Dell XPS 15 or Dell Inspiron 15 7000

Hi there, new here.

I'm having a lot of trouble deciding what laptop i should get. I've read in this forum that there are tons of problems with the XPS but i haven't been able to find out much about the Inspiron.

My question is;

I'm looking for lots of hard drive space for movies, a good screen, longevity, and a fast system. Also occasional gaming for games like The Sims 4 and Fallout 4 (my old gt 555m can run these at ultra settings). My Dell XPS 17 from 2011 is on it's way out. So, out of the 2, what laptop should I get?

Dell XPS 15 Touch
6th Generation Intel Core i5-6300HQ Quad Core
8GB DDR4 RAM
1TB HDD + 32GB SSD
GTX 960M with 2GB GDDR5

Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Touch
6th Generation Intel Core i7-6700HQ Processor
16GB DDR3L RAM
1TB HDD + 128 SSD
GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5

I am very stuck. Can someone offer me some insight on the two or your opinion on either?

 

They are nearly identical systems, from a hardware perspective. The only major difference is design and materials (aluminum & carbon fiber vs plastic).

If you value a sleeker, better-looking laptop with better design, get the Dell XPS 15. If you don't care about that any only want bang-for-your-buck hardware specs, then get the Dell Inspiron 15 7000-series.

FYI, for battery life and gaming purposes, I'd recommend you go with the non-touch FHD models (1080p). The touch models are 4K glossy models, which will drain battery faster. Additionally, the 960M won't be able to drive games above 1080p resolution anyway, so 4K touch displays will not be useful when gaming.

 

Thank you for the reply. I was leaning more towards the XPS anyway due to the materials and beautiful screen. I was considering the 4k display because i have bezel issues on my old XPS and i've seen some on the new ones and quite frankly, i don't want to have to get into replacing things if i get a faulty one.

However, i was also considering the Inspiron because of the 128GB SSD. I've read online some things like the 32GB won't be able to function properly with the leftover GB from using it for the OS because it needs a min. of 18GB on a partition (?) to work, or something of the sort. Do you know anything about that? I'd just feel like i'd be wasting my money if i couldn't use it.

 

Well, I can say one thing in favor of the 4K display, it looks very nice, I'm not talking resolution here, I am talking about how rich the colors look like, etc. so it has that going for it.

There is also a difference between the i5-6300HQ and the i7-6700HQ, they are both quad cores, but the latter is clocked higher and also has hyperthreading. I doubt it will make a big difference when paired with a GTX960m anyways.

 

Just buy the XPS with a 1TB + 32GB SSD, and upgrade the SSD yourself to a 256GB or 512GB model.

 

I want to do that but i've never tampered with stuff like that before. I don't want to ruin anything lol

 

Aside from the super tiny Torx T5 screws, the XPS 15 is easy to open and upgrade.

 

Would i have to change anything in the BIOS before/after if i wanted to keep it as cache? What type of SSD can i put in it? There's some Samsung SSD's on sale on the Dell website but not sure if they will work/fit.

 

It's pretty simple. If you don't know how, there are plenty of videos on YouTube walking you through it.

It's worth learning how to do it, just for the incredible payoff you get. You get a much better configuration than you could buy from Dell... And even if Dell did sell that config, you'd save several hundred dollars doing it yourself, since Dell overcharges for drive upgrades.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

I found a 250GB SSD M.2 I can afford after buying the laptop but finding tutorials on it is very hard. I can't find any with the hdd and ssd together, nor how to backup any files.