Hard time choosing Razer Blade replacement

A little less than a year ago I bought my Razer Blade 2015. Even at its then discounted price I can't recommend it to anyone. It has such little I/O and gets extremely hot on the CPU and GPU. My CPU gets up to 95C+. Bad. Im selling that for around $1100 and getting something new.

I am having a hard time choosing between two versions of the Dell Inspiron 7567. The $900 version with the 256Gb SSD, Gtx 1050ti, and i5 7300HQ versus the $950 version with the 1Tb SSHD, Gtx 1050ti, and i7 7700HQ.
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/inspiron-15-7567-laptop

Let me know your thoughts. Do I need the hyperthreading for gaming? Is it enough of a difference to downgrade to an SSHD?

Currently leaning towards the i5

Depends how user serviceable they are? You could potentially replace the HDD but keep the more powerful CPU?

But SSHD for me is a deal breaker vs a straight SSD.

It's a true i5, 4 cores, so I doubt you'd lose much performance vs the i7. If it was an 'i5' (2 cores, 4 threads) I'd lean to the i7 but it's not, so eh. SSD > SSHD

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154446

I actually picked up this laptop. With rebate it will be $950!

Oh nice, looks like it may have an extra slot for SSD?

Yes, it has an M.2 Sata or PCI-E slot. I purchased a cheap Lite-On M.2 sata drive because I dont want to spend more than I need to. Should be just as good if not better than my desktop rig...

Sounds good! Let us know how it goes.

BlueNostromo said:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154446

I actually picked up this laptop. With rebate it will be $950!

Click to expand...

From a nuts and bolts, and even styling perspective, I've always been intrigued by MSI's laptop offerings. Seems like a good alternative to some of the other performance/gaming laptops. But then I read the reviews and there does seem to be a fair number of problems [not just with this model, it seems consistent across all MSI laptop models]. That said, I'm hoping the best for you!

Make sure you run it through its paces, some benchmark loops, etc before the return period runs out. Once you get past the newegg return and are at the mercy of the manufacturer to service it things get aggravating as you might already be aware.

Fwiw, I would have gotten the Dell. We resell Dell's business line products (servers, workstations, and laptops) and while no maker is perfect, Dell is certaintly trying to maintain a decent quality product at a competitive cost. If you can get business class, with US phone support, it makes the servicing process a bit more tolerable. Dell's home service is atrocious.

Well I saw all the text reviews on Newegg. Most had negatives and talked about it being flimsy. Though when looking at Amazon and some hard to find Youtube reviews, all of them were completely happy with the build quality.

While the Dell would've no doubt have better build quality, I didn't want to take a downgrade in all areas besides heat. I/O would be basically the same, the CPU would be a downgrade, and the GPU would be the same. Not really worth it. The MSI on the other hand is a upgrade on the I/O, GPU, and CPU.

Mini first impressions of the laptop:
The hard drive is slow as expected. The build quality is fine. Screen itself looks nice. The only bad things about the build quality are the bezel around the screen and the vents underneath. It's almost as though I'm pressing directly on the screen. Hopefully it'll never cause permanent damage from pressing too hard there or something. The venting on the bottom isn't flimsy, but the slits are so wide it for some reason concerns me, never really had a laptop with venting like that. Synthetic benchmark scores are as good as my desktop and temps never got over 80C on the CPU and 65C on the GPU! Trackpad doesn't respond too well to light touches.

Sounds good mostly. Just gotta get that SSD installed it'll be like a 'brand new' brand new machine

Yeah apparently some people have issues trying to install sata drives in the m.2 slot. It seems to be picky.