When we tried streaming a 1080p YouTube trailer for "The Avengers" and a 1080p MP4 trailer for "Skyfall", colors that appeared vibrant on other devices we've tested like Iron Man's armor or Daniel Craig's blue eyes, seemed muted.
The laptop registered just 154 lux on our light meter, well below the 189 lux thin-and-light notebook average and one of the dimmest we've tested, "surpassed" only by the 139 lux HP Folio 13. We consider temperatures above 95 degrees uncomfortable and those above 100 degrees disturbing.Ĭlick to EnlargeWith narrow viewing angles and dull colors, the 14-inch, 1366 x 768 glossy display on the Inspiron Z is nothing to write home about. The underside reached a much warmer 98 degrees.
After streaming a video at full screen for 15 minutes, we measured the touchpad at a 85 degrees and the keyboard at a mere 83 degrees Fahrenheit. The Inspiron 14z stayed pleasantly cool throughout our testing. We also used three-finger and four-finger flicks to switch applications, though the pad sometimes confused those gestures with zooming or scrolling. After we enabled gestures in the touchpad control software, we pinched to zoom and performed two-finger rotates on photos without a hitch. The pad on the Inspiron 14z supports a variety of multitouch gestures. Because the pad has two discrete buttons, it doesn't suffer from any of the horrifying jerkiness we've seen on the clickpads that ruin the navigation experience on other Ultrabooks, like the HP Folio 13. Click to EnlargeThe 3.9 x 2-inch touchpad provided highly -accurate navigation around the desktop with just the right amount of friction.