Is 7559 4K Reliable for Creative Type (HS Sr & College Freshman)

I am looking for a laptop for a teen that creates 3D animation and does image manipulation; she is not a gamer nor PC hardware literate. Her high school makes use of Adobe's Cloud Suite and I want to get her something that works. She is not a fan of Apple. The 7559 forum has a lot of entries in general, many related to the 4K panel. For those that have purchased a 7559, if you were the creative type and not a PC troubleshooter, would you buy the 7559 again?

 

I would recommend it as a budget choice for your needs. A few relevant pros and cons I can think of...

Pros:
1. It is packed with Nvidia Geforce GTX 960M with 4G DDR5 memory. I think most other alternatives in the price range offers graphics cards with less memory, or just worse graphics cards.
2. It has decent temperature control from my experience. It might not be the coolest while idling, but its core rarely goes beyond 80 degree celsius under load.
3. It also has a rather big 72Wh battery. Not enough to make it last all day but at least much, much better than those MSI models with similar specs.

Cons:
1. It's pretty darn heavy, especially if you also have to carry the power adaptor.
2. Although the screen is IPS, it's a meh IPS screen.
2. Some people hate its keyboard and trackpad. I personally find the keyboard okay, but I always use a mouse so can't comment on the trackpad.

P.S.
1. Make sure to upgrade the hard drive to 256G SSD! If you don't want to change it yourself, ask the reseller to do it for you. This is life-changing upgrade for the use of those big fat software.
2. If your model doesn't come with 8G memory already, you will most likely want to upgrade it to 8G+ too.
3. I have no idea how important it is to have 4KUHD for a designer, but I would pick FHD non-touch instead because FHD is less battery draining and less GPU demanding, and letters on a 4KUHD screen can get eye-bleedingly small.

 

I am most interested in the perceived performance of the FHD and UHD screens and the perceived overall reliability of the laptop as a system by those that have purchased the 7559.

Naketotsu, based on a partial reading the 7559 thread, I agree with all your points. Providing image quality and system reliability are both good, the specs and price will make the 7559 appeal to creative types who can get by with the 960m GPU. She made a specific request for a touch screen, it's easier to use Adobe products and Maya with a finger vs mouse. Since the touch option only comes wtih 4K, Dell has eliminated my options.

The user of this laptop is in high school, so I do not need professional grade performance from the Dell. But if there is overall dissatisfaction with the display, that is a deal breaker. Since the teen is non-technical, average system reliability or worse is also a deal breaker.

My original thought was: Dell has great hardware, software, and firmware support, so go Dell. But comments related to the display panels have me thinking I might be better off with a similarly spec'ed system such as an ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW, ASUS ROG GL552VW, MSI GE62 Apache, or even Acer Aspire V17 Nitro Black. I am still investigating a backup choice.

FYI: I know there is a 7559 thread. I have taken notes on the 1st 80 posts and have many more to go. Not being a gamer myself, Dell has name recognition, though my experience has been with their more expensive Latitudes and Percisions. But the long list of issues in the 7559 thread has me hesitant to purchase my first Inspiron.

 

I've also considered a few alternatives before deciding on 7559. Here's my thought/what I've heard regarding alternatives you've mentioned:

ASUS ZenBook Pro UX501VW
Pros:
Thin and beautiful metal chassis.
Better IPS screen than 7559 and GL552vw.
Cons:
This one is much more expensive than 7559 in my country.
Very power hungry (ASUS had to put a huge (96Wh) battery in it to give it an acceptable battery life). Tends to get hot.
Very small letters.

ASUS ROG GL552VW
Overall I think you can regard this one as ASUS's counterpart of 7559.
Pros:
In terms of spec/price ratio, it's slightly cheaper than 7559 in my country.
Cons:
Also heavy.
I heard its screen is just similar to that of 7559, both are IPS but meh.
I heard its temperature is slightly higher than 7559.

MSI GE62 Apache
I don't know much about this one. My impression on MSI though is that they are good at making gaming laptops so temperature and performance are rarely an issue; however their models usually have abysmal battery life. If the user always carries the power adaptor then it's less of an issue.
Also, I'm not sure but I think models in my country have TN instead of IPS screen.

Acer Aspire V17 Nitro Black
I have a history with Acer. Long story short, my impression of Acer is that they offer unmatched spec/price ratio, but their consistency and quality is... oh well.

Anyways, I think I'll still recommend 7559 with UHD-touch if it's necessary. It's just that battery life will be shorter. Regarding quality and consistency, I don't think 7559 is significantly worse than any of the models you listed. Models that sell better just tend to receive more problem reports. ASUS dominates laptop market in my country so we hear way more ASUS issues than DELL.