Dell Inspiron 13 5000 (5368) review

Performance and benchmarks

Dell’s Inspiron 13 5000 series 2-in-1 laptops come in three distinct flavours. Starting at £499, you get a 2.3GHz Intel Core i3-6100U processor with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. There’s also a £699 version, which comes with a slightly better 2.8GHz Intel-Core i5-6200U processor with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for faster boot up speeds.

My review sample, however, was the top-end model, which costs £799 and comes with a 3.1GHz Core i7-6500U processor, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. It’s actually the same specification as the top Inspiron 15 5668, which also happens to cost £799, so you’re actually getting less laptop for your money overall with the Inspiron 13 5368. However, I do greatly prefer the smaller form factor and it’s good to see Dell hasn’t hampered it with a less powerful set of specs.

That said, the Core i7 model did buckle a bit when I subjected to our demanding 4K multimedia benchmarks, but it handled most high-performance tasks without much issue. With an overall score of 49 in our benchmark tests, this puts it one point in front of the Inspiron 15 5668 and three points in front of Dell’s XPS 13, where you’d need to spend at least £1,149 to get an equivalent specification.

That’s pretty impressive for a £799 laptop, and it shows you don’t have to fork out over a grand to get the very best performance. General use was great, too, with basic word processing and web browsing proving to be very swift and responsive.

Of course, without a dedicated graphics chip, you’ll have to fiddle about with its graphics settings if you want to start playing games on it. Still, its integrated Intel HD 520 graphics chip managed a commendable 37.5fps in Dirt Showdown at 1,920×1,080 with graphics turned down to Low, so you should still be able to play older games at a reasonable speed if you tailor your expectations. Likewise, Minecraft never dipped below 30fps at the medium render distance, but bumping it up to 32 chunks hampered the performance considerably with all too frequent frame drops.

Ports and speakers

You get a decent selection of ports on the Inspiron 13 5368 as well. There are two USB3 ports and one USB2 port on offer here, along with an HDMI port, SD card reader and 3.5mm headphone/mic jack. It’s a shame there’s no Ethernet port, but at least there’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi support.

The dual speakers, meanwhile, deliver a surprisingly effective amount of bass. The Wave Maxx Audio Pro audio enhancement tools that come pre-installed on the laptop are also a real help, but you’ll get the best audio experience when the laptop’s in kickstand mode with the keyboard facing down.

Conclusion

There’s plenty to like about Dell’s Inspiron 13 5368. From the superb build quality, 360-degree touchscreen display and surprisingly fast performance, it’s a great little laptop for using both at home and in the office, and its smaller form factor makes it a much more manageable hybrid than its big brother, the Inspiron 15 5668.

It does have some rather glaring flaws, though, namely that it doesn’t have the best quality display or the best battery life. Then again, neither does its main rival, the 14.1in version of the Lenovo Yoga 700, which has a nigh-on identical specification but costs around £100 more.

Given the choice, I’d probably pick the Inspiron 13 5368, as I prefer its compact size and superior keyboard. I’d also pick this over the Inspiron 15 5668 as well, as its smaller dimensions lend themselves much better to being used as a tablet hybrid. It’s not perfect, but it’s still one of the better laptop/tablet hybrids you can buy today.

If this doesn’t quite fit the bill, then check out our best laptops guide to help you make the right decision.

Buy the Inspiron 13 5000 now from Dell