The Inspiron 11 3000’s plastic body features a fingerprint-resistant matte-silver finish and smooth, rounded edges in the front and back. The left and right sides feature a total of three USB ports(one of which is USB 3.0), an HDMI port, a combo headphone/mic jack, an SD card reader, a volume rocker and the power button.
If you’re going to buy a device that doubles as a laptop and a tablet, the display really matters. Dell’s Inspiron 11 3000($440 as tested, $330 to start) 2-in-1 stands out because its touch screen is brighter and more colorful than those offered by the competition.
The Intel Pentium N3530 processor, 4GB of RAM and 500GB provide the pep and storage you need, all for well under$500, and this Dell lasts longer on a charge than most of its peers. There are faster 2-in-1s in this price range, but overall, the updated Inspiron 11 3000 is the one to beat.
On the inside, the Inspiron 11 3000 has an 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 IPS touch screen surrounded by a thick, glossy, black bezel, and it’s punctuated by a physical home button along the bottom. At 308 nits of screen brightness and covering 81.4 percent of the sRGB spectrum, the Inspiron had by far the brightest and most colorful screen out of six budget 2-in-1s we recently tested. HP’s Pavilion x360 was more than 25 percent dimmer, at 227 nits, and 12.4 percent less colorful, at 69 percent. Averages in this group were 234 nits and 68 percent.
Below, the flat black keyboard stands out against the silver deck, and features a crisp, albeit slightly shallow, keystroke, and an absence of backlighting. The 4.1 x 2.4-inch touchpad has the same smooth paint job as the rest of the interior, but mouse clicks felt a little too stiff and shallow. I also noticed that, sometimes, mouse movements and simple two-finger gestures were sluggish, but it didn’t happen often enough to become a real nuisance.