Dell Inspiron 24 AIO (5430) Review

Home and family rooms are ideal places for an all-in-one (AIO) desktop, which essentially tucks laptop hardware behind a larger screen than a laptop. Dell’s Inspiron 24 has long been a popular consumer choice, and the latest Inspiron 24 model 5430 (starts at $549.99; $799.99 as tested) is no exception as a capable and affordable homework or streaming station. While its display’s Full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) resolution is lower than its rivals, this AIO’s crisp 1440p webcam and wide port array help soften the blow. These mixed results make the Dell worthy of your consideration, but not our Editors’ Choice award.

Configuration and Design: Face familiar

The Inspiron 24 5430 updates the 5420 model we reviewed in August 2023 with new Intel silicon. The $549.99 base model combines Intel’s Core 3-100U chip, 8GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive, a 23.8-inch non-touch display, Windows 11 Home, and a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Our $799.99 review unit stepped up to an Intel Core 5-120U CPU, 16GB of RAM and a touch screen. A loaded configuration with a Core 7-150U processor, a 2GB Nvidia GeForce MX570A graphics chip instead of Intel integrated graphics, a 1TB SSD, and touch screen is $949.99.

It’s exciting to see a well-equipped AIO at such a low price, but the Inspiron’s vanilla 1080p display resolution is a drawback. Another 23.8-inch system, the HP NVMove, has fewer ports but a sharper 2,560-by-1,440-pixel screen. Perhaps the best all-in-one is the 23.5-inch Apple iMac M3, which starts at $1,299 but wins with a 4,480-by-2,520-pixel Retina display.

The white-plastic Dell is a sleek, compact (16.3 by 20.9 by 7.9 inches) system that stands on two triangular metal feet that snap into sockets on the back. I landed on the wrong foot trying to put the left stand in the right socket and vice versa; The triangles didn’t quite click into place, and the computer looked pigeon-toed. Once fixed, the screen offers a few degrees of adjustable tilt, high enough to hide the keyboard and mouse underneath. The computer weighs 12.4 pounds.

The tiny power button is at the bottom edge of the screen on the right. A hidden webcam pops up when you press the top edge and retracts when you’re not using it; It features IR face recognition for Windows Hello logins. (You won’t find a fingerprint reader on the keyboard.) Wi-Fi 6E and a Bluetooth radio are standard on this system.

Using Dell Inspiron 24 AIO: pretty well connected

Except for a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port conveniently located on the bottom right edge, all ports on the Inspiron 24 are on the back: four USB 3.2 Type-A (three Gen 1 and one Gen 2), an Ethernet connection, a microphone/headset jack. , an SD card slot, and HDMI-in and -out ports so you can both connect a second screen and use the AIO’s panel with a game console. It would be more convenient if the audio jack was on the side, but otherwise, no complaints.

I’ve already complained about the 5430’s screen resolution; A 1080p array on a 14-inch laptop panel lets you see individual pixels or slight blurring around the edges of characters on a 24-inch desktop—unless you’re well back from it. Regardless, the Dell’s display isn’t half bad and is surprisingly bright, with rich, well-saturated colors and decent contrast. The screen’s viewing angles are reasonably wide, although white backgrounds change from clear to gray at extreme angles. Its touch operations are smooth, though I’m more partial to notebook touch screens than desktops.

The webcam doesn’t support Windows’ new AI Studio effects like auto framing and background blur, but its 2,560 by 1,440 pixels quadruple the resolution of cheaper 720p cameras. Its images are clear and reasonably well-lit, with decent colors and minimal static.

A soundbar below the screen pumps out surprisingly loud audio; It’s hollow and boomy but pushes noticeable bass and is easy to create overlapping tracks. The pre-installed MyDell software offers 20-odd essentially indistinguishable equalizer presets, from rock and lounge to movie and trip-hop, as well as background-noise reduction for conference calls. You also get presets for movie, sports, animation and low-blue-light screen palettes

The Inspiron 24’s wireless white keyboard and mouse are standard fare; The keyboard takes two AAA batteries, and the mouse a single AA. The USB-A wireless dongle (these two don’t have Bluetooth support) is hidden under the mouse lid next to the battery compartment.

Dell’s stock keyboard is a quiet typer, with a shallow but uncomfortable key feel and a full numeric keypad. The ambidextrous mouse is less serviceable, with a clickable scroll wheel but no browser back button and a tendency to buck or require extra pushes when moving short distances.

Testing the Dell Inspiron 24 AIO 5430: Decent everyday capabilities

We’ve tested two other 24-inch, 1,920-by-1,080-pixel AIOs in the past two years—the Acer Aspire C24 and the Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 5i 24, which bracket the Inspiron at $649.99 and $900, respectively, as tested. We filled out our benchmark comparison chart with two HP-branded AIOs with 1440p displays, the carrying-handle- and battery-equipped Envy Move ($1,209.99 as tested) and the 27-inch, business-oriented HP EliteOne 870 G9 ($1,200). )

Productivity testing

We run the same general productivity benchmarks on both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates various real-world productivity and office workflows to gauge overall system performance, and adds a storage subtest for the primary drive.

The other three benchmarks focus on CPUs using all available cores and threads to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.5 Pro simulates popular apps from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower time is better).

Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation manufacturer Puget Systems. It uses Adobe’s famous image editor, Creative Cloud version 22, to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that performs a variety of common and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

The Inspiron 24 AIO exceeded 4,500 points on PCMark 10, indicating reliable productivity for apps like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace suites. However, its Core 5-120U chip didn’t impress in our CPU tests. Only occasional photo or video editing will join the intended use of word processing, web surfing, email and video streaming.

Graphics test

We test Windows PC graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs).

We usually add two OpenGL tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which emphasizes both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The Dell completed the 1080p car chase exercise, but the Acer and Lenovo fended off the more rigorous 1440p Aztec Ruins test, even though both were rendered offscreen for different native resolutions.

The 5430 lags behind a decidedly slower pack. None of these systems’ integrated graphics come within miles of the discrete GPUs found in gaming PCs, so they’re strictly for solitaire and watching YouTube or Netflix rather than shoot-em-up action.

Display test

As with laptops, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure the color saturation of all-in-one desktop displays—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes each screen can show—and 50% of and maximum brightness in nits (candela per square meter).

Resolution aside, the Inspiron performed well, competing with the HP EliteOne for best color coverage and tying the NVMove as the brightest screen of the bunch (absolutely blinding compared to the pitch-black Lenovo). It’s not suitable for professional prepress rendering or high-refresh-rate gaming, but no one should try this on a PC regardless.

Verdict: A few more pixels could not be fixed

Performance-wise, our Inspiron 24 (5430) test unit is no barn-burner, but it’s an attractive, compact family room all-in-one for $800. If it had a sharper screen, Dell’s latest AIO would earn an Editors’ Choice award; Alas, its Full HD resolution is too low for even basic desktop use. Here’s hoping Dell at least considers putting a 1440p panel on the Core 7 model—if it can keep the price under $1,000, Dell will have a real iMac option.