Dell Xps 13 Touchscreen Laptop - Intel Core I7 - 4k Ultra Hd Review
The newest Dell XPS 13 is one of the offset ultraportable laptops to come with Intel's latest 11th Generation "Tiger Lake" CPUs, offering speedy, efficient calculating performance and long battery life. This 2.8-pound laptop also has an exceptional 13.4-inch display and a gorgeous chassis, all of which combine to go far our Editors' Option pick amongst premium Windows ultraportables. The price is a bit high, starting at $999.99 and ringing upwardly at $1,649 as tested, just it's worth it for uncompromising fans of cutting-border performance and mode.
The XPS 13's Moment to Shine
If you were tempted to purchase an XPS thirteen earlier this twelvemonth following its significant redesign (model 9300) only didn't pull the trigger, it's a practiced thing you waited. At present you can get everything we like about the new laptop with the added bonus of the latest Intel silicon.
The CPU bump is substantially the just modify from the 9300 to the current model 9310, merely it'south an important one if you lot program to keep your automobile for v years or more. Dell does churn out new XPS 13 models at a biggy charge per unit, sometimes multiple times per yr. Still, a brand-new processor and a concrete redesign that's not even a yr onetime make the 9310 a safety buy for people who don't want their expensive investment to exist upstaged by something vastly improve in a few months.
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The XPS thirteen is admirably thin and feels satisfyingly solid, if non particularly lightweight. Information technology measures 0.58 by eleven.6 by seven.8 inches (HWD) and weighs two.viii pounds in the touch-screen configuration reviewed here. Versions without a touch screen weigh slightly less, at 2.64 pounds, since they lack the touch version'due south Gorilla Glass vi coating over the display. Either of those weight measurements compare favorably with the Dell'southward archrival, the Apple tree MacBook Pro 13, which weighs 3.1 pounds. But the XPS 13 is still meaningfully heavier than the very lightest models on the market place, such as Acer'south 1.96-pound Swift vii flagship.
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The XPS 13's boosted heft accommodates loftier-quality materials and a sleek blueprint. The density of the build is apparent as soon as you slide the system out of its sleek white box and run your fingers over the aluminum lid and edges. Dell says the edges are anodized twice to prevent scratch harm from repeated plugging and unplugging of peripherals. Opening the hat results in even more to ogle. The two color options include Platinum Silvery with a black carbon-fiber palm residuum or Frost White with an Tall White composite-fiber palm residue. Our review unit uses the latter scheme, and it'south gorgeous. The palm rest is especially snazzy, and it incorporates a UV- and stain-resistant coating to forbid yellowing and discoloration.
If you similar the XPS 13'south styling, y'all'll be interested to know Dell has expanded information technology across the range, which includes the latest versions of the larger XPS 15 and XPS 17 laptops. This is a similarly unified approach to the one Apple takes with the styling of the MacBook Air and the 2 sizes of the MacBook Pro. Whether you're looking for an ultraportable for frequent travels or a large-screen machine with serious computing power, there's an XPS for you. There'due south fifty-fifty a ii-in-1 version of the XPS 13, which sports a 360-degree hinge that lets you convert the laptop into a tablet.
An Exceptional Display, Even Without 4K
The XPS 13's display is available in three versions, all of which feature an unusual 16:x aspect ratio instead of the more than familiar xvi:ix. The former results in additional vertical space, which is handy for when yous're scrolling through websites or updating lengthy documents.
Our review unit has a 1,920-by-ane,200-pixel touch console. Thanks to the aspect ratio, the resolution is a flake higher than full HD (1,920 by 1,080 pixels), merely considerably less than the Retina Display of the MacBook Pro or the PixelSense display of the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3. However, the XPS 13 tin can be configured with a 3,840-past-ii,400-pixel panel that leapfrogs not only those two laptops, but likewise the dimensions of standard widescreen 4K displays (3,840 past two,160 pixels).
Once you've used a 4K screen, information technology'due south hard to go back to total Hard disk drive, with its occasionally visible pixels and slightly grainy text. Perhaps that's why Apple and Microsoft don't offer full HD versions of the MacBook Pro or Surface Laptop iii. But I actually don't heed the XPS 13'southward screen resolution. Images appear especially brilliant, which I attribute partly to the taller aspect ratio that results in slightly more pixels than a 1080p display and partly to the Dell's 100% sRGB and 90% DCI-P3 gamut support. I also appreciate the extraordinary rated maximum of 500 nits of brightness, which means the XPS 13 can fifty-fifty be viewed comfortably outdoors (though not in directly sunlight) if you crank up the brightness setting.
