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| - 4 Jul ()Australia’s largest technology company’s new workspace has just 12 desks in total and barely any meeting rooms. But its workers love it. Read...Newslink ©2024 to | ![](/n.gif) |
| ![](/n.gif) | | PC World - 4 Jul (PC World)The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that it has sent letters to several technology companies warning them that their warranty or repair policies might violate federal law.
Specifically in the PC space, the FTC sent letters to companies ASRock, Gigabyte, and Zotac, warning them that they may be in violation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, the federal act that oversees consumer warranties and is administered by the FTC. They have thirty days to review their policies and comply.
While the specific concerns vary by company, the FTC reminded the three companies that they can’t, for example, place stickers on a laptop that caution consumers that opening or repairing the laptop violates warranty policies. Neither can they state or imply that their products can only be repaired via an authorized service from the company.
In the letter sent to Gigabyte (PDF), the FTC said that its staff is “concerned” by the Gigabyte written warranty, which includes the phrase: “If the manufacturing sticker inside the product was removed or damaged, it would no longer be covered by the warranty.”
ASRock’s warranty policy is more specific, but the FTC’s letter to the company (PDF) took issues with it as well: “Manufacturer’s warranty will be null and void if products are modified, damaged or otherwise tampered with, for example, the outer case is opened or additional optional parts/components are installed/removed.”
Staff would also be “concerned” if the companies actually denied warranty coverage based upon the statements by the three companies. While the language is somewhat passive-aggressive, the FTC also clearly states that the violations may result in legal action.
The FTC sent similar letters to sellers of air purifier equipment, specifically to aeris Health, Blueair, Medify Air, and Oransi, plus the treadmill company InMovement. Asus, which was the subject of a series of videos by GamersNexus for its own warranty practices, was not named.
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| ![](/n.gif) | | PC World - 4 Jul (PC World)The Full Nerd, PCWorld’s weekly video podcast, has been going strong for the better part of a decade and over 300 episodes. It’s become such a big deal that we decided it needs to finally move to its own place.
So, the Full Nerd podcast now resides on its own dedicated YouTube channel where it’s all Full Nerd, all the time.
We just posted the first new episode (#307) exclusively on the dedicated channel. This episode covers all the new stuff in AMD’s FSR 3.1, the RDNA 4 and Ryzen 9000 chips, Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake CPUs and Battlemage GPUs, and the highly anticipated Nvidia RTX 5000 series.
Go check it out! And if you aren’t caught up, all the old episodes have been uploaded to the channel, too.
Don’t worry, the PCWorld YouTube channel isn’t going anywhere. You can (and should!) still check it out for the latest news, reviews, and deep dives on PC hardware, including live coverage of technology trade shows like CES and Computex. We’ll still be doing full-length live-streamed PC builds on occasion, too.
But giving The Full Nerd a little space to breathe will help us stay organized and let you, the fans, find TFN more easily.
Be sure to subscribe to The Full Nerd’s new channel, the same as you did for the PCWorld channel. You did subscribe, right? Right?!
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| ![](/n.gif) | | PC World - 3 Jul (PC World)Copilot+ laptops are the talk of the PC industry right now: AI-powered, energy-efficient, with long battery life and good performance on top of that. So why wouldn’t you buy one?
As it turns out, there are several pros and cons to Copilot+ PCs. PCWorld’s veteran reviewers have tested the first Copilot+ PCs and found a number of things to like…and a few things to be skeptical of. This first wave of Copilot+ PCs are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus processors, and run a special flavor of Windows 11 called Windows on Arm.
In a perfect world, what processor a Copilot+ laptop from Lenovo or Microsoft runs wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, the “it just works” mentality doesn’t totally apply to Copilot+ PCs right now They’re incredibly useful in what they do, but their reach is occasionally limited, which might frustrate some users. Based upon our testing, here are the seven vital things you need to know before buying a Copilot+ laptop.
Further reading: The best laptops we’ve tested (yes, a Copilot+ laptop is on there)
1.) It does everything you want it to…almost
Windows on Arm PCs are still like Chromebooks; they can reproduce about 95 percent of what a standard Windows PC can do, but it’s those last few bits which can be exceedingly frustrating.
