Dell 14 Plus (2025) laptop review

Dell has officially retired the long-standing Inspiron name and replaced it with a simpler, smartphone-style naming scheme. The result is a refreshingly simpler lineup—Dell 14 Plus, Dell 14 Pro, and Dell 14 Premium.

We’ve received the “entry-level” variant from this lineup, though at Rs 84,889 and some excellent specs, the Dell 14 Plus is anything but. The laptop also features a new Ryzen chip, and we’ve put the whole package through its paces. Here’s our Dell 14 Plus (2025) review.

Dell 14 Plus (2025) design

The first thing we noticed is just how clean this laptop looks. We have the unit in a colour called Ice Blue (the sole colour option) and it manages to look very attractive without being too loud. The build is just as interesting.

The lid is made of aluminium and feels cold to the touch. The rest of the body is actually high-quality plastic. We honestly could not tell the difference at first because the finish is so uniform. The whole chassis feels rigid and metallic in your hands.

We also noticed that the matte finish is excellent at rejecting grease. Carry this thing around all day and at the end of the day the chassis will still look pristine—no ugly smudges or fingerprints to wipe away.

Dell 14 Plus (2025) display

We really enjoyed the resolution and the colour reproduction of the 14-inch, 2K resolution panel here. Everything looks sharp and crisp. We watched a few episodes of a dark sci-fi show and the colours looked vibrant and punchy.

However, we ran into a snag when we decided to work from a sunny cafe. The display tops out at 300 nits of brightness. That number is perfectly fine for office work or browsing in your bedroom. But it doesn’t fare that well in sunlight.

Dell 14 Plus (2025) performance and gaming

Under the hood, you get AMD’s Ryzen AI 7 350 processor, paired with 16GB of speedy LPDDR5X RAM. This chip features eight cores and 16 threads, with up to 5GHz boost clocks, and it’s a beast. It handles daily tasks without breaking a sweat.

At one point, we were cycling between nearly 30 browser tabs open alongside Spotify and Discord, but the laptop refused to stutter. The most impressive part is the thermal management. The machine stayed cool to the touch even when we were pushing it hard.

But the real surprise was the integrated graphics, the Radeon 860M GPU. We did not expect much from an integrated card but decided to try some gaming anyway. We fired up Halo 4 just to see what would happen. To our shock it actually ran beautifully, consistently delivering 45-50FPS on low settings, native resolution.

It was smooth enough to actually enjoy the game rather than just testing it, which is shocking that this is a laptop advertised for “creatives and small business” and is not a dedicated gaming rig by any means. Of course, if it can handle Halo 4, it is also totally capable of playing any slightly older titles you throw at it.

Dell 14 Plus (2025) inputs

We have to be honest about the input devices because they let the package down slightly. The keyboard is a bit of a letdown. The key travel distance is actually decent, but the keys themselves feel very mushy when you press them — there is no satisfying click or tactile bump here. But hey, on the bright side, the mushier press leads to less noise when hammering away at the keys.

The touchpad is a similar story. It works fine and tracks your movements accurately. But it is made of plastic rather than glass. You can feel the difference immediately if you have ever used a premium trackpad—it simply lacks that frictionless glide.

Other stuff

The speakers on the Dell 14 Plus work just fine. Clarity is excellent and voices come through crisp, though bass is a bit on the tinnier side.

The power situation is much better. The 64WHr battery, combined with the efficient processor, creates a machine that just refuses to die. We consistently got over 10 hours of real-world, mixed usage.

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Another massive plus is the 65W USB-C charging. When traveling, you can just carry a small 65W GaN charger and juice up all your devices with it. This kind of convenience matters a lot for a portable machine.

For connectivity, you get two USB-C ports that handle charging and display output, a classic USB-A port (which is always great to see), a headphone jack, and an HDMI port. That said, those USB-C ports are not Thunderbolt 4. Meanwhile, the 1080p webcam is surprisingly good. It’s clean, well-balanced, and makes you look professional on video calls.

Unboxed Take: Who should buy the Dell 14 Plus (2025)?

All in all, the Dell 14 Plus is a solid reinvention of a classic line, and feels modern and looks fantastic. The Ryzen AI 7 350 processor delivers excellent performance that stays cool under pressure and can even handle some light gaming. It’s a well balanced machine overall, if you’re willing to forgive that mushy keyboard.

For all the above reasons, we rate Dell 14 Plus 4/5. Stay tuned to Unboxed by Croma for more such in-depth reviews and all things tech.