When it comes to PC gaming machines, Dell’s Alienware is one of the few names that comes to mind. Alienware offers one of the best gaming laptops around. However, to get that kind of gaming performance, you have to invest more than a lakh and a half rupees. No doubt, the performance is worth it, but not everybody wants to spend that much. That’s why Dell has come up with its very own range of gaming laptops, under its Inspiron series. It’s called the Inspiron 7567 and it’s priced at around Rs. 94,000. The big highlight of the laptops is that it carries NVIDIA’s new GeForce GTX 1050Ti graphics card. It’s a mid-range graphics solution that support latest titles at higher resolutions. The graphics card takes its place right between Nvidia’s high-end 10 series of graphics cards and the mid-range 900 series. The question still remains. Should you settle with Dell Inspiron 7567 or add a more to your budget and invest in an Alienware or any of the other gaming laptops. 

Design and Build

The Inspiron 7567 manages to look subtle while still maintaining the integrity of a gaming laptop. It’s not as flashy as its Alienware counterpart or for that matter, any of the new gaming laptops we’ve seen lately. Credit here goes to single-toned matte finish on the outside. You see that single colour run throughout without any glitzy elements to show-off. The only thing that stands out is the Dell branding on the lid. Our test unit was the black variant which is more on the subtle side. However, if you want something that attracts a bit more attention, there is a red variant to consider.

The rubber-like finish on the lid provides a good grip which is needed considering the heavy build of the laptop. The Inspiron 7597 is a lot bulkier than the average notebook. With the lid shut, it stands as tall as an inch and weighs 2.62kg. Of course you can carry it around, but it’s not a laptop that will easily fit into any laptop bag.

The extra bulk on the laptop is added by the two massive vents at the rear and the built-in fans. Dell claims it to be a revolutionary cooling design that helps keep the temperature low while allowing the graphics unit and the CPU to work at full potential. Being such an integral part, Dell has made sure that they are not easily missed. The vents are decorated with red grills and a metallic frame that gives the design a bold look.

There’s also a grill at the front. Besides just being in tune with the grill at the back, it also hides the stereo speakers. It’s a smart design choice. Most manufacturers find it difficult to add speaker grills without hampering the look of the laptop.

Another unconventional design element is the single hinge of the laptop that connects the body to the screen at the centre. It feels moderately sturdy and opens up easily. On the inside, things are simple. The full-length keyboard shares the same colour as the deck. The keys though have red accents as so does the backlighting. The WASD keys are highlighted to stand out. We noticed the travel here to be a little better than what we’ve found on the other Inspiron laptops, which is good. The trackpad is of the same size as other 15.6-inch Inspirons, but does have a support precision drivers for better accuracy. Hardware The Inspiron 7567 is one of the first Dell laptops to feature NVIDIA’s new GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card. It’s meant to be an affordable graphics solution that can still manage to run newer game titles at full HD resolution. It even carries its own 4GB GDDR5 video memory to take the edge off the CPU to achieve better performance in high-end games.

Being from the high-end series of NVIDIA graphics card, the 1050Ti also enjoys good number of gaming features, including their proprietary G-Sync technology. It helps match the refresh rate of the display to the output of the graphics card in order to minimize stuttering and screen tearing, while making the gaming experience lag-free. The only disappointment is that the GTX 1050Ti doesn’t have support for Virtual reality. It’s not a major setback, but for most people who are curious about VR gaming, the Inspiron isn’t a viable option. Then again, getting a laptop that supports virtual reality costs much more. So it comes down to personal requirements. Besides the NVIDIA graphics card, the laptop comes with a top-of-the line Intel Core i7-7700 processor with clock speeds up to 3.8GHz. You also get 8GB of RAM, with an expandable option up to 32GB. There is a 1TB hard drive. If you want a little extra boost, you can also get the laptop with a 256GB solid-state drive. However, that model will set you back a good Rs. 1,15,000*. You also get 16GB of RAM with that variant.

Connectivity options include an HDMI 2.0 port, three USB 3.0 ports, a RJ-45 Ethernet port, a headphones jack and an SD card slot. A DVD drive is not provided, considering not many of us use them today. However, we would have loved to see USB Type-C port, which is missing. In terms of wireless connectivity, you get Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2. The laptop comes preinstalled with Windows 10 and the usual set of software, some of which isn’t really useful. Dell hasn’t given any additional treatment by bundling any games. Screen   The Dell Inspiron 7567 features a 15.6-inch LED display running full HD resolution. Judging by the looks, it’s probably where Dell might have cut some corners. We wouldn’t call it bad, but it doesn’t quite meet the expectation of a laptop priced high up the order. Right off the bat, we noticed the brightness levels to be low. In some scenarios, the screen also looks a little dim around the edges. The lack of brightness really takes out the detail in darker scenes while playing movies and games, which can be a little annoying.

That said, the fact that the screen features anti-glare technology really helps counter some of the other problems. There are no reflections which really helps with good viewing angles. Even in bright rooms, you can see the screen without any difficulty. Colours are vibrant enough to bring life to games. In the end, it mostly comes down to the content played on the screen. For the most part of it, we really enjoyed the gaming experience.

We wouldn’t call the screen very sharp in detail. Overall, images look a bit softer around the edges. That said, text is still readable at 100 per cent. The smooth matte screen also makes for an enjoyable web browsing experience and reading content. Performance We loaded plenty of games on the Dell Inspiron, including both, newer and older titles. We have to say the performance is fairly good for the most part of it. We started off with ‘Dirt Rally’. The laptop had no issues running the game at Ultra quality in full HD resolution. We didn’t notice any kind of stutter or lag either. Loading times were decent too. There was a slight blurriness around the edges, but that that wasn’t easily noticeable. We also ran the in-game benchmark and got the following scores.

Next we ran Shadow Warrior 2, which also ran at full HD with the quality set to high. The game ran smoothly without any issues. The problem we had here was with the screen though, which as we mentioned failed to show details in darker scenes, making it a little difficult to navigate through those stages of the map.

It’s only while playing Grand Theft Auto V did we see the bottleneck of the graphics card’s performance. At extreme high quality, the game stutters quite a lot. This was even noticeable while going through the in-game menu. We managed to tackle the stuttering problem by dialling down a few options in the graphics menu. The game ran smoothly after that. All-in-all, we managed to get a good experience out of Grand Theft Auto V, without having to compromise much on the quality.

All this while, the laptop ran cool thanks to the massive heat sinks and the fans. Even while playing heavy games for about an hour, temperatures didn’t spike out of control. We can’t say the same for the same for the noise though. The massive fans made themselves audible the minute we started playing games or running benchmarks on the laptop. They are a tiny bit louder than the average notebook. Besides gaming, the Inspiron 7567 simply aced through other tasks we put it through. It’s quick in opening apps and manages multi-tasking pretty well. While setting up the laptop, we had a lot going on, including large files being transferred from our hard drive, along with games being installed alongside, with multiple instances of Google Chrome running in the background and YouTube playing music on the speakers. We faced no issues here or even signs of slowdown.

A big delightful surprise is the output of the stereo speakers. They are hands-down some of the best ones we’ve heard on a laptop till date. They are loud and clear, making them ideal for games, movies and even music. They are fairly detailed even at high volumes and their placement makes them perfect when using the laptop on a table.