Review: Finding Nemo Junior a delightful splash of underwater adventure perfect for kids and families looking for fun holiday entertainment. Read...

The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro is easily one of the best laptops out there right now, we’re happy to see that it’s now on sale at Amazon for $1,150. That’s a big drop from its MSRP of $1,450. In fact, it’s the cheapest price we’ve seen for it yet. This laptop is a powerhouse packed into a slim and ultralight design, making it perfect for both productivity and entertainment. We reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14 a while back and gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars along with our Editors’ Choice award, mainly for its outstanding OLED screen, super-light build, and HD camera. “The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14 is a lightweight, elegant all-rounder for business professionals who need reliable performance and ample features on the go,” our expert noted. This $1,150 configuration features an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor and 16GB of RAM, which means you’ll be able to breeze through any task, from complex projects to everyday doomscrolling on social media. It also has a 14-inch 3K (2880×1800) AMOLED touchscreen, too. The Galaxy Book4 Pro remains amazingly slim and lightweight. At just 2.71 pounds and 0.46 inches thick, it’s easy to carry around whether you’re commuting to the office or working from a café. Want a larger model? The 16-inch Galaxy Book4 Pro (Intel Core 7 Ultra, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) is also discounted right now, available for $1,400, down from its MSRP of $1,750. Since these kinds of deals expire fast, hurry and snag this Samsung Galaxy Book 4Pro while you can. It’ll last you for many years, so you won’t have to upgrade again for a long time. Save $300 on this Samsung Galaxy Book4 ProGet it now on Amazon Laptops Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating ProsExcellent SDR image qualityGreat motion clarityLots of connectivity including USB-CBeautiful designConsErgonomic stand is deep, wide, and requires assemblyDefault color temperature, gamut slightly off targetHDR performance could be betterOur VerdictThe Philips Evnia 8000 is a gigantic OLED display that delivers remarkable image quality, lots of ports, and robust image quality options. Best Prices Today: Philips Evnia 8000 Retailer Price B & H Photo $1349.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Want the last word in immersion and productivity in a single monitor? You’re going to want a 49-inch super-ultrawide QD-OLED monitor — like the Philips Evnia 8000. This gigantic OLED display delivers remarkable image quality, lots of ports, and robust image quality options. Philips Evnia 8000 specs and features The Philips Evnia 8000 has a 49-inch QD-OLED panel with a 32:9 aspect ratio and a display resolution of 5120×1440. This is the same Samsung QD-OLED found in competitive 49-inch OLED monitors, and like the Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED (spoiler alert), its performance is similar to the competition. Display size: 49-inch super-ultrawide 32:9 aspect ratio Native resolution: 5120×1440 Panel type: 240Hz glossy QD-OLED Refresh rate: Up to 240Hz Adaptive sync: Adaptive Sync, AMD FreeSync Premium, Nvidia G-Sync Ports: 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x USB-C with DisplayPort Alternate Mode and 90 watts USB Power Delivery, 1x 3.5 audio out, 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen1 downstream, 4x USB-A downstream VESA mount: 100x100mm Speakers: Yes, 4x 7.5-watt speaker system Price: $1,349.99 retail However, Philips adds a few extras to separate the Evnia 8000 from the pack. The monitor has a USB-C port with 90 watts of Power Delivery and multiple downstream USB-A ports for extended connectivity. It also packs an impressive four-speaker sound system with a total of 30 watts of audio oomph. Further reading: See our roundup of the best ultrawide monitors to learn about competing products. Philips Evnia 8000 design The Philips Evnia 8000 is impressive even before you turn on the monitor. It boasts an alluring white-and-silver design, and it’s constructed from high-quality plastics that look and feel luxurious. The rear of the display panel has an eye-catching geometric square pattern that’s distinctive yet not over-the-top or garish. The stand base, meanwhile, has a speckled look reminiscent of laptops and monitors made of recycled plastic (though Philips makes no such claim for this monitor). It’s easily among the most impressive designs I’ve witnessed for a 49-inch super-ultrawide, defeated only by Samsung’s Odyssey OLED G9. And while the Evnia is sold as a gaming display, it can look equally at home in a professional workstation or office setup. Even from the back, the Philips Evnia 8000 looks sleek and sophisticated. Even from the back, the Philips Evnia 8000 looks sleek and sophisticated.Matthew Smith / Foundry Even from the back, the Philips Evnia 8000 looks sleek and sophisticated.Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry While the monitor looks great, it’s a mixed bag when it comes to ergonomics. On the plus side, the monitor has height, tilt, and swivel adjustments, making it easy to find a comfortable viewing height. However, Philips uses a wide stand base that takes up more desk space than necessary. The neck of the stand is deep, as well, so the display sits close to the viewer. It’s not an issue if you have a desk that’s 30-inches deep (or more), but it will feel cramped if your desk is narrow. Some assembly is required, as the monitor doesn’t use a standard 100x100mm VESA mount and clip-on stand mechanism. The panel is attached to the stand with two screws inserted beneath the neck. Their location makes it difficult to assemble the stand, as they’re not easily visible during assembly. However, the monitor is still compatible with VESA monitor stands and arms thanks to a bracket included with the monitor. Gamers who want flair will like the included Ambiglow lighting system. It’s bright and offers a variety of settings to customize the color and pattern to your liking. Ambiglow is among the brightest RGB LED backlights I’ve seen in a monitor, providing great contrast and a vibrant pop to your desk when set to its highest brightness. Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry Philips Evnia 8000 connectivity and menus The Philip Evnia 8000 continues to straddle the line between professional and gaming displays with its connectivity. It has two HDMI 2.1 ports and one DisplayPort 1.4, but also a USB-C power with DisplayPort Alternate Mode and 90 watts of Power Delivery. That makes the Evnia 8000 a great choice if you have a mid-range laptop that supports charging over USB-C, or if you game on a desktop PC but also want to connect a work laptop with a USB-C port. There’s downstream connectivity, too, in the form of four USB-A ports and one USB-C port. That’s a lot of options, and it makes the Evnia 8000 a useful USB hub. Gamers can connect a wired keyboard and mouse and still have several ports left over for other peripherals like USB drives or a webcam. Philips ships the Evnia 8000 with a TV-style remote that controls the monitor’s on-screen menus. A joystick on the monitor can also be used to access them, in case the remote is lost. The remote is easy to use and quickly navigates through menus. The Philips Evnia 8000’s extensive menu system can be accessed and navigated using an included remote or a joystick on the monitor itself. The Philips Evnia 8000’s extensive menu system can be accessed and navigated using an included remote or a joystick on the monitor itself.Matthew Smith / Foundry The Philips Evnia 8000’s extensive menu system can be accessed and navigated using an included remote or a joystick on the monitor itself.Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry The monitor’s image quality options are extensive. It supports color calibration and has color temperature and gamma presets that target specific numerical values. The monitor also has an sRGB mode to restrict the wide color gamut for more color-accurate viewing of sRGB content. The monitor looks good out of the box, but these extras are helpful for dialing in the image to your preferences. Gamers will find plenty of features, too. These include a black equalizer, which elevates the brightness of dark areas of the display to make foes more visible. Philips also provides a software utility called SmartControl that can change many monitor features straight from the Windows desktop. It works, but it’s far less attractive and sophisticated than competitive software from Dell and Asus. I also found it odd that some features, such as picture-by-picture modes and alternative aspect ratio modes, were only available through this software. Audio quality was a refreshing surprise. The Evnia 8000 has four 7.5-watt speakers and a total of 30 watts of audio output. That’s a lot, and it helps the monitor deliver strong, loud audio that absolutely blares at maximum volume. The speakers don’t provide the best stereo sound stage and are somewhat lacking in bass, but they’re clear, crisp, pleasant, and much better than what’s available from competing monitors. The Evnia 8000’s four-speaker system helps the monitor deliver strong, loud audio that absolutely blares at maximum volume. Philips Evnia 8000 SDR image quality The Philips Evnia 8000 has a super-ultrawide QD-OLED panel with an aspect ratio of 32:9 and a resolution of 5120×1440. It’s a beautiful display out of the box, though its overall SDR performance isn’t much different from other QD-OLED monitors. Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry First up? Brightness. The Evnia 8000 reached a maximum SDR brightness of 250 nits, which is typical for an OLED monitor but low when compared to IPS and VA-panel displays, such as the LG Ultragear 45GR75DC. The Evnia 8000 also has a glossy display coat and curved panel, both of which can amplify glare. Despite that, I found the monitor comfortable to use in my home office, which doesn’t receive direct sunlight and has shades for light control. The Evnia 8000’s brightness isn’t an issue if you can dim the room and reduce sunlight. If you’re planning to use it in a room with bright sunlit windows, however, it may not look as brilliant as you’d like. Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry Contrast is a strength, as expected. Most modern OLED monitors can achieve an effectively infinite contrast ratio, and the Evnia 8000 is no exception. It delivers an excellent sense of depth, dimensionality, and immersion. Colorful high-resolution video looks vivid, yet darker movies and games are rendered with good shadow detail and never look gray or washed-out. Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry The Evnia 8000’s color gamut is impressive, as well. It achieved 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut, 98 percent of DCI-P3, and 97 percent of AdobeRGB. These figures are a hair better than other QD-OLED monitors I’ve tested, and much better than most IPS and VA-panel monitors, like the LG Ultragear 45GR75DC. A wide color gamut is great news for general use, as it provides a saturated and vivid look. Content creators will also like it, as it allows for better content creation when creating videos, photos, or digital art. You can feel confident the display will show the full range of colors others will see when they view the image. Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry Matthew Smith / Foundry Color accuracy is good, as well. Though not class-leading, the Evnia 8000 is good enough for nearly any use straight out of the box. And, as mentioned, it offers extensive image quality controls to help users dial in the image to specific needs or preferences. While the Evnia 8000 scored well overall, it stumbled in color temperature and gamma performance. We prefer a default color temperature of 6500K and gamma curve of 2.2, but the Evnia 8000 scored 6100K and 2.4, respectively. That means the monitor’s image quality was warmer and darker than preferable at default settings. In general, all of the monitor’s color temperature and gamma settings undershot their targets. I was able to notice the issue in real-world use. The monitor looked darker than I expected, which made shadow detail less visible in dark games like Diablo IV and Halls of Torment. I was able to correct it by changing the monitor’s gamma setting in its option menu, but I expect a better out-of-box result from a monitor in this price range. The Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED doesn’t have this problem, either: It scored perfect on-target results of 6500K for color temperature and 2.2 for the gamma curve. Sharpness is generally good, though not exceptional. The Evnia 8000’s resolution of 5120×1440 across a 49-inch panel translates to roughly 109 pixels per inch, which is identical to a 27-inch 1440p monitor (indeed, it’s effectively two fused side-by-side). However, QD-OLED panels still have some issues with sub-pixel rendering that can degrade sharpness at high-contrast edges and small fonts. Put more simply, the monitor doesn’t look as sharp as most 1440p monitors that don’t have an OLED panel. But the issue won’t be a deal-breaker unless sharpness is your top priority. On the whole, the Philips Evnia 8000 delivers excellent SDR image quality that’s great for both entertainment and content creation. The monitor’s immersive contrast and vivid color makes both bright and dark content pop. That’s paired with a wide color gamut and accurate color performance that’s ideal for many creative tasks, from video editing to graphics design. The monitor’s out-of-box color temperature and gamma performance could be better, but that can be corrected with the included image quality options. Philips Evnia 8000 HDR image quality QD-OLED monitors can support HDR content and even look good in certain situations, but they’re often lacking in brightness. That’s true for the Philips Evnia 8000. The monitor’s maximum full-screen HDR brightness was identical to its maximum SDR brightness of 250 nits. Reducing the area of the display that’s lit to a 10 percent window (meaning just 10 percent of the total display surface was white, while the rest was black) increased brightness to 304 nits, which is still rather low. Philips says the monitor is VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certified, which means it can achieve 400 nits under specific circumstances. But I couldn’t coax the monitor into producing that in my testing. I don’t doubt the claim — VESA is a reputable standards organization—but it’s apparently not easy to achieve. Even if it were, 400 nits of brightness is not that impressive. Recent monitors with an LG WOLED panel, like the Viewsonic XG272-2K-OLED, can exceed 1,000 nits in a 10 percent window. With that said, the Evnia’s performance isn’t much different from the Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED or Alienware AW3423DWF. Those alternatives exceeded 400 nits in a 10 percent window, and remained under 300 nits in a full-screen test. All three monitors look great when displaying HDR content in which only small portions of the screen are brightly lit, such as a starry night sky. But they don’t seem bright when displaying a larger, more expansive scene, like a sunset or a snowy mountain. I wouldn’t recommend the Evnia 8000 if excellent HDR is your priority. But if you see HDR as a bonus or novelty — a stance that’s justifiable given the continued lack of quality HDR content for PC platforms — the Evnia 8000’s performance is fine. Philips Evnia 8000 motion performance The Philips Evnia 8000, like most QD-OLED monitors, has excellent motion clarity. OLED panels have extremely low pixel response times, which means each pixel changes quickly when necessary. That in turn reduces motion blur behind fast-moving objects. Motion clarity is further improved by the monitor’s 240Hz refresh rate. A refresh rate of 240Hz is common among QD-OLED monitors, but it’s still excellent, and delivers crisp, clear motion. Fast-moving objects are easy to pick out from a busy scene. Scrolling test images from League of Legends and DOTA2 showed that small details, like character names and the ticks in hitpoint bars, were generally legible when scrolling rapidly across the map, though in some situations still difficult to read. This level of motion clarity is similar to other 240Hz QD-OLED monitors. Philips lists official compatibility with Adaptive Sync, Nvidia G-Sync, and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, so the monitor’s adaptive sync should work well with any modern video card. That eliminates screen tearing and keeps frame pacing in sync with the video card for smooth gameplay. Should you buy the Philips Evnia 8000? The Philips Evnia 8000 is an excellent QD-OLED monitor. It has great image quality, lots of connectivity, a handy remote, and looks attractive on a desk. Its out-of-box color temperature and gamma were a tad off, which is an area for improvement. The monitor isn’t the best pick for HDR, either, though that’s also true of similar QD-OLED ultrawides and super-ultrawides. The Evnia 8000 will appeal most to people who need a monitor for professional productivity, yet also want a top-notch experience when playing PC games. Monitors Read...

