Killer $800 Gaming Laptop from... DELL??? Inspiron 7559
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,461 words · ~7 min read
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this is the Dell Inspiron 15
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7559 a value gaming laptop excuse me
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lonus a Dell gaming laptop where's the
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alien wear at son while it's true that even a base model 15in Alienware would
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perform better than its inspiring cousin here it would also cost $1,200 compared
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to only $ 800 for this one so let's find
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out how much portable gaming machine you can get for 800 bucks
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the master case 5 from Cooler Master gives you the freedom to make your midtower PC case your own with a variety
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of modular parts and accessories check out the link in the video description to
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learn more so let me preface the video with this the last inspiring laptop that
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I ever used extensively was a mobile Pentium freebased machine I mean we're
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talking pre- widescreen days here and and this is what I imagine the look on
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my face would be like if I was going to call someone up and tell them about how
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exciting it was to use so to say that I
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was impressed as I went through my physical tour routine would definitely
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be an understatement R 7559 is the black
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anded red accent model so it should come as no surprise then that the top lid is
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black with a red Dell logo moving on the screen hinge is a definite gold star for
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the Inspiron it opens smoothly with one finger and suffers from zero discernable
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wobble while typing screen Flex is what I would describe as average not
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impressive considering its thickness but nothing that affects usability the
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screen itself is a matte finish 1080p Affair that didn't dazzle me with its
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brightness or anything but thanks to the use of an IPS panel it delivers very
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solid color and viewing angle performance then above that is a
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surprisingly decent 720p 30fps webcam
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with a dual mic array I mean between
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that and the screen I'm actually kind of amazed at how much of an improvement
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this is over the commodity laptops of yester year and what a difference that
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those little things make to being able to recommend them but of course without
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solid specs a webcam is just a webcam so
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first is io on the right is a gigabit Ethernet Jack and HDMI 1.4a output a
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super speed USB 3 5 GB port and an SD card reader on the left is a headphone
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microphone combo Jack two more USB 3 ports a red accented exhaust vent and
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the power input which leads us to the internal guts we've got a base model
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here with a core i5 6300hq non-
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hyperthreaded 2.3 to 3.2 GHz quad core 8
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gigs of single Channel RAM more on this later a 1 TB hard drive with a built-in
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8 gig SSD cache a whopping 74w hour
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battery rated at just under 10 hours on our config AC Wi-Fi and the thing that
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really made the Inspiron 7559 catch my
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eye cuz Lord knows it wasn't the name a GTX 960m 4 gig video card now to be
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clear the 960m is still not a top tier
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gaming GPU even for mobile I mean for context a 970m is 60 to 70% faster but
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my satisfaction with this GPU is also
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not random compared to previous value
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gaming offerings from tier one manufacturers like Dell Acer or Lenovo
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that would have like x40 or x50 class
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gpus if you're lucky this is a huge step
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forward I mean in terms of performance at the 7559 native 1080p resolution Tomb
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Raider 2013 and Crisis 3 run in a manner
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that I would describe as playable at settings that would have been previously
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Unthinkable and that I'd consider a reasonable experience in last gen AAA
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games then I mean if you were to only play you know free-to-play games like uh
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League of Legends or even you know less graphically demanding paid games like
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Counter-Strike Global Offensive you might start to question why you would
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even need anything more and that's a good question that leads me pretty well
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into my next well negative and positive things about this machine from a bummer
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standpoint the GPU like the vast majority of laptops is not upgradeable
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in any way even from the factory so if you're a pure gamer an $800 desktop will
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still serve you better but the cool thing is that there are a lot of other
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aspects of this machine that are upgradable the 8 gigs of RAM is a single
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DDR3 low voltage stick so moving to two
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16 gig sticks in dual Channel doesn't require you to discard any there is an
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m.2 slot for a boot SSD to go along with your 2 and 1/2 in hard drive so with a
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couple of inexpensive aftermarket upgrades that can be performed with a
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Phillips head screwdriver in about 5 minutes thanks to the thoughtful single
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self- retaining screw design on the bottom plate for under $1,000 you can
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throw together a config that makes a lot more sense to me than the Thousand
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config on the Dell site where you're just paying a bunch extra for the corey7
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but what are you giving up then I mean so far this thing sounds pretty much
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perfect lonus and yeah there are definitely things I mean if you've
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watched a few of my laptop videos you've probably realized by now that I had
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never mentioned the keyboard it's not great it's not terrible and there's very
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little Flex to the wrist rest and the keyboard surface itself but the key caps
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wobble more than I'd like and the keystrokes are pretty mushy and the
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touchpad is actually much worse than the
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keyboard to the point where I'd call it more of a press pad very light touches
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can fail to register outright making fine adjustments somewhat difficult and
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there's more the large battery means that the 7559 while reasonably thin is
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pretty heavy for its size the speakers are surprisingly loud but don't sound
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very good and the Intel 3160 one by one Wi-Fi solution is literally one quarter
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of the speed in real world transfer tests of other more premium Solutions we
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have here in the office but believe it or not all of that
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still adds up to a recommendation here because there are more things that they
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got right as well under gaming load the
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75 59 stays shockingly quiet and even
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runs passively while performing basic desktop tasks thanks to its three heat
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sinks and the overall fit and finish while not comparable to something like a
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blade 14 is damn good considering the
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price speaking of damn good considering the price you know it's a good price
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free and tunnel bear is free for the
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in the top right corner to check out my video where I investigate is it such a
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bad idea to buy a gaming PC at Best Buy