Not everyone needs a fancy, can do-it-all, kind of laptop. Maybe, you just want something perfectly functional, dependable, and gets the job done. Dell’s Inspiron 14 5410 comes across to me as that kind of laptop.
The Dell Inspiron 14 5410 is the company’s latest generation 14-inch consumer-oriented laptop. This model variant is a standard clamshell laptop fitted with 14-inch non-touch display and powered by 11th generation Intel Core processors.
The 14-inch Full HD 1920×1080 resolution display has wide-viewing angles. The matte finish nicely avoids problems with reflections. However, the image quality seems to be quite lack-lustre. Testing with my Spyder5PRO, the colour gamut coverage measured at just 64%, 46%, and 48% for sRGB, NTSC, and AdobeRGB respectively. I’d say, the display works, but just won’t look terribly pretty.
The maximum brightness measured at just 125 nits. Now, at this point, I’m started to wonder if there was something wrong with my Spyder5PRO. However, I retested, and I also checked against my other existing monitors and got back sensible results similar to tests results I had recorded previously. To be honest, the display did not look as bad as what the numbers say, so maybe, just maybe, there is something unusual about this display panel.
To my naked eye, the brightness was probably at least 200 nits. Not great, but functional in any indoor environment.
There is a 720p webcam above the display, along with dual digital microphone array. There is also a physical camera shutter to help protect your privacy, a good thing nowadays with all the frequent Zoom meetings at home.
You get a nice backlit keyboard which Dell says is spill-reistant. The 1.3 mm key travel is nice.
The touchpad is generously sized, about 5.25-inch diagonal. It supports Windows Precision drivers.
That power button at the top right corner of the keyboard doubles up as a fingerprint reader with support for Windows Hello logins.
The port situation on the Inspiron 14 5410 is about the usual you’ll get on ultralight laptops. On the left side, there is a DC power jack, HDMI 1.4b port, USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, and USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port with Thunderbolt 4 (supporting Display Port and Power Delivery).
On the other side, there is a microSD card slot, USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, and a 3.5 mm combo audio port. I’d wish for another Thunderbolt 4 port.
The good news is, that Thunderbolt 4 port on the left can be used to power the laptop, so you don’t have to use the included power brick which plugs in to the DC power jack. The power brick is rated 65 W only, well within the capabilities of USB Type-C Power Delivery, so it seems unnecessary to put legacy DC power jack in the laptop.
Under the hood, this Inspiron 14 5410 review unit is powered by an Intel Core i7-11370H processor, with 16 GB of 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM, and NVIDIA GeForce MX450 dedicated graphics with 2 GB of GDDR5 RAM. There are also i3-1115G4 and i5-11300H processor options available. The GeForce MX450 is only available on i5 and i7 models.
There is 512 GB of NVMe storage in this review unit. You can get a 1 TB configuration if you require more capacity.
For connectivity, the Dell Inspiron 14 5410 offers 802.11ac Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth.
The physical dimensions of the Dell Inspiron 14 5140 come in at 17.99 x 321.27 x 212.8 mm, and weighs 1.461 kg. This counts as pretty compact, for a laptop with a 14-inch display, and also fairly lightweight.
Here’s a look at some performance benchmarks using PCMark 10 Extended:
- Overall: 4184
- Essentials: 8232
- Productivity: 8930
- Digital Content Creation: 3874
- Gaming: 2911
In Geekbench 5:
- Single-Core: 1462
- Multi-Core: 4617
- Compute: 16576 (integrated), 27570 (MX450)
PCMark 10 Modern Office battery benchmark test ran for 8 hours and 23 minutes. This should be good for working away from a power supply for a whole work day.
The Dell Inspiron 14 5410 as configured in this review (i7-11370H, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB storage, MX450) currently retails at $1,649.01 (down from usual $1,899.01).
Conclusion
The Dell Inspiron 14 5410 has current generation laptop specifications, and while it is not a fancy do-it-all kind of laptop, it is a very affordable laptop that is perfectly functional, dependable, and gets the job done.