Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1
Worth considering if you’ll make use of its convertible nature, but smaller rivals pack more appeal
SCORE
Range starts at: £707 (£849 inc VAT) Model tested: £849 (£1,019 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk
Dell’s Inspiron range of laptops comes in three tiers: the 3000 series at the bottom, the 5000 in the middle and the 7000 at the top. As you climb through the ranks, you’ll enjoy faster components and more expensive construction, but there’s still quite a gap between the 7000 and Dell’s XPS series. For example, the keyboard on this 2-in-1 model – the 7506 – lacks the punch of XPS laptops.
The wide expanse of its 15.6in panel is well protected by an aluminium lid, with the rest of the chassis being a mix of metal and plastic. It’s sturdy rather than stylish, with the rather dull finish lent a smidgen of allure by the glossy screen with an all-glass front.
The screen itself is a solid midrange unit, with its strengths being colour coverage and accuracy: 97% of the sRGB gamut and an average Delta E of 0.34. Nor can we complain about a peak brightness of 332cd/m2 or 1,295:1 contrast ratio. All that said, it lacks the punch of the best screens, and because it’s so large it suffers from lower pixel density than its rivals. We’d also like to have seen stronger viewing angles, with a distinct drop off at the side.
But this laptop’s big selling point is that it’s a convertible. A chunky one, of course, with a 1.9kg weight meaning it’s destined to sit on a desk rather than eing held in one hand. Dell sells its wn active stylus for around £30, or if ou buy the Black Edition for £1,399 it
mes with a stylus that slots into its wn charging slot.
That comes with the same 11th-gen ore i7-1165G7 as our test model, a lative snip at £1,019 as it includes GB of RAM, a 512GB Intel Optane SD and Windows 10 Pro (search for n75602 on Dell’s site). The consumer indows 10 Home models start at
849, with a Core i5, 8GB of RAM and a 6GB SSD. As ever, our benchmarks lt the benefit of the latest Intel rocessor with a fine score of 121, and Intel’s Iris Xe graphics powered it to 61fps at Full HD in Dirt: Showdown.
You’ll need to dial down the settings in demanding games, though, as a 30fps result in F1 2020 indicates.
There are some nice “extras”. A privacy shutter for the solid 720p webcam, a fingerprint reader built into the power key, numerous ports – including a full-size HDMI and SD card slot, as well as Thunderbolt 4 to accompany the USB-A ports. Battery life is also solid for such a big machine at 7hrs 35mins. And “solid” is the word here. Rivals offer more for your money, making the 7506 only worth it if you desperately seek a convertible.