Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Laptop Review

It’s big but it’s beautiful, how does the Inspiron 15 7000 fare?

*Note : You may click on the images to view the larger copy

While the notebook is beautiful, the first thing that catches your attention would be it’s weight, it comes at a hefty 2.6Kg – enough for you to wield it as a weapon, or use it as a shield as Captain America would have (not covered by warranty).

How big is big? Have a look, that’s a 140mm fan, and a regular sized mouse. It’s so huge, I couldn’t even fit it into my largest sling bag, the same one that I use for my photography equipment.

One you come to term with the size and weight, that it’ll be quite a pain to lug around, you’ll begin to appreciate the beauty of the laptop. For example, the entire package is of a silver finish and it looks great. The huge 15.6 inch LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife at Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080).

The full sized keyboard is of good build and comfortable to the touch.

Dell also made the keyboard backlit, great for those of you who love working in dark places.

The Inspiron 15 7000 has 2 USB 3.0 on the left, alone with the power connection port.

On the right are 2 more USB 3.0 ports, along with HDMI output, LAN port (RJ 45), audio port and a Card reader.

On the bottom of the notebook are the ventilation and speakers.

Here’s the CPU-Z and GPU-Z capture for the notebook, for those of you who are wondering what’s the system like.

Nice isn’t it? It’s running on an Intel Core i7-4500U with GTX750M graphic system, OS is Windows 8.1. The model in this review has 8GB RAM and 1TB 5400RPM HDD storage.

More details at the official product page.

User Experience

Everything’s huge with this laptop and it’s very comfortable to use because of the large screen and keyboard. I love the audio output too, loud and quite rich for a laptop. On the downside, the large screen mean it’s going to drain quite a fair bit from the battery itself.

The size of the laptop makes it less suitable for lugging around on a daily basis but it looks great as a desktop PC replacement.

The laptop runs quite silent and what’s more impressive is that the heat is well dissipated so it doesn’t become a finger warmer when playing games. I spent a fair bit of time gaming on this laptop, it works well for most games but don’t expect it to perform well on First-Person Shooter games like Battlefield 4. You might get away with less demanding FPS games.

Here’s a video of my gaming experience with the Inspiron 15 7000 series using the GTX 750M graphic system.

One thing I would like to highlight is the processor. Many users thought that the Intel Core i7 on laptop works the same as the Intel Core i7 on desktops – no, they don’t. The Core i7 on a laptop is really fast when compared to other mobile processors BUT it’s no where near the performance of a desktop Core i3.

For example, a Core i3-4130 does x264 – 10bit to 8bit Video Conversion in about 5 minutes but the Core i7 here takes some 12 minutes for the same task.

The Verdict

The model reviewed here is the one priced at RM 3,599. The highest spec model is RM 3,999 (higher processing power, more RAM) while the lowest being RM 2,899.

For people who are looking for mobility, this isn’t the laptop for you unless you’re looking for some “on the go” weight training. For those looking for a desktop replacement, you can’t go wrong with any of the models from the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 series.