Lenovo VS Dell

Bach05 · October 16, 2019

SOS indecision between two fairly similar laptops for university use (COMPUTER ENGINEERING) then word processing, programming, Matlab, machine learning, etc. No gaming. I also have a landline, this portartile would be useful for mobile work especially.

Lenovo S340 PROs: dedicated graphics card + SATA empty SLOT - review
Dell Inspiron 14 5490 PROs: more hardware recent, expandable RAM up to 20 GB (against the 8 of the Lenovo) - I can't find reviews

Can you give me some advice and / or motivation? Yes, I know ... I get lost in a drop of water. But thanks to those who want to make a contribution anyway.

TheGlenlivet · October 16, 2019

4 minutes ago, Bach05 said:

SOS indecision between two fairly similar laptops for university use (COMPUTER ENGINEERING) then word processing, programming, Matlab, machine learning, etc. No gaming. I also have a landline, this portartile would be useful for mobile work especially.

Lenovo S340 PROs: dedicated graphics card + SATA empty SLOT - review

Dell Inspiron 14 5490 PROs: more hardware recent, expandable RAM up to 20 GB (against the 12 of the Lenovo) - I can't find reviews

Can you give me some advice and / or motivation? Yes, I know ... I get lost in a drop of water. But thanks to those who want to make a contribution anyway.

I've always liked Dell over HP, but this is a personal thing at this point. Both of these laptops will do the job. Which do you like better or which is cheaper, get that one.

SkyHound0202 · October 16, 2019

Just got a 5490, other than occasional coil whine during heavy work load, everything else is fine.

It's surprisingly small and feels like a 13' laptop due to the small bezel. It has all of the ports needed these days and a type-C port that can also charge the device. Integrated Windows Hello fingerprint sensor on power button is a bonus. Keyboard feels nice with no flex at all. Precision trackpad is not glass, but reasonably smooth. The matte 14' IPS screen is bright and shown as HDR compatible for some reason (Didn't test that, maybe some Dell software trickery). The quad-core Comet Lake i5 is overkill for daily tasks and often maintains 2.7 Ghz boost under heavy computation. Lasts about 8 hours taking notes and programming in Python. Fans is super quiet and only kicks in when it's slightly warm to touch.

The included BC501 NVMe SSD (a weird 2230 PCIe x2 card) and 9462AC WiFi card are garbage, but upgradable (especially need a lot of work to swap SSD because of the strange 2230 mount). The memory is 4 GB soldered plus a 4 GB Kingston stick, compatibility seems tricky 'cause system doesn't report SPD and memory timing for some reason. My HyperX 2666 C15 16 GB SO-DIMM doesn't work for some reason. I suspect that BIOS applied a memory wrong profile, or my memory was too aggressive (The original seems to be a C19 module). Also it came with a ton of Dell ~~bloatware~~ "features" that is not quite helpful.

Overall, it's a great budget machine for daily school/work routine.

I think there's a Ice Lake variant of this series of laptop (5493), I suggest you to get that one (if possible) for better iGPU performance, full size SD and Ethernet, albeit slightly larger.

Bach05 · October 17, 2019

16 hours ago, SkyHound0202 said:

Just got a 5490, other than occasional coil whine during heavy work load, everything else is fine.

It's surprisingly small and feels like a 13' laptop due to the small bezel. It has all of the ports needed these days and a type-C port that can also charge the device. Integrated Windows Hello fingerprint sensor on power button is a bonus. Keyboard feels nice with no flex at all. Precision trackpad is not glass, but reasonably smooth. The matte 14' IPS screen is bright and shown as HDR compatible for some reason (Didn't test that, maybe some Dell software trickery). The quad-core Comet Lake i5 is overkill for daily tasks and often maintains 2.7 Ghz boost under heavy computation. Lasts about 8 hours taking notes and programming in Python. Fans is super quiet and only kicks in when it's slightly warm to touch.

The included BC501 NVMe SSD (a weird 2230 PCIe x2 card) and 9462AC WiFi card are garbage, but upgradable (especially need a lot of work to swap SSD because of the strange 2230 mount). The memory is 4 GB soldered plus a 4 GB Kingston stick, compatibility seems tricky 'cause system doesn't report SPD and memory timing for some reason. My HyperX 2666 C15 16 GB SO-DIMM doesn't work for some reason. I suspect that BIOS applied a memory wrong profile, or my memory was too aggressive (The original seems to be a C19 module). Also it came with a ton of Dell ~~bloatware~~ "features" that is not quite helpful.

Overall, it's a great budget machine for daily school/work routine.

I think there's a Ice Lake variant of this series of laptop (5493), I suggest you to get that one (if possible) for better iGPU performance, full size SD and Ethernet, albeit slightly larger.

Thank you for your detailed report! I think that IceLake 14" version isn't arrived in Europe, only the 15.6" one is now available. And I don't know why, but 15.6" version use 42Wh battery instead the 52Wh that we found in 14" version.