Dell Inspiron 15 7000 7547 - New Model Available

Did you know the new Dell Inspiron 7000 7547 series 15.6" laptop is now available? The biggest change over the 7000 7537 is design, which now actually takes cues from the 5000 series. The new version is more than a pound lighter than the previous one, but it appears Gorilla glass has been removed from the screen. The CPUs are still Haswell U series chips. The available pre-configured models both have 1080p resolution and IPS tech.

Dell Updates Inspiron 15 7000 Laptop Series with New Design | Laptoping | Windows Laptop & Tablet PC Reviews and News

The Intel i5 model with 6GB / 1TB for $650 is a quite good deal IMO.

 

The old Inspiron 7000 looks better in my opinion. This has a weird frame around the screen.

 

AMD Radeon™ R7 M270 4GB DDR3

The top-end 7547 shows this GPU. Is this an error? Should it be R9 M270 DDR5? Or R7 M265 DDR3? Is the 4GB correct?
I was looking on the Radeon site and don't specifically see this GPU.

Nice new design though.

http://www.dell.com/ca/p/inspiron-15-7547-laptop/pd?oc=ni157547_bt_h5248pe&model_id=inspiron-15-7547-laptop

 

I have a client that is interested in a 15" laptop and I was looking at this as an option. However, it does not offer an option of an SSD. I was thinking of getting this and swapping out the hard drive for a 2.5" SSD. I know that on some of the old Inspiron 7000 series laptops, Dell used a very thin (5mm, as I remember) hard drive so most standard 2.5" SSD drives would not fit perfectly. I actually swapped the drive on an old Inspiron 14 7000 and was able to squeeze in a 7mm SSD, but the bottom bulged ever so slightly. I'm just wondering if anyone knows the thickness in the hard drive on the new 7547?

 

I'm interested in seeing the benchmark for this laptop. It would be quite a competition for the XPS15.

 

the new 7mm high Drives will work

 

I don't see how this would compete with the XPS line. Let alone performance, the design is flawed in my opinion.
If they intended to make the screen a touchscreen, they shoudn't have added such an ugly frame. (That was the reason why their 5000 series was quite unsuccessful)

 

The new 7547 doesn't compete with XPS 15. XPS is a complexity different category and it's much more expensive...

I noticed that 7547 has smaller battery than the previous generation. It's equipped by 3 cells 43 WHr battery. Only the top model with a dedicated video card has got 4 cells 58 battery. Is there any info about battery life with 43 WHr battery? I don't need discrete graphics, but small battery can make me choose the top model. Is the battery user replaceable?

What retail stores have 7547? BestBuy sells two models: i5 and i7. Both have "simplified" configuration.

 

Anyone knows the differences between the models at BestBuy and the one that Dell sells in their webpage?

Thanks!!

 

No difference. BestBuy doesn't have all models though.

 

Any info about the battery life?

Also I found complain that opening the back cover:

My plan was to add 8GB memory and to replace HDD

 

This is coming early next month for me

 

Thanks. We ordered the 7547 and a Crucial MX100 and swapped the hard drive for the SSD. The 7547 came with a Western Digital WD10SPCX installed, so it was indeed a 7mm drive which is the same as the Crucial SSD. We repurposed the hard drive in a USB housing as an external backup drive. Nice laptop for the price, especially after the upgrade to SSD.

 

Did you have any problem with opening the back cover? Is the memory upgradeable (8gb is soldered to the motherboard, correct)? Could you share any info about the battery life?

Thanks!

 

One more question: whether the battery is "user replaceable". May I replace 3 cells battery by 4 cells one?

 

It appears the battery can easily be swapped (same dimensions, but different weight0. Memory can be upgraded and wireless module can be upgraded. It is not clear whether you can add the discrete video memory.

Here is a link to the service manual.
ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-prod...piron-15-7547-laptop_Service Manual_en-us.pdf

I ordered my i7 12GB RAM model yesterday and should get it later this week. I would love to see some reviews of this new model.

 

Ordered the top model on Cyber Monday for over 300 off. Can't wait to get it. Swapping Hd first thing for SSD.
I hope the M270 performs well.

 

Best buy sells i7, 8GB model for $780.

BTW, it seems the new model is made out of plastic. I tried it at bestbuy. The bottom cover is plastic for sure. It's soft and bends easily. Not sure about the top cover. It feels like plastic. Overall assembly quality is lower than the previous model (7347). The keyboard is average. Screen frame is rather large. They could fit a 17" screen into a notebook with the same dimensions. There are several things in the new model that I did like:
- Weight. The notebook is very lightweight. Almost as a macbook. Still I cannot get how macbook 15 with all metal body and twice bigger battery is actually lighter ...
- Black keyboard.
- There is no numpad and keyboard layout is identical to mac.
- Rounded corners design.

