Dell Inspiron 17 7000 Gaming
A laptop that’ll deliver long lasting gaming sessions — even on the go.
There really is no shortage of gaming laptops repping Nvidia’s affordable and compact GeForce GTX 960M graphics chip. While Dell’s new Inspiron 15 7000 is perhaps a little late to the party, this 15.6-inch gaming laptop isn’t without its charms. It’s not overly big, but nor is it particularly small. It isn’t too brightly coloured, nor is it overly plain. And despite being full of relatively new hardware, there are parts of the fit-out that already feel well worn.
Dell only rarely launches ‘gaming’-oriented products under its own name — usually, they’re kept separate in the Alienware lineup — and here, the result of that seems to be that this is a relatively subdued gaming laptop. It has a powdery-black plastic exterior with hints of red in the keys, vents, backlight and topside logo. To the trained eye, it’s certainly a gaming laptop, but at the same time, it isn’t overly ostentatious. Catering to both gaming and work audiences, it manages to include a silky and responsive trackpad, but the keyboard is unfortunately a bit shallow and mushy. The front-edge speakers are well positioned for watching media, but lack volume and their forward-firing nature means they’re actually a little too far forward when you’re sitting directly in front of the unit.
This model has a GTX 960M GPU but also a familiar Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU, 16GB RAM, 128GB Toshiba M.2 SATA 6Gbps SSD, a 1TB Toshiba hard drive and a 15.6-inch anti-glare mattefinish 1080p display. That’s reasonably run-of-the-mill in terms of hardware and so’s the performance — this configuration pushes the same average scores as the similarly-specced MSI GE72 6QD Apache Pro and ASUS GL55VW laptops in the Bioshock ( 42fps), GRID 2 (54fps) and Tomb Raider (50fps) benchmarks. Playable rates, sure, but a far cry from what you’ll see in a 10-series laptop, like those we’ve reviewed on page 42.
In PCMark’s accelerated Home battery test benchmark (with Nvidia’s battery boost tech turned on and then again with it off) the PC gets close to 5 hours to a charge — a surprisingly lengthy span for a gaming device. The unit’s cooling system is also well designed, keeping the CPU under 80ºC and the GPU under 65ºC, despite strenuous testing.
It’s possible to play recent games like Far Cry Primal at an average framerate of 32fps on Normal detail settings, so you’ll get a bit of mileage out of the GPU if you’re willing to play current and upcoming titles at medium/lowish quality settings.
The Inspiron comes in two SKUs and though we feel the Core i7 processor (rather than an i5), additional 8GB of RAM and extra 128GB SSD on the model we tested seems more valuable than the $300 saved on the cheaper unit, it still isn’t a bargain at $1,999.
Considering the formidable competition, an above-average battery life might not be quite enough to convince customers on its own. But then, at least the Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming has at least one thing it can crow about.
“Dell only rarely launches ‘gaming’-oriented products under its own name — usually, they’re kept separate in the Alienware lineup — and here, the result of that seems to be that this is a relatively subdued gaming laptop.”