Dell – Inspiron 2-in-1 14” FHD+ Touch Laptop – 12th Gen Intel Core i7 – 16GB Memory – 512GB SSD – Platinum Silver
Original price was: $1,049.99.$800.99Current price is: $800.99.
Last updated on June 5, 2024 8:10 am Details
Photos: Dell – Inspiron 2-in-1 14” FHD+ Touch Laptop – 12th Gen Intel Core i7 – 16GB Memory – 512GB SSD – Platinum Silver
8 reviews for Dell – Inspiron 2-in-1 14” FHD+ Touch Laptop – 12th Gen Intel Core i7 – 16GB Memory – 512GB SSD – Platinum Silver
Show all
Most Helpful
Highest Rating
Lowest Rating
Add a review
Dell – Inspiron 2-in-1 14” FHD+ Touch Laptop – 12th Gen Intel Core i7 – 16GB Memory – 512GB SSD – Platinum Silver
Original price was: $1,049.99.$800.99Current price is: $800.99.
Abhaxus –
My first impression of the Dell Inspiron 7420 2-in-1 laptop was really, really good. I realize the Inspiron is intended to be a bit of a step up from your run of the mill laptop, but I really like the build quality of this device. The aluminum chassis feels solid with very little flex in any particular direction. Probably my favorite physical element of the Inspiron is the hinge design – too often, 2 in 1 devices are undone by poor quality hinges that don’t hold tension well when typing on unsturdy surfaces. With the Inspiron 7420, the hinge is SOLID and there is very little ‘screen waggle’ when thundering away while typing with it on your lap. If you’re a frequent “lap” user I feel like this makes the Inspiron a great choice.
Performance wise, this is my first experience with an Alder Lake laptop and I feel it’s a bit of a mixed bag, unfortunately. In every way that a laptop can feel “snappy” – the Inspiron and its i7-1255u certainly fit the bill. From a seat-of-the-pants perspective, the Inspiron does not suffer from any discernable lag in day to day use, something I was a bit worried about with the p- vs e- cores combined on a single die with this series of CPU. Somewhat fortunate for the scope of this review, I received a new laptop from my employer on the same day as I received the Inspiron which has a Ryzen 7 5700U to compare to the i7 in the Inspiron. Head to head in normal use I did not detect even the slightest difference in performance. The i7 has fewer threads and fewer “top performing” cores, but it does have a big advantage in single thread performance. In particular, I was impressed with how quickly the Inspiron got through the initial sync of my very large MS 365/OneDrive personal files. The main negative I’ve experienced with the i7-1255u powered Inspiron has been the fan noise. This is a compact, non-gaming oriented laptop with a U series CPU, so I am genuinely surprised that the fan is constantly spinning fast enough to be audible from across the room. I tried with both the Balanced and High Performance profiles and didn’t feel like it changed the duty cycle for the fan, so I assume this is just a limitation in Dell’s thermal design. It’s certainly NOT as loud as a gaming laptop (not even close) but it’s by far the noisiest U series laptop I’ve ever used.
Other elements of the laptop deserve some praise, however: I love the 16:10 display (so refreshing after years of 16:9 models) and found it easily capable of handling a sunny day in the backyard this past weekend. I found the keyboard and trackpad to feel like high quality, thoughtful choices that fit well with the laptop – neither is the best I’ve ever used on a laptop, but the keyboard has decent travel but feels tight and quiet, and the trackpad has absolutely zero extra tolerance or mushiness. The wireless adapter built-in is an Intel Wifi 6 adapter – I don’t have a 6ghz network at home unfortunately, but I was able to get >1gbps wifi speeds with my home network so it is meeting all expectations for my network.
I would definitely recommend the Inspiron 7420 for someone who needs a powerful, non-gaming laptop that has a great display and top-tier 2-in-1 capability with a well-designed hinge.
RondonJonsen –
At first glance, this laptop seems like a another boring gray snoozefest. Other than the logo, there’s no real styling or accoutrements to speak of along the body. Besides the fingerprint scanner built in to the power button, there’s no fancy extra buttons, knobs, mini-displays, or anything other than the plainly laid out chiclet keys and the large trackpad.
Examining the various ports reveals an hdmi and two usb tpe c ports, doubling as the charging port. The other side has, a full sized SD card slot, a USB type A port, and a headphone jack, all of which are a welcome sight these days. On the back, along with the fan exhaust ports, are the hinges that allow you to flip the screen all the way around to convert it into a tablet.
