More and more wallet-friendly 17-inchers start to emerge on the market and Dell is the main company to blame. A lot of users would like to rely on a big screen workstation aimed mainly for multimedia rather than buying an expensive and power-hungry desktop computer that will take a toll on your monthly electric bill. Unfortunately, though, not all notebooks are worth the money as we found out from the recently reviewed cheap workstation – the Dell Inspiron 5749. But this is not the case with the Inspiron 5758 or at least it looks like in first glance.
We are almost certain that this notebook will right the wrongs from the Inspiron 5749 that was unnecessarily heavy and bulky without offering a lot of upgrade options and the screen was somehow mediocre. On the other hand, the Inspiron 5758 showed great results in our screen tests as well as decent performance and battery life for its class. Read on to find out more about this nifty workstation.
Contents
Retail package
The box containing the notebook doesn’t differ from others we’ve come across – AC adapter, charging cable, user manuals and the machine itself.
Design and construction
Luckily, the weight of the notebook has been greatly decreased compared to the Inspiron 5749 (from 3.285 kg to 2.83 kg) and the thickness has also been trimmed down a bit (from 29.6 mm to 27 mm or 29.2 mm for the touchscreen version). In addition, the overall appearance of the Inspiron 5758 is more align to the usual design language of Dell’s laptops and more stylish, of course. Nonetheless, this is more of a subjective opinion on the matter.
The lid of the notebook features soft and spotty plastic providing extra grip when carrying around the notebook. Sadly, though, the cover bends fairly easily so avoid putting heavy things on top of it, especially when traveling around. The usual Dell logo is in place as well in the center of the lid. Around the lid, you will find the 17.3-inch screen with glossy finish and relatively thin bezels. The usual webcam and built-in microphone are in place too. Hinges look stable or maybe too much to our taste because opening the cover with one hand is a hard, if not impossible task.
Continuing with the bottom piece that bears a strong resemblance to the Inspiron 5551‘s bottom, but it’s just slightly bigger. You can easily upgrade the usual 2.5″ HDD and RAM just by opening the service cover by unscrewing only 2 bolts. But if you are interested more in upgrading the notebook, skip to the next section named “Disassembly and upgrade options”. The battery is also easily removed and replaced without the need of a technician. Just make sure you’ve unlocked the slot.
Going around the sides, Dell used the same soft plastic but without the spots that we saw on the cover. The left side accommodates the DC charging port, the main grill for dispersing the heat, HDMI, SD card reader and one USB 3.0 port. The other side has the 3.5 mm jack for headphones, two USB 2.0 ports, and the optical drive. Given the price tag we can’t be too picky when it comes to size, so a thickness of 27 mm would be just fine.
The interior we saved for last. Actually, this is the part we liked the most about the Inspiron 5758. It’s covered in soft touch rubberized plastic, really pleasant in touch and it doesn’t leave nasty smudges, but dust builds up pretty easily or just makes it easy to see. The keyboard is full-sized with good “clicky” keys that provide long enough feedback. Another big surprise in this department is the touchpad. Unlike most notebooks in this price range, or even higher for that matter, the Inspiron 5758 integrates responsive and stable (without any wobbling) touchpad. It registers right and left mouse buttons very well without any issues.
Having in mind the price tag of the notebook, we can’t be too pretentious, but, in fact, the notebook carries strict design and overall good build quality. We didn’t notice any irregularities like dents, holes or cracks. The laptop even managed to surprise us with great keyboard and touchpad performance with the only drawback being the small size of the “Enter” key. We often pressed the neighbor buttons.
Disassembly and upgrade options
Unfortunately, the Inspiron 5758 doesn’t offer as many upgrade options as we like to see. In fact, for a 17-inch notebook we are presented with only one 2.5″ HDD/SSD slot, two RAM slots and one optical drive that can be swapped for another 2.5″ HDD/SSD device. Also, M.2 SATA slot is nowhere to be found, but that’s somehow understandable at this price range. For more information, you can visit our full article regarding the matter: http://laptopmedia.com/highlights/inside-dell-inspiron-5758-17-5000-disassembly-internal-photos-and-upgrade-options/
Display and sound
Dell Inspiron 5758 uses a Full HD (1920×1080) TN panel with 17.3-inch diagonal and 16:9 aspect ratio. Thus, the pixel density is 127 PPI (pixels per inch) and pixel pitch of 0.1995 x 0.1995 mm. The screen can be considered as “Retina” when viewed from a distance equal to or greater than 69 cm.
