How does Premiere Pro perform on a Dell XPS 15?

Question

Trying to establish if Premiere Pro (via a full subscription of the Creative Cloud suite for $49.99) is worth the investment when I'm working on a Dell XPS 15 laptop with 16 GB of RAM (rest of the hardware is standard top-of-the line XPS 15 options, i.e. quad core processor, NVIDIA video card, etc).  I've been using Adobe Premiere Elements and a ton of 4K GoPro footage with some pretty meaningful slowdown when rendering.  This could be par for the course, but I'd just as quickly go with another video editing program like Sony Vegas for my purposes and pay far less, but of course also get far less in terms of Adobe power.
Also - this laptop does not have a 7200rpm hard drive (the one that isn't solid state, which is 32GB by itself).  It's 1TB but likely in the high 5's instead...not sure if I can use a faster external hard drive and meet optimal spec requirements to preserve video as much as possible.  Please advise.

Answer 1

My inquiry is actually to the reverse of your suggestion; I have the laptop, but I hadn't yet purchased the Adobe Cloud Creative Suite.  Though I went ahead and did so this week.  The XPS 15 was chosen for its lightweight aluminum / carbon fiber construction, Intel Core i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM, 1TB of hard drive space for ample storage, and the SSD for active programs so things are quick to launch.  I've had very few complaints with the laptop itself, having used only Adobe Premiere Elements (which came with the purchase) and the GoPro app for developing a few videos of aerial GoPro footage.  It has served its purpose; I'm not a professional doing this work to sustain my living - it's a hobby to me, though I aim to have the best possible quality in all things when possible. Granted, I could've spent the same amount of money, or perhaps a little more, and gotten the best and fastest desktop arrangement money could buy for my purposes with ample more power and performance, but I wanted 100% mobility for all my equipment (drone, camera, and video production unit).  Gives-and-takes in everything, of course - the biggest consequence has been rendering, but in this forum that probably goes without saying, and though not awesome, it's livable even when using GoPro 4K codec as BartonGarrett256 wisely mentions.
Nevertheless, Adobe Premiere has been doing well so far...certainly better than the Elements application in terms of both performance and capability (naturally).  I haven't gotten to After Effects yet, though I do love having that at my whim with my Cloud subscription which is, to me, well worth what you get for what you pay if you know you'll be using multiple applications for the foreseeable future.  The days of paying hundreds of dollars for one application are ending, as well they should in my opinion. 
Though I'm open-minded to what one might suggest for the most powerful laptop on the market - 8 core is honestly news to me.  My XPS was purchase in December 2014 and it had the best processor Dell could offer with the XPS model.  I almost went with an Alienware, but it would've been a lot bulkier, and the display was archaic in a world moving more and more toward crystal clarity wherever possible.
One other setback I would love advice / opinions on - the 1TB drive that came with the XPS is not 7000+ in speed...I recall it being in the 5's.  Can I remedy this with an external drive that does have the higher speeds cited as optimal for the Adobe video editing suite?