84 PCWorld JUNE 2020

FEATURE IS UPGRADING A LAPTOP’S SSD & RAM WORTH IT?

packs an Intel Core i7-9750H, an Nvidia

GeForce GTX 1050, a 512GB M.2 SSD, and

8GB of DDR4 RAM.

It’s a strange machine, for sure. At just over

$1,000, the Inspiron 15 7000 still feels a bit

overpriced—blame the Core i7 processor and

that generous 512GB of storage. But only

8GB of RAM? Meanwhile, the cheaper $900

model (go.pcworld.com/i593) touts a Core

i5-9300H and Intel UHD 630 graphics, but

16GB of RAM.

What’s an enterprising buyer to do if they

want a Core i7-9750H and 16GB of RAM to

go with it? You do it yourself, of course.

CRACKING THE CASE

The Inspiron 15 7000 is held together by

eight screws, all very visible on the bottom of

I

s it worth it to

upgrade a laptop’s

RAM or storage?

We had a chance

to find out when Dell

asked us to test the

upgradability of its

Inspiron 15 7000.

I admit that as I

faced this challenge, I

started sweating.

Panic-sweating. In my

experience, upgrading

a laptop is never a fun

time. Cracking the case

open feels borderline

illegal, and once you’re inside you find a maze

of tiny screws, tiny parts, tiny wires—like

disarming a bomb built for ants. Many laptops

don’t want to be opened, hiding the screws

or voiding the warranty if you dare.

Imagine my surprise when I found the

Inspiron 15 7000 almost...friendly? Getting

inside still feels a bit illicit, but it was pretty

easy to do. Was it worth it? We ran

benchmarks to find out.

BUILDING A BETTER LAPTOP

The Inspiron 15 7000 is a good candidate for

upgrades, because no single configuration is

perfect. The model Dell sent over is the

top-of-the-line Inspiron 15 7000 Model 7591

(currently $1,050 on Dell.com (go.pcworld.

com/md75)), a humble little machine that

Captive screws help separate the bottom panel from the rest of the chassis.