Building an appealing budget laptop is a tricky needle to thread—and you need to look at the result carefully in the context of what's possible for the price.
Even so, in the 2019 Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 (starts at $279.99; $329.99 as tested), you're fed a few too many compromises without enough upside.
The price is wallet-friendly for a new PC, and the design is appealing on the outside, but sluggish performance and a dull display with a physical quirk are a hard sell.
Competing options like the Microsoft Surface Go are not much pricier, and worth the extra cost for the better build quality.
The Inspiron 11 3000 does the full Windows 10 basics, and it's one of the smallest, least-expensive 2-in-1 convertible options around, but the system as a whole doesn't inspire much enthusiasm.
Compact, With Some Quality Caveats
In the world of super-cheap systems, the Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 looks handsome enough, at first glance.
It's a compact machine, with a cobalt color that's pleasing to the eye.
Portability and impromptu tablet usability are the main goals for this 2-in-1, so its small size is vital.
It measures 0.6 by 11.5 by 7.75 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.5 pounds, making for a tiny footprint with a very carry-friendly weight.
Unfortunately (though perhaps unsurprisingly, given the price), things become less impressive when you lay hands on the device.
The material feels decent for the money, but the laptop as a whole is clearly a budget build.
The keyboard is perhaps the cheapest-feeling aspect, with a textured, plasticky finish, as well as shallow key travel.
The touchpad is actually perfectly fine, a nice surprise as this is often where budget laptops fall short.
One of the most noticeable issues, though, is with the display.
In and of itself, the 11.6-inch screen isn't very good, but again that's not uncommon given the price of the laptop.
The panel is a somewhat dull 720p touch display, though the specs do tout it as "HD." While that is technically true, "HD" 720p isn't the "full HD" 1080p experience you're likely used to, so don't mistake one for the other.
It's not quite fuzzy, but it lacks the definite sharpness of a full HD display.
It's acceptable enough on a system this inexpensive and for the screen size, but know that it doesn't get very bright and won't wow anyone.
What's less acceptable, and where the issue lies, is a physical weakness I noticed immediately.
Touching the edges of the display, and sometimes even moving and putting down the system, causes the screen image to ripple visibly at the left and right edges.
Pressing even lightly on the screen surface (and again, this is a touch screen, so you'll do that) or on the lid backing the screen causes this distracting and concerning rippling.
It looks like warpage of the LCD itself, similar to the effect of poking a non-touch display.
My best guess is the screen isn't properly backed or braced, or the bezel stiff enough, but whatever the cause, it does not inspire confidence in the build quality.
PC Labs has no definitive proof that this is a durability issue (the panel responded just fine to touches, despite the disconcerting visual effect), so it's possible that a visual effect is all it is.
That said, you can understand why I'm leery of what it means long-term.
In the meantime, it's just an irritation, and a signal of the bare-budget construction.
The 2-in-1 functionality, at least, is as it should be, allowing you to easily transform the system from standard laptop mode into tablet form.
The dual hinges seem sturdy, holding the panel in place firmly enough when the screen is upright or tilted back, even when you lift the whole works from your desk.
They're not too tight that rotating the display is difficult, though, and quickly flipping the screen into tablet mode is a breeze.
You can use the Inspiron 11 in any of the stages between laptop and tablet, though the use cases for these (especially on such a small screen) are less compelling than with larger screens.
Ports and Configurations
Rounding out the build are the ports, and the Inspiron 11 has a solid variety.
On the left edge you'll spot a USB 3.1 port, an HDMI connection, and a microSD card reader.
On the right are two USB 2.0 ports, as well as a headset jack.
This is a strong selection for a budget laptop, and I have no real complaints on the mix.
On the whole, apart from the screen-ripple issue, the Inspiron 11's physical construction is good enough, considering the price.
Flipping between light PC tasks and a tablet for the couch is plenty viable, even if the screen isn't much to look at.
The chassis material is a far cry from more premium products, and the keyboard feels cheap, but that's to be expected for $279 or $329.
All of that said, the internal components parallel the screen and chassis.
Dell gives you a few different models to choose among for this machine, but the components don't vary very much.
Our $329 tester unit includes an AMD A9-9420e CPU with Radeon 5 graphics (one of AMD's so-called "APUs," and this a 2017-era one with just two cores), 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of flash storage (not a "true" SSD, but eMMC memory).
Dell offers a white color option, as well as an option with 64GB of storage, and that's pretty much where your configuration choices end.
All of these are low-end parts, to be sure, and the storage allotment can get tight quickly.
For the price and given realistic expectations around it, it's seems a fair mix at first glance, but we haven't tested this specific CPU before.
(Much more about it below.)
That said, in casual desktop use and web browsing, it was clear to me the Inspiron 11 isn't exactly snappy with these components.
Launching programs takes a few more seconds of delay than I'm used to, and the program-switching and other typical desktop operations lack pep.
This is, again, not surprising for a super-budget machine, but that's just my anecdotal, subjective experience.
To see how it formally stacks up to some other budget systems, let's head to the benchmark tests.
