A stylish, secure office laptop – this is how one can best describe the Vostro 15 5502. Actually, if the looks are considered, Dell has to do little to make this laptop not a viable option for its customers. However, you shouldn’t use the looks as a single metric for your laptop choice, and this is where we come – to show you what a device feels and works like so that you make the right decision.
Usually, we don’t say this for low-voltage laptops, but with the latest efforts from Intel and AMD, one can comfortably say, that you can get quite a lot of power from their 15W CPUs. This unit can be equipped with up to the Core i7-1165G7, and in addition to the integrated graphics, you can pair it with an NVIDIA GeForce MX350, with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.
As with the smaller Vostro 14 5402, there are two 1080p IPS panel options to choose from, one of which is a pretty basic one, with the other having 300 nits of maximum brightness, and allegedly supporting 100% of sRGB’s colors.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/us/series/dell-vostro-15-5502/
Contents
Specs Sheet
Dell Vostro 15 5502 - Specs
All Dell Vostro 15 5502 configurations
What’s in the box?
Inside the package, you will find either a 45W or a 65W power brick. In addition to that, there is the laptop, itself, as well as the mandatory paperwork.
Design and construction
Considering its 15-inch screen size, the overall measurements of this laptop are impressive. We are talking about weight of 1.64 kg, and a profile of 17.9mm. More impressively, its thinnest point sits at just 14.2mm. What is also good about it, is that the structural integrity seems to be on point, as there is very little observable flex when twisted.
Well, the lid is a bit more twisty, but it is still nothing dramatic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t open with a single hand. However, we can give Dell points for including an ErgoLift-style hinge that lifts the backside of the base slightly from the ground, which improves airflow. Also, the bezels around the matte display are rather thin, and despite that, there is still an HD camera above the panel. Plus – it has its own privacy shutter.
On the downside, the keyboard feels a bit underwhelming. Usually, Dell’s devices have great keyboards for typing, but this one’s travel seems a bit short, but at least the feedback is somewhat tactile. On the bright side, there is a NumberPad section, and it has a backlight.
The touchpad, on the other side, is huge by Windows laptop standards. It also offers good gliding and decent tracking.
Here, the speakers and the cool air vents are located on the bottom panel, while the hot air escapes from in between the lid and the base – nothing out of the ordinary.
Ports
On the left side, there is the barrel-style charging plug, an HDMI 1.4b connector, as well as a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, and a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port that can output a DisplayPort signal, and supports Power Delivery. Switch sides, and you will find the wedge lock slot, an RJ-45 connector, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, an audio jack, and a MicroSD card reader.
Disassembly, upgrade options, and maintenance
To access this laptop’s internals, you need to undo 9 Phillips-head screws. Two of them are captive, and they lift the back two corners of the bottom panel so you can start the prying process more easily.
Here, we see the smaller 40Wh battery pack. We say smaller because there is a larger 53Wh unit in some models.
The cooling solution here comprises a single heat pipe, placed at an angle over the CPU. We hope that it won’t hinder the thermal efficiency of the setup.
In terms of storage, there are two M.2 slots. The main one, which is located below the cooling fan, supports NVMe drives only, while the one on the right of the battery can fit either NVMe SSDs or SATA ones. Thankfully, there are two RAM SODIMM slots, that can fit 32GB in total, and work in dual-channel mode.
Display quality
Dell Vostro 15 5502 is equipped with an IPS panel, model number LG 24GYY-156WFC (LGD05F2). Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).
Viewing angles are excellent. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.
The measured maximum brightness of 260 nits in the middle of the screen and 250 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 7%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6250K – warmer than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.
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. The contrast ratio is fine – 1080:1.
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 on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. 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 Vostro 15 5502’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers only 52% 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 Vostro 15 5502 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 = 27 ms.
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 Vostro 15 5502’s display doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels at any point. This makes it comfortable for long work periods, without harming your eyes in this aspect.
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.
Conclusion
Dell Vostro 15 5502’s IPS panel has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and adequate default settings. Moreover, its backlight doesn’t flicker at any brightness level, which makes it comfortable for long periods of use. Sadly, as with every budget IPS panel out there, the color coverage is very modest – about 52% of the sRGB gamut.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Dell Vostro 15 5502 configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS LG 24GYY-156WFC (LGD05F2).
*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.
In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.
Office Work
Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.
Design and Gaming
This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.
Health-Guard
Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.
Sound
Dell Vostro 15 5502’s speakers produce a sound of decent quality. However, there are some slight deviations across the entire frequency spectrum.
Drivers
All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/vostro-15-5502-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. Our unit was equipped with the smaller – 40Wh battery pack. It lasted for 7 hours and 39 minutes of Web browsing, and 6 hours and 29 minutes of video playback.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU options
There are three choices regarding the processor here – the Core i3-1115G4, the Core i5-1135G7, and the Core i7-1165G7.
