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:

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.