Viewing angles aren’t good due to the nature of TN panels. Here is a photo of the image quality when viewed from a 45-degree angle.
The maximum recorded brightness is 322 cd/m2 with a deviation of only 10%. This can be considered enough for even outdoor usage and way above the usual maximum brightness of other TN panels. The color temperature of the screen on white background at maximum brightness is 6900K – a bit colder than the optimal one of 6500K (D65).
Color reproduction (CIE)
To put things into perspective, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. Starting with 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 has been used by millions of people in HDTV and the Web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used by professional cameras, monitors and etc. used 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.
The yellow triangle represents the color gamut coverage of the Inspiron 5758’s panel which in our case is 95% of the sRGB and 74% of the Adobe RGB. Excellent result.
The image below is practically the same but with the recorded results – the one on the left before calibration and the one on the right after. Color circles represent the reference colors and white circles being the result. You can see mainly additional colors with 100% and 50% saturation inside the sRGB gamut. Blue and red colors with 100% saturation are inaccurate due to the absence of a significant number of colors.
We tuned the display at 140 cd/m2 brightness and 6500K color temperature.
We used X-Rite i1Display Pro for profiling. Furthermore, we tested the panel with the new profile.
After calibration, we’ve got relatively accurate distribution of the white color.
With the help of 24 commonly used colors we checked the color accuracy of the panel. Colors that we used represent skin tone, grass, blue sky, orange and etc. The average DeltaE 2000=1.25. Lower score is desirable.
Pulse-width modulation (PWM, Screen flickering)
Screen flickering is absent only at 100% brightness which too high for normal usage in normally lit rooms for example. Under 100% brightness the frequency of the emitted light is around 200 Hz and can be considered harmful to your eyes. Users with sensitive eyes will surely feel some kind of discomfort.
Gaming capabilities (Response time
We recorded the refresh time of the pixels from black to white and white to black for 10 to 90%. So we were able to measure Fall Time + Rise Time = 11.4 ms. As usual, the TN panel offers fast response time making it suitable for gaming and movies.
Conclusion
Dell Inspiron 5758’s display offers high maximum brightness, fairly good contrast ratio, high sRGB color gamut coverage and accurate color reproduction. You can even get more accurate colors after calibration. However, its drawbacks are PWM across all brightness levels (except 100%) and poor viewing angles.
Screen comparison
If we assume a distance of 58cm (~23in) between the human eye and the notebook monitor, then normal (20/20) vision would require a pixel density of at least 150ppi in order to interpret an image as perfectly detailed.
| Laptop | Results | Result difference |
Price | Price difference |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dell Inspiron 5758 (17 5000) 17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixels | 127.34 | ||||
| Dell Inspiron 15 (7548) 15.6-inch, SDC4C46, 3840 x 2160 pixels | 282.42 | +121.78% | |||
| Acer Aspire E5-572G 15.6-inch, Acer, 1366 x 768 pixels | 100 | -21.47% | |||
| ASUS N751JK 17.3-inch, ASUS, 1920 x 1080 pixels | 127.34 |
Higher panel brightness is of key importance for visual comfort when working outside or in a brightly lit room.
| Laptop | Results | Result difference |
Price | Price difference |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dell Inspiron 5758 (17 5000) 17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixels | 322 | ||||
| Dell Inspiron 15 (7548) 15.6-inch, SDC4C46, 3840 x 2160 pixels | 279 | -13.35% | |||
| Acer Aspire E5-572G 15.6-inch, Acer, 1366 x 768 pixels | 198 | -38.51% | |||
| ASUS N751JK 17.3-inch, ASUS, 1920 x 1080 pixels | 323 | +0.31% |
Delta E is a CIE measurement unit of color difference. Higher values indicate that the display produces less accurate colors. (lower results are desirable).
