Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Series (3551)

Editor's Notes

It seems that Dell Inspiron 15 3551 laptop was built with a purpose to compete with Chromebooks hence the low retail price from £229 and a low power Intel Celeron or Intel Pentium processor. Note that while these are advertised as Quad Core processors running up to 2.58GHz and 2.66GHz respectively they are just rebadged Intel Atom processors so don't expect high performance. They will do for basic tasks such as web browsing and email and apps from Windows Store. If you want to run Photoshop on Dell Inspiron 15 3551, you can but note that more sophisticated and advanced filters will take longer to perform.

On the positive side thanks to low power processors, the battery life is way longer than it should be at this price point and also Dell was able to make this laptop reasonably thin-and-light. The general selection of ports available is satisfactory with 3 USB ports, HDMI and SD card slot. Dell Inspiron 3551 doesn't come with a DVD drive but personally I don't think that's an issue as these days you will very rarely have the need for one. For those few special occasions, you can always get an external USB DVD drive.

As an added bonus, Dell opted for a nice textured feel to the plastic chassis which not only reduces the fingerprint marks but also makes the laptop look and feel more premium that it actually is. I feel that positives far outweigh the negatives. Therefore, if you really don't have an extra £70 to spend on an Intel Core-powered laptop, then you should look no further. Dell Inspiron 15 3551 is as good as they get for under £230 and easily earning Editor's 'Budget Laptop' Choice Award.