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)
GPU options
As far as the graphics go, there are the integrated ones – the Intel UHD Graphics, Iris Xe Graphics G7 with 80EUs for the Core i5, and 96EUs for the Core i7; then there are the dedicated options from NVIDIA – GeForce MX330 and MX350, both equipped with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.
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
| CS:GO | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings) | HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 77 fps | 57 fps | 26 fps |
| DOTA 2 | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 1080p, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 82 fps | 50 fps | 32 fps |
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 i5-1135G7 (15W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dell Vostro 15 5502 | 3.33 GHz (B+39%) @ 100°C @ 38W | 1.96 GHz @ 72°C @ 14W | 2.02 GHz @ 74°C @ 15W |
| Dell Vostro 14 5402 | 3.02 GHz (B+26%) @ 99°C @ 29W | 2.61 GHz (B+9%) @ 99°C @ 25W | 2.00 GHz @ 76°C @ 15W |
| MSI Modern 15 (A11X) | 3.59 GHz (B+50%) @ 94°C @ 44W | 3.45 GHz (B+44%) @ 95°C @ 40W | 3.18 GHz (B+33%) @ 91°C @ 34W |
| Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga | 3.52 GHz (B+47%) @ 94°C | 3.24 GHz (B+35%) @ 94°C | 2.63 GHz (B+10%) @ 75°C |
| Lenovo ThinkPad E15 Gen 2 | 3.35 GHz (B+40%) @ 90°C | 3.14 GHz (B+31%) @ 71°C | 2.57 GHz (B+7%) @ 64°C |
| HP ProBook 450 G8 | 3.73 GHz (B+55%) @ 90°C | 2.44 GHz (B+2%) @ 71°C | 2.09 GHz @ 64°C |
| Lenovo Yoga 7 (14) | 3.34 GHz (B+39%) @ 94°C | 2.97 GHz (B+24%) @ 94°C | 2.39 GHz @ 75°C |
| Acer Aspire 5 (A514-54) | 3.54 GHz (B+48%) @ 87°C | 2.01 GHz @ 66°C | 2.03 GHz @ 67°C |
Despite its larger footprint, this laptop has pretty much the exact same thermal capabilities as its smaller brother – the Vostro 14 5402. This may be due to the angled position of the heat pipe, or poor thermal compound application, but once again, we see a very drastic increase to 99°C as soon as we run our torture test.
Comfort during full load
When it comes to extreme load comfortability, the laptop isn’t too loud.
Verdict
If we have to be completely honest, there were a couple of things that were far from impressive about this laptop. First of all, there is battery life. It’s not terrible, but we got a bit more than 7 hours and a half of Web browsing, and almost 6 hours and a half of video playback. Bear in mind that this is the 40Wh unit, so devices equipped with the 53Wh battery will last longer. Hopefully.
Also, there is no Thunderbolt connectivity here, but there is nothing to worry about, in our view, because of the naturally well-populated I/O, which includes a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port, which supports DisplayPort output and Power Delivery. Also, there’s a MicroSD card slot.
However, this doesn’t mean the laptop is particularly good for image manipulation. At least in the configuration, we tested.
Dell Vostro 15 5502’s IPS panel (LG 24GYY-156WFC (LGD05F2)) has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and adequate default settings. Moreover, its backlight doesn’t flicker at any brightness level, which makes it comfortable for long periods of use. Sadly, as with every budget IPS panel out there, the color coverage is very modest – about 52% of the sRGB gamut.
Additionally, the performance was far from great, considering the potential of the Tiger Lake architecture. If you need something more powerful we suggest looking at MSI’s Modern 15 (A11), or the ThinkBook 15 Gen 2 from Lenovo.
Thankfully, though, you get the support of up to 32GB of DDR4 memory in dual-channel thanks to the two RAM SODIMM slots inside, plus, there are two M.2 slots PCIe x4 storage, as one of them also fits SATA drives.
Ultimately, the Vostro 15 5502 is not a bad laptop. It is just that the competition in this segment is extremely fierce.
Pros
- Generous I/O
- Supports 2 M.2 PCIe x4 drives and up to 32GB of dual-channel memory
- It is equipped with a MicroSD card reader
- Doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment (LG 24GYY-156WFC)
Cons
- Battery life is only average
- No Thunderbolt support
- Covers only 52% of the sRGB gamut (LG 24GYY-156WFC)
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/us/series/dell-vostro-15-5502/
Disgraceful temperature management,with the accompanying performance degradation,completely lackluster screen.
Typical Dell laptop really.