Performance Testing: Caffeine, Please
For the sake of our PC Labs performance comparisons, I've gathered data on a bunch of other budget 2-in-1s.
You can find many more of these on the market than there used to be; it's one of the fastest-growing PC categories in recent years.
That said, we review only a subset of all the available machines at this low price point, so the components and prices here are a bit varied.
Let's take a look at the cheat sheet below to see what we're dealing with...
Most of these models are more expensive than the Inspiron 11 as configured, which is something to keep in mind.
We've tested less expensive systems, like the previous iteration of this system (the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series 2-in-1 Model 3179) and the super-cheap Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series (3162), but both were tested under an older, noncomparable benchmark regimen.
You can look at them for physical comparisons, but these newer systems are better for looking at performance.
The Microsoft Surface Go (starts at $399; $549 as tested) is perhaps the best built in this group, but the Asus VivoBook Flip 14 (starts at $399.99; $499.99 as tested) is tough competition, as well.
The Acer Spin 3 (SP314-51-38XK) is one of the company's lowest-cost convertible options at $499.99.
Productivity & Storage Tests
PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL.
The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows.
We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet use, web browsing, and videoconferencing.
PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a specialized PCMark 8 Storage test that we use to assess the speed of the boot drive.
Among these budget laptops, the Inspiron 11 was the slowest on PCMark 10.
As I said about cruising around the desktop, the machine feels like it's working through even basic tasks, so these trailing results are unsurprising.
That throwback of an AMD budget chip doesn't do itself many favors versus the Intel-based competition here.
The Inspiron 11's storage was on the faster side, though, with the flash memory beating out the Acer's hard drive.
(The Asus system failed to complete this test.) The Surface Go's SSD was quicker, and while the Inspiron's flash storage was quicker than a hard drive, I wouldn't exactly say it felt snappy at booting up Windows 10 or launching programs.
Media Processing & Creation Tests
Next is Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads.
Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image.
The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video-editing trial, another tough, threaded workout that's highly CPU-dependent and scales well with cores and threads.
In it, we put a stopwatch on test systems as they transcode a standard 12-minute clip of 4K video (the open source Blender demo movie Tears of Steel) to a 1080p MP4 file.
It's a timed test, and lower results are better.
Spoiler alert: The Inspiron 11 3000 is a far cry from a content-creation machine.
It struggled through Cinebench, posting one of the lower scores we've seen in a while, and took ages (more than 3 hours!) to finish our Handbrake conversion trial.
It trailed behind other budget competition, though least it did complete Cinebench, unlike the Asus model (absent here for that reason).
We also normally run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark, but the Inspiron 11 was unable to complete this task.
The program cited insufficient RAM when trying to run the test script, so needless to say, this is hardly an ideal photo-editing machine.
Given the Cinebench result, that's no surprise.
This device is meant for simple tasks like word processing and surfing the web, so if your needs are greater than that and resemble anything like the workloads of these tests, you'll need to shop in a higher price tier.
Similarly, I did run our standard 3D benchmark tests on this system, and you can see the results below...
The Radeon graphics silicon built into the AMD APU is insufficient for any tasks that require a boost from graphics hardware, outpaced even by the laptops using integrated Intel graphics.
Light gaming is difficult given this machine's overall speed, and its 3D scores were low even among budget laptops.
Battery Rundown Test
Finally, the battery-life testing.
After fully recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video-rundown test.
(We also turn Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop in Airplane mode.) In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the Blender Foundation short film Tears of Steel—with screen brightness set at 50 percent and volume at 100 percent until the system conks out.
The battery result here was not especially good, given the dim, low-resolution display panel.
As it stands, you'll be able to use it for a while off the charger, but traveling with it much could see you running low on juice halfway through the day.
If you are looking to use it on the go, or even just for long stints from the couch untethered, proceed with caution: Most other 2-in-1s will last longer on a charge.
Better Options in the Budget Fold
From the outside, the Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 looks, and even feels, decent enough considering the cost, simple enough to tuck under your arm and take with you.
And if all you need to do is perform the most basic Windows 10 computing functions (email, single-tab web browsing, basic office-suite stuff), it will do the job.
That said, most competitors are faster, last longer on a battery charge, and are better built, albeit at slightly higher prices.
We'd say, though, that unless you're seriously strapped for budget, the additional cost of the competition is worth it, as it's hard to recommend a machine that feels slow and exhibits that screen-rippling effect.
For most shoppers, we'd recommend the Microsoft Surface Go, or one of the other less expensive options mentioned earlier on.
Alternately, it's not hard to find an older, refurbished Dell, HP, or Lenovo business-grade laptop from the likes of Newegg or other resellers for similar money.
It may have marks of use and be just a clamshell design, not a 2-in-1, but it will likely tell a much superior performance and ruggedness story for the money.
Dell Inspiron 11 3000 2-in-1 (2019)
The Bottom Line
Dell's latest rev of its Inspiron 3000 2-in-1 is a bare-budget, functional Windows 10 convertible, but even at the $329 price of our test model, the build quality and speed leave much to be desired.
