 I'll be the first to admit that I'm usually all about the extreme stuff. If it's the thinnest notebook in the world, you've got my attention. If it's the biggest, baddest, curved display, you've got my attention. So why on earth then am I bothering to cover the Dell Inspiron 17 7000 series, a hyper mainstream model that bears more resemblance to my wife's compact from college than it does to anything else that I've ever covered on this channel? Because it folds up to be a 17 inch 6 pound tablet. What the f***? Whoa! Massdrop is featuring the M220 semi-open headphones from AKG, boasting a pretty steel black and white color theme. Check them out at the link in the video description. Let's open up with the basics. When I say the Inspiron 17 7000 series is mainstream, I really do mean it. This is a moderately thin 17 inch machine with solid build quality in the $900 to $1400 price range. Not cheap enough to be a commodity box made of plastic, but it's not trying to be some kind of mobile workstation powerhouse. So the hardware inside is pretty modest, keeping the overall cost fairly low. It's available with a Core i5 6200U or a Core i7 6500U, but like I mentioned in the Tech Quickie episode about what i3, i5, and i7 actually mean, the 6500U, while an i7, is actually a dual core hyper-threaded 15 watt low power skew. Not designed for more than moderate productivity or light content creation or gaming. Anyway, mine is the middle of the road model rocking the Core i7 processor option, 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM, a 128 gig SSD with a 1 terabyte hard drive for overflow, and a GeForce 940MX 2 gig dedicated graphics card. Something I was pleased to see even on the entry-level model, since a DGPU can make a big difference in certain video editing workloads, as I covered in my Can You Edit 4K Video on an Ultrabook video here. In terms of I.O., on the right is an SD card reader and a... Are you for serious right now, Dell? Starting to remember why I don't cover mainstream stuff. A USB 2 port? This I gotta see for myself. Yeah, that's a USB 2 port. Damn it, Dell. Anyway, on the left is a headphone microphone jack, a USB 3 port, an HDMI 1.4 port, and a USB type C port that'll handle USB and DisplayPort duties, and you can actually charge the laptop with it. So that's kind of cool, I guess. Even if the I.O. isn't impressive, at least I can find some comfort in the solid construction. Good build quality actually doesn't really surprise me anymore, since everything Dell has shipped me since they took the company private again, has been very solid for the price, and the Inspiron 17 7000 continues this trend. The palm rests don't really flex unless you put a lot of pressure on them. The speakers are surprisingly good for bottom-mounted ones and don't suffer from that sounds-like-it's-coming-from-behind-you thing that I've experienced before, and the webcam is a solid pretty good. Though, if I was using this regularly for video conferencing, I would probably wish for a better microphone. Moving on to the experiential things, the keyboard is a little spongy, but it's quiet and didn't slow me down too much, with a basically bog-standard layout and the number pad being one of the nicest things about carrying around something this size. Side note, I'm glad keyboard backlights are standard now. The touchpad tracks well and is thankfully an appropriate size for the 17-inch 1080p IPS touchscreen display, another huge improvement over the displays of mainstream notebooks of yore, and I hadn't really used Windows Hello much, but the facial recognition from the integrated IR camera is really, really fast, even in pretty poor conditions. Though, I haven't experimented much with having other people try to break through it, so your mileage may vary. Let's talk about the killer app now, though. The laptop by day, tablet by night, two-in-one conversion that can be done with a quick backflip of the LCD panel. [♪ music playing on piano and keyboard with a soft, jazzy beat to it, then a soft, jazzy beat to it again.] [♪ music playing on piano and keyboard with a soft, jazzy beat to it, then a soft, jazzy beat to it again.] Honestly, whether it was watching movies, playing casual touchscreen games, or... what else do people even do on tablets? I really wasn't sold on this feature. Dell's promotional images are all focused on touchscreen DJing applications and people enjoying concerts, so I guess there's a market there that they're gonna go in and corner. But from an average user's perspective, the weight, something Dell either forgot or conveniently omitted from the product page, and size end up being more of a hindrance than a help for the Inspiron 17 7000 in this operating mode. But that's okay, as long as the tablet mode doesn't hurt the way it functions as a normal laptop. So does it? In a couple ways, maybe, but not much. The display is a bit heavier, making actual laptop operation less feasible, since it's poorly balanced and will easily fall off your knees if you move around too much. And my guess is that the 360-degree hinge is the reason that it can't be lifted with one finger. But that's about it. Screen wobble, which some of you are probably noticing when I bang on this table, is almost entirely due to this table being unstable. It's not a laptop issue. So then if I was to completely ignore the two-in-one-ness, there's a lot to like here. Battery life is really solid, thermals are a strong point, with the aluminum chassis remaining at much lower temperatures than I'm accustomed to, with all the gaming laptops that come through here, even while under heavy CPU load. And on that note, the dedicated GPU doesn't cause overheating either, even when it's working hard at the latest casual games like Lego Batman 2, making this machine suitable for keeping the kids busy as long as they don't expect to be playing the latest AAA titles at 4K or whatever. This is what Tomb Raider looks like, by the way. At 720p, all lowest details. Not pretty, especially at less than 30 FPS. So that's the bottom line here, then. If you can forgive the weight, something folks who desire a 17-inch laptop are probably going to have to deal with one way or the other, the Inspiron 17 7000 gets a solid recommendation, even if I personally think the tablet mode contributes nothing to the experience. And beyond that, made me feel kind of ridiculous while using it. Every time I do one of these spots for Blue Apron, it kind of annoys me, because they're not available in Canada yet, and I have heard absolutely rave reviews about the service. It's really cool. So Blue Apron allows you to create delicious chef-designed recipes at home. They deliver all the farm-fresh ingredients that you need right to your doorstep in exactly the right proportions, no unnecessary trips to the grocery store, no wasted food, and they're delivered in a refrigerated box so the ingredients will stay fresh, even if you're not at home when your package arrives. They offer two types of plans, the two-person plan and the family plan, and there is no commitment you can skip or cancel the service at any time. The meals are between 500 to 800 calories per person and can be prepared in 40 minutes or less, which is actually, from my rough napkin math, less than the time that it takes for me to gather up all the kids, go out to somewhere for takeout, and carry it home. I mean, it's actually more efficient to just make my own food, and it's better for you. So Blue Apron offers a large selection of recipes and is always adding new dishes, and if all of this sounds appealing to you, all you gotta do is be one of the first 100 people to use our link in the description below to get three free meals on your first Blue Apron order. So go check that out. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do, but if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. 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