The problem gamers have been facing forever is the high price of the tools they need. Yes, I’m talking about notebooks meant for gaming. The high-performance components in them cost a lot to manufacture, and end user will have to pay this price. But every rule has an exception – also cheaper gaming laptops exist. Dell Inspiron i5577-5328BLK-PUS is a good example of that, and many of the questions you might have will be answered below!

Is it very fast for gaming?

It would be a lie to call Dell Inspiron i5577-5328BLK-PUS a very fast gaming laptop. However, it still packs a bunch of graphics performance, which is (in my estimation) enough for 95% of the gamers. Indeed, the graphics engine is GeForce GTX 1050 with dedicated 4GB video memory, a card made with Full HD gaming in mind. To give you an idea, some more demanding games like Doom and GTA 5 would get over 50 frames per second on high settings (and 1080p resolution). There is no way to upgrade the card on this model, but the GTX 1050 will last a good two years or so.

General performance

The processor department houses Intel Core i5-7300HQ, the company’s 2017 7th generation model with four cores, clock speed of 2.5GHz and turbo boost of 3.5GHz. Belonging to the Kaby Lake architecture, this model scores ~6700 CPU Mark points in the said benchmark. That is a good score and all in all, the i5s are known for their high performance levels. For example, you could use the rig for video editing, as far as the processor is concerned.

The storage is not the best aspect of this Dell. Inside is just 1 terabyte 5400RPM SATA hard drive, an old school model with not too great transfer rates yet great storage space. So, for just storing your files, this drive is excellent – it can take more or less two hundred thousand image or music files. If you however want performance, go for SSD. Installing one is possible since the motherboard has an unoccupied M.2 SATA & PCIe/NVMe slot!

The notebook’s memory 8GB DDR4 2400MHz is up for any task. Furthermore, it’s installed on a single stick which obviously means there’s room for upgrade. One SO-DIMM slot on the mainboard is unoccupied, with the maximum configuration being two 16GB sticks, totaling at 32 gigabytes of DDR4 memory.

Ports and interfaces

A few interesting ports reside on the sides of Dell Inspiron i5577-5328BLK-PUS. Three USB ports are at your disposal and all of those are USB 3.0 – good for transfer rates. However, what might come unfortunate for some, is the lack of USB Type-C on this model. You’d have to pay more to get that I imagine.

You can hook up a bigger display to the laptop’s HDMI output. Possible displays are HDTV or PC monitor, to name the most commonly used.

The laptop supports wireless and wired networking both. There’s a Gigabit Ethernet circuit (with RJ-45 connector) for cable, and a WiFi adapter 802.11ac for wireless Internet. You can connect Bluetooth devices to the notebook too.

You won’t get an optical drive with this computer. It actually happens quite often that the manufacturer leaves DVD burner out of the equation. But there are ways around this, for example with an external optical drive. Perhaps you also find use for the laptop’s built-in SD and MMC card reader.

Screen

Dell Inspiron i5577-5328BLK-PUS has a 15.6 inches 1080p resolution display. It seems to be a (cheaper) TN panel with anti-glare coating. There’s no touch support in it, gamers wouldn’t often find that useful anyway. On paper the display looks decent but I have read some reports suggesting poor image quality. There are not many reviews about this model yet so it’s tough to make conclusion, but keep this in mind.

Miscellaneous things

The battery has six cells and its energy is 74Whr. As noted above, there are no user reports confirming the battery life. Often, on similar units it is closer to 5 hours but that is under web surfing. If you fire up games, the duration will reduce to 1-2 hours. Furthermore, the battery is considered integrated on this laptop.

This model comes with a backlit keyboard – I think the colors can not be adjusted to your liking.

Why should I buy it?

Dell Inspiron i5577-5328BLK-PUS will run games without lag, especially if you don’t mind using less than maxed out settings on some newer titles. The GeForce GTX 1050 card is definitely enough for casual, even some hardcore gamers, that don’t want to pay an arm and leg for their notebook.

The computer can also act as a data storage. It has a terabyte hard drive which is becoming less and less common due to invasion of smaller (yet faster) solid-state drives.

Why should I not buy it?

If you want a fantastic display I think it makes sense to choose another model. I’ve read reports the screen here is not the best. However, for many users (and gamers) it would still suffice.

Verdict

Dell Inspiron i5577-5328BLK-PUS is the quintessential budget gaming laptop; not with the best performance, but with enough oomph to get most players going. The GTX 1050 card does a great job with high frame rates, and a 7th generation Core i5 processor will help in the process. Disadvantages include the lack of solid-state drive, plus I have also heard the image quality is not top notch on this laptop. But yes, the flip side is the cheap price – if you value affordability this Dell should make a decent gaming notebook for you.