So far I don't see anything that beats 7457 at its price point.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I bought the 7547 with i7, 12GB RAM, and 1080P display for $799 on Monday. I ordered through ebates for a 4% rebate and also ordered the 3000 2-n-1 with quad processor for my daughter ($349) to get the price over $1,000 to take advantage of the AMEX offer of $200 off.

The laptops will arrive Friday. I'll be playing with the 7547 this weekend. The other one won't get touched until Christmas.

 

We had the end user call and tell us the laptop spontaneously rebooted and came up with an "Internal hard disk drive not found" error. Forcing a full power off by holding the power button and then turning the laptop back on solved the problem and he has been running fine since yesterday. I'm going to check Crucial for any firmware updates to the SSD when I can meet up with the user. I don't feel comfortable with him trying any firmware/BIOS updates. Hopefully it isn't an issue with the laptop and SSDs which might be why Dell is only offering spinning HDs on the system.

 

Well...I received my 7547 last night. So far, pretty pleased. Not too much bloatware and some of the stuff included seems reasonable. I already had dropbox so it only gave me an extra 3GB of space (instead of an extra 20). I also didn't realize it came with 1 year of Mcafee which seems to work across multiple devices.

Pros:
- touchscreen
- thinness
- lighted keyboard (two levels)

Initial battery life expectations with the 3-cell is showing about 4-hours. I'll be curious about real world results...sure beats the 1.5 hours I got on a first gen i7 with discrete graphics (new, within a year it was nothing ).

My only con would really be...

- Wish most places offered an SSD standard at a reasonable price. Now that SSD's are finally getting cheaper it won't be that big of a deal...just the hassle of switching it out.
- Still back & forth on whether I would have liked a 14" instead. However, the 15.6" was a better value, newer design, and is probably more practical for an "all-in-one computer".
- Not yet sure if the efficiency of the integrated graphics or the power of discrete is better for me. Ideally, it would have included intel 5000 (or 5200) like my macbook air.

 

Do you feel the integrated graphics is slow?

 

No, and realistically it is probably a non-issue.

I suppose there is slight disappointment that I bought a macbook air over a year ago with a 5000 processor and technically this one might be slightly weaker (although the i7 should help make up some of the difference). I just need to keep things in perspective...my macbook air cost about $1300 where a year later I bought two laptops for less than the same.

I will say it is fun watching my wife and daughter play games on the touchscreen. I was borderline about whether a touchscreen was a "must have", but I am glad that I got it.

 

What about battery life?

 

yatesd;9857058

What about battery life? How would you compare it to your MBA?

 

Now that's not a fair comparison...the two things I like most about the MBA are the battery live & SSD's. I get around 12 hours on the MBA. My wife and daughter have been hogging the 7547 but I would guess 4-5 hours. Keep in mind the Dell does have a much larger 1080p screen.

 

Correct. I know. I'm just trying to figure out what battery life to expect from dell. I have a MBP 15" and get around 6-7 hours on it. Assuming dell provides let's say 4-5 hours - that should be enough.

 

Just installed a new Samsung 840EVO 250GB SSD.

Once I get Windows 7 installed I'll see how this system runs.
I was really irritated with 8.1

i7-4510
16GB RAM
Radeon R7 M270
250GB SSD

 

Did you have problems with opening the bottom cover? Does this void the warranty?

 

Note really. Removed the screws. Used a flat plastic tool to pry apart the clips slowly with even pressure. Some of the clips are really tiny and I think I broke one of them but they dont hold much. There are larger clips and smaller ones holding the bottom cover on. There is no security tape so I assume this doesn't void the warranty?

I also found that mine shipped with the stupid Canadian Multilingual keyboard. I hate the keys (small shift and vertical enter keys). I have emailed Dell to see about getting a computer with a US keyboard layout. I'll see what they say. If not I guess I'll learn to type with it.

 

Talked to Dell rep. They can't replace my 7547 with a different one with the US keyboard. Instead they are shipping me a 20 dollar USB keyboard for free. Oh well I'll take it and deal with it. Seems like it would have been easy since my laptop still shipped from the US to Toronto to Alberta. Just a warning for anyone in Canada, you'll get the multilingual keyboard on this laptop if you order online and there's no option to change it when you place your order.

 

What about material of the notebook body? Is it made of plastic?

 

I bought this laptop about two weeks ago from best buy. All is generally well, but I'm a little concerned about the trackpad.

I went to look for drivers and dell doesn't have any listed. Assumed it was synaptics, so I went to their website to download and install the general drivers, and they don't install at all. Looked in the control panel and noticed that ETD Ware is listed in programs, and this comes from Elan, another trackpad manufacturer. Looked for their generic drivers, but none exist. Attempted to install a few from different OEMs with no luck.

Dell tells me to install Synaptics general drivers, but as I've said, they don't install.

I looked in device manager and don't see anything but "HID-Compliant mouse". Does anyone else see just this or is their trackpad listed in there as Synaptics/Elan/etc? I would like to keep this computer but the trackpad is iffy as is, and if the drivers cant ever be updated, then I'm returning it. I don't know what the issue is and I'm a fairly technical person.

If anyone can give me an idea of what their device manager looks like for trackpad/pointing devices, I'd really appreciate it. Dell has been no help. Go figure.

 

Strange, you are the first person who complains on touchpad. What do you mean by "iffy"? I tried the notebook at bestbuy and didn't notice anything unusual. I believe the touchpad is identical to 5000 series ( Synaptics Touchpad Driver Driver Details | Dell US).

BTW, what batter life do you get?

 

I've had a lot of input lag on two finger scrolling, so when I go to use the gesture (to scroll a webpage, let's say), it might take a second for the trackpad to recognize the gesture. That happens fairly often for me. And occasionally when I go to click the cursor will end up shifting very slightly off its target, presumably due to the trackpad being overly sensitive.

Weird, I know. sometimes it's too sensitive, and other times it's not sensitive enough.

As for battery life, I'd venture to say I'm getting about 5-6 hours of mixed usage. I don't have my screen brightness up all that high (at about half), so YMMV. I still use my Inspiron 11 3137 from time to time and that gets 8-10hrs, so I've had a bit of adjustment to make. I wish the battery life was better, but it's definitely not bad by any means.

I've had no issues otherwise.

EDIT: tried those drivers to no avail. Ditto for last year's 7537's drivers.

 

The top lid and the palm rest cover are both made from FORGED ALUMINUM. Only the bottom cover of the laptop is plastic, but its still decently sturdy. The thinness of the laptop helps the structure.

 

BTW, the battery is replaceable and there is a 4 cells one that fits this notebook. Assuming you get 5 hours on 3 cells battery with a bigger one it will be around 7 hours. 4 cells battery costs $80.

 

Do you happen to know the part/model number for that battery? I'd be interested in it.

 

Dell 58 WHr 4-Cell Primary Battery : Computer Accessories | Dell

Ask DELL service, but I'm sure this one should fit. The last time I checked the price it was ~$80. Have no idea why it became $120 now.

 

Does anyone know when will this model be available in Europe (UK or Germany)?

 

I bought the i7 model. Tried to like it but I simply cannot. There are several serious issues:
1. Screen cover is curved. No jokes! When you close the notebook there is a several millimeters gap on the left side between screen and the keyboard. Not a deal breaker but looks ugly. I tried several notebooks and all have the same issue. Go to bestbuy and see yourself.
2. The keyboard is awful. The keys are very soft and not responsive. Also some keys are softer/harder than the others.
3. The touchpad is large and comfortable but mouse pointer "jumps".

Decided to return it ....

 

Can anyone comment on the touchpad on this model? I tested it at Best Buy and it felt kinda weird to me. There was no scrolling by running my finger up/down on the right side of the track pad on the browser. I actually opened up the touchpad properties in the control panel and there were literally no options or customization for the touchpad (other than to show the icon on the tray). Also I couldn't tell if pressing down on the touchpad was left clicking or right clicking.

I have an Inspiron 15R at the moment and not a big fan of the ALPS touchpad that it comes with and am weary of this new one on the 7547

 

Two finger scrolling for those trackpads. That's the standard now.

 

If you install the driver from synaptics' website instead of the one provided by Dell, you will be able to scroll using the right side of the track pad. The problem is that synaptics' driver is not digitally signed so you would need to do some tricks to force windows to accept it.

 

When you open device manager, what is your trackpad listed as? If you go back you'll see a post of mine concerning an issue I'm having. Can't install ANY drivers for it. Doesn't show up as Dell Touchpad or Synaptics anything--just HID-compliant mouse, which seems incorrect to me.

 

Device manager should show it as "Dell Trackpad". It seems like you got the same problem that I had with my old unit. My trackpad was disconnected from the mainboard for some reasons. Dell asked me if they could send a technician to fix it but I refused, so they replaced the whole unit instead.

 

Alright thanks so much for the info. I was going nuts trying to figure it out.

I'm still under the holiday return period at best buy. I'm going to exchange.

This is a bit of a hassle, I must say. But the price was good. Are you enjoying your unit thus far?

 

I'm having the same problem myself. It shows up as an 'HID-complaint' mouse under the device manager but under Human Interfaces Devices it shows that I have an ELAN Smartpad installed. Either way, I'm having a nightmare of a time installing any other trackpad driver.

 

It looks like we're having the same issue, and the same one vvtech had before getting his replaced. I'm going to head to BB (where I purchased mine) today for an exchange--and a $70 credit for the price drop this has had over when I first purchased it!

I will update later today with my findings of what the new one brings.

Has anyone put an SSD in this thing? I'm not sure whether I should or not. Seems speedy enough. I have an SSD in my Inspiron 11, but it's too small to put into the 15--plus the 11 would be unusable without one. And I could use a 1tb in my PS4.

Seeing an MX100 240 at 105 on Amazon, and I have $75 in gift cards. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

 

Good news on the price drop! Looks like i'll try to get some credit as well. Looking forward to your update.