I got this laptop about 18 months ago. It came with WIndows 8 (or 8.1), but upgraded to Windows 10 with no problems (unlike my HP laptops).
It's been very reliable; it's used by my daughter who thoroughly abuses it, to the extent that the screen has cracked (she didn't do it, she found it like that, despite being told constantly NOT to carry/move by the screen).

As with many of these 'consumer' laptops, the lid is very flexible, and I believe the flex has eventually resulted in a broken screen ( that said, it's not fragile, and does take some teenager handling to break).
The good news is that the replacement screen is relatively cheap.

May I point out for those who say they got this cheaper x number of years ago and there are better deals, buy them whilst you can. The pound has dropped in value massively at the moment and as those who buy IT commercially will probably verify, prices are going up, because IT equipment is all imported and generally purchased in Dollars.

Don't be surprised if there are no Christmas bargains.

Expired

this is a lie. this is a core i3 laptop and NOT i5.

​black friday is 25th November and cyber monday 28th November

This is quite a long reply to your question. Good on you for doing the homework! It helps you be reasonably confident in what you finally purchase, doesn't it. What's important for one person, might not be important for another person. If you're just doing office work on the move and are used to using cheap but rugged business laptops, ones not aimed at making business presentations to clients but just for work on the go, you are going to be coming at it from a different angle from someone who is more than happy to pay a premium on a really great screen, especially if that person is using their laptop as a desktop replacement. Maybe you've asked yourself these additional questions but if not they are perhaps worth asking, too. Most people I know who do their homework either end up spending a chunk more than they intended, or else spend as little as possible to get a stopgap laptop that they plan to replace as this or that new feature makes an appearance.

What is your intended main usage for the laptop? It can seem like a silly question but, for instance, the battery life between charges you've put suggests you want a road warrior rather than necessarily a semi-powerful desktop replacement. If, though, this is to be your one and only computer, or your main computer, you might want to skip the ULA series of Intel CPUs altogether, which, until next year, presently are only 2-core, albeit with hyper threading, and go instead for a laptop CPU with four physical cores. That is going to dent your wanted battery life between charges, though. And/or, perhaps you want to game on this laptop, not necessarily with great or even particularly good eye candy settings but also not with low frame rates/stuttery game play.

Again, looking at your wanted battery life, if the CPU processing power isn't the be all and end all, if you don't necessarily have much use for additional cores for tedious rendering work, video encoding, etc, but you would like to play recent-ish games at tolerable settings, while getting as many hours out of the battery as possible, you might look for a ULA CPU that comes with integrated Intel Iris graphics. I'm assuming you are not buying tomorrow and I am hoping that with the fairly recent release of the 7th gen Intel CPUs, we will see 6th gen sale models.

If, on the other hand, you don't mind taking a hit on battery life, the Nvidia 940/X comes into play (assuming some fairly stellar reductions pre-Christmas or, more likely, in the later dead zone winter months, where people are perhaps even more especially with the sunk pound, daring to hope they can find some good clearance deals from vendors desperate for sales), though, re battery, you are looking at 25watts with the Nvidia option as against 15watts with the ULA CPU with integrated iris graphics. The premium charged by Intel for their Iris/Iris Pro graphics is perhaps fair enough but a bit off-putting. If you look at laptops that use the Intel i5 6260U, you might notice that their price point brings Intel i7 6500/Nvidia 940MX deals into play, though there are of course other specification variables in play that make direct comparisons between models a little frustrating. You have to work out where you are prepared to make compromises.

If it's my money, I want a good screen and to be able to play games, to take the edge off my day if I'm away from home and no time/money to go out for the night. Battery life between charges takes a hit, especially if you go quad core and the Nvidia/AMD route. I pop into reference libraries to charge my laptop, though there are cafes where you can do the same, some public transport. A good review site to determine screen capabilities/quality is somewhere like notebookcheck. They are very thorough. Short answer, if a road warrior is more what you are after than a desktop replacement, if you get lucky, perhaps a deal with an Intel i5 6260U would be a good compromise to hit that long battery life between charges. I would be surprised if you see something sub £500, especially with a decent screen, this side of Christmas. Who knows where the £ will be in the coming months. Still, as a Which? reader, as you know, it surely has to get to a point that even in 'price fixing'/'rip off Britain', dealers start to offer American-style deals, even if it's just voucher coupons/cash back and freebie bundle deals.

Edit - Incidentally, I have read (but only read it on notebookcheck, so far) re the Iris 540 graphics that come with the i5 6260U, that the i5 7200U with just its Intel HD integrated graphics component performs as well as and potentially better than, depending on the supporting specification of the laptop model using the i5 7200U. If that is so, there would be further pressure, I think and hope, on laptops using the i5 6260U/Iris 540 graphics dropping in price.