| Laptop | Results | Result difference |
Price | Price difference |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dell Inspiron 5758 (17 5000) 17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixels | 1.25 | ||||
| Dell Inspiron 15 (7548) 15.6-inch, SDC4C46, 3840 x 2160 pixels | 2.2 | +76% | |||
| Acer Aspire E5-572G 15.6-inch, Acer, 1366 x 768 pixels | 3.54 | +183.2% | |||
| ASUS N751JK 17.3-inch, ASUS, 1920 x 1080 pixels | 8.62 | +589.6% |
The sRGB color gamut, introduced as a standard for the Web, shows the percentage of colors used on the Web that can be displayed on the screen of the device being tested (higher values are better).
| Laptop | Results | Result difference |
Price | Price difference |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dell Inspiron 5758 (17 5000) 17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixels | 95 | ||||
| Dell Inspiron 15 (7548) 15.6-inch, SDC4C46, 3840 x 2160 pixels | 73 | -23.16% | |||
| Acer Aspire E5-572G 15.6-inch, Acer, 1366 x 768 pixels | 59 | -37.89% | |||
| ASUS N751JK 17.3-inch, ASUS, 1920 x 1080 pixels | 95 |
Sound
The sound quality is relatively good, but mid and high frequencies lack details.
Specs sheet
| CPU | Intel Core i7-5500U (4M Cache, up to 3.00 GHz) |
|---|---|
| RAM | 8GB (1x 8192MB) DDR3L, 1600MHz |
| GPU | NVIDIA Geforce 920M (4GB DDR3) |
| HDD/SSD | 1TB HDD (5400 rpm) |
| Display | 17.3-inch Full HD (1920×1080) resolution TN panel, glossy |
| Optical Drive | DVD optical drive |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 |
| Other features |
|
| Battery | 40WHr, 4-cell Lithium-Ion |
| Thickness | 27 mm (1.06″) |
| Weight | 2.83kg (6.24 lbs) |
Dell Inspiron 5758 configurations
Software
If your notebook didn’t come with pre-installed Windows 8.1 (64-bit), which is by the way the version of the OS used for the writing of this review, you can download all the drivers needed from Dell’s official support page: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/inspiron-17-5758-laptop/drivers
Battery
The same battery we saw in several other Dell notebook models is also present here – 4-cell, 40Wh manufactured by Dell itself. We’ve got Intel Core i7-5500U ultra-low voltage CPU for better battery performance, discrete NVIDIA GeForce 920M GPU and 17.3-inch Full HD TN display for main components draining the battery. We can expect a decent battery performance and that’s what we’ve got. All tests were performed under the same conditions – Wi-Fi turned on, Bluetooth off, screen brightness set to 120 cd/m2, and power saver turned on.
Web browsing
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
Decent Wi-Fi browsing result – 296 minutes (4 hours and 56 minutes).
Video playback
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
Slightly lower result – 266 minutes (4 hours and 26 minutes).
Gaming
For accurate simulation, we used the Metro Last Light benchmark running on a loop with graphic settings set to minimum.
Unsurprisingly, the gaming test took the best out of the battery and the notebook scored – 109 minutes (1 hour and 49 minutes)
CPU
Intel Core i7-5500U is a high-end processor released on January 05, 2015. It is part of the “Broadwell” generation and operates at a base frequency of 2.40GHz. If a higher frequency is needed, its two cores can overclock, and if they both operate in tandem, they go to 2.9GHz. The frequency goes up to 3GHz for only one core.
The chip is equipped with 128KB of first level cache, 512KB of second level cache, and 4MB of third level cache. The Core i7-5500U has been developed using a 14nm process, allowing for the integration of the Intel HD Graphics 5500 controller. It operates at a base frequency of 300MHz, while Turbo Boost can increase that to 950MHz. TDP consumption of the whole SoC (System on a Chip) is 15 watts with a maximum operating temperature of 105C.
Intel Core i7-5500U supports TurboBoost (increasing the clock frequency when necessary), HyperThreading (additional virtual core for every physical one), PCI Express 3.0, DDR3/L/ 1333/1600 memory, AVX, AVX2.0, FMA, QuickSync and the SSE4 instruction set.
You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/
Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-5500u/
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
Fritz
Fritz is a chess benchmark which tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-5500U managed to get 5.735 million moves per second. For comparison, one of the most powerful PCs, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.