Once upon a time, OLED displays were prohibitively expensive. Nowadays, you can pick up a laptop with an OLED display for under $1,000. But are they really worth it? The answer might be more complicated than you think. An OLED laptop may be worth it for some, but not others. OLED displays are great for entertainment and gaming because they produce rich colors and deep blacks. That said, they’re suseptible to the dreaded burn-in, a visible impression on the screen that you can’t get rid of. They’re also a serious power suck as far as battery life is concerned. Read on to learn more. Further reading: The best laptops we’ve tested What the heck is OLED anyway? Let’s take it back to square one, shall we? OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode. The tech produces a delightfully vibrant picture because there’s no need for a separate backlight like there is with LCD (liquid crystal display) displays. OLED screens are capable of adjusting the brightness on a pixel-by-pixel basis, leading to inky blacks and enriching colors. This makes OLED a good choice for gamers, graphic designers, movie buffs, and so on. check out our top 2-in-1 laptop Asus Zenbook 14 Flip OLED Read our review Best Prices Today: $1,199 at Amazon The pros Below you’ll find all the benefits of an OLED laptop display. Immersive entertainment If your eyeballs aren’t glued to the screen, are you really that immersed? Kidding… mostly. Laptops with OLED displays make great gaming machines because they show almost the full coverage of the DCI-P3 color scale. This results in a very color-accurate display. Think of it like an artist with an easel of supercharged paints. The color palette is bigger and therefore more interesting to look at. Now, apply that to the most epic fantasy game you can think of (maybe it’s riding Roach through the enriching world in The Witcher) and voilà! You’ve got quite the immersive experience. It’s also a great choice if you’re a big movie or TV buff, especially if you’re watching a colorful anime like Sailor Moon, which has a lot of pinkish hues in its scenes. Lighter laptop The OLED display panel is incredibly thin, which decreases the weight of the overall laptop. This is because they don’t need a backlight. LCD panels, for example, need a separate backlight that lights up the liquid crystals inside. According to Lenovo, LCD is “a layer of liquid crystals sandwiched between two transparent electrodes.” This additional layer adds more weight to the laptop. So, if you’re the type of person who frequently moves from room to room (hi!), then you’ll want to look into a laptop with an OLED display. In addition to making the laptop more portable, the viewing angles on OLED are also wider than the LCD variety. IDG / Matthew Smith IDG / Matthew Smith IDG / Matthew Smith Touch-enabled screens Do you like to randomly doodle a picture of Sailor Moon as a way to impress your friends? I sure do. If so, good news! There are a number of OLED laptops that offer touchscreen functionality, allowing you to doodle away with your fingers or a stylus. Jokes aside, if you’re a graphic designer or a budding artist, the deep blacks and rich colors will serve as a benefit to you in your work. Note takers should take note (ha) here, too: You should always make sure you can configure your chosen OLED laptop with a touchscreen. The cons Ah, we’ve made it to the burn, I mean con list. Below you’ll find a list of common deterrents to OLED such as burn-in, a loftier price point, and so on. Burn-in Burn-in is when part of a static image (like a taskbar or a gaming HUD) gets “burned” into the screen in a permanent way. It will hang around as a ghostly background or outline even if the screen is showing other content. This happens when the same image gets displayed over and over again with little variation at a high brightness. Here’s a deeper explanation of burn-in: OLED pixels, which consist of organic materials that shoot out light when an electric current passes through them, will degrade when exposed to high electric currents for a prolonged period of time. A higher brightness setting, which uses more power and generates more heat, will wear out some of the pixels, which then leads to a ghostly image. Image retention is often a precursor to burn-in, so if you’re seeing an outline of a taskbar sticking around for a few minutes and then fading away, you should start lowering the brightness level or use a screen saver to switch up what’s being displayed on the screen. Although burn-in is rare, it doesn’t hurt to take some precautions! Price When it comes to buying an OLED laptop, the prices can really vary. They used to be prohibitively expensive back in the day, but that’s not really the case anymore. For example, the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, which we reviewed back in April, earned 4.5 stars plus an Editor’s Choice badge from us and it only costs $799 at Walmart at the time of this writing. Not only do “movies and games look realistic and vibrant,” but it also lasted 16 hours on a single charge, a typically difficult feat for a laptop with an OLED display. They’re not the cheapest option out there, but they’re definitely not the most expensive, either. Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Mark Hachman / IDG Battery The battery may take a baseball to the face, so to speak. Again, that’s not always so, as the aforementioned Asus Zenbook 14 OLED can last up to 16 hours with light use. But a high-end machine like the more expensive HP Spectre x360 14 ($1,819.99) that we reviewed in March, which has a higher resolution OLED display (2880×1800), only lasted about 11 hours. That’s still a good result; don’t get it twisted! But you can see the difference between the two OLED displays and the amount of power they consume. You definitely should do a little research into the battery life of your chosen machine, especially if you travel often and are regularly away from an outlet. Laptops Read...

The club, famed for bringing drag entertainment to France in the 1950s, inspired the movie The Birdcage. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating ProsLargely gorgeous displaySnappy keyboardEffective touchscreen stylusSlim and sturdy buildConsCPU faces some throttlingErgonomics could be betterOur VerdictThe Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a lot of good qualities and its display brings in some great qualities. It’s not without its faults, could be more comfortable to use, and could really have shined with just a little more cooling power. But its respectable performance, flexibility, and decent build are met by a reasonable price that still makes it an appealing laptop all the same. Dell continues to round out its 2024 laptop lineup with the Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640), a larger, flippable laptop with touchscreen and stylus support for tablet-like capabilities alongside a laptop form factor. It packs in recent hardware with modest, though not workstation-class performance, and avoids being overblown when it comes to weight and price. Dell also provides customization options that can make for some significant variety in the machine, with both the system-on-chip and display options providing huge leaps in quality. Still, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 price only ranges from $999 to $1,599 while offering plenty. For those that don’t need a 2-in-1 laptop, it won’t make much sense as it comes with a few too many trade offs next to standard laptop competitors, but for those who want the flexibility, it may be a good choice. Looking for more options? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops available today. Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Specs and features The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 comes in a couple of configurations. It starts at just $999 for a tame but respectable config built around an Intel Core Ultra 5 125U with 16GB of memory, 512GB of storage, and a 1920×1200 WVA display. Our test configuration bumps up a few specs, doubling the storage, leaping up to the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (and getting its corresponding leap to Intel Arc Graphics), and swapping over to a 2560×1600 Mini-LED display that offers a 90Hz refresh rate and high HDR brightness. Somewhat hidden among the bumps is a boost to battery size, as the laptop comes with a 64Wh battery in its base spec or a 90Wh option for all other configurations. The test configuration raises the price to $1,349, which is a reasonable uptick for all that it changes. Maxed out, with double the RAM and all other upgrades, it hits $1,499. That goes to $1,599 if you opt for Windows 11 Pro instead of Windows 11 Home.  CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 155H Memory: 16GB LPDDR5X Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc Graphics Display: 16-inch 2.5K Mini-LED Touch Display Storage: 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD Webcam: 1080p Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, 1x HDMI 1.4, 1x SDcard reader, 1x 3.5mm combo audio Networking: WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 Biometrics: Windows Hello fingerprint Battery capacity: 90 watt-hours Dimensions: 14.05 x 9.87 x 0.75 inches Weight: 4.68  pounds MSRP: $1,349 as-tested ($999 base) Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Design and build quality IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is every bit the polished little pebble that the Inspiron 14 Plus I tested earlier this year was, except that the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a big thing. To fit its 16-inch display, it has to stretch out its chassis considerably. This results in a laptop that, while sleek with its largely aluminum exterior (except the bottom, which is plastic), takes up a good deal of space and packs on the weight at 4.68 pounds. This is pretty much par for the course for 16-inch laptops, though, save those that have put concerted efforts into being ultralight, like the Acer Swift Edge. At least Dell managed to keep it fairly thin at just three-quarters of an inch thick.  Dell has kept the design fairly simplistic. The chassis largely consists of large, flat expanses edged by smooth curves. This avoids any painful pressure points, but doesn’t make a visually memorable laptop. It’s not alone in this fate, as Lenovo and Samsung have similar laptops.  