Dude, you got a Lenovo Yoga, except it's a Dell. Lots of companies have copied Lenovo's very successful 360 degree hinge design that turns a laptop into a tablet, and now it's Dell's turn. The Dell Inspiron 11 3000 is their counterpart to the Lenovo Yoga 2 11 inch. Both are mid-tier priced 11.6" full Windows 8.1 machines that are designed for the price and portability minded. We actually like Dell's take on the small convertible: it's actually reasonably upgradable in a world where 11.6" tablets and convertibles are chock full of soldered-on, and thus not upgradable parts.

The Inspiron 11 starts at $399, though you may find it for less at retailers. That base model runs on a dual core Intel Celeron N2830, which is actually part of the Bay Trail platform where the latest Intel Atom processors reside at the lower end. It's clocked at 2.16GHz with burst to 2.41GHz and it's a 64 bit CPU. Though it's not nearly as fast as the latest generation Core i5, it's more than adequate for web, MS Office, streaming full HD video and editing photos. That CPU can address up to 8 gigs of DDR3 RAM, and the good (and rare) news is that the Inspiron's RAM is a standard removable SODIMM so you can upgrade it yourself. Generally, RAM is soldered on and thus not upgradeable, even on Ultrabooks, and we genuinely appreciate Dell's design move. The machine ships with 4 gigs of RAM, which is adequate for most folks, and is an improvement over Intel Atom products that generally have just 2 gigs of RAM. That means multi-tasking is a real possibility with the Inspiron 11 3000. In contrast, the Yoga 2 11's RAM is soldered on and 4 gigs is the max you can get from the factory.

The convertible is also available with the Pentium N3530 quad core CPU clocked at 2.16GHz with boost up to 2.58GHz (this is the model we have for review) for a small performance boost. This comes and goes on Dell's website, but a few of our local retailers sell it for $479. It is otherwise the same as the Celeron model. Other features include Intel HD graphics, decent side-firing stereo speakers, a 500 gig HDD, single band Dell WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0 and a very pleasing IPS 1366 x 768 touch screen. The Inspiron has an SD card slot, a full size HDMI 1.4a port, one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports and a spill-resistant (but not backlit) keyboard. As we've come to expect from Dell, it's one of the better keyboards you'll find in a small machine, though we wish it were backlit.

The machine looks like a baby Inspiron, though the interior keyboard deck is silver rather than matte black. It's not a bad looking laptop and though it's not insanely thin or made of sculpted metal like the XPS line, it doesn't look or feel cheap. At 3 lbs., it's comparable to the Yoga 2 11 and the lighter 13" Ultrabooks, and the power brick is predictably tiny and light. Stereo speakers fire from the sides and they're relatively loud for a laptop this small. The battery and internals are sealed inside, but it's not hard in the least to remove the bottom cover (several screws hold it on) and then you can access the battery, socketed wireless card, RAM slot and the 2.5" HDD. Unlike the Yoga 2 that uses an unusually slim 5mm HDD with a proprietary connector, the Dell Inspiron 11 has a standard SATA drive connector and works with commonly available 7mm HDDs and SSDs. So if you want to increase storage or increase speed by replacing the HDD with an SSD, you can do so

 

The 360 degree hinge works well, and as with the Yoga, the keyboard is exposed on the bottom when the Inspiron is in tablet mode. The keyboard is disabled, so input is ignored even though the keys move when you handle the tablet. At 3 pounds, this isn't an iPad Air, and you'll want to rest it on a desk or your lap for extended use. You can also use the Dell in presentation or tent modes, making it handy for presentations and movie watching sans stand.

The Dell has a 4 cell 43 wHr Lithium Ion battery. You'll need to unscrew several Phillips head screws and remove the bottom cover to access the battery. Dell claims up to 8 hours battery life, and with mixed productivity use we averaged 6.5 hours with brightness set to 40%.