Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 (Snapdragon X Plus) review: Marathon battery life, and it keeps its cool

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Are you looking for an affordable, reliable, and long-lasting laptop? Keep your eyes on this page because the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 might be the answer.

For $1,099, you can scoop up one of the latest Copilot+ PCs featuring a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 processor and incredible battery life. The Inspiron 14 Plus also boasts a sharp 14-inch display, a decent 1080p webcam, and cool thermals, so this laptop is usable in your lap. However, the display is dull compared to other laptops in its class, and the graphics from Qualcomm are disappointing.

Despite these complaints, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 earns our Editor’s Choice award and could easily make our best Dell laptops page. Let’s jump in and find out.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Specs

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Price and configurations

I reviewed the mid-range Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, which costs $899 (originally $1,099) and has a Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch, 2560 x 1600, 60Hz, touch display.

Bump down to a 256GB SSD, and it’ll cost $999 (yes, really, and this was originally $899 when we last checked), whereas upgrading to a Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 CPU with a 1TB SSD costs $999 (originally $1,199). Going from $899 to $999 (or $1,099 to $1,099) for a CPU upgrade and double the storage is a steal, so we’d recommend that option, particularly if you don’t upgrade your laptop regularly.

Check out the best budget laptops if you’re looking for something on a smaller budget.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Design

Slick but boring. That’s the only way to describe laptops like the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus that default to a silver chassis stamped with a glossy company logo. However, leaving the aesthetics aside,  it is small, light, and thin, which is excellent for portability.

The interior is pretty standard, too, with the gray keys creating a weird contrast against the silver deck. Walling in the keyboard are two vents, and surrounding the display are slim bezels topped with a thicker one sporting a webcam (no privacy shutter).

At 3.17 pounds and 12.36 x 8.81 x 0.58~0.67 inches, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is the heaviest and the thickest amongst its competitors. Slim in comparison are the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (3 pounds, 12.3 x 8.67 x 0.59 inches), Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x (2.8 pounds, 12.8 x 8.8 x 0.51 inches), and MacBook Air 13-inch M3 (2.7 pounds, 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches).

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Ports

There aren’t many, but the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus has the essentials.

Find two USB Type-C ports and a microSD card slot on the left side and one USB Type-A port and headphone jack on the right.

Need more ports? Check out our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Display

Bright but dull — allow me to explain.

The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus’ 14-inch, 2560 x 1600, 60Hz, touch display offers a wonderfully bright and sharp window into your favorite content. However, the gamut coverage is so low that everything looks drained of color.

I watched the Borderlands trailer, and the reds of Cate Blanchett’s hair and shirt were warm, but the blue of the vault was practically lifeless. Thanks to the high brightness, the details of the ship’s interior were clear, while the high resolution made it all the more sharp. However, the unbalanced color coverage made everyone’s skin look a tinge more yellow.

According to our colorimeter, the Inspiron covered 69.1% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which is duller than the average premium laptop (88.7%). It also falls short of the Zenbook 14 (79.8%), Slim 7x (155.4%), and MacBook Air (77.8%).

At 470 nits of brightness, however, the Inspiron blew past the category average (464 nits), the Zenbook 14 (339 nits), and the Yoga Slim 7x (464 nits). It even got the MacBook Air (476 nits) sweating to cross the finish line.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Keyboard and touchpad

The smaller a laptop gets, the less room you have to type, which makes it a challenge for laptops like the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus to feature a pleasant typing experience. However, the folks at Dell did a solid job, offering a well-spaced layout with pronounced keys that provided a bit of bounce.

I typed 82 words per minute on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, which is just above my usual 81-wpm average. The keys felt sturdy and also had a bit of travel.

The touchpad, however, is a bit resistant and felt like I was running my finger across flattened sandpaper. Add its sharp, shallow clicker; it becomes my least favorite combination.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Audio

Without EQ software, there isn’t a lot you can do for the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus’ bottom-firing speakers, which is why it’s good that it sounds decent.

I listened to “Abyss” by YUNGBLUD, and the opening guitar came off a little soft, but there was some hefty bass in the following percussion. The vocals were also a bit low, but clear. It sounds like the percussion takes the lead in terms of the balance. The overall audio sounds compressed, so it's a bit muddled as a result, but it’s decent for speakers not supported by software.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Performance

Packed with the latest Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 processor, we’re dying to know how it compares to the competition, especially its Elite sibling. It did well enough juggling a couple dozen Google Chrome tabs and a handful of YouTube videos.

On the Geekbench 6.3 overall performance test, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus scored 13,281, wasting the average premium laptop (9,726).

It also sped past the Zenbook 14’s Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (12,707) and the MacBook Air’s M3 (12,087).

However, its Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 sibling (housed in the Slim 7x), surpassed it by just 469 points (13,750). They are virtually on par with one another.

