[In-Depth Comparison] Dell Vostro 16 5620 vs Dell Vostro 16 5625 – It comes down to Intel vs AMD

Dell makes a lot of notebooks, many of which are essentially the same notebook but with different components inside. This is what’s going on with the Vostro 16 5620 and the Vostro 16 5625, which share the same platform when it comes to the design and display selection, but are very different in their hardware, with one notebook carrying Alder Lake hardware, while the other harnesses the last bits of Zen 3.

These large devices are great for multimedia consumption, due to their big displays, while the appearance of discrete GPUs indicates that you could do some Creator work and Gaming on the side.

Today we are giving you an in-depth comparison between the Dell Vostro 16 5620 and the Vostro 16 5625.

Dell Vostro 16 5620: Full Specs / In-depth Review

Dell Vostro 16 5625: Full Specs / In-depth Review

Dell Vostro 16 5620 configurations:

Dell Vostro 16 5625 configurations:

Contents

Design and construction

The two laptops share an identical design with a metal unibody. This results in a fairly durable lid, which is admirable, however, the base flexes even at the slightest use of force. The appearance is sleek, with sharp edges and round corners. The backside has a metal piece that acts as a lever. It is attached to the lid, lifting up the backside of the notebook as it opens further. In terms of weight, the Intel notebook is about 80 grams lighter than its AMD counterpart. The lid opens easily with one hand, while the display looks really good, with its thin bezels and matte cover.

Keyboard and touchpad

The input devices are the same as well, with the keyboard average key travel and clicky feedback. It’s very comfortable for typing, especially at night, thanks to the backlight. The touchpad is more of a miss than a hit, while the cover is smooth, the clicking mechanism is stiff.

Ports

Despite having Intel hardware, the Vostro 16 5620 doesn’t have Thunderbolt support. Both notebooks offer two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, one USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port, an HDMI 1.4 port, a 3.5 mm audio jack, a LAN port, and an SD card reader.

Disassembly, upgrade options

There are 9 Phillips-head screws holding the laptops in place. For a more detailed breakdown, check out the in-depth reviews, where we have videos that show the teardown process. The notebooks offer two SODIMM slots that fit DDR4 memory, while you can upgrade the storage thanks to the single M.2 PCIe x4 slot.

Spec sheet

Display quality

Both laptops offer the same display selection, with two IPS panels. The base model comes with an FHD+ IPS display, while a 3K option is also available. In both Vostros, we tested the FHD+ option, which comes with a pixel density of 141 PPI, a pitch of 0.18 x 0.18 mm, and a Retina distance of 61 cm. However, the panels are different, leading to a slight mismatch in the brightness and contrast ratio.

The viewing angles are excellent, as you can see in the reference images below.

However, the panels are different, leading to a slight mismatch in the brightness and contrast ratio.

The Vostro 16 5620 has a max brightness of 268 nits in the middle of the screen, 245 nits as an average for the entire display area, and a max deviation of 13%. The contrast ratio is alright, at 1200:1.

The Vostro 16 5625 has higher brightness of 272 nits in the middle of the screen, 261 nits as an average, a max deviation of 5%, and a higher 1300:1 contrast ratio.

Color coverage

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows the color coverage of both the Vostro devices, with the Intel-powered notebook covering 54% of the sRGB gamut, while its AMD counterpart covers 50% of the same gamut.

Color accuracy

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results in factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can check the results from the test of both laptops, with both the factory settings (left) and with our “Design and Gaming” profile applied (right).

Both devices don’t reach a low enough dE value to be considered accurate.

Dell Vostro 16 5620

Dell Vostro 16 5625

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

The AMD-equipped Vostro 16 5625 leads the way with a Fall + Rise time of 16 ms.

Health Impact / PWM (Blue light)

PWM – Screen flickering

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Both laptops show no PWM usage across all brightness levels.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Buy our profiles

Dell Vostro 16 5620 16″ IPS LG FNPN5-160WU1 (LGD0701): Buy our profiles

Dell Vostro 16 5625 16″ IPS BOE JFDKM-NV16WUM (BOE0A34): Buy our profiles

Battery

The efficiency of AMD CPUs is on full display, as while both laptops carry a 45Wh battery pack, the Vostro 16 5625 lasts for 3 hours and 28 minutes more in web browsing, and 4 hours and 39 minutes more in video playback. These results were accomplished using the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with.

