The Dell Inspiron family of laptops are designed for the home or home office. As such, they offer a variety of designs in three different series – the Inspiron 7000 Series, the Inspiron 5000 Series and the Inspiron 3000 Series. Today, we are going to take a look at one of their latest 2-in-1 laptops from the Dell Inspiron 7000 Series – the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568).

Do note that Dell offers two Dell Inspiron 15 7000 models. The standard (non-convertible) version has a specific model number of 7559, while the 2-in-1 convertible version has a specific model number of 7568.

Updated @ 2016-04-07 : Updated many aspects of the review. Clarified the official name as the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 Laptop.

Unboxing The Dell Inspiron 15 7568 2-in-1 Laptop

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) comes in a brown, nondescript Dell laptop box. Inside, the laptop itself is cradled between two cardboard spacers. A small compartment on the side contained the power brick and cable, while a small leaflet on the laptop’s safety and regulatory compliance can be found inside as well.

The Inspiron 15 7568 did not come with any manual or CD. Since this is a review unit, we are not sure if this is the standard kit. After all, it didn’t even ship with the correct power plug.

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 Laptop

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) is a premium convertible laptop that is designed to switch effortlessly between the standard laptop mode, and a tablet mode. Although 2-in-1 convertible laptops are not new, this model is unique in that it has a large 15.6″ display, making it one of the very few 15.6″ convertible laptops in the market.

It ships with a matte black display cover and base. Unlike some other Dell Inspiron models, you cannot swap them for different coloured covers. The palm rest area has a brushed aluminium finish, which feels cool to touch and makes it easier visually to pick out the individual keys of the black keyboard.

There are two types of 2-in-1 laptops. The detachable type allows you to pull off the screen section to use as a tablet. It allows the tablet to be thinner and lighter.

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) is classified as convertible type – you switch to the tablet mode by flipping the keyboard section all the way over. This makes for a thicker and heavier tablet, but it also allows the Dell Inspiron 15 7568 to used in different modes – laptop mode, stand mode, tent mode, tablet mode.

Although the 15.6″ capacitive touch screen offers a lot of display real estate, we immediately found that it was unwieldy to use in its tablet mode. The Dell Inspiron 15 7568 weighs 2.17 kg, and that is compounded by the large display. You will not be cradling it very long with one arm. It is really best used in one of the other three modes.

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Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) Specifications

Next Page > Closer Look At The Inspiron 15 7568

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Closer Look At The Inspiron 15 7000 (7568)

On the left side of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon), you will find a Noble lock slot, the power port, a HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports and a headphone port. The USB 3.0 port next to the HDMI port supports PowerShare, which allows you to recharge your mobile devices even when the Inspiron 15 is powered down.

The Dell Inspiron 15 7568 does not have an optical drive (who still uses one these days?), so you will only find a USB 3.0 port and a SD / MMC card reader on the far end, and a Power button and a volume control toggle near the front end.

Just around the corner is a small LED light that serves as a Power and battery status light :

Note the rubber strip near the LED light. There’s another one on the other side of the keyboard. They protect the brushed aluminium surface of the palm rest and the glass surface of the display from each other.

The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7568) 2-in-1 laptop (Amazon) has a full-sized, spill-resistant keyboard with backlit keys. It also comes with a large, multi-touch touchpad that supports gestures and scrolling. Those who come from a Mac background will love it.

Like all convertible laptops, the Dell Inspiron 15 7568 uses a special hinge. It is not just the ability to completely fold the keyboard section behind the display. The hinge also has a constant friction that allows it to be easily used to convert the Inspiron 15 7568 into four different modes.

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Although the Inspiron 15 7568 has a nice and large capacitive touch screen display, Dell appeared to have skipped the oleophobic coating, or didn’t use a particularly good one. It was quite susceptible to fingerprint stains.

Flipping the Inspiron 15 7568 over, you will find two small speaker slots on each side, just under the palm rest. Each speaker has a 2.5 W peak power output. Near the back is a small black label with the Service Tag and Express Service Code.

Right next to it is a series of vents for the CPU cooler. There is another set of vents hidden under it. They both allow the heat from the Intel Core i7-6500U processor inside to be exhausted out the back of the laptop. This is the latest 6th Generation Intel Core i7 processor (codenamed Skylake), so it is not just very powerful, it also uses and dissipates relatively little heat – just 15 W.

Next Page > Power & Battery Life, Performance & Storage, Usability, Our Verdict

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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.

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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.

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