But let’s give it a more real-world test: The Inspiron 14 transcoded a 4K video to 1080p in 6 minutes and 23 seconds on our HandBrake test, which just skids over the 6:39 average. It again beat the Asus Zenbook 14 (6:36) and MacBook Air (6:32), but the Slim 7x (5:16) created a sizable difference this time around.

Dell’s 512GB SSD sports a transfer rate of 1,510 megabytes per second, clocking faster speeds than the average premium laptop (1,478 MBps). It also surpassed the Zenbook 14’s 1TB SSD (1,236 MBps) and the Slim 7x’s 512GB SSD (1,416 MBps). When competing with the MacBook Air on the Blackmagic Read/Write test, the Inspiron scored 3,589/3,130 MBps versus the Air’s 512GB SSD (3,059/3,031 MBps).

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: AI performance and features

A wave of Snapdragon X Elite CPUs have swirled through our testing lab, but this Dell Inspiron 14 Plus features one of the first Snapdragon X Plus chipsets we’ve tested. As a Copilot+ PC, we’re going to find out if the laptop at the back of the pack can make the same impact on AI performance (see how we test AI PCs). As we learn more about what these AI PCs can do, our methods will adapt as necessary. But let’s see how the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus performed.

On the Geekbench ML 0.6 AI performance test, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus hit an ONNX/CPU score of 2,764. It missed the mark against the Zenbook 14 (2,971) and Slim 7x (2,903). The MacBook Air did not take this test, but the HP Spectre x360 14 2024 (2,876) did and outpaced the Inspiron 14.

Despite that, Qualcomm’s CPU may not be optimized for Geekbench ML 0.6. And this doesn’t test the NPU, which is where Qualcomm ultimately beats the competition.

Copilot+ PCs support new software and features as well. There’s Recall, which is an interesting and controversial feature that tracks the history of your PC. It’s similar to your browser history, so you can hop around your timeline to see what you did hours ago.

While this information is intended to be stored locally, it makes sense to worry about it connecting to the cloud. You do have the option to adjust the type of information stored, however. Right now Recall is limited to Windows Insiders and disabled by default.

Our favorite Copilot+ PC features include Windows Studio Effects and Live Captions. AI art programs are also available, but they are not without controversy.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Graphics

As we’ve seen with the rest of the Snapdragon X series, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus’ Qualcomm Adreno graphics were below to the competition.

On the 3DMark Fire Strike synthetic graphics test, the Inspiron 14 Plus scored 5,965, which couldn’t get near the average premium laptop (9,238) or the Zenbook 14’s Intel Arc Graphics (8,064). Meanwhile, it actually surpassed the Slim 7x’s identical Qualcomm Adreno (5,800).

We booted up Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (Medium, 1080p) benchmark, and the Inspiron 14 averaged 21 frames per second, falling short of the 30-fps minimum for playability. It matched the Slim 7x, but the game was playable only on the Zenbook 14 (31 fps) and the MacBook Air’s M3 (41 fps).

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Battery life

It's yet another Dell Inspiron showing off its incredible battery life skills.

On the Laptop Mag battery test, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus survived 18 hours and 20 minutes, outlasting the average premium laptop (11:36). It also outlived the Zenbook 14 (15:52), Slim 7x (14:14), and MacBook Air (15:13). That’s an incredible feat, as two of those are the laptops with best battery life.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Webcam

It’s rare not to find me tearing up a laptop webcam for its painfully poor image quality, and yet I’m here to say that the Inspiron 14 Plus’ 1080p shooter is quite decent!

It captured the strands of hair on my head without distorting them. It balanced the contrast well enough to detail each of the blinds in the window behind me, where it would usually overexpose the light and wash out most of my background. And the color in the My Hero Academia poster in the background was pretty consistent with how it looked in person.

You could get one of the best webcams, but you don’t need it here.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Heat

This is a laptop you can actually use in your lap (this really shouldn’t be impressive, but it is).

After streaming a 15-minute video, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus’ underside climbed up to 88 degrees Fahrenheit, which is safely below our 95-degree comfort threshold. The center of the keyboard and touchpad hit 97 and 80 degrees, respectively. Meanwhile, the hottest it got was 100 degrees, located just above the F8 key.

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441: Software and warranty

The Inspiron 14 Plus comes with the MyDell app, which features system information and display and battery settings. Meanwhile, Dell Support Assistant features performance and network settings, hardware scans, and full system scans.

The Inspiron 14 Plus comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how Dell performed on our Tech Support Showdown ranking.

Bottom line

The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is a champ of a laptop. It boasts great performance, excellent battery life, strong thermals, and a solid webcam. However, while its display is sharp, it’s remarkably dull, and its graphics don’t live up to Qualcomm’s aspirations.

If you want a stunning display, go with the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x. It also features faster overall performance and a competitive battery life. Not to mention, a much more comfortable keyboard.

But overall, if your focus is affordability and incredible battery life, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is the one to buy.