With so many affordable Dell laptops on the market right now it can be tricky to know where to start, but in terms of a solid mid-range option that’s got both business and leisure written all over it, the Dell Inspiron 17 Core i3-4030U takes some beating.

By massively shrinking the physical size of the battery while (somehow) boosting the machine’s overall power efficiency, Dell was able to produce the Inspiron 17 to a much sleeker and lighter specification than expected. What’s more, the smaller battery size means lower priced replacements or supplementary cells when and where the time comes to pick up another.

Built with both productivity and fun in mind, the Waves MaxxAudio sound system does its business along with a crystal clear HD touchscreen to tick all the right boxes in spade. There’s a comparatively large touchpad for brilliant ease of operation and it’s nice to see that Dell has done a good job of ousting those minor touchpad hiccups that were once quite common among their lower-priced notebooks.

Armed with an Intel Core i3 4030U, there’s no disputing the power of the Inspiron 17 for such a cheap laptop. With a generous serving of RAM and an ultra-capable 500GB hard drive, it packs everything the home user or small business could need. Its HD+ technology means a full 37% more pixels than you’d expect from standard HD so visuals are nothing short of stunning, while the USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and SD card slots take care of all physical connectivity needs.

Of course the most impressive and important plus point of all is the 10-finger capacitive touchscreen. As with most decent Dell laptops and PCs around at the moment, you’ll get a pretty decent software suite to play with as standard including both Windows 8 and a variety of top-end security features. It’s also worth remembering that as a Windows 8 notebook buyer you’ll automatically qualify for a free Windows 10 update directly from Microsoft later this summer – one to keep your eye on for the next few weeks.