If you’re in need of a large system with touchscreen and stylus support, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 checks a lot of boxes. There are some quirks to the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1, hinting that the laptop took the design of a different model and retooled it. Two small panels on the underside of the laptop cover up what would have been bottom-firing speakers on another laptop. This gives the laptop a weird look from the sides and bottom. Since the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has top-firing speakers tucked into two large grilles on either side of the keyboard, there’s little reason for the chassis to have had those bottom speaker cutouts unless this chassis was also used elsewhere. Being a 2-in-1 model, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a 360-degree hinge that lets the display flip over backward. You can use it as a tablet — albeit a massive, unwieldy one — or scribble on it with a stylus. The hinge is a little wiggly, but feels sturdy enough. The rest of the chassis hits a similar note, with a modicum of frame flex but decent resistance to light pressure and bending. With this hinge design, the bottom edge of the lid ends up level with the bottom of the laptop, so the rear exhaust vents directly into the lid. There’s a decent gap for air to escape, but it still still seems like sub-optimal ventilation. Air intake is also minimal with only a small section of the bottom grille actually letting air in. The rest of that grille is blocked just past the grates, likely in a bid to block out debris. It’s a similar story for the vents, with only half of them being real vents with an open channel to the radiator fins. Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Keyboard, trackpad IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp Like the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, which had an absolutely wonderful keyboard, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has an excellent keyboard. It might be a little simple with basic backlighting, square keycaps, and a flat surface, but it does the job with decent stabilization to the keycaps and a modest actuation force a travel required to depress each key. It lends to a confident and quick typing. In my first test in Monketyype, even with one big stall after a typo, I managed 116 words-per-minute with 98 percent accuracy. That was promptly followed by 122 words-per-minute at 99 percent accuracy while feeling a fairly comfortable pace. Unlike its smaller sibling, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a huge expanse between the keyboard and the front edge of the laptop, and this can make it a little more uncomfortable to reach up to the keyboard, but it wasn’t enough of a problem to ruin the typing experience on this system.  For a 16-inch laptop, it’s a shame Dell didn’t do more with the keyboard. It offers just the basics, with no extra navigation keys, spaced out arrow keys, or a number pad. More keys would have meant sacrificing the top-firing speakers unless Dell shifted them to live above the keyboard and squeezed down on the trackpad, and that might have been a smart move for ergonomics and extra utility. Alas, this laptop doesn’t appear designed for folks who will do a lot of data entry, and is instead more for the content creators and consumers, especially with its stylus support. In my testing, the optional stylus was responsive and accurate.  Dell also fits a massive trackpad below the keyboard. Even with my large hands, it provides plenty of space for multi-finger gestures. The surface is glassy and smooth. It may not be as wide as the Dell XPS 16’s absurdly large trackpad, but it has clearly defined boundaries that make it easy to use. It depresses slightly with clicks and pops back quickly, making it easy to use for hard mouse clicks as well as tap-to-click.  Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Display, audio IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 display has some admirable qualities, but don’t let the Mini-LED specification fool you into thinking it’s flawless. The display certainly benefits from the brightness capabilities of its backlight technology, reaching as high as 622.2 nits for a 10 percent window of white in HDR. It can also briefly flash a 100 percent white window at 638 nits, but that brightness level quickly decays down to closer to 400 nits. In SDR it’ll also hold a max of 409.8 nits. It’s a bright display. And, with the Mini-LED backlighting providing strong local dimming, it can achieve a 7230:1 contrast ratio in SDR and HDR only boosts that further. Those qualities are augmented by exceptional color, hitting 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space and offering strong color accuracy with a max dE of 1.18. The screen is also sharp at 2560×1600 and gets a decent bump to smoothness from its 90Hz refresh rate. It’s an altogether pleasant screen for work and entertainment. The glossy surface can suffer from glare a bit, but the screen has the brightness necessary to brute-force its way to visibility.  