Performance

The laptops have quite different hardware, with the Vostro 16 5620 offering two U-series and P-series processors from the newest Alder Lake family. We have the Core i5-1235U, Core i7-1255U, Core i5-1240P, and Core i7-1260P. In terms of graphics, there are the Iris Xe Graphics G7 iGPUs along with the NVIDIA GeForce MX 570.

The AMD-powered laptop has three CPUs to pick from. There are the Ryzen 3 5425U, the Ryzen 5 5625U, and the Ryzen 7 5825U. It also has integrated graphics, albeit from the aging Radeon RX Vega family. There is one discrete GPU, the GeForce MX 550.

CPU benchmarks

Here we tested the Intel Core i7-1260P and the Ryzen 5 5625U. The Intel CPU scores higher in both benchmarks, with a 14% lead in 3D Rendering and 1.3 seconds lead in Photoshop.

GPU benchmarks

Here we tested the MX 570 and the Radeon RX Vega 7, with the discrete variant outclassing its opponent by a large margin, being 126% faster in 3DMark Fire Strike and 138% quicker in Unigine Superposition.

Temperatures and comfort

Both laptops use the same cooling solution, with two heat pipes, one fan, and a heatsink attached to the fan casing.

Max CPU load

Intel Core i7-1260P (28W TDP)	0:02 – 0:10 sec	0:15 – 0:30 sec	10:00 – 15:00 min
Dell Vostro 16 5620	2.55 GHz @ 2.14 GHz @ 73°C @ 41W	2.54 GHz @ 2.12 GHz @ 82°C @ 40W	1.97 GHz @ 1.61 GHz @ 74°C @ 28W
Lenovo ThinkPad T16 Gen 1	2.66 GHz @ 2.29 GHz @ 72°C @ 47W	1.21 GHz @ 1.53 GHz @ 63°C @ 20W	1.26 GHz @ 1.54 GHz @ 64°C @ 20W

Compared to the only other laptop with the same Core i7-1260P, the Vostro 16 maintains the 28W power limit, along with relatively higher clock speeds.

AMD Ryzen 5 5625U (15W TDP)	0:02 – 0:10 sec	0:15 – 0:30 sec	10:00 – 15:00 min
Dell Vostro 16 5625	3.06 GHz @ 66°C	2.83 GHz @ 72°C	2.67 GHz @ 67°C
Dell Vostro 15 3525	2.88 GHz @ 76°C @ 29W	2.70 GHz @ 83°C @ 25W	2.70 GHz @ 88°C @ 25W
HP 255 G9	3.00 GHz @ 72°C @ 28W	2.84 GHz @ 80°C @ 25W	2.54 GHz @ 69°C @ 18W

The Vostro 16 5625 does better than the little amount of competition that it’s got, keeping the Ryzen 5 cool and running above the base speed.

Comfort during full load

The externals are much better on the AMD-powered laptop, which runs 13°C cooler, the difference between sausage fingers and regular fingers.

Verdict

The two laptops are very similar, so the final choice between the two comes down to the hardware selection and performance. Both Vostro 16 devices have decent and lightweight designs for a 16-inch notebook. The input devices are good, while the I/O covers a lot of ground, including display output ports, a LAN connector, and plenty of USB Type-A and Type-C ports.

Upgradeability is great, with both RAM and SSD slots. The display quality with the base FHD+ IPS panel is okay for general use with good viewing angles, relatively high brightness, and good contrast ratio. However, the color reproduction isn’t suitable for professional work, so if you really want to use this device for Creator work, you can go ahead and level up to a 3K screen, however, you might be better off looking at another device entirely.

AMD processors once again show their efficiency, as the Ryzen 5-powered Vsotro 6 has very good leads in the battery life tests. Performance goes in favor of the Intel-powered notebook, however, the tests were a Core i7 vs a Ryzen 5, so you might want to hold off on making your decision based on these benchmark results.

Lastly, both laptops use the same cooling setup, however, the AMD machine keeps lower temperatures, both on the inside and the outside, providing a comfortable user experience that won’t boil your fingers. If we were to choose between the two, we’d look into the Ryzen 7-powered version of the Vostro 16 5625, which might be the best bang for the buck that you can get.

Dell Vostro 16 5620: Full Specs / In-depth Review

Dell Vostro 16 5625: Full Specs / In-depth Review

Dell Vostro 16 5620 configurations:

Dell Vostro 16 5625 configurations: