Dell Laptop - 7th Gen Intel Core i5, GTX 1060 6GB Graphics, 8GB Memory, 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD, 15.6", Matte Black

Great little laptop for the price. I bought this to replace an older, aging Asus ROG laptop and I absolutely love using it! It starts up fast, plays all my games great, and is nearly half the weight of my old gaming laptop! The fingerprint scanner works every time and is a much appreciated addition to the computer. The keyboard deck is a firm aluminum, which makes typing and using the laptop in normal use feel very premium, despite the rest of the chassis being made of plastic, though the plastic certainly does not feel cheap. The computer has a very professional look to it with a hint of that gamer charm in the red accents and keyboard. I personally find it to be a very tasteful and minimalist design, as opposed to the more flashy gaming laptops on the market, though others may disagree.The screen is great for most uses, however it can seem a bit washed out in some areas and when it goes black you can see some backlight bleed around the camera. Other than that, it works just fine for everyday use and gaming, and I don't have any issues with viewing angles. Speaking of angles, however, the screen does not bend back very far. For use on a desk or table this won't be too much of an issue, but on your lap or propped up against your knees while laying down in bed, this can present some awkward viewing positions where you're looking above the screen, rather than directly at it. I don't have a huge issue with this, but others might.The keyboard feels very tactile and easy to type on. Keystrokes are smooth and consistent and the WASD keys have a nice outline to them, further accenting the gaming aspects of this laptop. The keys seem to have a bit of a hollow, plasticky feel to them, but this does not detract from the experience unless you're the nitpicky type. I have not had any issues using this keyboard thus far.The trackpad could be better, but it's not horrible. I was a little spoiled to the higher end trackpad of my ROG with the smooth glass feel, so coming to the textured plastic feel of this Inspiron is different. Precision is rather good and gestures work with no issues.As far as sound is concerned the computer is silent during light use, such as web browsing and even watching YouTube. When I played Metal Gear Solid V, the fans kicked in but were not that loud or distracting. However, jumping over to PUBG, the fans went into overdrive, presumably because that game is much more processing intensive. You'll want to invest in a good set of headphones if you don't like to hear fans mixed in with your game sound.Speaking of sound, the internal speakers are good for the price point. They are not the best and a better set of external speakers or a good set of headphones will be much better. The internal speakers, even maxed out, seem a little quiet. For normal use they'll get the job done, but you'll probably want headphones of your own.The GeForce GTX1060 6GB packed into this machine has played whatever game I throw at it, from Fallout 4 to PUBG, at a consistent 60 frames per second. Even on battery the laptop can handle gaming, if at lower graphics settings and for a rather short 1 hour of playtime. Like any gaming laptop, you'll want to keep this one plugged in to play. Battery life, otherwise, has been hovering around 4-5 hours before needing a charge, a marked improvement for me over my ROG, which could barely hold 2 hours before dying.TL;DR: You're not going to find another laptop at this price point that delivers what this one does. I paid $899 for mine, the other laptop I was looking at was the Acer Predator Helios 300, which packs a more powerful processor but does not have the SSD and HDD included, only the SSD. I would have had to pay another $50-60 for an additional HDD, along with the $1000 price tag of the Helios. This Dell saved me nearly $200 and delivers all the performance I need without needing to buy more stuff along with it. If you're looking for a gaming laptop that won't break the bank while delivering excellent performance, this is the one to get.

I hadn't owned a laptop in more than 10 years. I'm a desktop PC person. One of the most important parts of my job is monitoring the shifts in the land under 50+ year old bridges in the Appalachian Mountains. As we've repaired them, the need for someone to be closer to be able to go physically test the land and check them has increased. I live just within 100 miles of all the bridges I monitor but those close to 100 miles away can't just be checked instantly. I go to a hotel about 10 minutes from a cluster of 6 bridges and stay one day and night per week. Guess who tried to take their desktop PC? Yep. I should say I have other interests and uses for the computer too. I am used to being in a house with my mom, my wife, two kids and two puppies. It's lonely at a distant hotel, so I needed something to play my video games on while monitoring. I didn't do as much studying and researching as I normally would on a purchase like this. I have a fairly good grasp and knowledge of computer parts and what I need and don't need.The screen was important but not a deal-breaker since the hotel is a Courtyard and has HDMI televisions that I could connect to. The screen is very nice and I could only see the most stringent of display snobs having a problem with it. I mean no offense to display snobs. I'm an audiophile, I'm a sound snob, we've all got our obsessions. Speaking of the sound, it's okay, nothing more, nothing less. I have a Bose Soundlink Revolve and take it with me, it connects easily to the laptop's bluetooth.When I bought this there seemed to be some questions about the specs, so I've made a short list of the ones I was most interested in:It has the Nvidia GeForce 1060 6GB video card, it plays everything I play very smoothly. I'll go more into that below.It has bluetooth as mentioned above, and AC WiFi, both work very good.The battery life is good for me but I never have it unplugged for more than an hour to two hours. I guess I could have tested that but I rarely think about unplugging it.The keyboard is so nice that I actually use it instead of plugging a USB keyboard in but I did buy the Logitech smaller wireless keyboard (Logitech MK360) and mouse set just to be safe. Trackpad works well too but I prefer a mouse. Don't hold that against the laptop. I've used a laptop maybe 1 year total in my life and have used a desktop PC for more than 20. I'm just not that used to the trackpad. The keyboard and trackpad are backlit with a red color, it's non-offensive and non-glaring and helps a lot if you like to use it in the dark.It has a Solid State Drive that had around 80 GB of free space upon booting it the first time. It's used for your Windows which gives you a fast bootup. It also has a Hard Disc Drive that has 920 GB of free space upon booting it the first time. It takes less than 10 seconds for me to go from pushing the power button, signing in to being on the desktop. That's very comparable to my high-end desktop PC.There's an HDMI 2.0a, a USB-C Thunderbolt and three more 3.1 USB (those work with the older USB versions, if wondering).It has 8 GB of RAM, it can be upgraded to 32 GB and is very simple to upgrade if you need more RAM.This laptop either met every need I had or surpassed the amount I needed. The video card is a bonus to me. I don't play the newest games and usually prefer console versions. I will say I can play Morrowind with graphics overhaul with no problem on this laptop. I also can play Fallout 4 on it with no problems. And what I've been mainly doing is using it to play games through PS Now, it runs those perfectly. I don't get any of the noise, I'm guessing I'm not pushing the card that hard but will say it's very comparable to my PC at home that has a GeForce 980 GTX in it. And I'm again guessing that's because these games I play aren't very stressful on the GPU. The 980 GTX is rated quite a bit better in benchmark tests but take it from me, unless you're playing the very newest games on ultra settings, you're not going to notice. I spent 3 months buying that PC with the 980 GTX and can say I don't think I've ever come close to using all the power it has.Which makes this a great "work" computer! I do use a few programs for work that this laptop handles easily. I'll also mention that there wasn't much bloatware on it. And by the way, Cortana is not disabled when you first setup the laptop so be aware. I plugged it in and turned it on, went to the bathroom, came out and heard someone talking. It was Cortana. I'm also one of the people who really likes Windows 10 and it works well on this laptop.I can't find a single fault with it. Unless I wanted to complain about the sound but what do you expect from a laptop? I would normally say whether it's overpowered for some people or underpowered for others but I think those looking at it are probably like me and thinking about some gaming use. I will upgrade the RAM eventually, probably in summer but it's really not needed yet. All in all, I think for the price, the video card, the good dual hard drive format, it's about as good as you can ask for.Look at that, I forgot to mention it doesn't have a disc/optical drive. I really planned it that way since I didn't even notice it until a few weeks of using it. That might be a downside to some, so make note of that. I have a USB disc drive if I need to use a disc but haven't in at least a year. And guess I should mention that it's well-built, might be a hair heavy for some. My daughter used it one day and said it felt like a triple version of her laptop. Dell did a nice job with this laptop.

Overall a great gaming laptop for people who can not afford to spend a lot of money on high end gaming machines. There are many good things about this laptop. It is powerful enough to handle pretty much anything that I throw at with ease. The speakers are solid enough to get the job done but don't expect anything that will blow you away. So far I have not had any issues with overheating while playing games. Although I do have few minor cons for this laptop, the power and the build quality definitely make it a worth while purchase. One issue I have with the laptop is the screen. It is not the worst screen you will ever see by far but it is just mediocre. Second, the laptop is a bit heavy but it is understandable given all the power you are getting. Lastly, battery life could be better at around 5 hours of light usage. If the battery life and screen were better, it would basically be the perfect laptop.