Basically, if your idea of work and play is to browse the Web, work in Microsoft apps (Word, Excel, Outlook) and relax with apps like Netflix and Disney+, then a Copilot+ PC can work for you. Microsoft, Arm and Qualcomm have done a very nice job persuading many productivity application developers, such as Adobe, to release apps that run on Windows on Arm. The ecosystem continues to expand.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
If the app isn’t coded for Arm (Discord, for example), Microsoft has a built-in translator called Prism that steps in and runs the app at slightly lower performance. In Discord, for example, my colleague Adam Murray saw some slowdown in changing “channels” within the app, but nothing else.
In some cases, though, apps simply won’t run on Windows on Arm and Copilot+ PCs. Those can be very basic (some printer utilities, which can prevent printing) or more complex (Logitech Options and Google Drive). Either way, the fact that those apps don’t run, and don’t run unexpectedly, is like the shock of discovering that your new car lacks cupholders.
2.) On wall power, Copilot+ PCs are excellent…
Apps that do run, though, run great. From our testing, Copilot+ PCs powered by the Snapdragon X Elite processor are at least competitive with Intel’s Core Ultra (Meteor Lake) laptops and can easily surpass them under certain scenarios when plugged in. The Snapdragon X Elite is powered by 12 Oryon performance cores (P-cores), compared to the 6 P-cores (and 8 efficiency or E-cores) used by the fastest Meteor Lake chips.
While that can give the edge to Meteor Lake in terms of the number of cores, the performance that those cores produce is, again, at or below the Snapdragon X Elite.
Under Geekbench 6.3, the only area in which the benchmark gives the edge to Intel’s Core Ultra is in graphics.
Under Geekbench 6.3, the only area in which the benchmark gives the edge to Intel’s Core Ultra is in graphics.Mark Hachman / IDG
Under Geekbench 6.3, the only area in which the benchmark gives the edge to Intel’s Core Ultra is in graphics.Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
How exactly a Copilot+ PC performs, of course, depends on the configuration and how you’re evaluating it. While we normally use UL’s Cinebench benchmarks to evaluate the performance of a processor, the simpler Geekbench tool is probably simpler to understand in this context. Plugged in, a Snapdragon X Elite processor outperforms the Core Ultra both when all cores are active as well as the output of a single core, as the blue lines show above.
3.)…But Arm really shines on battery
For the past few years, Arm PCs have had a fairly straightforward reputation: they’ve provided middling performance, but the battery life has always excelled. Copilot+ PCs actually improve upon this.
Our review of the latest Microsoft Surface Laptop, a Copilot+ PC, showed that the Laptop lasted over 20 hours in battery life. The Surface Pro (2024) that I reviewed delivered almost 14 hours. Both tests looped a 4K video at a fixed luminance until the battery expired. If you don’t consider that to be an accurate test of how you work, fine — I also used PCMark’s Applications tests, which simulates work on Microsoft Office throughout the day. In that test, the Surface Pro lasted about 10 and a half hours. That’s still an entire business day and then some.
The Surface Laptop and its Snapdragon X Elite processor trounced the competition in battery life.
The Surface Laptop and its Snapdragon X Elite processor trounced the competition in battery life.Matthew Smith / IDG
The Surface Laptop and its Snapdragon X Elite processor trounced the competition in battery life.Matthew Smith / IDG
Matthew Smith / IDG
And there’s even better news: On battery power, a Copilot+ laptop’s performance can be as good as when you’re on wall power. This tends to vary with how intensive the workload or task is. But in several tests, the performance on battery was about equal to what you would get when it was plugged into a wall socket.
To be fair, Intel has also prioritized this as well. The performance of this Photoshop test below is pretty comparable, both in terms of how the Core Ultra, the Snapdragon X Ultra, and the older Microsoft SQ3 (an Arm chip) all performed on battery, as well as on wall power.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
4.) …But the harder you push it, the worse the battery life is
The problem is this: Yes, the performance of a Copilot+ PC is excellent on wall power and while running on battery. But it’s also true that the harder you push it, the shorter the battery life is.
