Dell is the latest PC maker to unveil a $199 laptop
Generally speaking, tech companies use CES as an opportunity to unveil their latest and greatest: their highest-res TVs, their thinnest and lightest laptops and driverless-iest cars. This year, though, Dell seems to be taking a different tack. Twelve months after its XPS 13 flagship was named a Best of CES finalist, the company is returning to Vegas with something a little lower-end. Meet the Inspiron 11 3000 series, an 11.6-inch laptop priced at $199. As you can imagine, the specs are pretty modest: an Intel Celeron or Pentium processor, 2GB to 4GB of RAM and a 1,366 x 768 display. In my hands-on time, I was a little put off by the glossy, fingerprint-prone plastic surfaces, but in my opinion the sturdy, well-spaced keyboard and decent build quality (for the money) make up for it.
At this price, it has several competitors, including the HP Stream 11, which boasts a similar feature set and colorful plastic design. Whereas some rival machines include only 32GB or so of built-in storage, thereby forcing you to rely on the cloud, the Inspiron 11 has an option for either a 128GB SSD or a 500GB hard drive. For folks with large media collections, then, this might be the better choice.
