Oh my gosh, I really don't like Dell's website. I tried to look for some SPECS on that computer, and all I found on Dell's website was a giant overview of features, with a annoying chat with us for support box that keeps popping out and hiding, and no SPEC sheet to speak of on there.
And if you look at the page just long enough, it doesn't take long to realize, that Dell is trying to bank on the hopes that you will buy their accidental damage and service and support warranty's. The only place on their page where we might find some honesty, is in the reviews at the bottom.
And even that is spotty at best, cause were not really going to know which reviews are planted and which ones are not right. The page is just not professional at all, I am just amazed how bad it is. Then I tried to click back, and their site wouldn't let me do that.
So off I go back to Google on a new tab, looking for the SPECS. OK, now to a real website who knows what they are doing...
CPU: Intel Core i5-9300H
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (Laptop)
Display: 15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), TN
Storage: 512GB SSD + 1000GB HDD
RAM: 8GB DDR4, 2666 MHz
Weight: 2.34 kg (5.2 lbs)
Pros
Low price
Good performance, given the hardware
Comfortable keyboard
Great upgradeability
It has an SD card reader
Cons
No Thunderbolt support
Only 52% of sRGB coverage (BOE T1WD3-NV15N3D (BOE0819))
Uses aggressive PWM to adjust screen brightness - our Health-Guard profile fixes that (BOE T1WD3-NV15N3D (BOE0819))
60Hz panel has uneven Luminosity (BOE T1WD3-NV15N3D (BOE0819))
At the end of the day, this is a mid-range computer with a core I5 CPU, and its got a 1660 TI GPU, which is a more modern version of what used to be the 1650 GPU in these things. It comes with a 1080P screen, but for 15-inches, you honestly don't need more then that!
Its got 512GB of SSD for the boot drive, which is stellar, and its got up to 1TB of mechanical storage, which is more then enough to install a lot of games. This machine only has 8GB of RAM, for gaming that is not great, but I'm sure it can be upgraded!
Going off SPECS alone, this machine seems pretty decent to me. If he can upgrade the RAM to 16GB, he will have a very decent gaming machine that is gonna be able to play most games. It would struggle with games like Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, Control, Metro Exodus in anything higher then LOW settings though.
From what I can tell, its not a bad machine, but I don't trust the folks who made it though. But Kedric is right, I don't own a Dell, I certainly don't own that Dell machine, so there is no way that I could tell you how well it would perform on Ubuntu.
But looking at the SPECS, technically, it should handle most Linux distro's as long as they arn't too heavy. But of course, thats only an assumption, cause I don't own a Dell, cant say for sure, pure an educated guess is about the best that I can do.