The Dell Inspiron 14z is a case in point: It's nice laptop--but it isn't an Ultrabook. Sure, it makes the thickness cut (barely) at 0.83 inch, and it has a 32GB SSD boot drive for quick startup, but it weighs 4.2 pounds and comes with a tray-loading DVD-RW drive. This laptop reminds me of the , another very portable laptop that doesn't walk, swim, or quack like an Ultrabook.
Our review model Inspiron 14z, priced at $900, carries a third-generation Intel i5-3317U processor, 8GB of RAM, an AMD Radeon HD 7570M graphics card, a 500GB hard drive spinning at 5400rpm, a tray-loading DVD-RW drive, built-in Wi-FI 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0, and the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.
The Inspiron 14z Ultrabook performed well in our WorldBench 7 benchmark test suite, with a score of 120, meaning that it as about 20 percent faster than our reference model, which packs a second-generation Intel i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. The 14z also delivered creditable overall performance.
The other three models listed here--the , the , and the --are , a more natural competitive set for the 14z in view of it heaviness, its optical drive, and its discrete GPU.