The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 is a significant step up from the previous generation of the Inspiron lineup. It has brought significant improvements from its predecessor, from the build quality to the internals under the hood.
The budget Inspiron laptop almost competes with the flagships such as the XPS or the Macbook. Though it’s far from perfect, we will discover its flaws as we go on with this review.
Specs at Glance
CPU: Core i7 12700H | GPU: Iris Xe Graphics | RAM: 16GB DDR5 | Display: 16” 2240×1400 | Storage: 1TB SSD | Battery: 64Wh | OS: Windows 11
Chassis & Design
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 stand out from the last year’s Inspiron with a premium yet boring looking all metallic chassis.
Though we didn’t expect much from Dell as it’s a laptop targeted for work purposes.
Our unit has a platinum silver color though the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 is also available in a nice dark green color.
Coming back to the design, its as simple as it gets with a simple Dell logo on the center of the metal lid.
The chassis has a nice smooth finish and thankfully we didn’t see it grabbing any fingerprint smudges, unlike something like the Lenovo Yoga 7i.
So this helps the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 maintain a consistent look throughout the chassis. We also notice a considerable amount of vents on the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420, that are not only located on the bottom, but also on the rear and the side of the laptop.
And this laptop surely needs considerable breathing room as we will discuss later in our review.
The chassis feels a tad bit heavy at around 3.77 lbs (1.77kg), making it harder to carry around. This is a bit disappointing considering that many 14-inch laptops weigh around 2.76 lbs (1.25kg).
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 doesnt disappoint when it comes to the rigidity of the device. Not only it feels solid in hand, but it also passes our one-finger test which makes it easy to open it. And the hinge lifts up the laptop as you open the lid, allowing for more breathing room.
I/O Ports
Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 comes with a decent selection of ports. It has dual USB 3.2 Type-A ports, and an HDMI 2.0 port though we would have preferred a 2.1 port but it’s fine. It also has a micro SD card reader, an audio jack, and a charging port.
What bothers me is the single USB-C thunderbolt ports. I would have preferred it to have at least two USB-C ports. But at least it’s well-equipped on the wireless side with WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2.
Keyboard and Touchpad
Keyboard
The keyboard is a delight to use. The keys have just the right amount of travel to deliver a satisfying feedback on every keystroke. The keys themselves are spacious and big which makes it easy to hit every key with minimal error.
Of course, the keyboard does not come anywhere near to the satisfying deep travel of a Lenovo Thinkpad, but its still fun to use.
Though I personally don’t like the design where the fingerprint sensor/ power button blends into the rest of the keyboard, it is easy to distinguish them between the normal keys thanks to its different textures.
Touchpad
The touchpad reminds me of the one on the Dell XPS and the Macbook Pro. It’s quite spacious for a 14-inch laptop and feels nice to glide your finger on thanks to its glass surface. And thanks to window’ precision drivers the touchpad feels quite accurate and registers all gestures accurately.
I feel like I won’t need an external mouse after using the touchpad on the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420.
Speakers & Webcam
Speakers
The speakers are surprisingly good. I didn’t expect much from them but they went above my expectations. The mids are clear and the highs are as crisp as you expect.
This is all coming from downward-firing speakers, so that is surprising. There is noticeable bass but nothing groundbreaking. Still this is much better than some mediocre you would usually find in some laptop speakers.
Webcam
The 1080p webcam is also an upgrade from the previous model which had a 720p camera. The image that it produces is quite sharp and facial features look well-defined rather than a blob on a screen.
Though it lacks an IR sensor for Windows Hello. It also comes with a physical privacy slider so that’s nice too.
Display
The display is a bit of a mixed bag on the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420. On one hand, it has amazing colors and decent contrast, which makes the image look punchy and full of life. This is thanks to its 100% sRGB coverage and around 76% Adobe RGB and 77% of DCI P3 coverage.
