Upkeep miracle. Unfortunately, this really is quite rare presently: The upkeep hatch, that is very simple to take away, enables access to all big components from the new multimedia notebook from Dell. A different highlight is the high-resolution 4K touchscreen and due to its GTX 960M GPU, it ought to also attract gamers. Regrettably, some concerns affect the initial very good impression.
With a weight of almost two.7 kg (~6 lb), the 15-inch Dell Inspiron 15 7559 is actually a multimedia notebook that is certainly not specifically mobile. Essentially the most noticeable feature will be the high-resolution 4K touchscreen with 3840×2160 pixels. Enough performance is ensured by a new Skylake processor with 4 native cores and Hyperthreading, Intel Core i7-6700HQ, that is supported by 16 GB of DDR3-RAM. The integrated SSD having a capacity of 128 GB is very important for smooth user handling, which is complemented by a standard challenging drive with a capacity of 1 TB. The impressive package is rounded off by the functionality GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M, despite the fact that this will likely be the limiting aspect in games. The lack of an optical drive is uncommon for this class of devices. Our overview sample from Dell was equipped having a U.S. keyboard.
The RRP for our critique configuration is 1299 Euros (~$1376); in the time of this review, other versions weren’t listed on the web site on the Dell. You are able to uncover other notebooks from the 7000 series, but they don’t have quite a bit in frequent with our model. There was also some confusion for the reason that a search having a massive value comparison in Berlin resulted only inside a model with all the designation “7602” that was equipped with a traditional Full HD show and only 8 GB of RAM.
Two of our 15.6-inch comparison devices this test, the Asus ZenBook Pro UX501JW-FI218H (no value out there) plus the MSI PE60-2QEi581 (around 1100 Euros/~$1060), use the identical GTX 960M (2 GB) and comparable, albeit older CPUs. Alternatively, the particularly slim Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro VN7-572G-72L0 (about 1200 Euros/~$1271) is equipped together with the slower GTX 950M and a frugal dual-core i7 processor with Hyperthreading. The MSI PE60 is definitely the only notebook within this comparison that uses a conventional HDD.
Case
The style with the black plastic chassis with some red elements is of course a matter of taste and must be attractive to male customers in unique, but we liked it. Both the lid also because the palm rest have a silky and grippy soft-touch finish, which is not really susceptible to fingerprints and can be simply cleaned. Unusual: The Dell 7559 has 3 very carefully developed fan exhausts. Two of them are positioned in the back and 1 around the left side. In spite of the absence of metal, the 15-inch device is not genuinely light at two.7 kg
Even though the lid, that is uncomplicated to open with one particular hand and tends to bounce, just isn’t genuinely thin, you could see image distortions at some spots after you apply pressure. As with most touchscreens, the show glass covers just about the entire show frame. It will not call for loads of force to twist the base unit and there was also some unhealthy creaking, which affected the strikingly flawless impression with the chassis. On the other hand, we didn’t notice any develop high-quality problems like uneven gaps or protruding edges.
Connectivity
Because there is absolutely no optical drive, Dell could have located the ports further at the back and not at the center of the sides. At the very least they’re not at the front, so attached cables and devices are certainly not a massive challenge. In spite of the larger cost, you only get the essentials too as three USB three.0 ports, which however should be enough in practice. The HDMI 1.4 output must be used to connect to external monitors, thus, it is only doable to make use of a single monitor besides the internal screen. We measured transfer prices of around 100 MB/s in the USB three.0 port with an external difficult drive.
We also checked the overall performance on the SD-slot in mixture with our reference SD-card Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II. The maximum transfer price is up to 84 MB/s once you copy big files, while you could expect up to 58 MB/s whenever you deal with typical jpg. files (every about five MB).
Maintenance
Lastly! A single huge maintenance cover in the bottom secured by only one screw and is extremely easy to get rid of, makes it possible for access for the following elements: Battery, HDD; Wi-Fi module, RAM slots and SSD. What much more can you want? The Inspiron 7559 will be the most maintenance-friendly notebook that the author has reviewed so far. Only one thing is missing for perfection: A battery which will be removed in the outside.
