What’s in the box?
Dell Inspiron 5559 has the sufficient minimum in its box – just the charger and a couple of manuals. The power adapter is made by KTL, model SU10462-9047. It delivers 65W of power(19.5V, 3.34V).Design and construction
Dell’s designers have kept the looks of the new Inspiron 5559 as simple as possible. The plastic lid has an interesting jagged texture which feels nice to touch, seems durable, and most importantly – doesn’t attract fingerprints and smudges. Okay, maybe the durability should be of greater importance but we can rest assured, considering that the American company never makes compromises in that regard. You might be able to guess that when you notice the 36 month warranty(check terms and conditions for your country). If that’s not enough to convince you, take a look at the tests that Dell conducts on every Inspiron prototype model: Every Inspiron has to survive short-term heat conditions of up to 65°C/149°F, opening and closing the lid 20, 000 times, 10 million keystrokes and twisting the laptop’s base and lid more than 25, 000 times.The simple but elegant looks remain in place once the lid is opened – most of the interior has the same surface. The only exceptions are the keyboard base and the screen borders, which are covered with matte plastic. They’re also relatively thin, which adds to the nice design.The keyboard is “Island Style”, with 14.6 x 14.6 mm keys. In order to include a NumPad block as well, Dell has sacrificed a bit of the Digits keys size – they’re a bit narrower – 12.8 x 14.6 mm. Luckily, the trackpad has a takes up a rather generous area – 105 x 80 mm(84 cm2). That’s more than sufficient to facilitate easy work with gestures. The keyboard is pretty comfortable for typing but we would like bigger and better divided arrow keys(the arrows are half-height, with the “Up” and “Down” stuck next to each other).The laptop sides are covered with glossy plastic. The left is populated by a DC-in charging port, Ethernet LAN, HDMI, USB and card reader. We also have two air vents and it’s good to see them there – occasionally, when some laptops have them on the right side instead, one might feel some discomfort when the notebook is heavily loaded and hot air is being blown toward the hand, where the mouse is. However, Dell Inspiron 5559 is not intended for gaming, nor is it meant for applications with heavy computing tasks.
On the left side we have an audio jack, two more USB ports, DVD writer and a Kensington Lock slot. The back is clear and the front just houses the stereo speakers.Display and Sound
Dell Inspiron 5559 has a WXGA display with a TN panel and glossy finish – model number N156BGE. It is a 15.6-inch(39.62 cm) screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768, 16:9 aspect ratio and pixel density of 100 ppi, at 0.253 x 0.253 mm pixel pitch. The display can be regarded as “Retina”(the eye cannot distinguish separate pixels) when viewed from a distance equal to or greater than 86 cm.Dell Inspiron 5559 doesn’t offer comfortable viewing angles as you can see in the 45° image below.Color reproduction
To make sure we are on the same page, let’s have a little introduction into the sRGB and Adobe RGB color gamuts. The CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram represents the spectrum of colors visible to the human eye, thus giving you a better perception of color gamut coverage and color accuracy. Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut(sRGB), used by millions of people in HDTV and on the Web. As for Adobe RGB, it is used to work with professional cameras and monitors when preparing print. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone, and so reproducing them accurately is key in a quality display.
The yellow triangle below represents the coverage of the Dell Inspiron 5559 display – 59.4% of the sRGB color gamut means that it won’t provide very saturated colors.The image below is practically the same as the one above, but this time you can see the colors that have 100% and 50% saturation, as well as the reference colors indicated by the white dots. We set the display at 140 cd/m2 luminance, illuminant white point D65 and the sRGB gamma curve(it differs from the 2.20 one, please check the Gamma graph below).When the screen covers less than that required(59.4% of the sRGB color gamut after calibration), it translates into less vivid colors. If the display is calibrated correctly, the colors can be considered relatively accurate, but the images will be a bit pale. This is exactly the case with Dell Inspiron 5559.
Below you can see the results from the accuracy color checker with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. After profiling the color accuracy, average DeltaE 2000 is 0.66. The contrast ratio is 1000:1 before calibration and 970:1 after calibration. Both results are impressive.