And then I'm not recommending the 4K screen over the full HD 1 in this case. That's an added benefit to people watching their budgets, since the 4K version does add together to the cost. On the other manus, I recommend staying away from Dell'south entry-level screen, which is the same as the ane on our review unit except that it lacks touch support. That'southward a shame, since many XPS xiii competitors offer touch support standard, with the notable exception of the MacBook Pro.
Feats of Miniaturization
In an impressive achievement in downsizing, a 720p webcam complete with IR face recognition sensors is located higher up the center of the display. It offers boilerplate video quality for a laptop camera, which is to say that indoor shots are slightly noisy and fuzzy compared with the quality from the cameras of fifty-fifty a midrange phone. Dell says information technology has improved the camera quality by adding a new four-piece lens and temporal noise reduction, but if you're planning to hold a Skype session in your living room at night, you'll nonetheless probably want to use your telephone. The photographic camera's chief innovation is its minuscule size—the XPS xiii's screen occupies 91.5% of the footprint of the chassis, which means the bezels surrounding it are razor-thin.
One of the consequences of a compact laptop is less room for ports. The XPS 13'south are limited to two USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt iv support, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader. This ways y'all'll need an adapter or dongle to plug in an external monitor or USB Blazon-A peripherals. (Dell thoughtfully includes a USB adapter in the box.) This could be a drawback for the work-from-home oversupply, who will likely be using the XPS 13 with an external display. While it's truthful that the XPS 13 is only following the trend toward fewer and fewer ports, its selection is stingy fifty-fifty amongst its peers. The MacBook Pro offers as many as four USB-C ports, all of which support Thunderbolt 3.
The ultraportable offers the latest Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and Bluetooth v wireless connectivity standards, good for stable internet connections and wireless keyboards and mice. Merely many users will happily stick with the built-in touchpad and keyboard, both of which I detect to be comfy for short typing and tapping sessions. The large keycaps and extensive surface expanse of the pad are welcome improvements over the cramped equivalents on some competitors, including the Asus ZenBook thirteen. The power push button in the upper correct corner of the keyboard doubles as a fingerprint reader for password-costless logins to your Windows 10 business relationship.
Audio quality from the XPS thirteen's stereo speakers is excellent. Combined, they deliver up to 4 watts of output, and they're balanced enough to give the laptop far richer and more dimensional audio than you'd expect from such a compact parcel. Much of the audio emanates through a grille on the lesser of the laptop, but voice tracks and other treble notes in a few movie trailers that I watched never sounded muffled.
Dell supports the XPS 13 with a 1-yr hardware warranty, and offers optional extensions up to 4 years for an boosted charge.
Testing the XPS thirteen: Goodbye Ice, Hello Tiger
The new XPS 13 ditches Intel's 10th Generation "Ice Lake" processors in favor of the latest Tiger Lake CPUs. There'due south not a huge deviation between the 2, but we did see some minor operation improvements on a few of our benchmark tests compared with the 9300 model. Our test unit comes with a Core i7-1165G7, a quad-core chip with Hyper-Threading that runs at a base frequency of 2.8GHz, up from 1.3GHz in the equivalent 10th Generation Cadre i7. The college clock speed can meliorate operation on certain tasks, though the total number of cores and threads remains the same. (See how we test laptops.)
While the XPS 13 has always relied on integrated graphics rather than a discrete GPU, this model boasts Intel's latest Iris Xe silicon, replacing the Iris Plus graphics of its predecessor. Our review unit too has 16GB of memory and a 512GB solid-state drive, which should exist sufficient for most users. The entry-level configuration, meanwhile, comes with a Core i3, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. That's a relatively skimpy ready of components compared with the MacBook Pro, whose entry-level configuration includes a Core i5. Just the entry-level MacBook Pro is $300 more the base XPS 13.
Below is a list of specs for our XPS 13 tester and a few other comparable laptops nosotros've tested recently, including the Apple MacBook Pro, the Asus ZenBook 13, the Razer Blade Stealth thirteen, and the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3.
Of the grouping, the Asus is the simply other contender to sport a Tiger Lake CPU.