Communication
Because the name suggests, the functions of your Wi-Fi module Intel Dual-Band Wireless-AC 3165 are essentially quite clear. When the two.four GHz band is quite crowded at your location, you’ll be pleased to hear that five GHz networks are supported also, even though you can definitely need a corresponding router. The typical IEEE 802.11ac (“Gigabit-WLAN”), which can be not genuinely new anymore, guarantees potentially high transfer rates. Due to a defective router, the author had to transform his person test environment, so we cannot compare the outcomes with old testimonials at this time. In mixture with a new Asus RT-AC51U router and an alternative firmware version, net browsing around the Dell 7559 was still smooth at a distance of two floors and through a number of walls within a 2.4 GHz network.
Accessories
In addition towards the mandatory energy adaptor, the box includes only the usual quick-start and warranty info. Recovery drives aren’t included, which means that you just will have to depend on the recovery partition.
Input Devices
Touchpad
The conveniently sized touchpad with the Inspiron 7559 is implemented as a ClickPad devoid of devoted mouse buttons. We genuinely just like the slightly roughened surface that is definitely surrounded by a red stripe. Neither the gliding capabilities, nor the feedback give any bring about for criticism. Sadly, the reduced component of the surface was not sitting perfectly on the button mechanics, so even slight pressure normally resulted in a clattering.
However, there is absolutely no criticism for the response plus the precision. Even rapid swipe gestures have been completely executed, and drag-&-drop via double tap was no difficulty. Subjectively, the two mouse button replacements provide a well-adjusted feedback with a firm stress point plus a clearly perceptible acoustic feedback. The limited functionality is rather disappointing (see picture). The input will essentially recognize only two fingers in the similar time, so you can hardly use any gestures. Even in the 400 Euros (~$424) price tag range most notebooks offer extra within this respect.
Keyboard
Dell has provided us having a evaluation sample from the Inspiron 7559 with a U.S. keyboard layout. Massive hands might have some problems using the narrow number pad. Visually, the first impression from the well-integrated keyboard is excellent. Regrettably, it is usually conveniently dented in the center, which should not happen especially after you consider the value from the notebook.
The spongy typing experience is less inspiring. You can feel the pressure point, but it could have been much more defined, in combination with all the soft stroke. Positive aspects of your keyboard are the subtle and even illumination, despite the fact that there is just 1 setting, the flat and anti-slippery keys using a clear lettering, the status LEDs for some keys as well because the extremely restrained noise development with the substantial keys.
Display
Dell has followed the trend towards greater resolutions and equipped the Inspiron 15 7559 with an IPS UHD show with a native resolution of 3840×2160 pixels. This benefits within a pixel density of 244 PPI around the 15.6-inch screen, which suggests that the pictures are extremely sharp and you can’t see individual pixels at a normal viewing distance of around 50 centimeters (~20 in). Even greater pixel densities are usually reserved for mobile devices, just like the Samsung Galaxy S6 (5.1-inch, 2560×1440 pixels) with 576 PPI. The quite glossy surface is often a result in the touchscreen functionality. Dell doesn’t offer other displays within the Inspiron 7000 series in Germany.
276 cd/m² (center) can be a fantastic, but not an excellent value for the maximum brightness. It is actually enough for all indoor scenarios and only the Acer Aspire VN7 is noticeably brighter within the comparison group. The poor black value of 0.78 cd/m², which is even too high for IPS standards, final results in only a mediocre contrast ratio of 354:1. The situation is similar for the Asus ZenBook Pro, but the other two notebooks manage much larger values due to their better black values (~0.3 cd/m²). Subjectively, black (RGB 0, 0, 0) doesn’t even appear pretty rich compared to brighter image contents, which can be pretty uncommon. A brightness distribution of 85% is just average, but we could only notice minimal backlight bleeding in the decrease edge with the panel.
There can nonetheless be massive concerns due to the high resolution with some applications in Windows 10 (see pictures). The tiny font in Origin, for example, required a magnifier to be utilized comfortably.
Now we are looking at color deviations, which are represented by DeltaE values. Reduce values indicate a reduced deviation in the ideal value and the outcomes must be smaller than 3 for professional purposes. Only the MSI PE60 manages this ex-works, though the other comparison devices, including our review sample manage average benefits for IPS screens between 4 and five, which is nevertheless adequate for private customers. The MSI show just isn’t suitable for (semi) professional image editing, because it covers only 64% from the wider AdobeRGB color space. On the other hand, it truly is the best result within the comparison and slightly ahead of our Dell. Our overview unit doesn’t suffer from a visible color cast.
