Hello. I just purchased a Dell Inspiron 15 7559 gaming laptop from Amazon.com. Is it a good machine? I saw that people are experiencing hardware failures w/ Dell's products and complaining about it on Dell's Facebook page. They are discouraging everybody from buying Dell products. The laptop will arrive tomorrow. Should I return the laptop because of this?

That's the model I have and it's had a few annoyances for the 1.5 years I've been using it, but no hardware failures thus far (knock on wood). There's always a chance you might get a lemon so if you're not confident with the purchase anymore, I'd say return it.

I have the 4K screen version and that's good once you upgrade the memory and use a decent m.2 SSD - in fact it was outstanding value when I bought it, 1.5 years ago, as long as you were willing to upgrade the hardware yourself.
The FHD version may have a terrible screen, depending on your luck, it's all part of the Dell Panel Lottery. (google that)
The UHD screens on Dell laptops on the other hand are outstanding quality, including the one supplied with 7559.
The machine itself can get pretty loud when using the NVidia GPU (keep that in mind in a shared environment, or night time gaming), but it's the same for any gaming laptop - If you want silence use a desktop.

However, be aware that it's old technology and uses a 960m Maxwell GPU, so the GPU is pretty outdated.
All recent laptops, including Dell ones use at least a 1050 Pascal GPU, which is more than twice as fast as the 960m, less hot, therefore requiring less cooling -> not so loud.

Compared to the XPS 9560 I am using atm there is a marked difference in the noise level (price too).

I wouldn't be concerned about the quality of 7559 - it's way much better than what I expected to be honest and easily outperforms many laptops that cost a lot more.
On the other hand, if you are concerned about 3D gaming (not just 2D, work etc.) at all buy something with a Pascal (10xx) GPU these days, as it's very, very different in terms performance - even the entry level 1050 is better than most high-end laptop GPUs from the Maxwell series...

My daughter is using a core2 dell motherboard from a Dell machine I rescued from scrap 8 years back.

I used Dells in most of my IT career,

They're are mass produced at the lowest margin. Bundled graphics tend to run slightly slower than their commercial counterparts. That said, I've used and maintained 100's of them and they've been reliable. Much better than Acer stuff I've used.

This is the same laptop I've been using for almost a year and I've had no reliability issues with mine

Anyone having trouble with Dell products? The comments on Dell's Facebook page is really discouraging me!

The problem is, people rarely post up and say "My Dell Latitude has been serving me well for 10 years. Thanks guys"

Well, I once thought about getting used Dell motherboard, because it supported 2011 xeons with ecc. However, it used proprietary wiring almost everywhere... on PSU, on audio front panel, even on fans, etc.. for no real reason, except having monopoly on parts. This is not really "PC", more like a cross between console and PC that is.

Have 2 Dell laptops atm, the 7559 and a 9560.
No complaints from me, but if you are not comfortable with upgrading hardware and drivers, I wouldn't recommend either.
The 7559 is a great machine after hardware and driver upgrades.
The 9560 is a fantastic laptop once you updated the drivers, which does involve actually removing the Dell locked Intel video driver and replacing it with the latest Intel one... if you don't, it crashes like every 5 minutes out of the box, which is a terrible user experience given it's Dell's most expensive/exclusive range, hence the TONS of complaints on the 9560 product page.
If you don't have the knowledge, I'd rate the laptop 1/10, if you can update all the drivers it's 9/10... it's a huge difference.
Dell drivers are lagging several months, sometimes years (!) behind the official drivers from their hardware vendors and that is only acceptable if you don't care about that and can fix those issues yourself - or know someone who can do that for you.
And, again, keep the Dell Panel Lottery in mind for FHD screens - either order a Dell with UHD screen, or return your laptop until you receive one with a FHD screen that you are happy with... some users just replace the display panel themselves...
So I'd say it's a mixed bag: great laptops if you know what you are buying into/OK with tinkering if/when needed - caveat otherwise.
I am happy with both laptops, but I can imagine inexperienced users getting very annoyed who purely rely on Dell for their support and updates - you really should not.

I'm currently using a used Dell Inspiron 640m I got off Amazon for only $60. I've had it for almost 2 years; the headphone jack is finicky (in that sometimes when you unplug them, when you plug them back in they dont' play sound anymore, until you restart the machine) and now the screen is too loose and other things, but overall it's worked very well. I don't use it for gaming much, although that was the original purpose for a 2015 summer vacation. (I didn't factor in screen glare though.)

My previous 3 laptops were Dell 17 models. First was I had for about 3 years, which went back to the company when I quit my job. That was 11 years ago.

Next came a similar unit with newer hardware. The only difficulties I had were that I plain wore out the DVD drive (replaced under on-site extended warranty though it's an easy swap) and I went through 2 or 3 GPUs. Can't remember the GPU model on that one. Not so easy to replace the GPU on those things, but it's also where I learned that they have (or at least had back then) really nice factory-level disassembly and repair manuals in their support section. Was fairly blown away by the quality of the manuals, and that the consumer had access to them. I've not seen anything like it from any other laptop brand.

Replaced that one after 5 years, again with an upgraded 17" model - an XPS. Only trouble I had with it is that a horizontal line developed across the entire width of the screen. Still runs fine and I use it out in the shop. Almost 6 years old at this point.

Replaced with a Sager last Oct / Nov. Not because of anything Dell did wrong to not deserve consideration, but that they simply no longer offered (at the time) a gaming-type PC in a plain brown wrapper like the old XPS. If I could have gotten another XPS with good gaming chops, I'd have considered one.

Dell sells tons of PCs, and people like to bitch. That's why one can find lots of bitching about Dell. Personally, their laptops have worked well for my purposes, each of which suffered at least 4 years of business travel abuse plus a lot of gaming time.

I had an XPS. It was extremely expensive (it was a gift) and it was horrid. They used a nonshielded wire from the power brick to the PC to assure that the powerbrick ($130 power brick) was a Dell original. I had the original power brick. It was a Dell. It was expensive. And it refused to recognize it as such. Since it wasn't Dell, it would throttle down the computer speed so that it was like a Commodore 64. Not really that bad, but it was a great computer in its day (GTX8800M on-board with a good processor for its day) but it computed worse than my netbook. Waste. Of. Money. (for the person who gave it to me)

I read through the forums and all and Dell, of course, didn't stand by their product like they should have. They had every excuse in the book. I think they ended up with some lawsuit on it, but I didn't pay close enough attention.

I will never buy another Dell product for the rest of my life. Any company that tries to screw you over like that isn't worth my money. When you have to pressure people to buy your product and get them stuck with buying more of your product, then you're holding your product ransom. And I'm more of a "shoot the hostage" sort of hostage negotiator.

So that's my deal. No Dell. Ever.

That said, I've used many good Dell products. I'm just against their philosophy.

Main problem with Dell they sell overpriced and their support is horrible.

If you don't know your way around a laptop in order to perform maintenance and/or can't get a good deal, it's not worth it.

My experience was 6 or 7 years ago. I cannot advise on exactly what you should do. Lots of people love their Dell computers. I do not. I'm sure it will do everything you want it to do for a while. There are probably better buys.