Dell Inspiron 7000 (7559) 15.6″ : Skylake I5-6300HQ (4C/4T), GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5, 1080p IPS display, 256GB SSD/1TB SSHD for $750-$800

If you purchase this Dell or another Dell, please use the published removal tool to remove their backdoor – explanation here.

This is the new Dell Inspiron 15 7559 (part of 7000 series). This new model sports I5-6300HQ (4C/4T) which is great for gaming, more than the previous generation I5 which was a 2C/4T chip. The GPU is the seasoned Nvidia GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5 (Maxwell I) which is adequate for midrange graphics settings, usually running games like BF4 on high settings smoothly.

The 1080p IPS matte display is nice, but my tests show that this is not a very good display, in IPS standards. The default 1TB SSHD (Dell) or 256GB SSD (Amazon) too. The Dell version is a little cheaper and you’ll include Dell “rewards” which can be up to 10% of the purchase amount for preferred account – I guess it’s worth it if you plan to purchase something else from Dell in the future, just check the limitations and conditions.

The new Dell Inspiron 7000 does lack a bit in the connection ports department – 3xUSB 3.0, HDMI 1.4a. No mDP and no USB 3.1. No Thunderbolt 3 either.

The thermals are very good and have no problem keeping the temperatures low, at least in the I5 version. Noise under light load is very low too. Speakers are mediocre, to my taste, and I can’t find them satisfactory. Keyboard is not that good too, with low resistance, feedback and travel depth.

The combination of these lower end qualities make me think that the Acer VN7-592G might be a better choice, with a better default display, keyboard, speakers, TB3 and M.2 PCIe port. We’ll have to wait for a review. So, the VN7-592G review is here and these are the conclusions: it is better than the 7559 excepts thermals (7559 is much better), battery and ease of upgrade. Build quality maybe better too, but the VN7-592G costs more and for $760 the 7559 is a pretty powerful gaming laptop, so it might worth considering. But, then again, wait for VN7-592G deal. Please read the comparison and think together what’s the best!