Dell Inspiron 2350 Review

The Dell Inspiron 2350 model PC reviewed on this year is the latest (2015) model, 23.8 inch touchscreen All-in-One desktop PC. Freshly updated with Intel’s Haswell Core i7-4710MQ processor (6M cache) at 2.5GHz but can clock upper limits of 3.5GHz with subtle turbo boost and hyperthreading for 4 cores that can handle 8 threads in parallel.

It also comes with 12GB dual channel (8GB+4GB) DDR3L SDRAM at 1600MHz for the best multitasking potential, and a 1TB Serial ATA hard drive at 5400rpm is quite decent for storage with 32GB Solid State Drive that facilitates faster loading of the pre-installed Windows 8.1 (64-bit) operating. The system brings to your desktop a gorgeous high-resolution touch display and a host of features.

All these are combined into a Passmark benchmark score of 8003 at this time and a Thermal Design Power of 47 watts that give the system enough oomph to handle even the extremely demanding apps and programs. From a distance, the system looks stunning and at close-range the detailed graphics on the Full HD IPS touch display coupled with Waves MaxxAudio add cream to the crop.

Design

The Inspiron 2350 features a big (23.8-inch), beautiful touch screen, with an articulated stand to adjust both the height and angle, letting you easily transition between the normal upright monitor position to a low angle more comfortable for tapping and swiping at the screen. The 23-inch display offers 1,980-by-1,080 resolution, a better than 720p quality, with wide viewing angle set on the IPS panel that looks good from nearly any angle.

It also offers capacitive touch with 10-finger tracking, making it ideal for use with Windows 8. Surrounding the display is a thick black bezel, with a layer of edge-to-edge glass covering the screen and allowing edge swipes and other Windows 8 gestures.

The volume is robust but not so loud that you can’t turn it down to a reasonable level, and the clarity is as good as you’ll get without a separate speaker system. The sound quality is further boosted with Waves MaxxAudio software enhancement and 5.1 surround sound (via HDMI). Bundled with the Dell Inspiron 2350 are two wireless peripherals, a wireless mouse and keyboard.

The mouse, while a little blocky in design, is pretty good, with an ambidextrous design. The keyboard is very good for a bundled accessory, with a simple design and sculpted chiclet keys that offer smooth typing action and more key motion than most chiclet keyboards offer.

Connectivity

On the system you’ll find 4 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports that are great for most peripherals and storage devices. others include an RJ-45 port, one HDMI in and one HDMI out port, meaning that not only can you connect the all-in-one to a second monitor or projector, but you can also connect it to your game console or cable box and use the 23-inch display for TV and gaming.

The system is also equipped with Dell Wireless 1705, which offers both 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. Last but not least, the 2-megapixel webcam above the screen offers 1080p video capture, and has a built-in lens cover to defuse any hacker-related paranoia.

Performance

On the Dell Inspiron 2350 is a 4th Generation Intel Core i7-4710MQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz), a step up from the Intel Core i7-4700MQ processor used in the previous Inspiron One 2350. Paired with 12GB of RAM, the CPU offers solid and speedy performance, with a notable lead over the previous iteration.

Despite the physical similarities, the new Inspiron 23-Inch is faster, and promises even faster performance in processor-intensive tasks like video transcoding and image editing among other tasks. As always, the Windows 8 experience is amazing on a touch display, and we hope that with the forthcoming free download of Windows 10, the experience on this system will be even better.

The Dell Inspiron 2350 is also outfitted with an AMD RadeonTM HD 8690A Graphics with 2GB GDDR5 Video Memory. While this contributed to the impressive media performance, don’t expect high-powered gaming performance without sacrificing some detail. You’ll find most old games playable, but you must sacrifice some details such as higher resolutions.

If you’re willing to back off of the detail settings and drop the resolution a bit (to 1080p or so), you should still find most games playable. A 1TB, 5400rpm hard drive offers spacious storage for all your data, and it’s paired with a 32GB solid-state drive cache hybrid disk to ensure rapid boot times and snappy performance. Pre-installed on the drive is Windows 8.1, along with a handful of apps and programs.

Summary

Though the improvements are iterative, the new Dell Inspiron 2350 (2015 Model) impresses us with all the same details that made us fall in love with the previous Inspiron 23, and a boost in performance thanks to a new fourth-generation Intel Core i7 processor and AMD Radeon graphics. It drops the Blu-ray player we liked, but accordingly drops the price, and still offers the best Windows experience we’ve seen in a desktop PC, making it a clear pick for Editors’ Choice.