I would go for a scratch and dent Dell for £340

Inspiron 15 - 5559
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-6200U (3M Cache, up to 2.80 GHz)
Windows 10 Home (64bit)
8 GB DDR3 Memory 1600MHz (2 DIMMs)
1 TB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)
8X DVD+/- RW Drive
Intel HD Graphics 520
Software
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-AC 3160 + Bluetooth 4.0
Black
40 WHr, 4-Cell Battery (removable)
15.6 inch LED Backlit Display with FHD resolution (1920 x 1080)
Internal English Keyboard

[quote=Noclouds. "latest generation 2.40 GHz i3 cpu laptop" .[/quote]Noclouds,you know your stuff!..can you anyone help/advise..i'm also looking did research on WHICH and decided to work out my specs..which think are pretty good for a somewhat powerful lappy,im no expert, my budget around £400-500'ish?


Laptop Specifications :

Top 5 priority...
1.Ram - 4-8 GB
2. Processor type - i3 , i5
3.Hard drive - SSD
4.Battery Life - 8-11 hours
5.Processor speed - 2.2Ghz

Hard Disk Space : 1TB
Operating system : Windows 10
i-Tunes compatible : Yes
Webcam : Yes
Bluetoooth : Yes
Wifi : 802.11ac
Compatibiitly with devices : Mirrorcast , Airplay
Screen size : 15'6
Pixels : 1440 x 900
Picture Quality : 1080 HD
Compatitbility : Android IOS Apps
Ports : Ethernet , HDMI , USB 3.0 , USB 2.0 x 2
Keyboard : Large , soft keys

just to add waiting for either black fri or cyber mon is not a bad idea esp if you know model etc

batista - WHICH recommend Acer Aspire ES1-512 avg £261 so id compare that to this model and maybe get a which trial for€1 and do some research there

personally id wait for black friday or cyber monday

Hi batista. We are now three generations of i5 on from the i5-4210U and it's not so much that the newer CPUs are better - the Intel Core i5 5200U is 2.2ghz, the Intel Core i5 6200 is 2.3ghz, the Intel i5 7200 is 2.5ghz - whereas the i5-4210U is 1.7ghz, it's the integrated graphics of the newer generation models have improved, also. I would probably go for the faster and latest generation 2.40 GHz i3 cpu laptop model that pablomalin links to because again, you're getting the newer intigrated Intel HD Graphics 620. Still not a great integrated graphics choice for games, say, but several generations of progress on from the HD 4400 graphics in the old i5 4210U.

Both my sons have these...been really pleased with it. Batteries do get hot if gaming but got them the cooling mats and solved the problem.

thanks

I got this laptop about 18 months ago. It came with WIndows 8 (or 8.1), but upgraded to Windows 10 with no problems (unlike my HP laptops).
It's been very reliable; it's used by my daughter who thoroughly abuses it, to the extent that the screen has cracked (she didn't do it, she found it like that, despite being told constantly NOT to carry/move by the screen).

As with many of these 'consumer' laptops, the lid is very flexible, and I believe the flex has eventually resulted in a broken screen ( that said, it's not fragile, and does take some teenager handling to break).
The good news is that the replacement screen is relatively cheap.

May I point out for those who say they got this cheaper x number of years ago and there are better deals, buy them whilst you can. The pound has dropped in value massively at the moment and as those who buy IT commercially will probably verify, prices are going up, because IT equipment is all imported and generally purchased in Dollars.

Don't be surprised if there are no Christmas bargains.

I bought a 3rd gen i5 for £329 about 4 years ago. This deal doesn't seem that great to me either.

is it easy to add RAM in this model?

1.7 ghz is terrible for that price. You can definitely find better ones. Not worth it.

The i3 in the dell is better than the i5 in this, in raw performance and performance per watt

I3-7100 from Dell was cheaper than this, probably still is with 12% off code

Different code so will be slightly more than 319
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-inspiron-15-5000-series-laptop-i3-7100u-4gb-ddr4-1tb-premium-support-free-delivery-2522486

Doesn't the i5 chip have a built-in cache that the i3 does not and hence has better performance? Or is that no longer the case?

I think that is a good price for an i5.

Good price, heat given.

good find op, heat added :smiley:

Pass mark about 3300 decent deal

Been using the 571 with similar specs but 8gb ram for well over a year, have to say its been flawless and handled everything ive thrown at it. Im not a gamer so cant comment on that side at all.