Dell's mainstream Inspiron lineup tries to strike a good balance between performance and price, but the Inspiron 15 3000 falters in that goal. To get this machine's price down to only $329 (it starts at $299), Dell understandably had to make compromises, but too many of them are deal breakers.The 15-inch laptop suffers from mediocre performance, a dim display and an uncomfortable keyboard, but it does have fairly strong battery life and decent build quality. Competitors in this price range offer more. Specs Design The Inspiron 15 3000's design has an interesting texture but a boring color scheme. Dell constructed the back lid, keyboard deck and base using a textured black plastic, which feels smooth to the touch but is very flexible.

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The edges of both the lid and the base have a glossy black casing, which breaks up the design but creates some rough edges where the two materials meet. The Inspiron 15 3000 measures 14.96 x 10.25 x 0.99 inches and weighs a reasonable 4.88 pounds. It's both lighter and thinner than other 15-inch laptops, including the (15.1 x 10 x 1 inches, 6 pounds) and the (10.2 x 1.5 x 1.2 inches, 5.06 pounds). On the left side of the laptop, there's a charging port (the charging indicator light is on the front edge), an exhaust vent, an HDMI connector, a USB 3.0 port and an SD card slot. On the right, you'll find a Kensington lock, a CD/DVD combo drive, two USB 2.0 ports and the headphone jack. On the inside of the frame, there's a webcam centered on the top bezel, as well as a power button on the upper-right portion of the deck. Notably, the bottom houses the laptop's only speaker, as well as an array of vents and a removable battery with a sliding-lock mechanism.

The deck and the screen on the Inspiron 15 3000 have moderately large bezels, which appear even larger because of the laptop's monochromatic appearance. The device's dual hinges felt sturdy when I opened and closed the lid, and I didn't hear any creaking when adjusting the display. Display The 15.6-inch display on the Inspiron 15 3000 has a resolution of only 1366 x 768, so I wasn't surprised by the lack of screen space or the graininess. The panel is fine for writing documents and browsing the web, but tasks that require high levels of clarity, such as photo editing, are best left to other devices. I watched the teaser trailer for Pacific Rim: Uprising and found that colors were accurate, though not particularly vivid. The resolution was the larger issue, as details on the Jaeger program mechs lacked sharpness.

It also diminished the dramatic lighting effects, producing flat shadows and highlights. The Inspiron 15 3000's panel reached 170 nits of brightness in our testing, which is lower than the HP Notebook 15's 174 nits and the ' 188 nits. Both the Acer Aspire E 15 and the were brighter, at 215 and 201 nits, respectively.

MORE: The Inspiron 15 3000 reproduced 71.4 percent of the color gamut. That barely beats the Notebook 15's 70 percent and the VivoBook's 69 percent, but it falls far short of the Ideapad's 84 percent. All of these scores are well below the Aspire E 15's fantastic 159 percent coverage.

The Inspiron 15 3000 achieved a Delta-E accuracy score of 2.87 (0 is best), which surpasses only the Ideapad's 3.85 in this group of laptops we compared. The HP Notebook 15 managed 1.3 and the VivoBook scored 2.3, but again, the Aspire E 15 took the top slot, with an impressive 0.35. Cpdport. Keyboard and Trackpad The keyboard on this Dell looks better than it feels. The keys on the Inspiron 15 3000 feature an attractive sans-serif font with white lettering that stands out nicely against the gray and black keyboard deck. The keys are slightly recessed from the deck, and Dell claims that the keyboard is splash-resistant. With only 1.02 millimeters of key travel (1.5 to 2 mm is typical) and 64 grams of actuation weight required to press the keys, the Dell's keyboard made for an uncomfortable typing experience, and I noticed some flex as I typed.

Even so, on the 10FastFingers.com typing test, I scored 62 words per minute with six errors, which is close to my 65-wpm and five-error average. The keys aren't backlit, but there is a full number pad on the right side, which will definitely appeal to some users. MORE: I'm not a fan of the touchpad on this notebook; it's loud and produces a hollow clicking sound when pressed, which doesn't inspire confidence. At least the pad generally worked well with Windows 10's multifinger gestures. Audio The Inspiron 15 3000's bottom-firing speakers aren't very loud or detailed, and I had to turn the volume most of the way up before it was actually audible. I listened to Sorority Noise's 'No Halo,' and found the bridge and chorus sections bereft of the typically nuanced rhythms.