SOLVED: Which Dell Laptop To Buy? So Many Choices

If you are looking for a laptop you likely are considering Dell.  The problem is Dell has so much product it is difficult to tell which laptop is right for your needs.

They have 7 laptop product lines:

Dell Brand	Consumer or Corporate	Market Segment	Priamry Feature
XPS	Both	ultra-portables executive laptops	ultra light and thin
G Series	Home	gaming laptops	high end video card
Alienware	Home	high end gaming laptops	highest end video card & CPU
Inspiron	Home	consumer grade laptops	very broad appeal
Vostro	Corporate	entry level business laptops	low price with limited options
Precision	Corporate	high end computing	high end CPU, Video and expansion
Latitude	Corporate	mid-level corporate	very broad appeal

Each of those lines has a VERY wide range models.  There are so many models and combinations of models in different lines many have identical specs.  For instance the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1’s are very similar to the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1’s.  These models are refreshed at different times so whichever one was released most recently is likely the more powerful.  As of Oct 2019, the Inspirons had CPU’s that were TWO generations newer than the XPS’s because of this timing.

Also note that all of these products are available in some way to consumers so do not be put off by the brand.  The name is just a broad category for Dell’s marketing department.

The bottom line is you need to look at the specifications and ignore the brand.

If you are looking for a retail laptop most consumers should concentrate your filtering on:

• CPU
  • Intel ‘i series’ and AMD ‘Rizen’ are rough equivalents
  • Intel Pentium and AMD ‘A’ series are rough equivalents
  • Intel 8th ‘generation’ chips are 2 years old and today 10th ‘generation’ CPU’s are widely available now without a big premium
  • Intel i3 are nearly the same price as i5’s so most people will want and “i5”
• Disk / Storage
  • Solid State Disks (SSD) is the minium most people should consider
    • Spinning disks are very slow and unreliable
  • an M.2 PCIe NVMe drives are the fastest, use the least electricity/battery and produce the least heat
  • 256GB is the minimum most people will want to consider
• Touch Screen or Not
  • we would not buy a laptop that was not a touchscreen but you may not care
  • most people love touchscreens once they have them
• 2 in 1 or Not
  • 2-in-1 means the keyboard folds all the way over so you can use it like a tablet or “tent” it to watch a movie
• Backlit Keyboard
  • we would not buy a laptop that did not have a backlit keyboard but you may not care if you don’t travel
• RAM / Memory
  • 8GB is the minimum most people will consider and is more than enough… for most
• Weight
  • Most 12″, 13″ and 14″ laptops are near 3lbs
  • Most 15″ laptops are 4.5lbs
• Biometrics
  • Many laptops will have finger print scanners or face recognition that is supported by Windows Hello and is awesome, but not required
• Bezel and overall look
  • How thick is bezel, the space around the screen
  • More expensive laptops are usually made of more expensive, lighter, cooler looking materials

In our case we needed to replace one of our Microsoft Surfacebooks so to keep things straight I developed a grid of the features we wanted.

We looked at all the products but found the NEW Inspirons to have the desired professional look and weight characteristics we cared about most.

In the end we settled on the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 because it had Intel Optane Memory, WiFi 6 and space for a second NVMe drive in addition to the minimum spec we wanted.

	MS Surface Book 1	Dell Inspiron 13 5000	Dell Inspiron 14 5000	Dell Inspiron 15 7000
Sale Price in CDN $	$2,200	$1,050	$980	$1,099
Screen Size	13.5	13.5	14	15.6
Touch	Y	Y	Y	Y
Detachable Keyboard	Y	N	N	N
Backlit Keyboard	Y	Y	Y	Y
2 in 1 – Keyboard Fold Over	N	N	Y	Y
Numeric Keypad	N	N	N	Y
Weight	3.5lbs	2.7lbs	3.6lbs	4.4lbs
Resolution	3000×2000	1920×1080	1920×1080	1920×1080
CPU	6th Gen i5	10th Gen i5	10th Gen i7	10th Gen i7
RAM	8GB	8GB	8GB	12GB
Battery	69Whr	42Whr	42Whr	52Whr
Windows Hello	Face	Finger	Finger	Finger
Wifi 6	N	N	N	Y
Storage	Old 256Gb NVMe	New 256Gb NVMe	New 256Gb NVMe	New 512Gb NVMe
Intel Optane	N	N	N	32GB
Slot for 2nd NVMe SSD	N	N	Likely	Likely