Page 3 : Power & Battery Life, Performance & Storage, Usability, Our Verdict

Power & Battery Life

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) may look like a typical 15.6″ laptop but it is a power-sipper. That’s why Dell pairs it with a small 45 W power brick. This is an advantage because it means a lighter bag when you travel.

That said, the Inspiron 15 7568 is literally crippled by its small 3-cell lithium-ion battery. The Intel Core i7-6500U may sip power but there’s only so much battery life you can squeeze from such a small 43 Whr (3,700 mAh @ 11.4 V) battery.

In our real world tests, we could use it for 4-6 hours before we had to recharge it. That’s pretty good for a 15.6″ notebook on such a small battery, but in this day and age of laptops and tablets lasting 8-12 hours, it’s honestly a little disappointing.

Dell would do well to pack on a little more juice into the next version. Especially when this battery is only rated for 300 cycles. This would mean that its battery life will fall quite rapidly after a year or two of use.

 

Performance & Storage

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) is powered by the Intel Core i7-6500U processor. Windows will show that there are four cores, but this is a dual-core processor that supports HyperThreading – hence, the four logical cores. Backed by 4 MB of L2 cache, this is a fast processor. More so when you consider the fact that it only sips 15 W of power.

The Inspiron 15 7568 won’t have any problem handling office applications. You can even edit photos on its large full HD display without breaking a sweat. However, the Intel processor is a little hobbled by the Inspiron 15 7568’s single-channel design. Yes, there is only a single SODIMM slot, so the Core i7-6500U is running with half of its peak memory bandwidth.

The Inspiron 15 7568 will feel sluggish at times, but this is not due to its single-channel memory design. The sluggishness is most apparent when you boot it up, and when you load large applications. This is due to the fact that Dell chose to equip this 2-in-1 laptop with a 5400 RPM hard disk drive – the Toshiba MQ02ABF100.

Most 2-in-1 laptop designs use solid state drives (SSDs) because they are not only much faster, they are smaller, lighter and use less power. Dell’s choice to use a hard disk drive instead is the reason for its thicker form factor, heftier weight, occasionally sluggish performance, and arguably lower battery life. On the bright side, you get a lot more storage – 1 TB.

Unless storage space is critical to you, we still think an SSD would have been a better choice due to the way these 2-in-1 laptops are used. SSDs are virtually impervious to shock and vibration, while hard disk drives are not.

 

Usability

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) is BIG. It has a 15.6″ display after all. It is 382 mm (15″) wide, and 253 mm (10″) deep, with a thickness of 20.3 mm (0.8″). For comparison, we placed the ASUS ZenPad 7.0 over it. As you can see, you can actually place four ZenPad 7.0 tablets over the Inspiron 15 7568 laptop. That’s how big it is.

Although it is designed to be used as a tablet, it is frankly much too large and heavy to carry comfortably with one arm. It weighs 2.17 kg (4.8 lbs) after all. You will end up using it in the regular laptop mode, or in either the tent or stand mode, where you don’t actually have to carry it.

In the non-tablet modes, it is great. Its large TrueLife display delivers bright, crisp images with a wide 160° viewing angle. Perfect for presentations or movies.

 

Our Verdict

If you are planning to use the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) as a tablet, you can stop right there. It is too heavy and unwieldy to hold with one arm for long. It won’t be long before you forgo the tablet mode completely.

We also think that Dell made a mistake in using a hard disk drive, instead of a solid state drive. That contributed to its weight, thickness and power consumption, while being a drag on its performance. If Dell offers an SSD storage option, we would highly recommend you opt for it.

[adrotate banner=”4″]

We also wished Dell added a bigger battery. Of course, this would make the Inspiron 15 7568 too heavy to carry like a tablet. Then again, was it ever ergonomic to carry such a large tablet? As it stands, the Inspiron 15 7568 is limited by its relatively short battery life.

That is a shame since the Inspiron 15 7568 packs quite a powerful processor with enough memory to handle even the most strenuous work. Its large, bright and vivid display was also a real pleasure to use. Once you try it, you will never want to go back to the cheap TN panels that is used in many low-cost laptops.

We would recommend the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) to anyone who wants a powerful laptop with lots of storage space AND the ability to use it in stand or tent modes. Otherwise, you might as well get the “regular” Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Series laptop instead.

Go Back To > First Page | Reviews | Home

 

Support Tech ARP!

If you like our work, you can help support our work by visiting our sponsors, participating in the Tech ARP Forums, or even donating to our fund. Any help you can render is greatly appreciated!