Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming

When the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 dropped last year, we suspected it would be the end-all and be-all for gaming laptops. That is, until we saw the price tag.

Although it was a spectacle to behold – gorgeous and thin without compromising on power – the first notebook to leverage Nvidia’s Max-Q technology was out of reach for most gamers due to its $1,999  (£2,289, AU$3,929) cost of entry.

The latest version of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming, then, is the antithesis to the Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501. In fact, it’s more comparable to the Razer Blade and the Gigabyte SabrePro 15. 

However, unlike both of those options, the Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming now holds an Nvidia Max-Q internal design, meaning all of its components have been squeezed into a frame that’s under an inch thick – and that, theoretically, its inventive cooling system will keep them all from catching fire as a result.

For an aspiring PC gamer on a budget, the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming – henceforth known as ‘Inspiron 15 Gaming’ – seems like an obvious choice, as you’ll soon discover from its astonishingly low range of prices. But, for under a grand, is it possible for a laptop to deliver on its promise of true portability matched with the performance necessary to run graphically intensive, triple-A blockbuster titles? Let’s find out.

Price and availability

At the time of writing, you can buy the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming we reviewed for $979 from Dell in the US.

That’s a sale tag, down from its $999 manufacturer’s suggested retail price; nevertheless, shelling it out will grant you a version of this laptop which houses a 15.6-inch 1080p display, an Intel Core i5-7300HQ processor, 8GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics in the Max-Q design and 256GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage.

Australian customers can get the same – and the cheapest – model for AU$1,499.

In the UK, the situation is a little different. For a Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming featuring a GTX 1060, you’ll need to shell out at least £1,399 for the i7-7700HQ, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD and 1TB hard drive disk (HDD) to go with it. That, too, is a sale price, with the original being £1,418.

If you would rather have it for a lower cost and with more total storage, the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming currently starts at $949 in the US (normally $1,099). You’ll be in for the same screen, processor, RAM and graphics as the laptop reviewed here, but with a 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD rather than just 256GB of space.

This contrasts nicely with the still-economical, $1,399 (£1,499, AU$2,249) Gigabyte SabrePro 15 and the much more expensive, $1,899 (£1,799, AU$2,799) Razer Blade, though you’re probably wondering what corners were cut for it to get there. The answer is, surprisingly, very few.

Design

As far as gaming laptops go, the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming is relatively subtle in its appearance. Despite its ‘edgy’ red and black color scheme, professionals and students alike can find solace in its toned down looks compared to those in Dell’s Alienware lineup. 

There’s no sign of a gaudy, extraterrestrial mascot or customizable RGB ‘FX’. Anyone who demands that sort of thing from their laptop ought to turn elsewhere. Instead, the Inspiron 15 Gaming boasts a matte black finish, with option of ‘Beijing Red’ for anyone especially susceptible to the Dell-meets-Spider-Man: Homecoming marketing team-up.

Either way, the Inspiron 15 Gaming’s understated style works in its favor. Dell even went as far as making the ventilation look sophisticated and the hinge appear fashionable, an impressive feat considering its dimensions. The Alienware 17 R3 should take a hint from the Inspiron in that regard. 

Moving onto inputs, the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming does have a red-backlit keyboard with a full-size numberpad, and one that feels natural to the touch at that. It’s no mechanical rig in terms of travel, but 1.4mm isn’t half bad. Above it is a power button that conveniently doubles as a working fingerprint reader, which we love.

The trackpad, on the other hand, reeks of being an afterthought. It’s not particularly large, nor is it consistently responsive. Worse yet, its default settings ensure that you won’t be using it while keys are being pressed, proving an impossible hindrance in first-person games, such as Far Cry Primal. In short, bring along a gaming mouse.

In classic gaming laptop fashion, the trackpad on the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming assumes that you’re always going to have a mouse in-hand, though that isn’t necessarily true for everyone. 

Fortunately, the port selection is less presumptuous. Veteran gamers and newcomers alike will appreciate the inclusion of three traditional USB 3.1 ports in addition to a solo Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port. You can also expect HDMI, an SD card reader that doubles as an MMC slot, standard ethernet and a headphone jack.

On the downside, the speakers on the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming are quite literally on the underside of the machine, making for questionable sound quality unless you have it hooked up to an external audio source. Sure, you can bring along headphones, but audio shouldn’t be this much of a problem for a 15-inch laptop.

Coming as a surprise to no one, the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming is generally weaker than the Gigabyte SabrePro 15 and Razer Blade we name-dropped earlier in this review. 

