Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460 Review: A Mid-Tier Laptop That Has Something For Everybody

Not quite a Latitude, but not quite an XPS either, the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460 attempts to straddle the line, taking some of the best parts of both of Dell’s popular lines and giving it to you for less than $1,500. The notebook comes stacked with an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor teamed with an Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU, placing it firmly on the middle rung of the 16-inch laptop ladder. But don’t just write the 16 Plus off, just yet. It can do a little bit of everything and do it quite well.

It might not be one of the best laptops of the year, but with its color-accurate display, strong speakers, and comfy keyboard, the Inspiron 16 Plus definitely is an honorable mention.

About this review: Dell sent us an Inspiron 16 Plus 7460 for the purposes of this review. The company had no input in this article, and did not see its contents before publishing.

Editor’s choice

Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460

Jack of all trades, master of some

The Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460 is a mid-range machine that can do a little bit of everything (productivity, gaming, content creation, and more) without breaking a sweat or your budget. The laptop can also last nearly ten hours of battery life. Best of all, this capable performer comes in just under $1,500.

Pros

• Solid overall and gaming performance
• Great battery life
• Good price
• Loud, balanced audio

Cons

• Display could be brighter
• Runs hot on CPU or GPU-intensive tasks

Pricing and availability

Dell sent me a surprisingly stacked system for a mid-tier price. For $1,299, we are looking at a notebook with 3.8-GHz Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor with 16GB of DDR5 5600MT/s RAM, a 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, integrated Intel Arc Graphics, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU with 8GB of VRAM, and a 16-inch, 16:10, 2560 x 1600, non-touch panel.

You can also get the 16 Plus with an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU and 32GB LPDDR5X, 6400MT/s of RAM for $1,399. However, that means you lose the discrete graphics and have to make due with the Intel Arc Graphics.

Design and ports

Mid-range chic, but a little chunky

Rounded corners and a cool-to-the-touch, anodized aluminum chassis await your admiring hands. To help the laptop stand out from other Dell notebooks, the 16 Plus’ aluminum chassis comes in what the company calls Ice Blue, which is a nice departure from the Platinum White you typically find on the XPS line.

A quick look at the lid shows off the shiny Dell logo catching every little glint of light. I really like that the surface’s finish holds up against fingerprints, especially since my hands tend to be a bit oily. The frame also has a bit of MIL-spec certification, so this bad boy can take a few bumps (within reason). Opening the laptop reveals more of that baby smooth finish. Instead of a slight recess for the keyboard, it’s just embedded into the keyboard deck right above the touchpad. The power button does double-duty as the fingerprint reader.

I expected more ports, but the large vents on either side of the laptop shut that option down. But you still have enough to accommodate most of your peripherals. If not, you can always invest in a good USB-C dock. But back to the ports on the actual system, you get two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A ports, a Thunderbolt 4 port, an HDMI 2.1 port, a microSD card reader, a headset jack, and the power jack.

Weighing 4.9 pounds, the 14.1 x 9.9 x 0.66-0.78-inch 16 Plus is a beefy Betty compared to some of its contemporaries. As usual, the LG Gram Pro (14.1 x 9.9 x 0.48-0.5 inches) is the lightest laptop in the room at 2.6 pounds, followed by the Acer Swift Go 16 (14 x 9.9 x 0.78~0.85 inches) at 3.8 pounds. Next up is the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra (14 x 9.9 x 0.65 inches), tipping the scales at 4.1 pounds. And finally, you have the Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 16 (14 x 9.9 x 0.69 inches) with a weight of 4.3 pounds.

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Display, webcam, and audio

A vivid panel that could be brighter

Sure, the color on the 16 Plus’ matte display might not punch you in the face. However, I can’t argue with its color accuracy. The 16-inch, 16:10 panel hits 100% of the sRGB gamut and 83% of the AdobeRGB gamut. Then you have the DCI-P3 gamut at 84% and the NTSC gamut at 78%.

But what does that mean exactly? It means that actor Coleman Domingo’s rich mahogany skin looked warm and supple during the “Sing Sing” trailer. I saw the individual hairs in the stubble of his salt and pepper beard. The indigo hoodie worn in one scene captured my gaze with its vibrancy. And while the color is nice, the actual brightness could be better as it only averages 281.6 nits, which isn’t too far off from Dell’s 300-nit claim, but I would have preferred a brighter presentation.

The lack of brightness couldn’t stop Hades II’s technicolor shine. As soon as I launched the game, the screen was awash in ethereal greens, bold reds, and rich yellows. Tiny accents popped, like the trail of burning red footprints and the silvery white sparkles left in the wake of our heroine Melinoë’s dash.

Hmm, maybe Dell should turn down the clarity on the Inspiron 16’s integrated webcam. I definitely made a face once I noticed the stretch marks on my arm, made even more prominent by my tan. The shooter did a great job on the color, capturing the exact shade of blue of my denim dress as well as the bright orange fur on my fox plushie, although the black on my stuffed snake looked a bit faded.

By now you know that I’m waging a war against bottom-mounted quad speakers. But not these. The Inspiron 16’s speakers are positioned in such a way that my chunky thighs do not act as natural mufflers. Bolstered by Dolby Atmos Core and Waves Maxx Pro software, the laptop did a fantastic job of filling my medium-sized living room with warm audio. However, the bass leaves a lot to be desired, as I discovered while listening to Lucky Daye’s “HERicane.” However, the guitars were clean, as were the vocals.

