Are cheap laptops the future? Dell just revealed the future of the Inspiron 11 3000 line, and it’s a pivot from a midrange 2-in-1 to bargain-basement affordability.
Dell announced that the line of laptops, now powered by an Intel Celeron Processor, will start at $199 — a hefty discount over last year’s model. But that discount comes at a price.
We recently reviewed the 2015 version of the Inspiron 11 3000, which was a 2-in-1 with an Intel Core i3 processor. That’s no longer the case.
“There is no one-size-fits-all option” for computing, the blog post announcing the new laptop says. So the 2016 Inspiron 11 3000 is in many ways a simplified and stripped-down version of its predecessor. The touchscreen is gone, and the processor is less powerful than before. The 11.6-inch display offers a relatively minuscule resolution of 1,366 x 768, and there’s just 2GB of memory to start with.
It’s clear what Dell is going for here: a low price. And it’s not as though this Inspiron is a bad value given its price point. The keyboard appears to be spacious, especially given the small size of the laptop. The new shiny, plastic case — a marked contrast from the matted back of last year — comes in three patriotic colors: red, white, and blue. There’s an HDMI port, and at least one USB 3.0 port as well.
All told, it’s a pretty good value. If you just want something for some occasional Web browsing, or to do a little bit of writing on, it will probably work for you.
Think of it as a Windows 10 Chromebook. Dell claims the new laptop is for “people who carry their systems with them like an extension of their phone,” and that seems apt.
It’s just a little odd that it shares the name of a significantly more powerful, and more flexible, predecessor. But naming conventions have always been odd in the PC space, so we suppose this is nothing new.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.