The Snapdragon X Elite is all performance cores, which hit the gas hard when asked to. Intel’s Core Ultra was built more conservatively. An X86 CISC architecture intrinsically consumes more power than the Arm’s RISC architecture, but Intel uses its Thread Director technology to route tasks to the low-power efficiency cores first, opting to save power when it can.
a fantastic copilot+ pc
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x
Read our review
But in testing the Surface Pro, I ran the Handbrake transcoding application, which pushes the entire chip hard. The test lasted 34 minutes, and ate 31 percent of the battery life in that test alone. Plus, the back of the tablet became very hot, over 10 degrees. Copilot+ PCs may also work harder than normal while transcoding unoptimized apps, but it’s unclear how much extra CPU power that translation may need.
It’s absolutely not unusual to expect a laptop’s battery life to drain quickly under load. But it’s a real issue with the Copilot+ hardware we’ve seen.
5.) The real game is what games you can play
A Copilot+ PC is a productivity PC, period. Anything else is a bonus.
You probably wouldn’t buy a Copilot+ laptop to play games, but it would be nice to know the option is there. It is, but only sort of.
RunsonWOA.com
RunsonWOA.com
RunsonWOA.com
The problem is that there simply is no obvious guarantee that a Copilot+ PC will or will not play specific games. Linaro, a tools provider for the Arm ecosystem, has sponsored a site, WorksonWOA, to help you figure out whether or not a game runs on Arm — but you have to trust that the site’s contributors are accurate. The site lists games as either “Perfect,” “Playable,” “Runs,” and Unplayable” — but without any definition of each category, which could differ from user to user. There’s also no indication of what resolution and graphics setting each was played on.
The bottom line is that Copilot+ PCs weren’t designed to be gaming PCs — Microsoft said as much, though Qualcomm implied they could be before launch — but if you try to make them into a gaming PC, you may be disappointed. Qualcomm pushed out a beta graphics driver shortly before publication that improved the number of games that can run on its chips, but it’s still facing an uphill battle.
Our own exhaustive testing revealed that you shouldn’t buy a Qualcomm-powered Copilot+ PC if you want to game. Several incredibly popular multiplayer games failed to launch whatsoever for us — including Diablo IV, PUBG, Counter-Strike, and Valheim — and the games that did run on Snapdragon ran much, much better on Intel’s Meteor Lake graphics, with the difference often making games practically unplayable on Qualcomm.
6.) So why do you need AI, exactly?
The whole point of these chips, however, is that they include “AI” functions inside the NPU — and that’s what has been really lacking so far. The NPU contributes heavily to Auto Super Resolution (Auto SR), which allows the laptop’s GPU to render at a lower resolution and then upscale it, using the NPU, to a higher one. This essentially improves the graphical performance while maintaining a high frame rate.
Cocreator uses the Copilot+ NPU to make changes in real time.
Cocreator uses the Copilot+ NPU to make changes in real time.Mark Hachman / IDG
Cocreator uses the Copilot+ NPU to make changes in real time.Mark Hachman / IDG
Mark Hachman / IDG
Auto SR performance is hit or miss, however, and the other NPU-dependent applications vary. Windows Studio Effects, which can be used in virtually all video apps, lean on the NPU. Those apps, which do everything from filtering to keeping you in frame, do seem pretty useful. Others, such as the Cocreator application within Paint, aren’t as critical to day-to-day work.
Some third-party applications use the NPU. Others use the CPU. Others use the cloud. Chipmakers really want you to know and care about which apps use AI, and which use the NPU. I just don’t think you’ll care.
Overall, Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI features in Windows are a big yawn. They feel like superfluous tech demos, not must-have features, especially with the controversial Recall feature absent at launch.
7.) Copilot+ PCs are more than just Qualcomm
At the launch of the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, Microsoft took pains to remind people that Qualcomm isn’t the only chipmaker involved in Copilot+ PCs. AMD should be next out of the gate with the Ryzen AI 300, and Intel will follow in the fall with Lunar Lake.