Turning on the machine, and actually using the computer, the true quality of the unit reveals itself. The display is bright and crisp. Details pop out in stunning clarity. I put on a stream of Speed Runner just to revel in the beauty of the IPS panel being put through its paces.
The keyboard is nicely spaced out, and the touchpad has a good feel and responsiveness to it. Reaching down to use it while typing doesn’t require a stretch of the thumb with how I have to situate my hands to allow my fingers to rest on the home row keys. This is of increasing importance to me these days, as hand cramps from bad ergonomics are no fun. I also noticed that after using the keyboard, there were no messy handprints or palm prints at all, something that I didn’t even realize would occur with my other matte black laptop.
The beefy i7 running this machine handles your basic office applications fine. The Intel Iris graphics won’t be doing justice to any heavy duty AAA 3D games, but I threw 3D Mark on there just for kicks. The overall score was 1499, beating out posted averages for an office laptop at 971, but coming nowhere near a proper gaming laptop with an average score of 5730. It also estimated getting a FPS in the high 20s of the usual shooter games, which I wasn’t interested in testing out but was surprised at nonetheless. I’m sure that lighter gaming is adequately served. I did note that just navigating and running various programs felt quite zippy and responsive.
If I was the type of professional that needed a capable laptop, I’d be happy being assigned this. Not having to carry a dongle to read memory cards would be a boon to photographers, along with the ability to run photo software without compromise.
The only thing I was underwhelmed by was the built in speakers. Even on full blast, they really weren’t very loud. The weight of the laptop keeps me from wanting to use it in tablet configuration for any extended periods of time, but it is nice to be able to fold it up like that and hand it over to someone during a meeting. The gorgeous display would really show off any photo proofs or architectural renderings. But for extended media consumption or reading, despite how good comics look on it, I’d much rather use my lighter 8″ tablet.
ShawnInKB –
Super crisp display. Only item to note is the screen is a bit reflective if the brightness isn’t all the way up.
Touch screen is very responsive. Fingerprint reader works well and great for a fast secure password free sign on.
Camera works great for zoom and teams calls and nice that it has an integrated camera simple to use privacy shutter.
Sound is excellent. When using the laptop for music out of its speakers, you’ll feel the base while typing on the keyboard. The speakers are actually under the laptop so you don’t cover them up when typing.
With other laptops with a touch pad mouse I’ve sometimes have had issues with the touch pads picking up my thumbs and hands while typing and errantly moving the mouse around, but that hasn’t happened once with this laptop – a major plus for me.
Keyboard is very low profile and it has back lighting that you can turn on/off. Function controls are off by default (meaning the alternative use like sound volume, mute, brightness, etc. are all the default behavior which is nice so you don’t have to hit the FN button all the time.) The power/fingerprint button is upper right next to Delete. I’ve hit it a few times trying to hit delete (and puts the laptop in standby), but I’m sure I’ll get used to that the more I use it.
The keyboard platform and mouse platform are “full size” as far as laptops go, which gives you a full platform for your hands to rest on.
Installation / setup was super quick. Took less than 10 minutes from out of the box to online and using it. (Note I skipped the MS Office trial setup as I have a subscription already so that may have saved some time.)
Comes with Windows 11 which is a nice clean update. Hard drive space wise it has 412 GB free out of 458 GB out of the gate.
Everything runs fast so far and it boots in about 10-12 seconds and with the finger for password option you get in and running very quickly.
Only minor thing I’ve run into so far was the Dell support assistant (installed by default) wouldn’t connect and update the Dell drivers. Fix was easy though – I just uninstalled the support assistant and then reinstalled from support.dell.com and it worked and updated a few device drivers.
Overall very happy with this machine!
couponkingofjax –
Dell has been a computer company I’ve trusted for over 20 years now. They always build a quality product and I’ve owned multiple different desktops and laptops. The Dell Inspiron 2 in 1 is the latest laptop I have the pleasure of reviewing.
At first glance the computer is very simple and sleek with a lightweight design and an aluminum looking finish. The computer itself comes with multiple ports, an HDMI out, 2 USB C and a standard USB with SS technology, a headphone jack and a SD card reader. Being a photographer I always find the SD card reader to be very useful and I’m glad its included in this model. It only took a few minutes to get setup and running and comes with the new Windows 11 standard.