GPU
The NVIDIA GeForce 920M is a low-range GPU that’s included in budget notebooks or multimedia-oriented ones. It was released in March of 2015, and it is based on last year’s GeForce 825M with a GK208 GPU. We expect the GPU to be marginally faster than its predecessor since Maxwell generation GPUs mostly improve power consumption and don’t emphasize performance as much. However, the TDP is rated at 33W. Furthermore, GeForce 920M offers 4GB of DDR3 memory, 8 ROPs, 16 texture mapping units and 384 shaders. The graphics processor runs at 575MHz with the Boost clock being 954MHz, which should be enough to run most new games at lower settings or use other graphics software that isn’t that demanding. Memory speed is 1800MHz with a 64 bit bus. Notable features include DirectX 12, NVIDIA Optimus support, OpenGL 4.5 and CUDA cores.
You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/
Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this GPU: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-geforce-920m-4gb-ddr3/
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
We are aware that the notebook isn’t made for gaming, but for evaluation and comparison reasons we run these sorts of tests.
| Tomb Raider (Low) | Tomb Raider (Medium) | Tomb Raider (Max) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| HD (1366 x 768) | 63 fps | 25 fps | 12 fps |
| FHD (1920 x 1080) | 36 fps | 15 fps | 8 fps |
| F1 2014 (Low) | F1 2014 (Medium) | F1 2014 (Max) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| HD (1366 x 768) | 56 fps | 54 fps | 29 fps |
| FHD (1920 x 1080) | 41 fps | 35 fps | 20 fps |
| Thief (Low) | Thief (Medium) | Thief (Max) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| HD (1366 x 768) | 21 fps | 15 fps | 10 fps |
| FHD (1920 x 1080) | 12 fps | 10 fps | 6 fps |
| GTA V (Low) | GTA V (Medium) | GTA V (Max) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| HD (1366 x 768) | 24 fps | 9 fps | 4 fps |
| FHD (1920 x 1080) | 29 fps | 8 fps | 3 fps |
Temperatures
Every notebook we review undertakes two simple stress tests – CPU and GPU torture tests. However, both tests do not represent real-life situations and it’s virtually impossible to reach 100% CPU and GPU load under normal circumstances, but we still provide the results from them to see how the system handles high temperatures. It’s a good way to assess the overall stability of the notebook in the long run. We start off with the CPU stress test reaching 100% CPU load for at least an hour. When idle or when less demanding applications are running, the Core i7-5500U keeps it steady at 33-34 °C and went up to 74 °C when reaching 100% CPU load. Furthermore, we didn’t notice any throttling as the CPU maintained around 2.6 GHz frequency which is 200 MHz above the base clock. You can see the results on the graph below – red line for temperature and green one for CPU load.
After an hour we ran the GPU stress test alongside the CPU torture test and throttling occurred. The CPU’s frequency dropped at 2.0 GHz with 2.4 GHz being the normal operating frequency. This means that the GPU and the CPU share some amount of heat and the CPU has to tone down a bit in order to keep the temperature at a safe state. However, the CPU’s temperature went up to 95 °C for just a few seconds and then the fan quickly cooled down the processor to 74 °C. The GPU on the other hand kept it safe at around 74 °C.
We also took a look how the inner temperatures affect the outer chassis and how this affects user experience. The notebook passed this test with flying colors and no uncomfortable temperatures were recorded during the test.
Verdict
Keeping in mind the price range of the Inspiron 5758, we are thrilled with some of the features it offers. The design isn’t special at all and it’s subjective on top of that, but the build quality presented here is good. Our only complaint is the top lid, that bends too easily under the smallest pressure. Also, the weight is acceptable, but we don’t recommend it for frequent travelers. The interior is the part that steals the show – nifty rubberized finish along with comfortable keyboard and flawless touchpad make the user experience nothing but valuable.
Furthermore, Dell used a more than satisfying TN panel making it a great compromise between quality and price. You can rely on high maximum brightness, wide color gamut coverage, accurate color reproduction and fast response time. However, screen flickering (PWM) and poor viewing angles are drawbacks that are worth considering, especially if you are looking for wonderful multimedia experience. The battery life will not surprise you, but it’s more than acceptable at this price point. Hardware-wise? You get what you paid for – nothing more, nothing less. The discrete GPU will be suitable for light gaming in low resolution which would be impossible with the integrated one, but its main purpose remains – multimedia.
Pros
- Good overall build quality and design
- Comfortable keyboard and touchpad
- Quality TN panel with numerous useful properties
Cons
- Not enough upgrade options
- Screen flickering from 0 to 99% brightness