Functionality
Because of the i7 quad-core processor and plenty of fast dual-channel RAM, the Dell Inspiron 15 7559 provides additional than enough functionality for all typical scenarios including HD video editing and 3D rendering. Even heavily parallelized games that benefit from four physical cores really should never be limited by the CPU. We have already mentioned that the GPU will probably be the limiting factor within this case. The SSD guarantees a smooth handling in practice, and 128 GB is sufficient for by far the most vital games. Media files and other games is often stored on the additional HDD.
Processor
The fast quad-core Intel Core i7-6700HQ (4x 2.six to three.five GHz, Hyperthreading, TDP 45 watts) is based on Intel’s current Skylake generation. Similar for the Broadwell processor, the chip is manufactured inside a 14 nm process. Because of a number of architectural improvements (“Tick”), the new CPU manages a five to 10% greater per-MHz efficiency compared to its predecessor. Skylake replaces both Haswell also as Broadwell and has an efficiency advantage over the 22 nm Haswell chips in unique, which really should result within a better Turbo utilization under load. The standard configuration of this chip has a specified TDP of 45 watts, which implies that it really is suitable for larger notebooks, but the TDP can optionally be reduced to 35 watts by the manufacturer (and by the user via energy settings), which will certainly influence the efficiency.
The processor has a nominal clock of two.6 GHz, but four active cores can reach up to 3.1 GHz (3.three GHz for two active cores) via Turbo Boost. A pretty similar efficiency is provided by the slightly higher clocked 47-watt chip i7-4720HQ (4x two.6 to 3.six GHz, Hyperthreading, Haswell), which can be soldered too. The cores could not maintain the specified three.1 GHz in our Cinebench loop (R15, multi-core) and usually executed the test at 2.8 GHz. This means that there’s no throttling, although the Turbo utilization could be better.
Two out of 3 Cinebench tests determine the expected efficiency benefits, which are not reduced on battery energy. The diagram below shows that the single-core performance of the different CPUs is extremely similar, even though the quad-cores manage the expected lead over the dual-cores in the multi-core benchmarks.
System Performance
The outcomes in PCMark 7 and 8 are slightly confusing. Why is definitely the PCMark 7 overall score from the less powerful Acer Aspire VN7 36% reduce compared to our Dell, but 53% greater in the Productivity benchmark? Moreover, why is the similarly equipped (in terms of CPU) Asus ZenBook Pro 77% better? PCMark 8 result is no less erratic, for the reason that the least powerful device, the Acer, comes out on top. And that the MSI PE60 with its conventional challenging drive is ahead of our Inspiron 15 7559 is yet another unexpected result.
Nevertheless, the subjective performance in practice left a quite fantastic impression. Windows 10 boots incredibly quickly, applications launch immediately and even excessive multitasking isn’t a issue for the quad-core.
Storage Devices
Currently, many modern SSDs are limited to sequential read transfer prices of about 500 MB/S because of the SATA-3 interface, which can be also the case for the drive in our test model. If you look in the reading functionality of small random files (4K Read), which can be critical for the launch from the OS and applications, it is possible to see that the Dell Inspiron 15 7559 manages a excellent 25 MB/s according to AS SSD. This result is close to 30 MB/s, that is what the fastest SSDs manage (Asus ZenBook Pro).
Surprising: Even though the Acer Aspire manages only 10 MB/s, it has a massive advantage over the other SSD based notebooks when it reads 4K files in multiple threads (4K-64 Read). CrystalDiskMark does not confirm this behavior, so it is actually either an error on our part, or an oddity that we cannot explain. The ZenBook Pro has a clear advantage in terms of the not so crucial write efficiency. Overall, the rather slow Lite-ON CV1-8B128 in the Acer is in the bottom in the ranking, even though the SSDs in the Asus as well as the critique unit are pretty much on par on a higher level. Far behind all these devices is certainly the MSI PE60, even though the results are actually quite fantastic for a standard challenging drive.
GPU Efficiency
The familiar Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M, which can be based on the even extra familiar GTX 860M (both Maxwell) but having a slightly higher clock, is usually a performance-class GPU and here we have the highest configuration with four GB of GDDR5-RAM. In terms of efficiency, there’s actually a rather big gap to the high-end chips 970M, 980M and 980 (desktop), which have much more shaders and wider memory interfaces in certain. Alternatively, the GTX 960M is easier to keep cool (quieter) and consumes less energy.