Putting the computer through my normal testing it responds very well to every day tasks. The monitor is a touch screen that is very responsive and bright. Bolstered by an Intel Core I7 processor and an SSD hard drive with 16gb of ram it really can handle any normal computing task you throw at it. This model isn’t a gaming computer due to the baseline onboard graphics card but for anything else it is a home run. The SSD hard drive doesn’t have any moving parts so it’s so much faster than traditional disc drives of the past. It can handle multitasking with a breeze and really performs great as an everyday computer. The computer also has a very nice keyboard. Coming from an Apple laptop keyboard, which I despise, I found the keys felt very good under my fingers, something I was pleasantly surprised by. The backlit feature is a nice touch as well. It also comes with a fingerprint reader as well to forgo having to put in a password.
Windows 11 is a nice upgrade from previous versions and has an Apple OS feel to it while still retaining windows features you’re familiar with. The computer runs beautifully with it and I love certain features that windows has like the screen snap to make 2 windows fit on screen.
Overall this is a very solid laptop, Dell is a superior computer brand imo and this laptop is no different. For the price you can’t beat the quality you get with their products and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great baseline computer for everyday use.
Winger81 –
As a traditionally Mac kind of guy, this Dell Laptop really impressed me. It’s a lightweight, mid-range performance, 2-in-1 – pretty ideal size for the on-the-go kind of person like me.
We did get off to a bit of a rocky start. The very first screen that showed up after rebooting was a bit scary – though I think that’s mostly a Windows problem not specific to this PC.
Hardware-wise, I am REALLY impressed with the fingerprint sensor to log in to Windows and authorize other system tasks. I have other laptops with fingerprint capabilities, but none compare with this Dell’s speedy and accurate readings – very impressed!
The speed is impressive likely due to the solid-state hard drive (SSD), mid-range processor, with mid-range RAM. Other than my Windows glitch, applications were a breeze to install (and uninstall – see below), and all the software I loaded on to the machine ran well. Applications launch quickly and there seems to be an adequate amount of space on the SSD for a mostly cloud-based file storage user.
So, the only real fault I find in this laptop is all the pre-installed software. I know that may be more of a Microsoft package kind of thing rather than specific to this machine – but I spent a good deal of time weeding through and uninstalling quite a few unnecessary applications.
So, all in all, I give this Dell laptop a thumbs up!
IndyTechGuy –
The laptop has an Intel Core i7-1255U which is a high-end mobile CPU released this year and includes an integrated Xe Graphics G7 graphics card and 16gb or ram. While the card is almost twice as fast as the previous version, it should still be set for lower graphic and resolution settings in higher end games.
The laptop is thin and light weighing in at about 3.5 pounds and is 0.7” thick. It has a 14” (1920×1200) WUXGA screen. The ports include a card reader, USB 3.2-A, (2) 3.2 USB-C (1 for charging), and HDMI along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The audio is Waves MaxxAudio® Pro and the laptop has 4 speakers Additional features are a fingerprint reader and a camera privacy screen.
The battery life is acceptable, but I would consider it an “all day” battery. The longest I’ve been able to use it for standard use is about 4 – 6 hours. The touch pad is responsive, but I wish there was tactile feedback. The touchscreen is works very well and the colors are vibrant. The keyboard has 2 backlit levels in addition to “off”, and the keyboard can be seen more clearly in the daylight with the backlight off. There is room for improvement in the webcam and general build quality.
The speed is more than adequate for everyday personal, family and business use, but it’s not a gaming laptop. The fan is quiet no matter how much load is on the processor, and the bottom of the laptop stay cool.
optimummind –
_____
*Pros:
-Good hardware configuration (12th-gen Core i7, 16GB of RAM, 512GB NVME drive) for everyday usage.
-Huge & accurate Precision trackpad that supports custom finger gestures.
-Even & bright display lighting.
-Good color profile that’s not overly saturated.
-The 1920×1200 touchscreen is responsive and accurate.
-Tactile and comfortably spaced keyboard.
-Keyboard backlighting offers good contrast against the dark keyboard.
-Stiff and non-wobbly hinge.
-Fingerprint sensor unlock is fast and convenient.
-Windows 11 is fast, responsive, and stable.
-Good speakers.