This makes the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 suitable for color-sensitive applications like color grading in Premiere Pro or working in Adobe Illustrator.
And the 16:10 aspect ratio makes the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 great for working on word documents and spreadsheets as it gives you a little more screen real estate to work with.
But, my problem with this display is that though it has an anti-glare coating, the display is quite reflective. And what makes this even worse is its mediocre brightness. The display maxes out at around 300 nits.
This makes the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 pretty much unusable in a brightly lit room or outside on a sunny day. I would have to turn down the lights in my room so I can’t get distracted by its reflection.
Usually, in the price range of the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420, the competition seems to offer a much brighter display, ranging from around 380 to 400 nits. You can even get the Yoga 7i for much cheaper which offers a brighter display with similar color accuracy.
Overall, I expect Dell to do much better next time with the display, but the display on the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 is fine.
Performance
CPU
Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 does not disappoint when it comes to raw performance. The Core i7 12700h is 14 monsters that give other laptops in its league a run for their money. This performance-focused i7 shreds through anything you throw at it.
In Geekbench 5, it got a single core of 1718 and a multi-core score of 11728. And in Cinebench R23 it got a single-core score of 1749 and in multi-core, it got 11450. Though we see a noticeable improvement in single-core performance, the multi-core performance is more than double thanks to the Intel Alder lake architecture.
Though in other laptops, especially gaming laptops, the Core i7 12700h manages to perform much faster thanks to a higher TDP and more cooling headroom.
But since Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 focuses more on the average daily use, it is limited in its power consumption and heat output. But despite that, it manages to outperform the much more efficiency-focused processors such as the Core i7 1270p and the Core i7 1255u that are usually found in laptops like the Lenovo Yoga 7i, HP Envy 2022, or the Acer Aspire Vero.
For light to moderate CPU-intensive workloads like video editing, and code compiling, the Core i7 12700H is beefy enough to handle all those tasks. Along with other basic tasks like web browsing and video editing.
However, if performance is all you care about and you are willing to compromise on battery life and portability, then you can get a gaming laptop like Asus TUF Dash 15 or the MSI Pulse G66 if you are willing to spend a bit more.
GPU
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 is also available with an RTX 3050 however our unit comes with Intel Iris Xe Graphics so its a bit limited in graphical performance.
You can run older triple-A titles at medium to low settings but don’t expect much out of this aging iGPU. On the flip side, it consumes little power and contributes to better battery life.
However, if you are willing to compromise on the heat output and the battery life of the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420, then you can get the RTX 3050 variant.
Battery Life
I wasn’t expecting a great battery life from the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 because of the power-hungry Core i7 12700H. But it defied my expectations by lasting around 6-8 hours on casual use.
The 64Wh battery managed to last almost the entire day, though you would still need to carry the charger with you to fill it up at the end of the day.
Also if you manage to get the variant with the RTX 3050, then expect the battery life to shorten.
However, you can get laptops that last over 10 hours on a single charge like the Lenovo Yoga 7i or the HP Envy 2022. Though at the same time, you would be compromising on the performance so keep that in mind.
Expandability and Upgradeability
The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 surprises me when it comes to expansion. Most of the thin and light laptops in this price range usually have soldered RAM, but here you get an additional RAM slot, allowing you to upgrade its 16GB RAM.
Similarly, the SSD is also replaceable, which means that you can upgrade to something bigger than a 1TB drive if it ends up being small for you.
Though I would recommend you upgrade the SSD anyway if you plan to do something intensive because, despite the fact, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 supports Gen 4 drives, Dell included a slower Gen 3 drive.
And the WiFI card is also upgradable, which significantly helps in repairability and can help you upgrade to a newer WiFI standard down the line.
Conclusion
Overall, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7420 is a solid everyday machine that performs great in various tasks, provides a great typing experience, and has decent battery life all in sleek premium chassis.
However, it has minor annoyances such as a single USB C port and a display that is quite reflective and that struggles to get bright enough.
