Dell Inspiron 17R-5720

The Dell Inspiron 17R (model 5720) is a desktop replacement laptop that delivers impressive performance at a budget-friendly ($699 list) price point. It offers the very latest Intel (Ivy Bridge) technology, a bright (albeit reflective) 17-inch screen, and a generous amount of hard drive storage. As with its smaller sibling, the 15R, you can change the lid color to suit your mood, and it's outfitted with your basic Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio options. However, it is hampered by short battery life and narrow viewing angles, and its integrated GPU can't handle graphics-intensive games.

Design and Features
The 17R's chassis looks exactly the same as the15R, only bigger. It has a dark gray plastic lid (dubbed Moon Silver), rounded corners, and silver trim around the top and base. The lid is easily removed and can be replaced with a Lotus Pink or Peacock Blue colored lid, which Dell sells for $29.99 each. The chassis is fairly bulky; it weighs 7.2 pounds and is 1.5 inches thick. By way of comparison, the Toshiba Satellite P775D-S7144 weighs only 6.6 pounds and the HP Pavilion DV7-6b55dx weighs 6.9 pounds.

Beneath the lid is a brightly lit 17.3 inch display with a resolution of 1,600 by 900, which is standard issue for a big screen notebook in this price range. You can't get full 1080p on this panel like you can with the more expensive Dell Inspiron 17R Special Edition (7720), but it does a very good job of displaying HD content at 720p nonetheless. Image detail is sharp and colors have pop, but the panel's shiny coating tends to be too reflective when the background is dark. Off angle viewing is a narrow as well. There's a 720p webcam embedded in the screen's upper bezel and a chrome Inspiron logo on the lower bezel.

The full size island-style keyboard features a numeric pad on the right but lacks the backlighting feature that you get with the Sony VAIO E15 (SVE15116FXS). The action is firm but not at all stiff, and the keys provide a comfortable typing experience. The touchpad has the same smooth brushed metal finish used on the keyboard deck, as do the mouse buttons. One of the three Dashboard keys at the top of the deck is user programmable, one launches the Windows Mobility control panel, and the third launches Dell's Audio control panel.

The left side of the notebook holds VGA and HDMI video inputs, two USB 3.0 ports, two audio jacks (headphone and microphone), and the power jack. On the right is a tray loading DVD multi-drive, two more USB 3.0 ports, and a LAN port. A 7-in-1 card reader slot is mounted along the front edge of the chassis. Like the 15R, the 17R comes with Wi-Fi N and Bluetooth wireless capabilities, but it has a bigger (750 GB) hard drive than the smaller Inspiron (500 GB). It also has a small subwoofer built in to the base that provides a much needed shot of bass to the WavesMaxx Audio3 powered audio system, which puts out better than average sound for a budget laptop.

You'll have to contend with a smattering of bloatware but many of the Dell-branded apps are quite useful. Dell Stage makes it easy to view and share multimedia files (photos, music, video) and Dell DataSafe provides an online backup service that safeguards your data from hard drive failures, theft, and software corruption. The drive also comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, Skype, and a webcam utility.

Performance
The Inspiron 17R uses the same third-generation Intel Core i5-3210M (2.5 GHz) processor as the Dell Inspiron 15R, and both are equipped with 6 GB of RAM, so it's not surprising that their PCMark 7 scores (2,676 for the 17R; 2,645 for the 15R) were nearly identical. The fact that it blew the 1.6 GHz AMD-based Toshiba P775D (1,564) out of the water also came as no surprise.

Results were similar on our Cinebench R11.5 CPU benchmark; the 17R's score of 2.84 was just a heartbeat shy of the 15R (2.85) and the VAIO E15 (2.86) but trounced the Toshiba P775D (2.10). The 17R made short work of our Photoshop (3:53) and Handbrake (1:41) multimedia tests, beating the Sony E15 by two seconds and trailing it by two seconds on the Handbrake test.

Armed with Intel's HD Graphics 4000 integrated graphics solution, the 17R gave us a barely playable 22 fps on our medium quality Lost Planet 2 DX9 test while running at a relatively low resolution (1,024-by-768). That dropped to an unplayable 9 fps when we set effects to high quality and used the notebook's native (1,600-by-900) resolution. It performed similarly on our Crysis DX10 tests; it managed 25.1 fps in medium mode and 6.1 fps in high quality mode. The Sony VAIO E15's scores were higher, but not by much. The Toshiba P775D, on the other hand, outperformed them all, thanks to its discrete AMD Radeon HD 6620G graphics solution.

As was the case with the 15R, the 17R was unable to complete the MobileMark 2007 battery test. Instead, we ran our comparable 10-hour DVD rundown test, which yielded a mere 2 hours and 55 minutes of battery life. That's significantly shorter than the 15R (4 hours and 29 minutes) and light-years shy of the 9 hour 33 minutes of MobileMark battery life we got from the HP Pavilion DV7-6b55dx.

The Dell Inspiron 17R (model 5720) won't wow you with blazing graphics performance, and its battery life is woefully short, but it is more than capable of handling your everyday home and small office computing tasks. The 17.3-inch display delivers bright, crisp image quality, despite the reflective coating, and the 17R's audio output is impressive for a budget notebook. That said, the Sony VAIO E15 offers slightly better graphics performance, longer battery life, and an illuminated keyboard, and as such remains our Editors' Choice for budget laptop.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
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