Review: Dell Inspiron 15 7000

Introduction and design

Dell's Inspiron 15 feels like a computer designed specifically around Windows 10. It functions nicely as a laptop, and does an admirable job in tablet mode. Switching between the two configurations allows Windows 10 to excitedly ask if you'd like to switch back and forth between UI modes. In either configuration, the Inspiron does well, but with a few exceptions, it's a much more useful laptop than it is a tablet.

The Inspiron 15 is up against Lenovo's ThinkPad Yoga 15 in the size department. While both machines feature a relatively enormous 15 inches of screen real estate, they're also competing against sleeker machines, like HP Spectre x360, a 13-inch convertible that hits all the highs.

Design

The Inspiron 15 is a shot across the bow of Apple's design department. With its brushed-aluminum interior finish and backlit, chiclet keyboard, this laptop could easily be mistaken for a MacBook at first blush.

The trackpad is set into the inside of the laptop with a smooth, beveled border that highlights the change from the aesthetically-pleasing surface in a sleek, but striking way. This border carries over to the outside edges of the laptop's aluminum interior, which is milled with a subtle angle, adding a fashionable design element to the otherwise industrial keyboard deck.

On top of the clean finish, the aluminum makes the machine feel solid. No matter how you hold it – in one hand or two – the laptop never feels like it's straining under its own weight, which is a good thing, considering the machine weighs close to 5 pounds (about 2.2kg).

The keyboard itself is quite lovely, with wobble-free keys spaced perfectly and a satisfying amount of travel. The keyboard lights up as well, depending on the ambient light, which is another nice touch on top of also being spill-resistant.

I don't enjoy the Microsoft-backed precision touchpad as much as I enjoy the keyboard, however. I can never quite find a sensitivity setting that feels right to me. It is either too twitchy or too slow. More than a few times I'll try to click on a link on a website and the cursor will roll off before I can depress the touchpad. Turning on the tap function helps me somewhat, but it still never feels quite right.

Unfortunately, when converted into tablet mode, there isn't really much that jumps out about the laptop. It's just a very large, albeit very colorful and bright, screen. Dell did include a Windows button on the bottom of the screen, which is handy for quickly accessing the tablet-mode Start screen. But that's really all there is to get excited about when you have the Inspiron 15 converted.

The keyboard and brains of the computer sag a little on the hinge when folded into tablet mode, so that gravity opens it up just slightly. There's no satisfying catch or magnetic clasp to hold the hefty halves together. It's just enough give to raise doubts in my mind on how well the hinges will hold up after repeated use.

When bigger is better

For full-page or endless scrolling websites, the 15-inch screen in tablet mode suddenly turned into something I never again want to be without. The same holds true for PDF documents.

I found normal web browsing to be less than ideal in both horizontal and vertical tablet orientations. But, specifically for websites like Feedly or Reddit, holding the tablet vertically is something I never knew I've always wanted in my life.

Specifications and performance

The Inspiron 15 7000 Series 2-in-1 is a sweet deal, priced at $899 USD (about £580, AU$1,499). For that price, you get an Intel i5-5200U processor, which performs well under normal use. The chip is able to keep up with Windows 10's streaming from Xbox One feature, and I played a few games of NHL 16 without a problem.

Streaming from the Xbox One and lightweight gaming is about all you're going to get out of the Inspiron 15. Much like the HP Spectre x360, there is no dedicated graphics chip. Minecraft works fine, but I wouldn't recommend trying to play Metal Gear Solid V with it. The Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 15 beats both machines spec-wise, running a higher-end i5-5300U and a dedicated Nvidia Geforce 840M graphics processor onboard. No configuration of the Inspiron 15 includes a discrete graphics option.

That's a shame, given that the 1,920 x 1,080p full HD (FHD) screen looks great. It's crisp and colorful, with high resolution images and HD movies looking lovely displayed on it. The one thing I don't like is the auto-adjusting brightness, a feature I shut off.

The setting was too sensitive, and merely moving my hand in front of the front-facing camera would cause the screen to pump up the brightness suddenly, only to drop it back down again a second later. It was too jarring to be useful.

Here is the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Series 2-in-1 configuration sent to TechRadar for review:

Spec sheet

• CPU: 2.2GHz Intel Core i5-5200U (3MB Cache, up to 2.7GHz)
• Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 5500
• RAM: 8GB DDR3L (1,600MHz, single channel)
• Screen: 15.6-inch LED backlit Truelife display with FHD resolution (1,920 x 1,080)
• Storage: 256GB SSD
• Optical drive: Optional external DVD-RW (not included in configuration)
• Ports: HDMI 1.4a, 2 USB 3.0 (one with PowerShare), USB 2.0, Noble lock slot, media card (SD, MMC)
• Connectivity: Intel Centrino Wireless AC 7265, Bluetooth 4.0
• Camera: Integrated widescreen 720p webcam with dual digital microphone array
• Weight: 4.7 pounds (2.14kg)
• Size: 15.04 x 9.94 x 0.78 inches (W x D x H) (382 x 253 x 20mm)

While the Inspiron 15 doesn't have the graphics capability of the ThinkPad, it trounces Lenovo's machine when it comes to storage. The 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) overshadows the ThinkPad Yoga's standard 150GB configuration and puts it on-par with the HP Spectre.

