Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7567) Gaming Laptop - Tech Review

Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7567) Gaming Laptop

Specifications

Processor: Intel Core i5-7300HQ

Graphics Processing Unit: Nvidia Geforce GTX 1050Ti (4GB)

RAM: 8GB, 2400Mhz (with expandable RAM slots - up to 32GB max)

Storage: 256GB SSD (with expandable storage slot for HDD)

Operating System: Windows 10 Home - 64bit

Display: 15.6 FHD (1920x1080) IPS Anti-Glare Display

Introduction

This is my first tech review I've ever done. I actually said that I was going to occasionally do some tech reviews, so here is one. I'm no LinusTechTips or Jay'sTwoCents, so I don't have the production values they have. So, I want to approach my first tech review almost like how I review movies in this one. Also, I'm planning on doing a video review for my YouTube channel. I'll put a link below for that and stay tuned if you want to see the video review.

So, I just received my very first laptop a few days ago. Actually, I got this laptop before I head off to college. I wanted a laptop that was going to satisfy my needs for doing schoolwork outside of the dorm, but also do some light gaming if I had the extra time. So, is this a good laptop? From what I've been experiencing, yes. This is a great laptop for the money.

Build Quality

The build quality is pretty solid. I like the exterior design of the laptop and how it looks. It looks pretty good to me. The build itself, when you put the laptop in your hands, it feels premium. And you can tell that Dell went for a more minimalistic approach when it comes to the design of this laptop because, from the outside, it's not very glamorous. It looks straightfoward and simple, and I like it. 

The only complaint I have with the overall build quality is the keyboard, especially the arrow keys. They feel really awkward when I use them. The overall typing experience is not perfect. To be fair, I'm used to a desktop keyboard and the keyboard I use is more....."typer-friendly".

Display

The display looks pretty good. Of course, it's because it's an IPS display. Be warned: there are multiple variants of this laptop. Some of them have different specs such as the type of display it has. The one I have came with an IPS display. Some have a TN panel, and I heard from reviews that the laptops with the TN panels don't look good. So, be careful of which one you're getting if you're considering on buying this laptop.

The display I have is a 1920x1080, 60Hz IPS panel display. The image quality from the display looks great and I think investing in the IPS panel version is a good investment. 

Sound (Subwoofer)

The Dell Inspiron laptop features one subwoofer underneath as an audio output. The audio experience is not the best, and that's putting it lightly. To be honest, I didn't expect it to do well in that area. It's not bad for a subwoofer located underneath the laptop. It does provide enough auditory clarity. However, I was kinda disappointed in its performance even when I use headphones. It provides too much bass and the on-board audio is not that good. Adding in my Audioengine D1 external DAC made the experience a lot better, but realistically, I'm going to carry around an audio DAC around campus.

Gaming Performance

So, how is gaming performance? One of big selling points of this laptop is that it provides a competent gaming experience for the money. 

Gaming-wise, the laptop will get the job done. The laptop has a 4GB GTX 1050Ti or 1050 depending on which version you get. And obviously a GTX 1050Ti will not run the newest games at Ultra settings. And if you want to make your laptop last during the day while outside your dorm room on campus, realistically, you would want to play something that's less demanding at lower settings. So, for the games that I tested, I tested games like Batman Arkham City, Civilization V, Supreme Commander 2, Mount & Blade: Warband, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Witcher 3. Yeah, I know I said to play something less demanding, but I went ahead and tested Witcher 3 because...why not?

While I didn't tinker with the settings of these games too much, I kept my expectations realistic. It's to no surprise that games like Supreme Commander 2, Counter Strike, and Mount & Blade ran perfectly fine at 60fps. Yeah, nobody's surprised by that. So, what about Arkham City and Civ5? I tested Batman: Arkham City at Medium settings, and it did very well. I turned it up to High and still performed at 60fps consistently. Moved onto Civilization V and it was pretty much the same thing. 

I didn't know this until after I tested the last game, which is the laptop performs differently when it's plugged in and charging. When it's plugged in, it can pretty much run games at 60fps, but when it's running on battery, it's cutting down its power draw and playing games worse to save battery. 

I tried Witcher 3 on Ultra settings just to mess around, and you guessed it, it didn't perform well. I was getting about 21fps, and that's really not that bad because I was honestly expecting 9fps or something. Turning it down to low, it couldn't maintain a good lock at 60fps. So, yeah, do not play this laptop for highly graphically-intensive games, unless you want to burn your laptop. 

Overall Performance

I'm adding this "Overall Performance" section because I wanted to analyze how well does this laptop perform while just using it, mainly because I've never owned a laptop before and this is my first one. So, to no surprise, it works just as well you would expect. The CPU is not great. It does feel at times the laptop is a bit slow, but those were rare moments. I didn't notice anything noticeably wrong while using the laptop that didn't feel very distracting.

The battery life of this laptop is good. It should last you through the whole day if you use it efficiently. Obviously, if you play Witcher 3 for a couple hours unplugged, then you will drain its battery pretty quickly. 

Conclusion and Verdict

In conclusion, this is a very solid laptop if you're someone like me who is a dumb nerd kid going to college. You want something to do work outside of your room, but you also want a decent machine to run some games as free time.

Score: 9/10

Channel Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOHtKM66veaGkUNTSJDGNaA