Dell Inspiron 17R 5721 Pro Reviews

The 17-inch mainstream notebook, the Dell Inspiron 17R-5721 is targeting price sensitive customers who want a fully equipped notebook with gaming capabilities. The Intel Core i5-3317U (1.7 GHz) feels to be too little power at first. Based on the measurements, the performance of the low voltage system is not above ultrabooks with the same processor. Yet the 17-inch chassis with its large cooling solution offers sufficient reserves for the full CPU-Turbo feature, even with combined GPU load. This is not the case for most ultrabooks with low voltage CPUs. The ergonomics also benefit from the large chassis. The fan does not immediately speed up with spontaneous load, and it is able to keep the fan quiet until temperatures really rise to unbearable limits. The result is a quiet system that can be used in an office environment without disturbing the neighbor. People who like to be green will be pleased with the low consumption under load, thanks to the 18 watts TDP that is lower than the standard voltage competition (35 W). However, the AMD Radeon HD 8730M does not offer the highest frame rates in games. Gamers will have to reduce the resolution to 1366 x 768 pixels and use medium quality settings. In some cases the 3317U can be a bottleneck for games too.