-Easy to remove the bottom panel to upgrade components.
_____
*Neutral:
-No dedicated PgUp and PgDown buttons.
-The fingerprint sensor isn’t as accurate & fast as on smartphones.
-Comes with many preloaded with apps I don’t want.
-At 3.46 lbs, it’s kind of heavy to be used like a tablet.
-The key travel is a bit shorter than I like and not very comfortable.
-I don’t like the new Start Menu on Windows 11.
_____
*Cons:
-Battery life isn’t that good.
The Dell Inspiron 7420 is my second 14” 2-in-1 Windows laptop, with the 2018 HP Spectre x360 being my first, and my third Inspiron since I began using laptops in the early 2000’s. For the most part, I’m happy and content with it. The laptop has a simple but functional design, the performance is good thanks to the 12th-gen Intel Core i7 and NVME hard drive, the keyboard is easy to type on and live with, the touchpad is huge and responsive, and the display is uniformly lit and can get bright enough for my front porch usage. The battery life, however, was a bit disappointing from its 4-cell, 54-Wh cell.
At $799.99 (as of 2022-06-21), I think it’s fairly and affordably priced. I feel like I’m getting a good deal and I can comfortably recommend it to friends and family looking for an everyday laptop that can handle office tasks, web browsing, and multimedia consumption.
=== Design & Build Quality ===
Being an Inspiron, the design is expectedly just okay and there’s nothing special or standout about it. It’s not cheap-looking but it isn’t premium-looking either. Although it doesn’t really stand out from a sea of others in this price range, it’s at least clean-looking and functionally built, with a decent selection and number of ports (1x USB-A, 2x USB-C, 1x HDMI, 1x SD-card, and 1x audio).
The build materials, build quality, and the fit-and-finish are great for this price point. My two previous Inspirons from over a decade ago were cheap-feeling and crinkling plastic builds but the 7420 comes with an aluminum lid which feels nice in-hand and doesn’t creak. The keyboard deck also feels solid and pressing down on it barely made it flex.
The low-profile keys on the keyboard are nicely spaced apart and they don’t wobble around. There is a nice-feeling bump when pressing down on them, and I was able to type at my usual 95 to 100 wpm speed. I wish the keys were better dampened, though, to prevent finger fatigue when doing lots of typing. Also, the uptake rate is kind of on the slower side for me.
I didn’t experience any issues with the large Precision touchpad. Thanks to its generous size, it’s easy to swipe, tap, and drag things around. The surface is smooth but not as nice-feeling as doing swipes on glass touchpads found on more expensive laptops. I found the touchpad to be very stiff when clicking on it but it’s a non-issue for me as I always use my wireless mouse.
I was pleasantly surprised by the 14” 1920×1200 WVA display from BOE. The backlighting is uniform and even with no unsightly bright spots in any of the corners. The colors pop out and look nice without being oversaturated. The touch-enabled screen is responsive and accurate.
There is minimal bezel on the sides, and thanks to the 16:10 aspect ratio, the 14” screen on the 7420 looks bigger than other 14” laptops I’ve used before.
Being a 2-in-1, one can flip the display backwards to use the laptop like a tablet which is useful at times. At 3.46 lbs, it’s quite heavy as a tablet, but I likehaving this option. There was no stylus included inside the box but it is stylus-enabled.
Another pleasant surprise was the aural quality from the Waves MaxxAudio Pro speakers. Music sounds loud, punchy, and even the bass was okay. The vocals sound warm and the soundstage is well represented. The speakers on the 7420 are definitely way better than the ones on my HP Spectre x360.
=== Performance ===
My 7420 is configured with a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 1255U with 10 cores, 16GB of DDR4, Iris Xe graphics, and a Samsung 512GB NVME drive (PM991a, PCI-E 3.0 x4), and it’s been satisfactorily performant. It can handle everything I normally do on my non-gaming laptops, such as office tasks, heavy multi-tab browsing, video editing and encoding, watching movies, and listening to music.
I didn’t run any games because I have my gaming laptops for that but I’m sure it can probably older games pretty well.
The boot times are quick and short, and file transfers are speedy.
Future upgradeability is a positive since th bottom panel can be easily removed to access the battery, memory slots, and the M.2 2280 slot. At this price point, I’m completely happy with the 7420.
