Whats your opinion on Dell's Inspiron 15 7000-Series?

Bangadrum

Hey everyone,

Im in the market for getting an affordable laptop that can play games and would be suitable for a Computer science course in uni.

Initially Dell's XPS 15 9550 got my attention but I've heard somewhat flaky things about quality control in relation to it.

Dell's Inspiron Gaming PC seems rather appealing to me, its not too pricey and it comes with the following;

CPU
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)
OS
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
MEMORY
16GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600MHz (8GBx2)
STORAGE
128GB Solid State Drive + 1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
GPU
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5
DISPLAY
15.6-inch UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED- Backlit Touch Display
PORTS
3 USB 3.0 (1 USB 3.0 w/Power Share)
1 HDMI v1.4a with 4K Display support
45 RJ - 1


What are you thoughts? Have you or anyone you know of have one?
Thanks guys.

Alanstrainor

I know I'd have the XPS 15. Although I have heard reports of questionable reliability. I'd just be hoping that those issues had been solved by now.

Bangadrum

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I know I'd have the XPS 15. Although I have heard reports of questionable reliability. I'd just be hoping that those issues had been solved by now.

I've been hearing the exact same sort of thing. In my opinion it has to do with Windows 10 driver issues and such. Its not entirely Dell's fault, I mean the XPS 13/15 is really well built, the 13 more so.

TerrorFirmer

If it's for gaming I'd take a look at PC Specialist also. Dell one is OK but a 4K screen and a GTX960 are not a great combo - for north of 1K you should be looking at a GTX970 really, it's about 40% faster than the 960.

The 960 is good for most of the latest AAA titles at 1080p medium-ish settings.

Alanstrainor

I've also seen reports on the XPS15 that say the 4k screen is not the one to go for, and that battery life and performance is much better on the 1080P screen. That being said, I'm not sure which way I'd go if it was my choice... I'd definitely be drawn to the 4k offering even with the above potential issues.

Bangadrum

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

If it's for gaming I'd take a look at PC Specialist also. Dell one is OK but a 4K screen and a GTX960 are not a great combo - for north of 1K you should be looking at a GTX970 really, it's about 40% faster than the 960.

The 960 is good for most of the latest AAA titles at 1080p medium-ish settings.

Thanks for the info. I had a look at Pc Specialist and came up with this.

Upgrading the GPU, RAM and swapping out the Mechanical HDD for an SSD bumps the price up to the same price as the Dell XPS.

Quick question is their a tradeoff between a GTX 970 with 3GB of VRAM when compared to a GTX 960 with 4GB?

The 970 you say is quicker but has less memory, Im just wondering if that impacts the laptop performance in anyway?

Lissavane

Re the XPS 15.

Maybe I'm missing something but if you don't need Windows 10 Pro, as opposed to Home, I think this http://www.dell.com/ie/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd?oc=cnx5512&model_id=xps-15-9550-laptop would be significantly cheaper than the one you linked to. I think the other specs are the same.

Differences between Win 10 Pro and Home are listed here http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/feature/windows/windows-10-home-vs-windows-10-pro-uk-difference-3618710/ .

Bangadrum

I just got off the phone with Dell and put an order in for the Inspiron 7000 Gaming Series, got a student discount too.