At the beginning of this year, Dell has launched the Dell Vostro 15 3578, a business laptop designed for the businessman. Coming with AMD Radeon 520 independent graphics card, this business laptop is powered by Intel’s low-voltage i7-8550U processor. Besides, high durability and portability, as well as long battery life make this business laptop is the best choice for businessmen and small enterprises. Today, let’s get a better knowledge of this laptop.
Specification
| Screen | 15.6-inch 1920x 1080 TN screen |
| Processor | Intel i7-8550U (1.8GHz (up to 4.0GHz)) |
| TDP | 15W |
| Graphics card | AMD Radeon 520 2GB GDDR5 |
| Memory | 8GB DDR4 2400MHz |
| Storage | 256GB M.2 SSD |
| Connectivity | Intel 8265AC + Bluetooth 4.1 |
| Ports | SD/USB2.0/DVD interface/VGA port/HDMI port/USB3.0X2 |
| Battery | 40 Wh |
| OS | Windows 10 |
| Weight | 2.07kg/ 2.39kg (with adapter) |
| Extras | 720P Web webcam |
Appearance Design
The Vostro 15 3578 uses black composite plastics. The exceedingly conspicuous logo “Dell” is placed on the non-glare top cover whose surface is polished. This design highlights its appearance feature, making it look much more stylish.
This laptop has a simple design on the back cover. There is no other decoration except for four regular non-slip mats and vents at the bottom.
Battery life
What deserves to mention is that this business laptop sports a 40Wh external battery. For those who are always on a business trip, this laptop can provide a meeting up to several hours with this battery. It would be better if a user can get a backup battery.
Ports
The right side of the laptop includes an SD slot, an earphone-microphone port, and a USB 2.0 port.
The left side of the laptop includes a power jack, an RJ45 port, a VGA port, an HDMI port, and two USB 3.0 ports. As a whole, this laptop has an abundant expansion port. It continues to adopt the VGA port, which can help projector and other pertinent devices, to a large degree, improve efficiency, especially when most majority of current laptops have abandoned it. With the VGA port, this laptop can easily handle all kinds of complex office scenes in a short time.
Screen
This laptop comes with a 15.6-inch anti-glare TN screen. Although the TN screen provides a narrow view, it can better protect the user’s privacy.
After the test, this TN screen’s sRGB color gamut covers 59%, NTSC color gamut covers 42%, and AsobeRGB color gamut covers 44%. From the test results, this screen has a normal performance. Compared with IPS, for businessmen, the TN screen with high-cost performance can better suit office work.
Keyboard
Its keyboard and touchpad feel comfortable. With long key travel, the keyboard features frosted keycaps and keys with a moderate rebound. The keyboard has a more reasonable key layout.
The touchpad with polishing treatment also brings good touch experience. For businessmen who often need to use laptops, the touchpad and keyboard can lessen user’s fatigue and improve work efficiency.
Hardware
This business laptop is powered by Intel’s eighth-generation low-voltage i7-8550U processor. It comes with AMD independent graphics card Radeon 520 and 8GB DDR4 coupled with 256GB SSD. The laptop’s hardware reaches the mainstream level. Besides, Dell also provides an i5+4GB variant for users to choose from.
CPU
The Vostro 15-3578 for the test is powered by the i7-8550U processor, which is based on the Intel Coffee Lake framework. Using a 14nm manufacturing processor, this processor has four cores and eight threads with main frequency reaching 1.8GHz, which can be up to 4.0GHz. Its TDP is 15W. As a low-voltage business laptop, it can easily handle office work.
On CineBench R15, the processor’s single-core score is 166cb, and its multi-core score is 664cb. In a word, the i7-8850U has excellent performance.
GPU
Based on the GCN framework, the AMD Radeon 520 uses a 28nm process. With 320 CUDA cores, its GPU Clock reaches 1030MHz, and Bus Width is 64Bit with 2GB GDDR5. As for its performance, we use 3DMark FireStrike to do the test. The test result shows that this graphics card’s final graphics sore is 1426.
SSD
The laptop features 256GB M.2 SSD from Toshiba. We use AS SSD to test the SSD, and the test result shows that this SSD’s final sequential read speed reaches up to 479.81MB/S, and final sequential write speed reaches up to 303.69MB/S. This SSD can satisfy users’ requirements on data read for daily office work.
Battery Life
This laptop sports a 40Wh battery. To test its battery life, we adjust its screen brightness to 80%, volume to 20%, close Bluetooth, positioning, open WiFi, and connect wireless network. We play a 1080P video, and it lasts 5 hours. If for daily office work, this laptop can last at least 6 hours.
Internal Structure
It is a little difficult to disassemble the laptop than expected. Except for screws that can be directly seen, there are five screws hidden behind the keyboard. In addition, there are three screws in the DVD slot. After removing all the screws, the plastic clips can be easily taken out. This design can make the laptop more durable.
As for expansion, the user can upgrade memory, wireless network card, and DVD. We do not recommend users to upgrade on their own. In addition, this laptop reserves room for a 2.5-inch HDD. To save cost, the user can either upgrade the 2.5-inch HDD or M.2 SSD.
Heat Dissipation
The laptop comes with a fan and a copper pipe.
After using DIDA64, we detect the temperature with a thermal imager. From the picture, we can see that the highest temperature on the keyboard reaches 58.9℃, and the highest temperature on the laptop’s back cover is 62.1℃.
Summary
At present, the Dell Vostro 15-3578 has three variants. The i7-8550U+AMD Radeon 520 variant is a business laptop with the high-cost performance which suits businessmen most. This variant is priced at approximately $899. Although it lacks impressive appearance design, this laptop can deal with a complex task for daily life. With this business laptop, the user can avoid bothering to seek VGA around or worrying about battery’s running out.