Intel
Intel
Intel
Like the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, both of those chips have an NPU, too. By then, we should be seeing more apps that can tap those AI capabilities.
And that’s when we’ll really start to know whether this new breed of AI PCs will matter: when we see the first chips from all three chip suppliers, combined with additional AI apps and a Windows OS that will really take advantage of everything. Is that a development we’ll see this year? Probably not — but in 2025 we’d expect it all to start coming together.
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| ![](/n.gif) | | BBCWorld - 3 Jul (BBCWorld)Music legend Peter Gabriel talks about A.I. technology and communicating with animals. Read...Newslink ©2024 to BBCWorld | ![](/n.gif) |
| ![](/n.gif) | | Stuff.co.nz - 3 Jul (Stuff.co.nz)![NZ Located](/pimages/nzsmall.gif) The system uses energy-absorbing cellular cement blocks that crush under the weight of an aircraft, slowing it to a stop. Read...Newslink ©2024 to Stuff.co.nz | ![](/n.gif) |
| ![](/n.gif) | | PC World - 2 Jul (PC World)At a glanceExpert`s Rating
ProsLargely gorgeous displaySnappy keyboardEffective touchscreen stylusSlim and sturdy buildConsCPU faces some throttlingErgonomics could be betterOur VerdictThe Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a lot of good qualities and its display brings in some great qualities. It’s not without its faults, could be more comfortable to use, and could really have shined with just a little more cooling power. But its respectable performance, flexibility, and decent build are met by a reasonable price that still makes it an appealing laptop all the same.
Dell continues to round out its 2024 laptop lineup with the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640), a larger, flippable laptop with touchscreen and stylus support for tablet-like capabilities alongside a laptop form factor. It packs in recent hardware with modest, though not workstation-class performance, and avoids being overblown when it comes to weight and price. Dell also provides customization options that can make for some significant variety in the machine, with both the system-on-chip and display options providing huge leaps in quality.
Still, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 price only ranges from $999 to $1,599 while offering plenty. For those that don’t need a 2-in-1 laptop, it won’t make much sense as it comes with a few too many trade offs next to standard laptop competitors, but for those who want the flexibility, it may be a good choice.
Looking for more options? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops available today.
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Specs and features
The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 comes in a couple of configurations. It starts at just $999 for a tame but respectable config built around an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U with 16GB of memory, 512GB of storage, and a 1920×1200 WVA display. Our test configuration bumps up a few specs, doubling the storage, leaping up to the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (and getting its corresponding leap to Intel Arc Graphics), and swapping over to a 2560×1600 Mini-LED display that offers a 90Hz refresh rate and high HDR brightness.
Somewhat hidden among the bumps is a boost to battery size, as the laptop comes with a 64Wh battery in its base spec or a 90Wh option for all other configurations. The test configuration raises the price to $1,349, which is a reasonable uptick for all that it changes. Maxed out, with double the RAM and all other upgrades, it hits $1,499. That goes to $1,599 if you opt for Windows 11 Pro instead of Windows 11 Home.
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 155H
Memory: 16GB LPDDR5X
Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc Graphics
Display: 16-inch 2.5K Mini-LED Touch Display
Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
Webcam: 1080p
Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 1.4, 1x SDcard reader, 1x 3.5mm combo audio
Networking: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3
Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint
Battery capacity: 90 watt-hours
Dimensions: 14.05 x 9.87 x 0.75 inches
Weight: 4.68 pounds
MSRP: $1,349 as-tested ($999 base)
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Design and build quality
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is every bit the polished little pebble that the Inspiron 14 Plus I tested earlier this year was, except that the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a big thing. To fit its 16-inch display, it has to stretch out its chassis considerably. This results in a laptop that, while sleek with its largely aluminum exterior (except the bottom, which is plastic), takes up a good deal of space and packs on the weight at 4.68 pounds. This is pretty much par for the course for 16-inch laptops, though, save those that have put concerted efforts into being ultralight, like the Acer Swift Edge. At least Dell managed to keep it fairly thin at just three-quarters of an inch thick.
