one on the left, one on the right, and one at the bottom. These grooves are attached at the top, creating the appearance of a wide diving board. Although there is not quite as much spring as one might expect, the clicks have a satisfying feel to them in spite of the somewhat unusual method by which the pad is implemented. (The previous iteration of the Inspiron 16 Plus was equipped with a conventional touchpad.)

A reliable connectivity experience in all areas completes the feature package. A USB 3.1 Type-A port, a USB-C port that supports Thunderbolt 4, and an HDMI video output are all located on the left flank of the device. There is a connector for headphones on the right side of the device, as well as a slot for an SD card, and another USB-A port. In addition, both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 6E are supported by the laptop.

Another feature that stands out is the webcam, which has a resolution of 1080p, which is significantly higher than the standard 720p. It has a significant impact for the end user, providing video quality that is noticeably sharper than the industry standard. This is something that you will appreciate in an all-in-one laptop on which you are likely to make some video calls.

A Capable All-Rounder, According to Our Tests of the Inspiron 16 Plus

Test System Configurations

A Core i7-12700H processor (six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, and 20 threads), 16GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive, and the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU are all included in our review unit, which is the starter model. Since this model is intended for creatives and professionals, the baseline specifications are quite high. It comes to a total of $1,599.99.

The maximum amount of RAM that can be installed is 32 gigabytes, while the maximum amount of storage that can be installed is one terabyte. Gamers who want a noticeable boost in graphics performance can upgrade the graphics processing unit (GPU) to an RTX 3060. For the purpose of developing our benchmark charts, we evaluated the 7620 in relation to the various competitors detailed in the table below.

These laptops’ costs and components are, with a few notable exceptions, generally comparable, despite the fact that they cover a few distinct categories. If a system is a good deal and can complete the duties you require, don’t worry too much about the theoretical purpose it was designed to serve! Comparatively, the HP Spectre x360 16 is a two-in-one convertible laptop, while the Dell XPS 15 OLED is a prestige-screened desktop replacement. The Lenovo Legion 5i Pro Gen 7 is a gaming rig that falls within the middle of the price range. Last but not least, the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio is a versatile solution for creatives that require touch input. However, the price tag is quite steep for this product.

Examinations of Productivity

The primary benchmark that is used in UL’s PCMark 10 mimics a wide variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. This benchmark measures overall performance for office-centric applications such as word processing, spreadsheet editing, web surfing, and video conferencing. In addition to this, we run the Full System Drive storage benchmark from PCMark in order to evaluate the performance of the system’s boot drive.

In order to evaluate how well a personal computer can handle tasks that need a lot of processing power, three benchmarks concentrate on the CPU and make use of all of the cores and threads it has. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 mimics popular applications such as PDF rendering, speech recognition, and machine learning using the company’s Cinema 4D engine. Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Pro, on the other hand, renders a complicated scenario using the company’s Geekbench 5.4 Pro software. In the end, we convert a video clip that is 12 minutes long from a 4K resolution to a 1080p resolution using the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4. (lower times are better).

Our final productivity test is workstation manufacturer Puget Systems’ PugetBench for Photoshop. This test employs the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s well-known image editor to evaluate a personal computer’s performance for content production and multimedia application use. It is an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks such as opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image as well as applying masks, gradient fills, and filters. These tasks can be carried out in a variety of ways depending on the user’s preferences.

This test showed that the Inspiron 16 Plus was one of the better performers among this group of really powerful computers. It looked quite impressive. The Dell is not a mobile workstation with a Core i9 or AMD Ryzen 9 processor that can crunch through enormous datasets, but it is more than ready for any productivity activity that you throw at it.

Examinations of Graphics and Gaming

Night Raid and Time Spy are two DirectX 12 game simulations from UL’s 3DMark that we use to assess the graphics capabilities of Windows personal computers. Night Raid is a more modest simulation, making it ideal for laptops with integrated graphics (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). In addition, we do two OpenGL benchmarks taken from the platform-agnostic GFXBench. These benchmarks are conducted offscreen in order to handle a variety of screen resolutions.

Although the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti is not among Nvidia’s best gaming GPUs (as evidenced by the results of the 3070 Ti), it is a significant improvement over the capabilities of integrated graphics. As is the case with the processor, you will need more powerful silicon if your work requires extensive graphics processing, but the Inspiron should be sufficient for most tasks that do not involve extensive computer-generated image rendering.

Tests on the Display and the Battery

Playing a locally stored 720p video file with the display brightness set to 50% and the audio volume set to 100% is how we test the battery life of laptops. This continues until the device shuts down. Before beginning the test, we check that the battery has a full charge and turn off Wi-Fi as well as the illumination on the keyboard.

We also make use of a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software in order to evaluate the color saturation of a laptop screen. This refers to the percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes that the display is capable of displaying. We measure the display’s 50% brightness as well as its peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

Good news! Battery life is one of the benefits of the Inspiron 16 Plus, with our video rundown showing more than 15 hours of runtime from a single charge. It is reassuring to know that you can expect a full day of work even when you are not at your desk because, just like with most desktop replacements, you will probably want it plugged in for peak performance while working on demanding tasks. However, because this is not always possible, it is comforting to know that you can expect a full day of work even when you are not at your desk (or on your couch). As I mentioned earlier, the visual experience provided by the display is unimpressive, with only average color coverage and relatively subdued levels of brightness.

A Sample From Each and Every Category

The Dell Inspiron 16 Plus is an attractive choice for a laptop for the vast majority of its qualities. It has a decent performance for its price point, is not too bulky, and is mainly neatly put together. Additionally, the battery life is satisfactory. The screen is its main flaw, however it is less of a deal breaker than an obvious disappointment. Aside from that, it satisfies the needs of the majority of general users and is capable of managing moderate workloads for creative professionals.

The Inspiron is not remarkable despite the fact that it performs admirably in all areas. This is a minor drawback, with the primary focus being on the display, as well as the build, which does not feel as premium as that of some competitors selling products in the same price range. If, on the other hand, functionality is your primary issue, particularly in the form of a combination of a large screen and a long battery life, this is a suitable option for those seeking a huge screen for general use.

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  Dell Inspiron 16 Plus (7620) Review