The GM107 chip runs at as much as 1202 MHz and is compatible with DirectX 12 (Windows 10), but only supports function level 11.0. Nvidia has put loads of work into the power efficiency of your Maxwell generation. Due to the PureVideo-HD engine, 4K videos in the native resolution are usually not a trouble, but external monitors can only be driven at 30 Hz in 4K due towards the absence of HDMI 2.0. A lot more information about special functions from Nvidia like Battery Boost, ShadowPlay and GameStream are readily available here. Except for some incredibly demanding games, the GPU can manage smooth gameplay in all current games with high to maximum settings, as long as you don’t use resolutions higher than Full HD (1920×1080).
Compared to other notebooks with all the same GPU, the functionality from the GTX 960M in our critique unit is usually average in the benchmarks (includes final results with the two GB VRAM version) and consequently on the expected level. The other 960M chips only have a slight advantage of 5 to 12% in 3DMark (2013) Cloud Gate. The 3DMark 11 overall score doesn’t modify on battery energy.
Emissions
System Noise
The Dell Inspiron left a negative impression with its aggressive-chaotic CPU fan behavior, at the least using the activated energy profile “High Performance”, which we use for our measurements. Even small workloads will occasionally result in a fan that suddenly spins up and may be clearly heard one meter (~3 ft) away. Increasing the load even further (as with Prime95) will reveal new and intermittent fan speeds, sometimes with high-pitched noises. Overall, it is an acceptable murmur, but it is too loud for the performance level. Add FurMark along with the overall noise will drop noticeably after a though, that is probably caused by the throttling.
We recommend activating the energy saving profile if you’d like to work using a quiet notebook. Dell has set the energy and acoustics level to 1 (instead of five) and also the passive system cooling guideline also helps to take care of your nerves.
Speakers
Despite the integrated subwoofer, the sound in the Dell Inspiron 15 7559 puts too much emphasis on the medium and high tones ex-works (see pictures), which can be sometimes extra and sometimes less evident depending on the title and may even be a bit obtrusive at times. Genuinely deep bass is missing, but the small subwoofer in the bottom does create a richer sound compared to notebooks without the need of an additional subwoofer. The sound is clear, mostly free of distortions, pretty dynamic for a notebook and there are no annoying volume fluctuations in the decent maximum volume, that is enough for medium-sized rooms. Bass-focused Metal music with multiple guitars and drums will bring the sound system from Dell to its limits and it will tend to blur the individual instruments. The sound menu provides an equalizer also as numerous tweaks and presets for gaming, movies and music.
Energy Management
Power Consumption
Can you in fact notice the improved efficiency of Skylake over Haswell in practice? If you ignore the slower Acer and look at the idle outcomes, you can get just this impression, mainly because the similarly powerful Haswell CPUs inside the Asus ZenBook and MSI PE60 consume much much more power, despite the fact that a part of that additional consumption of your MSI is caused by the standard HDD.
The powerful components are nonetheless noticeable under load, where the evaluation unit consumes much more than the rivals with Haswell quad-cores and (virtually) the same GPU. We can’t really explain the difference. The greater resolution will hardly be the reason. The power adaptor just isn’t powerful enough to cover the maximum consumption, so the battery is drained.
Battery Runtime
First, we possess a look in the battery capacities in the four notebooks within this comparison. Dell Inspiron 15 7559: 74 Wh, Acer Aspire VN7-572G-72L0: 52.five Wh, Asus ZenBook Pro UX501JW: 96 Wh (!), MSI PE60-2QWi581: 42 Wh. A direct comparison from the battery runtimes will not definitely make much sense if you consider these differences, but the results represent the different CPU-GPU combinations and capacities quite nicely. The exception will be the surprisingly bad result with the battery monster ZenBook Pro in the realistic Wi-Fi test
Verdict
We have already mentioned that the fairly great initial impression of your rather expensive Dell Inspiron 15 7559 (RRP: 1299 Euros/~$1376) suffered a bit during our overview. The touchpad, which is actually quite great, revealed a construct top quality issue, plus the really soft keyboard disappointed the author. The visually flawless chassis does look pretty great (matter of taste), but really should have been sturdier. Optical drives might be less popular, but we expected 1 due to the size plus the multimedia orientation. The touchpad driver is often a bad joke, and the pulsating fan control can only be turned down with overall performance restrictions. The author also thinks the use of expensive touchscreens, which have a glossy surface, doesn’t make a great deal of sense for a non-convertible. Yet another question is whether you’ll be able to actually benefit from the high resolution on a 15-inch device or if there are only drawbacks like scaling difficulties along with the higher price tag.