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Keyboard and touchpad

Mushy keys, but not a deal breaker

Typing on the Inspiron 16’s keyboard is comfortable, but as my fingers went from key to key typing out this review, I felt a little bit of mushiness. I doubt it’ll bother most people, but as a reviewer, it’s something I noticed. Still, the keys have generous spacing with bright backlighting. And of course, as this is the era of AI, there’s a Microsoft Copilot key placed in between the alt and arrow keys if you want to take the chatbot for a spin.

The Mylar touchpad is plenty spacious and has great palm rejection. Navigating docs and web pages and executing multitouch gestures is an exercise in smoothness. The bottom corners are somewhat stiff, but get the job done.

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Performance

A mid-range flex

Armed with a 3.8-GHz Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor with 16GB of RAM, the Inspiron 16 Plus 7460 is a top performer in its class. It’s got more than enough power for heavy productivity and content creation tasks, with a bit left over in the tank to do some light gaming. And once again, this is an AI PC, so there’s an NPU on board. The notebook had no problem with my plethora of tabs. My 72 tabs were a healthy mix of G-Suite apps, social media, news and entertainment sites, and YouTube streams.

The 16 Plus was put to work on the PCMark 10 test. Plugged in, the notebook notched 7,369 which was more than enough to scoot past the IdeaPad Pro 5i (Core Ultra 9 185H), Gram Pro (Core Ultra 7 155H), and XPS 16 (Core Ultra 7 155H). Laden with their Core Ultra 9 185H CPUs, both the Galaxy Book 4 Ultra and the Swift Go 16 put a kibosh on the win streak with scores of 7,609 and 7,434, respectively.

Onto Geekbench 6, where the only win the 16 Plus eked out was over the Lenovo in the single-thread test. I saw similar results during Cinebench 2024 test where the 16 Plus dominated the Gram Pro with its Core Ultra 7 CPU, but fell short of the laptops with the more powerful Core Ultra 9 processors.

If you’re a gamer, you’ll be happy to know the 16 Plus has an Nvidia 4060 GPU aboard, so you can play older titles, indies, and even current AAA titles – the latter will need a few settings tweaks to make it work well. I was wielding the power of the gods with ease in Hades IIscorching, freezing and shocking my way through the legions of Chronos with not a hint of slow down at native resolution. However, keep in mind that while Supergiant makes beautiful, lore-rich games, they’re not the most graphically taxing.

I decided to raise the stakes and ran the CyberPunk 2077 benchmark. I started on medium settings at native resolution and got 41 frames per second, and when I turned on Nvidia’s DLSS technology, the frame rate jumped to 50 fps. I got significantly higher frame rates when I lowered the resolution down to 1080p. Without DLSS, the 16 Plus delivered 71 fps on medium settings and 83 fps with the feature enabled.

Running 3DMark Time Spythe Inspiron 16 scored 8,724, beating the Gram Pro, Swift Go 16, but ran into a pair of roadblocks by way of the XPS 16 and Galaxy Book 4 Ultra.

If you are going to game or do something GPU or CPU intensive, you might want to keep the laptop away from your lap. At the Best Performance power setting, the touchpad measured a warm 98 degrees Fahrenheit. The center of the keyboard hit 118 degrees, while the center of the bottom vents rose to 121 degrees. The right and left side vents blew 99 and 101 degrees, respectively.

Typically, when you throw discrete graphics into the mix, the battery life suffers. So imagine my astonishment when I ran the PCMark 10 Modern Office test (200 nits of brightness, Best Performance settings) and the Inspiron 16 Plus lasted 9 hours and 57 minutes. Then, I remembered the laptop has an integrated Intel Arc Graphics that it falls back on. After making the 4060 GPU the default card and re-running the test, the battery life dropped to 4:39, which still ain’t too shabby.

Related

Should you buy the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460?

You should buy the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460 if:

• You want a laptop that can do a little bit of everything, including gaming
• You don’t want to pay over $1,500 for a laptop
• You want a laptop with good battery life

You shouldn’t buy the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460 if:

• You want a laptop with more overall and gaming performance
• You want a laptop with a brighter display
• You want a laptop that doesn’t get so hot under the collar

“You can’t please everybody.” But damn, if Dell didn’t try with the Inspiron 16 Plus 7460. There’s a lot to like in the notebook, particularly its Intel Core 7 Ultra processor and Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU which opens the door for a host of uses ranging from productivity, content creation, gaming and more. The 16-inch display, while somewhat dim, is still plenty color accurate and, together with the quad speakers, makes for a decent entertainment center in a pinch. Plus, depending on how you use the laptop, you can expect over nine hours of battery life.

There are, of course, more powerful laptops out there, such as the Acer Swift Go 16. Keep in mind that despite its low price tag, you’d be losing out on a discrete graphics card. Plus, its display and audio aren’t that great. Then there’s the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra which has a less powerful Nvidia RTX 4050 GPU and costs nearly double the 16 Plus. Overall, if you’re looking for a laptop that checks the boxes for quite a few consumers, including mobile and creative professionals, gamers, students, and bargain hunters, you need to give the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460 a go.

Editor’s choice

Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7460

Jack of all trades, master of some