Dell has kept the design fairly simplistic. The chassis largely consists of large, flat expanses edged by smooth curves. This avoids any painful pressure points, but doesn’t make a visually memorable laptop. It’s not alone in this fate, as Lenovo and Samsung have similar laptops.
If you’re in need of a large system with touchscreen and stylus support, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 checks a lot of boxes.
There are some quirks to the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1, hinting that the laptop took the design of a different model and retooled it. Two small panels on the underside of the laptop cover up what would have been bottom-firing speakers on another laptop. This gives the laptop a weird look from the sides and bottom. Since the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has top-firing speakers tucked into two large grilles on either side of the keyboard, there’s little reason for the chassis to have had those bottom speaker cutouts unless this chassis was also used elsewhere.
Being a 2-in-1 model, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a 360-degree hinge that lets the display flip over backward. You can use it as a tablet — albeit a massive, unwieldy one — or scribble on it with a stylus. The hinge is a little wiggly, but feels sturdy enough. The rest of the chassis hits a similar note, with a modicum of frame flex but decent resistance to light pressure and bending.
With this hinge design, the bottom edge of the lid ends up level with the bottom of the laptop, so the rear exhaust vents directly into the lid. There’s a decent gap for air to escape, but it still still seems like sub-optimal ventilation. Air intake is also minimal with only a small section of the bottom grille actually letting air in. The rest of that grille is blocked just past the grates, likely in a bid to block out debris. It’s a similar story for the vents, with only half of them being real vents with an open channel to the radiator fins.
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Keyboard, trackpad
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
Like the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, which had an absolutely wonderful keyboard, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has an excellent keyboard. It might be a little simple with basic backlighting, square keycaps, and a flat surface, but it does the job with decent stabilization to the keycaps and a modest actuation force a travel required to depress each key. It lends to a confident and quick typing.
In my first test in Monketyype, even with one big stall after a typo, I managed 116 words-per-minute with 98 percent accuracy. That was promptly followed by 122 words-per-minute at 99 percent accuracy while feeling a fairly comfortable pace. Unlike its smaller sibling, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a huge expanse between the keyboard and the front edge of the laptop, and this can make it a little more uncomfortable to reach up to the keyboard, but it wasn’t enough of a problem to ruin the typing experience on this system.
For a 16-inch laptop, it’s a shame Dell didn’t do more with the keyboard. It offers just the basics, with no extra navigation keys, spaced out arrow keys, or a number pad. More keys would have meant sacrificing the top-firing speakers unless Dell shifted them to live above the keyboard and squeezed down on the trackpad, and that might have been a smart move for ergonomics and extra utility. Alas, this laptop doesn’t appear designed for folks who will do a lot of data entry, and is instead more for the content creators and consumers, especially with its stylus support. In my testing, the optional stylus was responsive and accurate.
Dell also fits a massive trackpad below the keyboard. Even with my large hands, it provides plenty of space for multi-finger gestures. The surface is glassy and smooth. It may not be as wide as the Dell XPS 16’s absurdly large trackpad, but it has clearly defined boundaries that make it easy to use. It depresses slightly with clicks and pops back quickly, making it easy to use for hard mouse clicks as well as tap-to-click.
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Display, audio
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 display has some admirable qualities, but don’t let the Mini-LED specification fool you into thinking it’s flawless. The display certainly benefits from the brightness capabilities of its backlight technology, reaching as high as 622.2 nits for a 10 percent window of white in HDR. It can also briefly flash a 100 percent white window at 638 nits, but that brightness level quickly decays down to closer to 400 nits. In SDR it’ll also hold a max of 409.8 nits. It’s a bright display. And, with the Mini-LED backlighting providing strong local dimming, it can achieve a 7230:1 contrast ratio in SDR and HDR only boosts that further.
Those qualities are augmented by exceptional color, hitting 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and offering strong color accuracy with a max dE of 1.18. The screen is also sharp at 2560×1600 and gets a decent bump to smoothness from its 90Hz refresh rate. It’s an altogether pleasant screen for work and entertainment. The glossy surface can suffer from glare a bit, but the screen has the brightness necessary to brute-force its way to visibility.