Unfortunately, one of the bigger drawbacks of the display also stems from the Mini LED backlighting. The local dimming of the Mini LEDs isn’t incredibly precise and this can produce unsightly vignetting where dark and light content meet. In a bright white window surrounded by dark content, the edges of that white window can appear dimmed because the backlights in the area are lower than those in the center of the white area. This issue can appear as either bright blooming if dark pixels are getting too much light or as a kind of shading if bright areas don’t get as much backlight because the display is trying to account for nearby dark areas and therefore leaving the nearest backlight dim. If a bright object moves across a black screen, there can also be an apparent flicker as backlights flash on when the bright object passes over them. Small HDR highlights also don’t get as much punch as large ones, as the display won’t brighten one of its backlights for one pixel as much as it would for 1,000 pixels. These are common issues of Mini LED displays, but really tend to fade into the background for most content, letting the positive qualities of the display take center stage. Dell’s inclusion of both touchscreen and stylus capabilities on the display is useful for interacting with the laptop, and it’s worth noting they don’t seem to come with downsides. While I’ve seen some displays show a visible dot matrix in the display to enable these features, as was the case with the Asus Zenbook Pro 16X OLED in 2022, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 avoids this for a clean and clear display. The speakers on the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 are a decent pairing for the display. They can pump out considerable volume, easily enough to max out what anyone should be listening to with a device within arm’s reach. If you’re just trying to watch something with a friend or two in a quiet room, they’ll do the job there too. They can push out a modest frequency range, even giving a little lift to the bass, though they are far from sounding full and leave a gap between the bass they do produce and the mids. They largely focus on mids and can be a little overly bright in the treble, and they seem to duck some of the lower end when the mids are present. Sub-bass is out of the question.  Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Webcam, microphone, biometrics IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp You’ll get a 1080p webcam with the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 that does a decent job with lighting, not suffering from serious over- or under-exposure. It also provides natural-looking color. It does produce somewhat soft footage, but it can still do the job it needs to do. The laptop has a built-in privacy shutter that slides over the camera as well, so you can easily cover it up. The cover has black and white lines on it which can just look like a reflection in some scenarios though, so it’s not always easy to tell at a glance if the light is actually covered.  The microphones on the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 are not impressive by default, but have room for improvement. They pick up everything a little too clearly, including background noise. But Dell has a noise suppression feature just a couple clicks away in the MyDell applications. It’s strange that it’s not enabled by default, because it does an effective and largely crucial job when it comes to providing a clear voice when hopping on calls.  While you can use a password or PIN to sign into the laptop, there’s also a small fingerprint scanner at the top right corner of the keyboard. This works quickly and effectively in my experience. Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Connectivity IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp IDG / Mark Knapp For a 16-inch laptop, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has only a modest number of ports, but it covers its bases and provides variety. Two 5Gbps USB-A ports are on offer, with one on each side. The laptop includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports as well, but both are located on the left side, forcing you to charge the laptop on the left as a result. There’s also a full-size HDMI 1.4 port on the left side that Dell says doesn’t support 4K output, so the Thunderbolt 4 ports appear to be the intended display output for many users.  The right of the laptop also includes a 3.5mm audio combo jack and a full-size SD card reader. That latter inclusion is a boon for photographers who can easily transfer photos without having to rely on a dongle, which would just add to the weight they’re already taking on with this laptop.  Wireless connectivity has been strong. Wi-Fi 6E provides a strong baseline with many existing wireless networks and should hold up for years to come with plenty of bandwidth for most tasks. The Bluetooth 5.3 connection held stable in testing with wireless headphones over hours of use.  Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Performance The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a reasonably kitted out ultrabook, running on the same Intel Core Ultra series of processors we’ve been seeing in a bunch of similar laptops lately. With the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and 16GB of memory, it’s sitting near the middle of the road for what’s on offer. There’s no shortage of machines with similar offerings. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 bumps up the specs a bit and fits in discrete graphics for $350 extra. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire Vero 16 AV16-51P-5641 and Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 (Gen 9 2024) drop down to more basic displays and Intel Core Ultra 5 125U processors with weaker graphics but cut a lot from the price tag. The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 (2024) is also a viable competitor, with similar internals fitted into a smaller package. Performance on the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is reasonably strong. It scores solid marks in PCMark 10, which is a fairly holistic test for a system’s capabilities across a broad range of tasks. Impressively, it keeps up fairly well with the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, which has the benefit of more memory and discrete graphics. Storage can come into play in this test, though, and the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 offers quick storage with a PCIe NVMe SSD capable of over 5,000MB/s read speeds — not blistering, but speedy. The performance is enough to keep the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 ahead of the two systems with the weaker Intel Core Ultra 5 125U chips, though not enough to truly outshine its cheaper, smaller sibling meaningfully, which falls behind largely as a result of just one component: its slower storage. Though the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 may be a match for Lenovo’s higher-spec system when it comes to general purpose tasks, Handbrake highlights their differences when it comes to outright performance. The Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9 is able to encode our test video in nearly half the time of the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1. In addition to a higher performing chip, the Lenovo system is likely benefitting from enhanced cooling, as the Inspiron’s performance gradually declined from the start of the test. That difference plays out in Lenovo’s favor a second time with the Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 Gen 9 falling only about 20 percent behind the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 in this test despite wielding the lower-power Intel Core Ultra 5 125U. Meanwhile the Acer Aspire Vero 16 shows clearly where performance can land with weaker cooling. Impressively, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 manages to beat its bigger sibling in this test. Dell isn’t making the most of the size of the 16-incher to enhance cooling, and this just highlights it. Cinebench serves to further highlight the differences of these systems, but demonstrates shorter, bursty workloads. Here again, we see that with the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, you get what you pay for when it comes to performance upgrades. The smaller Inspiron 14 Plus even ekes out a lead over the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 again, albeit small, suggesting just how quickly its larger sibling can start to thermal throttle under load. The Inspiron 14 Plus is clearly benefiting from its extra side vent for sustaining performance over the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1’s single strip of semi-obstructed rear venting. Graphics performance is unsurprising in this match-up. Intel Arc Graphics are impressive for an integrated option, but no match for even the low-level RTX 4050 packed inside the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, which more than doubled the performance. Dell’s laptops both easily outpace the two laptops with basic Intel Graphics. Though the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 has a margin lead over the Inspiron 14 Plus in 3DMark’s Time Spy test here, it’s a slim lead that belies a bigger difference (the smaller Inspiron largely outpaced it again in the CPU performance portion of this test), and the difference is slim enough that it could come down to something as simple how good the contact is between the chip and heat pipe inside the laptop.  Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Battery life The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a reasonably strong performer when it comes to battery life. With its 88Wh battery (a little smaller than the 90Wh spec Dell lists), it manages to run for just shy of 13 hours in our battery test, which plays a 4K video on loop with the display at 250 nits. This dramatically outpaces the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i 16 Gen 9, serving as a reminder the discrete graphics usually come with a big hit to longevity. Of course, we also get a reminder that fancy displays can also come with hits to battery life. Impressive though it might be, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is only narrowly leading the Acer Aspire 16 in battery life and Acer is running on a much smaller, 53Wh battery. The Lenovo Yoga 7i 16 Gen 9 also has a lead with its 71Wh battery. Both are likely benefiting from their lower-power chips and simpler display technology. Meanwhile, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus outshines them all. It benefits from its simpler and smaller screen, managing to get over 17 hours from a 64Wh battery. Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 (7640): Conclusion The Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 is a specialty machine and to deliver on that quality, it makes some unfortunate sacrifices. While it has powerful hardware inside and a display with some truly excellent qualities, it misses the mark in other areas. Its performance is hampered by its design. We’ve seen the same components perform far better in other systems and Dell’s cooling system and power management appears to blame here. And though the display is largely gorgeous, it’s not ideal for all circumstances and takes quite a bit of power to make the most of.  Despite some of these fumbles, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 still manages to be a fair value for the right users. If you’re in need of a large system with touchscreen and stylus support, the Dell Inspiron 16 2-in-1 checks a lot of boxes. And it’s not as though it’s a weak system so much as it doesn’t keep up with some of its competitors. While Dell clearly had to make some sacrifices to build a machine with 2-in-1 capabilities, it’s those capabilities that may still make it a worthwhile system for some. Laptops Read...

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