=== Windows 11 Home and preloaded apps ===
The 7420 is my second Windows 11 PC and I still prefer Windows 10 over it. My main issue with Windows 11 is the Start Menu because it displays so little of my apps and there is a lot of wasted space.
As expected, the laptop came preloaded with lots of apps I don’t want, such as Spotify, WhatsApp, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Alexa, and McAfee antivirus. Fortunately, they can all be quickly uninstalled.
I’m still getting used to Windows 11 and I’m sure it’ll grow on me. At least it’s stable and snappy in performance.
=== Battery life ===
I didn’t expect much in terms of battery life due to its smallish 4-cell, 64Wh rating, but I was still disappointed by how quickly the battery depleted from 100% to zero with the screen brightness turned all the way up. At max brightness, the 7420 needed a recharge after only about 2 hours. With the display set at its second dimmest setting, it lasted about 3.5 hours.
=== Is it a good buy? ==
At $799.99, I would say yes. The Inspiron 7420 offers good performance, a pleasant display, a good keyboard, and a large touchpad surface that makes it a good daily driver for most tasks. With great sounding speakers, it also makes for a good multimedia device.
dunhill –
So, I am going to start this off with the fact that I am normally a Mac user, and I had no idea how much I would like this computer!
Let’s jump right in…..
First, I want to talk about the build quality. As this is the first thing you realize about this computer as soon as you pick it up. The quality is all aluminum and feel solid. when you pick up this computer you know it’s built well.
-The keyboard is actually really nice, and I enjoy using it. The keys have nice feedback and are accurate in responsiveness.
-The touchpad is also very good. I wouldn’t say great because I have used other trackpads and feel it could have been better but it’s still very good. This is all down to preference.
-The display is really nice; I wasn’t expecting such vibrant colors and resolution from a 14″ laptop, but I was definitely impressed with it. The brightness of the display is great for indoors but in sunlight or outside in high levels of ambient brightness it is hard to see, mainly due to the glossy nature of the screen. This is mainly due to the screen also being a touch screen.
-The 2 in 1 capability is also very useful. This is my first computer that has this feature, and I never knew how much I would use it or find ways to use it. I have flipped the screen around and use the main part of the laptop as a stand and it completely changes the experience of consuming content like games or movies. I also enjoy flipping the screen completely around and using the laptop as a tablet while I’m on the couch to be more comfortable and slimmer. Truly a cool experience and you can find many ways to use the laptop in this mode.
-The touchscreen is very responsive, and I have had no issues with interacting with the screen and my content either in tablet mode or laptop mode. One thing I must say is that I never knew how cool it is to be able to use the laptop normally and then just reach over to the screen to pinch and zoom and interact with the content on that level. That to me is life changing!
Something else I wanted to talk about what the fact that you can use this computer to play XBOX cloud-based games as well as stream your games from your console at home. Now I know that this isn’t a new feature or a feature that is specific to this laptop, BUT I felt the need to talk about it here because the computer does such an amazing job and all aspects of gaming. The laptop just shines in this department, and I have been having a lot of fun playing my games on this computer. it’s really incredible when you think this small machine is capable of console quality graphics and immersion. If you looking to possibly use this computer for gaming as well as work and personal use, I feel this computer checks every box as for mentioned.
Battery Life has been another thing that has been touted on from other users and I will back them up here. I have gotten plenty of battery life from this computer. I would say ALL day battery life is accurate and I have been playing games, streaming videos, writing emails, listening to music and more and I have never had the computer die on my in a single day’s use. The laptop also doesn’t get to hot when putting it under heavy loads. I would say it gets warm but that’s about it and I attribute that to its efficiency which in turn is responsible for the great battery life you get from this computer.
The computer also has a really nice 1080p webcam that has an integrated sliding cover for those who are concerned with privacy. I used this camera to call some friends and they said the quality was really good. Especially coming from a laptop computer. I think today in 2022 its very important to have a computer that has a good camera, especially with a lot of people working from home or taking meetings on the go, even just to see friends and family. Check, check, check!
Bluetooth, Backlit Keyboard, Great Speakers, Display, Camera, Battery-Life. So many good things here. I think DELL has made a fantastic product for the money and I think anyone else who gets a chance to use this computer will feel the same way.
This computer has really been great in every way I have used it over the last couple of days. There are so many more things I can talk about, but it would talk forever.
I would like to leave this review with saying to give this one a GO!