Unfortunately, one of the bigger drawbacks of the display also stems from the Mini LED backlighting. The local dimming of the Mini LEDs isn’t incredibly precise and this can produce unsightly vignetting where dark and light content meet. In a bright white window surrounded by dark content, the edges of that white window can appear dimmed because the backlights in the area are lower than those in the center of the white area.
This issue can appear as either bright blooming if dark pixels are getting too much light or as a kind of shading if bright areas don’t get as much backlight because the display is trying to account for nearby dark areas and therefore leaving the nearest backlight dim. If a bright object moves across a black screen, there can also be an apparent flicker as backlights flash on when the bright object passes over them. Small HDR highlights also don’t get as much punch as large ones, as the display won’t brighten one of its backlights for one pixel as much as it would for 1,000 pixels. These are common issues of Mini LED displays, but really tend to fade into the background for most content, letting the positive qualities of the display take center stage.
Dell’s inclusion of both touchscreen and stylus capabilities on the display is useful for interacting with the laptop, and it’s worth noting they don’t seem to come with downsides. While I’ve seen some displays show a visible dot matrix in the display to enable these features, as was the case with the Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED in 2022, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 avoids this for a clean and clear display.
The speakers on the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 are a decent pairing for the display. They can pump out considerable volume, easily enough to max out what anyone should be listening to with a device within arm’s reach. If you’re just trying to watch something with a friend or two in a quiet room, they’ll do the job there too. They can push out a modest frequency range, even giving a little lift to the bass, though they are far from sounding full and leave a gap between the bass they do produce and the mids. They largely focus on mids and can be a little overly bright in the treble, and they seem to duck some of the lower end when the mids are present. Sub-bass is out of the question.
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Webcam, microphone, biometrics
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
You’ll get a 1080p webcam with the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 that does a decent job with lighting, not suffering from serious over- or under-exposure. It also provides natural-looking color. It does produce somewhat soft footage, but it can still do the job it needs to do. The laptop has a built-in privacy shutter that slides over the camera as well, so you can easily cover it up. The cover has black and white lines on it which can just look like a reflection in some scenarios though, so it’s not always easy to tell at a glance if the light is actually covered.
The microphones on the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 are not impressive by default, but have room for improvement. They pick up everything a little too clearly, including background noise. But Dell has a noise suppression feature just a couple clicks away in the MyDell applications. It’s strange that it’s not enabled by default, because it does an effective and largely crucial job when it comes to providing a clear voice when hopping on calls.
While you can use a password or PIN to sign into the laptop, there’s also a small fingerprint scanner at the top right corner of the keyboard. This works quickly and effectively in my experience.
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Connectivity
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
IDG / Mark Knapp
For a 16-inch laptop, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has only a modest number of ports, but it covers its bases and provides variety. Two 5Gbps USB-A ports are on offer, with one on each side. The laptop includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports as well, but both are located on the left side, forcing you to charge the laptop on the left as a result. There’s also a full-size HDMI 1.4 port on the left side that Dell says doesn’t support 4K output, so the Thunderbolt 4 ports appear to be the intended display output for many users.
The right of the laptop also includes a 3.5mm audio combo jack and a full-size SD card reader. That latter inclusion is a boon for photographers who can easily transfer photos without having to rely on a dongle, which would just add to the weight they’re already taking on with this laptop.
Wireless connectivity has been strong. Wi-Fi 6E provides a strong baseline with many existing wireless networks and should hold up for years to come with plenty of bandwidth for most tasks. The Bluetooth 5.3 connection held stable in testing with wireless headphones over hours of use.
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Performance
The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a reasonably kitted out ultrabook, running on the same Intel Core Ultra series of processors we’ve been seeing in a bunch of similar laptops lately. With the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and 16GB of memory, it’s sitting near the middle of the road for what’s on offer. There’s no shortage of machines with similar offerings. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 bumps up the specs a bit and fits in discrete graphics for $350 extra. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire Vero 16 AV16-51P-5641 and Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 (Gen 9 2024) drop down to more basic displays and Intel Core Ultra 5 125U processors with weaker graphics but cut a lot from the price tag. The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 (2024) is also a viable competitor, with similar internals fitted into a smaller package.