There are optional configurations with hard drives available in 500GB or 1TB. However, those will add about a tenth of a pound to the Inspiron's already heavy weight. On screen size, the Inspiron is much larger than the HP Spectre's 13.3-inch screen, and the Inspiron we tested costs the same as the entry-level HP Spectre x360, which comes with a mere 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD.

The base model Inspiron 15 7000 Series 2-in-1 comes with a 500GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, and an Intel dual-core Pentium processor for just $549 (about £360, AU$780). For just $150 more, you can upgrade to an i5 processor, and from there you might as well spring for the SSD and double the memory to get to the $899 version we tested.

Like the Inspiron 13 7000, Dell does not offer a special edition of this machine in Australia, and doesn't sell any version of it in the UK. However, for those that live down under, you can pick up a regular Inspiron 15 7000 for a starting price of AU$999.

Performance

The Inspiron 15 performs adequately in everyday tasks. Web surfing, movie viewing and streaming from Xbox One all work nicely. The i5 processor is capable enough to handle photo editing without any real hiccups or slow performance, but I wouldn't recommend trying to use Lightroom in tablet mode, unless your fingers have surgical precision for adjusting the sliders.

Benchmarks

• 3DMark: Cloud Gate: 4,556; SkyDiver: 2,547; Fire Strike: 612
• GeekBench: GeekBench: 2,336 (single-core); 4,115 (multi-core)
• PCMark 8 (Home Test): 2,239 points
• PCMark 8 Battery Life: 3 hours and 40 minutes
• Cinebench R15: OpenGL: 15.69 fps; CPU 129 cb

In our benchmarking, the Inspiron 15 scored comparatively with the HP Spectre in the 3DMark test, but failed to even catch up to the dust left behind by the Thinkpad Yoga. The Yoga's discrete graphics card really helps push it far above what the Inspiron is capable of with its on-board graphics.

The Inspiron also falls just slightly behind both competitors on the PCMark 8 test, but where it seriously lags is battery life. The Thinkpad Yoga came in at 5 hours and 7 minutes on the PCMark 8 battery life test, while the Spectre x360, despite its smaller size and lack of a dedicated graphics chip, came in at 4 hours and 38 minutes.

However, in real-world testing, watching a movie on a continuous loop at 50% brightness and volume, the Inspiron's battery lasted an adequate 5 hours and 16 minutes. That's almost enough to relieve the boredom of a cross-country flight without needing to swap to a different device. Still, that's not fantastic and well short of Dell's claim of nearly 9 hours.

Looks, sounds, and feels great

In spite of some performance shortcomings, the Inspiron looks and feels so nice, especially for the price. It makes a strong standing in its class.

The speakers output a clear, distortion-free sound that doesn't fall to pieces in the mids and lows, something you might not expect out of a mid-range laptop. Certain applications work really well in tablet mode, like Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta and certain websites. Watching movies on the Inspiron is also a treat, given its wide, vibrant display, and if you trust your kids enough, it could be used for in-car entertainment on road trips.

But don't bother trying to use the Inspiron 15 outside. Its reflective screen made it impossible to see anything, even on a slightly overcast day at max brightness.

The laptop is sturdy enough that you'll never feel like you need to hold it in any sort of special way to keep it from being damaged, but opening the laptop does require both hands and a firm grip. Its weight and size make tablet mode difficult one-handed without propping it up on something.

Bundled software

• McAfee Live Safe Internet Security: You're going to want to uninstall this immediately and find another solution. Its intrusive pop-ups hide the "close" option in a drop-down menu rather than a simple button.
• Amazon One Button App: a simple shortcut to Amazon located in the taskbar.
• Dell Backup and Recovery: Dell's proprietary backup solution.

Verdict

Dell's Inspiron 15 7000 Series 2-in-1 laptop is a nicely priced machine with a modern metallic look, but it's weight and size in tablet mode keep its convertibility from being truly useful, which is a shame. Maybe a more apt description would be to call it a 1-and-also-a-tablet-if-you-like, rather than a 2-in-1, because it's really just a nice laptop that also can be used as a giant tablet.

We liked

The build and screen quality are fantastic and make the Inspiron look like a higher-end computer when open. The keyboard quality is wonderful, with solid keys and an intelligent backlighting system. For everyday usage, the Inspiron 15 is more than adequately powered and the SSD option makes it feel nice and peppy from startup to file searching.

We disliked

As nice as it is as a laptop, it falls short as an enormous tablet. Without fiddling with zoom settings, the screen is just too big to use for web surfing. And at nearly 5 pounds, simply holding it comfortably as a tablet is not easy. In laptop mode, the perfect trackpad sensitivity setting is hard to nail down.

Final verdict

Dell's Inspiron 15 7000 Series 2-in-1 makes for a great laptop and an OK tablet. It feels in every way like a laptop first and foremost, and I found myself defaulting to the laptop configuration in most instances. The extra screen real estate is welcome in certain scenarios in tablet mode, but the display is just too big to hold over your lap, and you may gravitate towards the HP Spectre x360 for these reasons.

The Inspiron 15 is a fine machine that is worth the price as tested, and would make a great laptop for professionals or college kids looking for a versatile device. Though the Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 15 offers stronger performance, the Dell hybrid is more affordable and doesn't come loaded with specialized features or options you might not need.

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