Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 Review: Mainstream Snapdragon X Laptop Delivers Supreme Battery Life

Pros

• Insane battery life
• Strong overall performance from Snapdragon X Plus
• Sharp, bright display

Cons

• Design is basic (read: boring)
• So-so touchpad

One of the first Copilot Plus PCs from Dell, the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 is based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor and clearly illustrates the benefits of the Windows-on-Arm platform. To begin, it offers a nearly around-the-clock runtime. Seriously, it lasted for close to 24 hours in testing. It boasts the longest battery life we've seen yet in a laptop -- longer than the long-lasting M3 MacBook Air and Microsoft's own Copilot Plus PC, the Surface Laptop 7. Along with extended battery life, Microsoft and Qualcomm promise strong CPU and NPU performance with Copilot Plus PCs. The Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 delivers in each of these areas, too. 

Its design is fairly basic and doesn't match the sleekness of the MacBook Air or Surface Laptop 7, but the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 still supplies a rigid, all-metal chassis and crisp, 2.5K IPS display. Unless you find a specific compatibility issue with the Arm-based Snapdragon X processor and the applications you need for your job or hobbies, there's little reason to choose the Intel-based Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 over the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441. The Snapdragon model runs for almost 10 hours longer and is even a little lighter. It's a top pick among mainstream laptops.

The Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 is priced squarely in the mainstream laptop category. The line starts at $950 for a configuration that includes a 10-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 processor, 16GB of RAM, integrated Qualcomm Adreno graphics, a 256GB SSD and a 14-inch IPS display with a 2,560x1,600-pixel resolution and touch support. Our test system adds $50 to the bill and doubles the SSD to 512GB. 

For $1,100, you can outfit the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 with a 12-core Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 processor and a 1TB SSD. At the time of this review, the Snapdragon X Elite model was $200 off and selling for $900 at Dell.

The Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 starts at £849 in the UK and AU$1,999 in Australia. 

Snapdragon X Plus performance

Even before we get to its record-setting battery life, the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 was a strong overall performer in labs testing. It was tops on our Geekbench 6 test that measures CPU performance across a mixed workload, out-performing the two Microsoft Copilot Plus PCs we've tested in the Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 as well as recent Intel Core Ultra laptops and Apple's latest M3 MacBook Air.

The M3 Air had the best single-core performance on Cinebench 2024, but the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 was far better than the M3 Air in multicore performance thanks to it having more physical processing cores. The Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 is a 10-core chip compared with the eight-core M3 chip in the MacBook Air. (Cinebench 2024 is a newer test, which is why you won't find the previous Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 included on the chart for this test below.)

As we saw with previous Snapdragon X models, the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 turned in a middling score on 3DMark Time Spy. And the reason is simple: A version of this test that can run natively on Arm has yet to be released so it must use the Prism emulator, which hurts performance. The Inspiron 14 Plus managed to edge both of Microsoft's Copilot Plus PCs but was well off the pace of Intel Core Ultra laptops that enjoy the advantage of running this test without emulation. 

A big part of the Copilot Plus PC platform is artificial intelligence, specifically the ability to process AI tasks locally instead of sending them to the cloud and back. In fact, the key feature a laptop needs in order to be classified as a Copilot Plus PC is a neural processing unit capable of 40 trillion operations per second. The Inspiron 14 Plus 7441's Snapdragon Plus X has a Hexagon NPU capable of 45 TOPS. On Procyon's AI Computer Vision benchmark, it outperformed not only recent Core Ultra laptops but also both of Microsoft's Copilot Plus PCs that we've tested. 

Apple's MacBooks have dominated in terms of laptop battery life ever since Apple introduced its own Arm-based M1 chip in 2020, but its runtime reign is over. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 was the first Windows laptop to offer battery life longer than that of an MacBook Air, and now the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 adds another three hours more than what we saw from the Surface Laptop 7. It ran for 23 hours 11 minutes. That's the longest battery life of any laptop we've reviewed to date. It's even longer than the previous runtime champ, the 16-inch MacBook Pro that lasted for just over 21 hours and has the room to house a larger battery. The Inspiron 14 Plus 7441's battery life is so long that you can leave the charger home not just for the workday or school day but for days -- plural -- at a time.

With their mix of CPU and NPU performance and outstanding battery life, it's been a strong start for Copilot Plus PCs. Intel and AMD, however, will soon be out with their first mobile CPUs since the splashy arrival of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processors. Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs and AMD's Strix Point Ryzen AI 300 series are expected this fall.

Solid, if basic, design

While the internals are different from the Intel-based Inspiron 14 Plus 7440, which we reviewed earlier this year and is still available from Dell, the exterior of these two Inspiron 14 Plus laptops is nearly identical. Both models have an all-aluminum ice blue chassis, but the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 is lighter at 3.2 pounds than the 3.5-pound Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 and not by an insignificant amount. Microsoft's 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 and Apple's 13.6-inch MacBook Air have smaller displays and are lighter than the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441. The Surface Laptop 7 weighs just under 3 pounds, and the MacBook Air weighs 2.7 pounds.

The Surface Laptop 7 and MacBook Air each have a sleeker, more premium look than the basic design of the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441. For example, Microsoft and Apple's units have edge-to-edge glass on the display for a polished and seamless look, while plastic bezels frame the Dell's display. And Microsoft and Apple's models each have a haptic touchpad that feels more responsive than the Dell's basic mechanical touchpad whose clicks offer too much travel near the bottom edge and feel too stiff toward the top. The dreaded "diving-board effect" is in effect here.

The biggest cosmetic difference between the Intel and Qualcomm versions of the Inspiron 14 Plus is the lack of side venting on the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441. The Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 also lacks the HDMI port found on the Inspiron 14 Plus 7440 and replaces it with a second USB4 port. And this Snapdragon X model has a Windows Copilot in place of the right-Ctrl key.

The Inspiron 14 Plus 7441's display has a slightly higher resolution at 2.5K versus 2.2K on the Intel model, and it's considerably brighter. It's rated for 400 nits, and I measured it to be even brighter with a peak of 471 nits with my tests conducted with a Spyder X Elite colorimeter. The older Intel model's display was rated for 300 nits and also exceeded that figure by measuring 410 nits in testing. 

Text looked crisp and colors appeared vivid on the Inspiron 14 Plus 7441's 2.5K IPS display, but its black levels can't match the effectively zero black levels you get with an OLED panel. To get an OLED in a Dell laptop, you need to step up from the Inspiron Plus series to the XPS series.

The 1080p webcam presents a detailed, well-balanced image and supports facial recognition for easy and secure Windows Hello logins, a feature that was missing on the Intel model. It also integrates a fingerprint reader into the power button if you prefer that biometric route.

The Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 supports newer wireless standards than the Intel model. It has Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

Dell includes a year of premium support with either version of the Inspiron 14 Plus. The difference between premium and standard support is premium includes onsite service, which saves you from having to carry in or ship the laptop to Dell for repairs. With premium service, Dell will send a technician to you if it can't fix the problem via remote diagnostics.

Unless there's a compatibility issue with the software you need and Windows-on-Arm, the Snapdragon X is clearly the choice between the Qualcomm and Intel versions of the Inspiron 14 Plus. This Qualcomm model is a little lighter, the display is a little sharper and the battery life is unparalleled. At $1,000, it's a great pick for a general-purpose laptop, and the higher-end Snapdragon X Elite configuration is an even better deal when it's on sale for $900. For just a bit more money, however, we prefer the similarly configured Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 at $1,200 for its sleeker design and superior haptic touchpad.