Pixels aside, the Inspiron’s panel has all the bases well-covered with a maximum brightness of 285cd/m2, an excellent contrast ratio of 1,403:1 and colour reproduction that runs to 101% of the sRGB gamut. I measured the average Delta E colour accuracy was at an impressively low 1.4. The lower maximum brightness may also be an issue for some. 265 nits is good enough for your typical indoor setting, but it’s not going to be enough to use outside or even next to a bright window. The overall design of this 2022 Inspiron 16 shares a lot of similarities that I saw in the Inspiron 15 model last year. The chassis is almost entirely made of aluminum and the design is basically your typical thin and light notebook that would have been called a premium design 6-7 years ago. Now it’s the norm.

Hard drive retention: Hard drive retention is not available on models with a soldered hard drive, including XPS 9315 2in1, Chromebooks or Venue tablets, except the Venue 11 Pro. You’ll get the most out of your machine in the Ultra-Performance mode. Under the heaviest loads, I only hit 40dB(A). But on average, under constant load, it was more like 38dB(A). Even in this situation, CPU temps only hit 75C max, which is very good. There are three power profiles to choose from, Ultra Performance, Optimized and Quiet, each with different power caps and fan settings. Quiet mode is not as Quiet as I’d expect, as explained further down in the article.

OS Required

I can’t really figure out the Optimized mode. I think it’s temperature-dependent because the fans appeared to be at a constant 35dB(A) no matter what the load was. But the CPU power would drift lower over time, as the load increased. Regardless, the temperature never breached 70C. The Inspiron scored 254 points in our in-house productivity test which is a very respectable result, only 15 points shy of the Dell XPS 15, which uses the same processor but the slightly more powerful RTX 3050Ti GPU. There’s enough performance on tap to credibly call the Inspiron 16 Plus a budget workstation. It managed to work through the SPECviewperf2020 3dsmax 3D rendering test in 50.6 seconds which again is highly creditable for a laptop in this price range. It runs the Dell XPS 15 very close in the GeekBench 5 CPU test, too. Last year, the Inspiron 15 model got a mediocre screen with washed-out colors, which ultimately was a deal breaker for my wife who does color-sensitive work. But this year they switched to a 16-inch 16:10 panel which is a newer Inspiron 16 form factor – so the screen should be better, right? Unfortunately, no…

Second Group: The LED blinks with a White color 1 to 9 times. Followed by a longer pause before the next cycle starts again with the LED off for 3 s. Next is “Optimized” mode. In this mode, the TDP starts at 28W but then drifts downward and eventually levels off around 23W for sustained loads. Here were my test results: Terms Apply. Promotion ends 3 December 2023. Items are subject to availability. Max 5 units per customer. It’s a different brand of panel, but it basically has the same specs as before. So the viewing angles are good, but the max brightness is below average and the colors are just poor. Could be worse, sure, but by today’s standards, I’m surprised that they would even make panels like this anymore.

Interfaces

In Quiet mode, the TDP pretty much hangs out at 17-18W and slowly drifts down to 15W over a long time for sustained loads. Here were my results: