Dell Inspiron 5593 review – does it have the balance?

You are in need of something affordable that is capable of running your day-to-day tasks without a hassle? Perhaps you are in the right place, then. The Inspiron 5593 is a device that provides its users with something everyone should get to experience – balance.

This notebook is a direct successor to the Inspiron 15 5584 and features a very similar design shape. What is new about it is the inclusion of the Ice Lake processor family from Intel and the fact that it no longer goes with the MX130, but the newer and superior MX230. Moreover – such a budget offering provides you with an IPS display option, as well as a fingerprint reader, embedded in the power button.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-inspiron-5593-5594/

Contents

Specs Sheet

What’s in the box?

Depending on whether you get the laptop with the dedicated MX230 or not, you are going to receive either a 65W power adapter or a smaller – 45W adapter.

Design and construction

As we mentioned in the Intro, the Inspiron 5593 remains largely unchanged from last year – it still features plastic materials in a combination with aluminum. Dimension-wise the notebook measures at 18mm in thickness and 2.05 kg in weight. While it is not the thinnest and clearly not the lightest notebook out there, we feel that this laptop is being pretty portable.

Opening the lid of our unit requires the use of two hands. However, when you open it, you see relatively narrow bezels – the trend of 2019.

Now, let’s take a quick look at the base. It is divided into two sections. The first, where the keyboard resides, is slightly lowered so that the board doesn’t touch the display in a closed position. Then, the palm-rest area and the touchpad are on the higher side.

As far as the keyboard goes, the feedback is clicky and the travel is fairly long, thus making it comfortable for frequent typers. Moreover, it features the NumberPad segment for them’ accountants out there. Sadly, there is no backlight (or it may be coming as an option). Then, in terms of the trackpad, it has a matte finish that is not the best to handle. Additionally, the clicking mechanism needs more pressure than what we would like to see.

Lastly, when we turn the laptop upside down, we see the ventilation grills, as well as the speaker cut-outs. As with last-years model, the hot air comes out from the back (although that is blocked in an opened position, where the air hits the lid and reflects on top of the keyboard.

Ports

Most of the I/O is located on the left. It features the barrel-style power plug, a USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 1) port that we learn is optional, an HDMI connector, followed by an RJ-45 connector, two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports and an audio jack. Then, on the right, you will see a USB Type-A 2.0 port and an SD card reader – pretty elaborate selection for a budget device.

Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

This notebook’s bottom panel is held in place by 9 Phillips-head screws. After you unscrew them you can pop the clips with a plastic tool and lift the plate up towards you. This will reveal a view that is not for the faint-hearted. How could Dell leave so much free space inside? Good news for some users, though, a place to hide all your secrets!

Despite the fact that the manufacturer had to redesign the entire motherboard, they still put that terrible, single heat pipe solution on the machine. Indeed, the heat pipe is thick enough that it could be placed in the G7 7790. However, cooling both the CPU and the GPU with the same thermal transfer element and only a single fan – not a good idea.

In terms of upgradability, however, Dell is on point. There are two RAM DIMMs that support up to 16GB of DDR4 memory in total. While this doesn’t sound like that much, keep in mind that the device can work with 3200 MHz memory modules. In addition to that, there is a 2.5″ SATA drive slot that has its SATA cable taped to the chassis and an M.2 slot that can accommodate up to 1TB PCIe x4 drives.

Then at the bottom, something that really could have benefited from the free space – a 42Wh battery.

Display quality

Dell Inspiron 5593 has a Full HD IPS panel, with a model number Innolux N156HCA-EAA (CMN15E5). Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 142 ppi, their pitch – 0.18 x 0.18 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 60 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are excellent. We provide images at different angles.

The maximum measured brightness is 229 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 208 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 12%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6700K (average) – slightly colder than the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6600K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 60% Brightness (White level = 142 cd/m2, Black level = 0.10 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is impressive – 1420:1.

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 in 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 Dell Inspiron 5593’s color gamut coverage.

Sadly, its display covers just 54% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

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 at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of Dell Inspiron 5593 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

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.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 31 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.

Dell Inspiron 5593’s display uses PWM to adjust its brightness until 60 nits. Moreover, the pulsations have a very high frequency, which makes it comfortable for long working periods.

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.

Conclusions

Dell Inspiron 5593’s display has an IPS panel with a Full HD resolution, good contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles and lack of PWM means it is good for long work periods. Its main disadvantage is the modest color coverage.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Dell Inspiron 5593 configurations with 15.6″ Innolux N156HCA-EAA (CMN15E5) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Sound

Dell Inspiron 5593’s speakers produce a sound of good quality. Low, mid and high tones are clear of deviations.

Drivers

You can find all of the drivers and utilities for this notebook here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/inspiron-15-5593-laptop/drivers

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with 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.

Sadly, the optimizations of this notebook were not on point, as the 42Wh battery was enough for only 5 hours and 15 minutes of Web browsing and roughly half an hour more during video playback.

CPU options

This laptop comes with one of the following – the 2c/4t Core i3-1005G1, the 4c/8t Core i5-1035G1, and the 4c/8t Core i7-1065G7.

Dell Inspiron 15 5593 / 5594 CPUのバリエーション

ここでは、市場に出回っている [シリーズ] モデルで見つけることができる CPU 間のおおよその比較を見ることができます。 このようにして、どの [シリーズ] モデルが費用対効果が最も高いかを自分で決めることができます。

注：この表は最も安い異なるCPUの構成を示すので、ノートパソコンの名前/CPUをクリックして、これらのノートパソコンの他の仕様が何であるかを確認する必要があります。

GPU options

As far as the GPU choices – you get either the Intel UHD Graphics or the Iris Plus Graphics, depending on your processor choice. Additionally, you can go for the dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX230 with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

Dell Inspiron 15 5593 / 5594 GPU バリアント

ここでは、市場に出回っている [シリーズ] モデルで見つけることができる GPU 間のおおよその比較を確認できます。 このようにして、どの [シリーズ] モデルが費用対効果が最も高いかを自分で決めることができます。

注：この表は最も安い異なるGPU構成を表示しているので、ノートパソコンの名前/GPUをクリックして、これらのノートパソコンの他の仕様が何であるかを確認する必要があります。

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-1035G1 (15W TDP)	0:02 – 0:10 sec	0:15 – 0:30 sec	10:00 – 15:00 min
Dell Inspiron 5593	2.53 GHz (B+153%) @ 99°C	2.14 GHz (B+114%) @ 94°C	1.88 GHz (B+88%) @ 87°C
Dell Inspiron 17 3793	2.75 GHz (B+175%) @ 98°C	1.97 GHz (B+97%) @ 91°C	1.79 GHz (B+79%) @ 89°C
Intel Core i5-1035G4 (15W TDP)	0:02 – 0:10 sec	0:15 – 0:30 sec	10:00 – 15:00 min
Lenovo Yoga S740 (14)	2.64 GHz (B+140%) @ 100°C	1.89 GHz (B+72%) @ 83°C	1.66 GHz (B+51%) @ 69°C

According to all devices we tested with this processor, either it is not yet optimized enough to compete with its Whiskey Lake compatriots, or it is running extremely hot as a standard. As you can see the fairly thick heat pipe didn’t really manage to pull it off with this processor. Additionally, the fan speed was a little too high, so it was clearly audible during this test.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce MX230	GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)	GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
Dell Inspiron 5593	1318 MHz @ 74°C	1251 MHz @ 74°C
Acer Aspire 3 (A315-55G)	1692 MHz @ 74°C	1612 MHz @ 74°C
Lenovo Ideapad L340 (15″)	1632 MHz @ 69°C	1532 MHz @ 69°C
Lenovo Ideapad C340 (15″)	1658 MHz @ 74°C	1300 MHz @ 64°C

Not only the graphics card inside of this device thermally throttled, but its fan was spinning as fast as the one on a Jumbo Jet engine.

Comfort during full load

Sadly, the noise was louder than some of the gaming notebooks we’ve tested. Moreover, the hot air bounces of the display and heats up the entire keyboard, which is not cool at all.

Verdict

2019 is about to end, but budget laptop deals are not yet diminishing. The Inspiron 5593 clearly has some downsides in its pocked, and by no means can it be considered as the perfect all-rounder. Not only it can become too loud during gaming, but it also heats up – an issue that is mainly down to its thermal configuration.

Of course, this is not a gaming device, we are perfectly aware of that, but we have to note (for those who are keen on playing some non-demanding games) that the hot air coming out of the laptop is redirected by the lid itself. Instead of going behind the notebook, it actually comes to face the user and heats up the keyboard, as well as your fingers.

Looking on the bright side, for the colder countries, this may actually be a perk. Another pro that the Inspiron 5593 has in its sleeve is the upgradability. It can fit up to 16GB of DDR4 memory across its two RAM DIMMs, plus it supports modules that work at 3200 MHz. Moreover, you can plug a 2.5″ SATA drive slot and an M.2 PCIe x4 SSD in it. And on the I/O side, it has an SD card reader and probably most of the stuff you will ever need.

Dell Inspiron 5593’s display has an IPS panel (Innolux N156HCA-EAA (CMN15E5)) with a Full HD resolution, good contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles and lack of PWM means it is good for long work periods. Its main disadvantage is the modest color coverage.

Sadly, the laptop doesn’t feature a backlight on its keyboard (at least on our unit), but we feel that the board itself is very comfortable for typing with its clicky feedback and a rather long keystroke.

However, when you combine the extra stiff hinges that prevent you from opening the lid with a single hand and the below-average battery life, you might just be better passing on this one. Honestly, there are a lot of things done right, but some of the stuff that is wrong with it is important enough, to drive customers away from it.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-inspiron-5593-5594/