What's Hot: Very good materials and internals for the price. Versatile 2-in-1 design.
What's Not: Short keyboard travel. A bit heavy, as 2-in-1's tend to be. Display could be brighter.
Reviewed August 15, 2016 by Lisa Gade, Editor
in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)
The Dell Inspiron 13 7000 line is more than a consolation prize if you can't afford a Dell XPS. It's become the jack of all trades with a versatile 2-in-1 design and standard touch screen. You get a classy metal chassis and a pleasing full HD screen and the same Intel dual core processors as the XPS 13 for well under the XPS's $1,000 starting price. Our base model is $750, but that doesn't mean you're slumming--it has good Core i5 performance, a sharp LCD and upgradable internals. Sure, you're giving up XPS' really small footprint, lighter weight, absolutely stunning display and carbon fiber keyboard deck, but you're also saving serious money. The Inspiron 13 7000 is the everyman and everywoman back to school laptop if you've got some decent money to spend and you don't want to drop the bucks for a flagship laptop. For those who are on an even tighter budget, the Dell Inspiron 13 5000 series offers the same performance and similar internals (you may get a slower HDD instead of an SSD) with a reasonably stylish plastic chassis. For those who prefer something larger, the Inspiron 7000 series is also available in 15.6 and 17.3 inch sizes (also convertibles with 360 degree hinges).
Specs at a Glance
The Inspiron 13 7368 has an aluminum casing and Intel 6th generation dual core CPUs. It uses DDR4 RAM and is available with 8 or 16 gigs of RAM. It has dual band WiFi 802.11ac (Intel's lower end 3165AC card) with Bluetooth, a mediocre 720p webcam, a very functional infrared front camera for Windows Hello facial recognition login and a backlit keyboard with Precision trackpad. Our $749 model has the 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5-6200U, 8 gigs of RAM, a 256 gig SSD and a 1920 x 1080 glossy touch screen, which is the only display option. It does not support active pen input but will work with capacitive styli made for the iPad and Android tablets (less precise and no palm rejection). It's relatively upgradable with two RAM slots, an M.2 SSD slot and a socketed WiFi card as well as a 2.5" drive bay.
Design and Ergonomics
The Inspiron 13 7368 is a good looking laptop that can hold its own against more expensive models like the HP Spectre x360, though the Dell isn't as slim. The casing is aluminum: top, bottom and keyboard deck. The lid has a light silver brushed metal finish while the bottom is matte silver with a bright polished chamfer around the lid. There are no creaks or flex and the aluminum keyboard deck is rigid with no trampolining. The bottom panel is affixed with Phillips head screws and plastic clips, and if you remove it you're granted access to the two RAM slots, M.2 SSD slot, battery and socketed Intel 3165AC dual band WiFi 802.11ac with Bluetooth card (Intel's lower end card, the 8260AC is their fastest WiFi card). That's a plus compared to the XPS 13, whose RAM is soldered on and isn't upgradable. The XPS does get a better WiFi card and the 256 gig and higher SSDs are the faster PCIe standard.
The hinges are robust and firm, so bounce is well controlled. This is a 2-in-1 convertible notebook, so it works as a traditional laptop, in tent mode, presentation mode and in tablet mode. The keyboard is disabled once you move the hinges beyond 180 degrees, as is the trackpad. At 3.68 lbs., this isn't something you'd carry around on your arm for hours, but it's light and manageable enough to use on your lap or a table in tablet mode. Though the weight is heavier than the lightest conventional laptops, convertibles do weigh more due to the more robust hinge and display reinforcement required for use in alternate positions.
Keyboard and Trackpad
We've come to expect short travel keyboards from 13" Ultrabooks and convertibles, and the Inspiron 13 7000 is no exception. That said, the 1.3mm of key travel is no worse than the XPS 13, and it has a very crisp, tactile feel with no rattles or key wobble. Still, I find 1.3mm a bit short and my finger joints feel a little beat up after using the Inspiron's keyboard. Surprisingly, even the 17 inch Inspiron 7000 2-in-1 has the same short travel. This is a white backlit keyboard, so working in the dark is no problem, and the ambient light sensor activates backlight automatically.
The Precision trackpad is predictable and well behaved. The texture is sufficient to differentiate it from the keyboard deck, but the button action is a bit stiff and requires more force than I'd like. Still, it's a good trackpad overall.
Deals and Shopping:
Dell Inspiron 13 7378 (2017, Intel Kaby Lake) Video Review
Dell Inspiron 13 7368 Video Review
Dell Inspiron 13 vs. Dell XPS 13 Comparison
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Horsepower and Performance
This is a dual core Ultrabook/convertible with a 15 watt Intel Skylake 6th generation CPU, which is par for the course. You won't see 45 watt, quad core CPUs in laptops this small--they're in 15" and larger models (and a very few 14" laptops from Razer and MSI geared toward gaming). That said, even Dell's 15 and 17 inch Inspiron 7000 models use the same CPUs as this 13 inch. Likewise, the more expensive XPS 13 is available with the same CPUs, though on the high end you can get an even faster Intel Core i7 with Intel Iris graphics. The Inspiron 13 7368 is available with the 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5-6200U and the 2.5 GHz Core i7-6500U, both with Intel HD 520 integrated graphics.
There are a variety of RAM configurations, and our model has 8 gigs of DDR4 RAM. There are two RAM slots, so it's upgradable to a theoretical 32 gigs of RAM (Dell sells it with up to 16 gigs). There's an M.2 SSD slot, and all but the 512 gig SSD option are the standard SATA3 rather than the ultra-fast PCIe.
Benchmarks
PCMark 8: 3228
Geekbench 3: 3166 / 6519
wPrime: 17.7 seconds
Display
There's only one display resolution option on the Inspiron 7000 models for the second half of 2016, whether you go with the 13, 15 or 17 inch sizes. That's fine with us, full HD 1920 x 1080 is a respectable resolution and packs the pixels tightly enough that you might want to opt to scale it up to 125 or 150 percent to make icons and text more legible. Brightness is OK but not impressive at 245 nits. It's bright enough for indoor use but if you use it when sitting near a window during daylight hours, it will fade a bit. Color gamut is merely average, which isn't unusual for $750, but the display still looks nice when viewing photos and video. At 65% of sRGB and 50% of Adobe RGB, it's not good enough for photo and video editing at the serious hobbyist or professional level where we like to see full sRGB coverage and 75% of Adobe RGB. Black levels are good at 0.38 and that works out to a decent contrast ratio of 640:1. What does all this mean? It's a nice looking display for content consumption, but isn't good enough for serious content creation. Look to the Dell XPS 13 or full HD HP Spectre x360 for wider color gamut.
Battery
The laptop has a 42 WHr battery that's sealed inside, which is typical for a 13" Ultrabook or convertible. It ships with a compact 45 watt charger (again, typical for this type of notebook). Dell claims up to 8.5 hour runtimes for our model with a Core i5 and a 256 gig SSD, and with brightness set to 40%, we averaged 7.5 hours in a mix of productivity and streaming video.
Conclusion
The Dell Inspiron 13 7368 brings a classy chassis with aluminum throughout, a good 1080p touch screen, a versatile convertible design and a backlit keyboard at a reasonable price. It's hard to argue with that formula and what you get for the price. Sure, it doesn't have high end amenities like a super high resolution display or pen support, but for $750, this is a very solid and reasonably premium 2-in-1 for college or everyday work.
