


Unfortunately, the display lid still can only be tilted back about 140°. The hinges are now located at the far back of the base unit. The unusual placement of the hinges, a distinctive feature of older Inspiron and Vostro models, has been abandoned in favor of a new design. The new models offer the same feature, but the lids are not compatible with the old ones. At least partially responsible for the success: Switch, the interchangeable display lids offered in a variety of different colors and off-beat designs. The old Inspiron-series was the top-selling notebook-line for the Texan manufacturer. A non-glare FullHD-display is an option, as is a dedicated graphics card ( Radeon HD 7730M with 2 GB dedicated memory). This improves the feel of the unit and provides more rigidity. The Inspiron Series R features plastic construction, the Inspiron Serie R Special Edition on the other hand sports an anodized aluminum display lid and palm rest. We would recommend looking at the chassis and the hardware rather than just the name. It pays to be careful when shopping around: the name hasn't changed, so old and new models coexist (even on Dell's homepage). While the last refresh didn't bring about any changes to the chassis, this time around the systems are a completely new design. Dell introduced the new generation of Inspiron notebooks on June 5 th - at the same time as the updated Intel Core processors.