But, because those laptops are $420 (£100, $750) and $920 (£400, AU$1,300) more expensive than this rendition of the Inspiron 15, respectively, we could easily see the compelling price point outweighing the slight performance inferiority.

In the graphically intensive 3DMark Time Spy, for example, our reviews show that the Gigabyte SabrePro scored 3,438 points while the Razer Blade managed a lofty 3,559. The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming, meanwhile, proved its limitations at 3,151 points. That said, both of those laptops wielding souped-up Intel Core i7-7700HQ processors to go with their GTX 1060 GPUs.

The good news is that the Max-Q version of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming here did beat out the 2016 model in virtually every category. In contempt of being 0.02 inches thinner than Inspiron 15 Gaming before it, it’s actually more powerful than ever all the same.

Whereas this year’s Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming could push 96 frames-per-second in the Cinebench graphics test, the previous, GTX 1050 Ti-equipped model could only handle 94 frames. 

That may not seem like much of a difference at first glance, but considering this version still uses the same Intel Core i5-7300HQ processor and a GTX 1060 that’s slightly weakened due to its slimmer profile, it’s a feat worth celebrating. 

In real-world scenarios, the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming is a force to be reckoned with. We used it to play the PC port of Bayonetta that released last year at the highest settings and with no noticeable frame drops, and the more recent Far Cry Primal, at settings recommended by Nvidia’s GeForce Experience software, with no issues to speak of.

You can look forward to experiencing a game like the latter on medium to high graphics settings,  about on par or slightly better than those of the Xbox One X. Unlike a console, though, Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming can be used to run pretty much every title that’s ever been released on the Windows platform and then some (via emulators) at 60 frames per second.

Battery life and storage

Among all of its improvements over previous iterations, if there are two areas in which the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming truly suffers, they are battery life and storage. Starting with the former, this laptop lasted 4 hours and 31 minutes in the PCMark 8 battery life test, down from its 5-hour and 51-minute results one year prior. 

In the TechRadar movie test, wherein we loop Guardians of the Galaxy in VLC Player until the laptop’s battery dies, the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming lasted 4 hours and 21 minutes, down again from the 2016 model we reviewed last year, which persevered through 7 hours and 38 minutes of the film.

The culprit here is certainly the 56Whr battery inside this laptop compared to the 74Whr juice pack inside the previous model. Luckily, Dell has included a fast-charging technology within this model, bringing it from zero to 80% charge in under an hour.

Likewise, we take equal issue with the lack of storage present in the Dell Inspiron 15 Gaming. As it stands right now, a single 256GB PCIe-based SSD is nowhere near enough for the average gamer. 

After installing a total of four games, including Total War: Warhammer II and Middle Earth: Shadow of War – without their 4K texture packs – we were warned that our PC was running out of storage. 

For that reason, and because it’s likely you’ll be using the Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming for more than gaming alone, we are hesitant recommend this exact configuration as it stands. Ironically, the cheaper 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD model is a more enticing option for gamers, even if it does weigh 6.28 pounds (2.85kg) as opposed to the 5.82-pound (2.65kg) model we were sent for review.

We liked

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming is the most affordable Max-Q laptop you can buy. It’s thinner than most gaming laptops and it also touts a design that won’t embarrass you in front of your friends. What’s more, it has plenty of ports and a decent keyboard with a full-size number pad and a fingerprint reader that’s actually pretty useful.

You get what you pay for in terms of performance, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing here. The games you want to play will both look and feel good, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters the most.

We disliked

The trackpad is loud, boisterous and automatically locks when you’re using the keyboard, meaning there are a few extra steps involved to use it for any kind of gaming. We’re skeptical of a laptop that relies on a mouse or a controller since it doesn’t ship with either. 

We’re also unconvinced that 256GB of storage is enough for anyone using their laptop to play games, no matter how much faster and lighter an SSD is than a traditional hard drive. The smaller, four-cell 56Whr battery turned out to be a thick move too, when the beefier graphics card was bound to suck up more juice.

The down-firing speakers are merely icing on the cake of disappointment.

Final verdict

On paper, the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming has it all. A 7th-generation ‘HQ’ series Intel Core i5 processor and a GTX 1060 should be plenty for gaming, right? Sadly, it’s held back by other aspects that you wouldn’t normally think about when purchasing a gaming laptop. 

Given its $949 (£899, AU$1,499) starting price, we don’t blame Dell for cutting corners, nor would we blame you for buying this machine. It’s by no means unacceptable – the performance is still there. Its shortcomings, however, set a worrying precedent for future Inspiron 15 Gaming refreshes, thereby lending itself to a few docked points.