CPU, Media, and Storage Tests
Our outset await at overall performance comes from the Windows-just PCMark functioning suite adult by the criterion specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark ten test we run simulates unlike real-earth productivity and content-creation workflows. We utilise it to assess overall arrangement performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet jockeying, web browsing, and videoconferencing. The XPS 13 performs very well, though essentially the aforementioned as the similarly equipped ZenBook 13.
PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a storage subtest that nosotros use to assess the speed of the organization'southward kicking bulldoze. Similar PCMark ten, information technology yields a proprietary numeric score (higher numbers are better). Most recent laptops with SSDs perform roughly every bit well in this test, which is the case here.
Next is Maxon'southward CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 examination, which is fully threaded to make utilize of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to return a complex epitome. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. The bureaucracy on this test is clear: the Ice Lake-based Surface Laptop 3 and Bract Stealth thirteen are a rung below the Tiger Lake XPS 13 and ZenBook 13. The MacBook Pro's Core i5 processor is an overachiever.
Cinebench is oftentimes a good predictor of our Handbrake video-editing trial, another tough, threaded workout that'south highly CPU-dependent and scales well with cores and threads. In it, we put a stopwatch on test systems as they transcode a standard 12-minute clip of 4K video to a 1080p MP4 file. It's a timed test, and lower results are better. The XPS 13 is locked in a surprising tie for offset identify with the MacBook Pro, with the Asus non far behind.
We besides run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop for Windows and the latest Photoshop CC release for macOS, we utilise a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG exam image. We time each functioning and, at the cease, add together up the total execution time. Every bit with Handbrake, lower times are better here. The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM. The XPS xiii performs well—better than the Apple, just non quite every bit quick as the ZenBook 13.
Graphics and Battery Life Testing
One of the main benefits of Intel's Tiger Lake platform is the switch from the older Iris Plus to Iris Xe graphics. This improvement really has only a pocket-size bear on in our graphics testing, which uses the Windows-but 3DMark and Superposition game simulations to render sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting.
We run two dissimilar 3DMark subtests, Heaven Diver and Burn down Strike, which are suited to different types of systems. Both are DirectX eleven benchmarks, but Heaven Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Burn Strike is more enervating and made for high-end PCs to strut their stuff. The results are proprietary scores.
Like 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene and measures how the organization copes. In this case, information technology'south rendered in the company'southward eponymous Unigine engine, offering a unlike 3D workload scenario than 3DMark for a second opinion on the machine's graphical prowess.
The Iris Xe laptops show a slight advantage over their Iris Plus counterparts, but the difference isn't remarkable. It's likewise much less of an advantage than what is offered past an entry-level gaming GPU similar the Nvidia processor in the Blade Stealth xiii. The bottom line for graphics output is that the XPS xiii will be able to handle pretty much anything you throw at it except for intensive 3D games, which require a defended GPU to run smoothly. (For more assay of Iris Xe performance, check out our Iris Xe primer and in-depth Tiger Lake testing feature.)
Equipped with a 52-watt-hour bombardment that lasted for xv hours in our video playback examination, the XPS xiii should easily survive an entire workday away from a power outlet...
That'due south a very skilful result, even though it'due south "only" in line with what the contest offers and actually slightly shorter than the 17.5 hours we saw from the previous model 9300.
Hear Me Roar: Today's All-time Loftier-End Ultraportable
The XPS thirteen is an exceptional ultraportable whose key strengths are its cutting-edge computing components in a beautifully designed, exceptionally well-constructed chassis. These are rare achievements even in the crowded field of premium ultraportable laptops. Operating organization differences aside, the XPS thirteen is probably a better option than the MacBook Pro for well-nigh people right now, since Apple'south notebook is using older-generation processors that confront imminent replacement.
1 of the few reasons not to choose the XPS 13 is if you're seeking a robust gaming experience on the side. Intel's Iris Xe silicon is pretty good if you are willing to dial things back (this is not the integrated graphics of a yr or two ago), but even so, the Nvidia GeForce GTX-equipped Bract Stealth 13 is probable a more prudent choice, at the minor expense of shorter bombardment life, a not-quite-every bit-sleek chassis, and an older-generation CPU. Otherwise, the XPS xiii is the cream of the crop, and retains our Editors' Selection award as 2020's best high-end ultraportable laptop to date.
Dell XPS thirteen (9310)
Cons
The Bottom Line
A trim-to-the-max chassis, a beautiful screen, and a cutting-edge Intel "Tiger Lake" processor help the latest Dell XPS 13 assert its status as today'due south top high-end ultraportable.
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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/dell-xps-13-9310
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