Performance on the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is reasonably strong. It scores solid marks in PCMark 10, which is a fairly holistic test for a system’s capabilities across a broad range of tasks. Impressively, it keeps up fairly well with the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, which has the benefit of more memory and discrete graphics. Storage can come into play in this test, though, and the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 offers quick storage with a PCIe NVMe SSD capable of over 5,000MB/s read speeds — not blistering, but speedy.
The performance is enough to keep the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 ahead of the two systems with the weaker Intel Core Ultra 5 125U chips, though not enough to truly outshine its cheaper, smaller sibling meaningfully, which falls behind largely as a result of just one component: its slower storage.
Though the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 may be a match for Lenovo’s higher-spec system when it comes to general purpose tasks, Handbrake highlights their differences when it comes to outright performance. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 is able to encode our test video in nearly half the time of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1. In addition to a higher performing chip, the Lenovo system is likely benefitting from enhanced cooling, as the Inspiron’s performance gradually declined from the start of the test.
That difference plays out in Lenovo’s favor a second time with the Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 Gen 9 falling only about 20 percent behind the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 in this test despite wielding the lower-power Intel Core Ultra 5 125U. Meanwhile the Acer Aspire Vero 16 shows clearly where performance can land with weaker cooling. Impressively, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 manages to beat its bigger sibling in this test. Dell isn’t making the most of the size of the 16-incher to enhance cooling, and this just highlights it.
Cinebench serves to further highlight the differences of these systems, but demonstrates shorter, bursty workloads. Here again, we see that with the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, you get what you pay for when it comes to performance upgrades. The smaller Inspiron 14 Plus even ekes out a lead over the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 again, albeit small, suggesting just how quickly its larger sibling can start to thermal throttle under load. The Inspiron 14 Plus is clearly benefiting from its extra side vent for sustaining performance over the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1’s single strip of semi-obstructed rear venting.
Graphics performance is unsurprising in this match-up. Intel Arc Graphics are impressive for an integrated option, but no match for even the low-level RTX 4050 packed inside the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, which more than doubled the performance.
Dell’s laptops both easily outpace the two laptops with basic Intel Graphics. Though the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a margin lead over the Inspiron 14 Plus in 3DMark’s Time Spy test here, it’s a slim lead that belies a bigger difference (the smaller Inspiron largely outpaced it again in the CPU performance portion of this test), and the difference is slim enough that it could come down to something as simple how good the contact is between the chip and heat pipe inside the laptop.
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Battery life
The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a reasonably strong performer when it comes to battery life. With its 88Wh battery (a little smaller than the 90Wh spec Dell lists), it manages to run for just shy of 13 hours in our battery test, which plays a 4K video on loop with the display at 250 nits. This dramatically outpaces the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, serving as a reminder the discrete graphics usually come with a big hit to longevity. Of course, we also get a reminder that fancy displays can also come with hits to battery life.
Impressive though it might be, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is only narrowly leading the Acer Aspire 16 in battery life and Acer is running on a much smaller, 53Wh battery. The Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 Gen 9 also has a lead with its 71Wh battery. Both are likely benefiting from their lower-power chips and simpler display technology. Meanwhile, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus outshines them all. It benefits from its simpler and smaller screen, managing to get over 17 hours from a 64Wh battery.
Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Conclusion
The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a specialty machine and to deliver on that quality, it makes some unfortunate sacrifices. While it has powerful hardware inside and a display with some truly excellent qualities, it misses the mark in other areas. Its performance is hampered by its design. We’ve seen the same components perform far better in other systems and Dell’s cooling system and power management appears to blame here. And though the display is largely gorgeous, it’s not ideal for all circumstances and takes quite a bit of power to make the most of.
Despite some of these fumbles, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 still manages to be a fair value for the right users. If you’re in need of a large system with touchscreen and stylus support, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 checks a lot of boxes. And it’s not as though it’s a weak system so much as it doesn’t keep up with some of its competitors. While Dell clearly had to make some sacrifices to build a machine with 2-in-1 capabilities, it’s those capabilities that may still make it a worthwhile system for some.
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