Dell XPS 13 (2017) Review: They Did It Again

Dell has long touted their XPS 13 iskind of the gold standard for ultrabooks it's not gonna win over the hearts ofmobile gamers or video editors but for everyone else looking for a sleek laptopthat packs a punch Dell's got a lot they want to show you after using this thingfor about two weeks I have to say I think the XPS 13 is my favorite ultrabook that you can buy on the market right nowI'm Robert Rosenfeld TechnoBuffalo and here's why design is an important partof any laptop but I think that Dell really did a great job with the designof the XPS 13 it's made out of an all aluminum chassis it feels very premiumlightweight in the hands and they said that they were able to fit a 13-inchscreen and what would normally be an 11 inch laptop form factor and they wereable to do that though it did leave the laptop of a little chunky not very fatbut it's definitely not the thinnest kid on the block as much as I love thedesign of the XPS 13 I'm not a fan of how hard it is to get this thing openwhat looks like a little microscopic lip on the front is just a charging legwhich means that opening this thing is really a two-hand operation luckily onceI got the laptop open and I started using it my frustrations really startedto subside mainly because of that display Dell really prides themselves inthe whole XPS line are having these super thin almost bezel s infinity edgedisplays and the one on the XPS 13 really does look fantastic our unit isrunning at a resolution of 3200 by 1800 it's a quad HD touch display andeverything just looked really good on it video was super sharp and clear colorsreally seemed to pop off the display text was sharp and I really just lovedusing this display it also gets fairly bright up to 400 nits which made itpretty usable outside and definitely super usable anywhere inside you'regetting a really beautiful display with almost no bezels but with having thoseminimal bezels there were some compromises made Dell move the 720pwebcam that typically sits at the top display down to the bottom left handside which isn't a big deal for me but for anyone who does a lot of videoconferencing or Skype calls it's probably in the most unflatteringposition possible this is an example of the video and audio quality only builtin HD webcam on the XPS 13 Audio sounds very muffled very tinny even a littlecrackly video is awful inside the XPS 13 there'skind of this carbon-fiber composite kind of soft touch it feels supercomfortable and it leaves you plenty of room for your wrist when you're typingon it's pretty average keyboard I say average because the keyboard was justokay for the most part it has good key spacing it's got some pretty decent keytravel though at times the keyboard just felt a little mushy for my likingafter a couple of days I got used to it and it felt a little bit better belowthe keyboard is the XPS 13's pretty decent trackpad it's an okay size itsupports Windows 10 s precision drivers you can swipe and scroll and zoom toyour heart's content and we also had optioned the Windows Hello compatiblefingerprint reader which for 25 bucks it was a no-brainer it workedabout 80 percent of the time but for the price point it's an easy to use add-onthat I definitely recommend before I jump into performance I just want tomention something I kind of like about the XPS line in general and that is kindof the price to performance ratio you can get an XPS 13 starting at $799 andit's not going to be a powerhouse it's got an i3 it's got four gigs of RAM butyou can kind of customize along the way and add options and add a little bitmore price point to get yourself more of a significant computer it's kind of nicethat Dell allows for that customization that you can start at a low price pointand still get a really rock-solid computer and go all the way up to and i7with a 512gb SSD and get a really beastly computer for a higher price it'sjust nice that there's a lot of options along the way and I appreciate that butgoing back to that beastly XPS 13 the review unit we have is pretty muchspec'd to the gills with the best of the best of Dell offers ours has an eighthgeneration Core i7 processor 16 gigs of ram a 512 gigabyte nvme based SSD andintel 620 integrated graphics so that last component might be a littleworrisome of course this isn't a gaming laptop it's not targeted to gamersthough I will say that in my testings with games and just performance overallI was surprised how well the integrated graphics worked with that new eighthgeneration i7 the XPS 13 was able to handle pretty much anything that I threwat it throughout the day having that 16 gigs of ram is reallynice even for the heaviest of chrome users with lots of tabs open I didn'tfeel like the machine was running slowly and having that 512 gigs of SSD storagespace made me feel like I wasn't gonna suffocate the machine by having a fewgames installed or having a few movies on the drive I was able to jump betweenprograms like Photoshop and Excel and Word and Chrome and the XPS 13 just kindof stood the test the time it handled anything that Ithrew at it and it never really seemed to slow down or be bottleneck byanything so it handled the typical daily workload really well but what about somelike gaming and video editing for an ultrabookI was really happy with how it handled things like editing in Premiere Pro Iwas able to add at 1080p footage on this thing just fine full play about qualityno timeline issues it just worked out really well it's not gonna handle 4kvideo editing but again this is an ultrabook so keep your expectations towhat this thing actually is of course rocket League is not a game that's superGPU intensive and it's not gonna eat away and a lot of that graphicsprocessing power but I was still surprised how well it ran on this thingI was able to run by default right out of the box at 1600 by 1900 at highsettings and got some really great frame rate throughout playing again the XPS 13is a very solid contender in almost all the categories I've talked about beforebut battery life is where this thing truly shines during my testing browsingthe web watching some videos on this thing I never once worried aboutdraining the battery and I was able easily to make it through an 8 to 10hour day without having to plug this thing in to charge and if you're evenlighter user someone who just occasionally browses the web and checksemail I think you can make it 2 days on this battery so battery life is greatbut when you're ready to charge the XPS 13 you might kind of look at the eye onthis thing and start to scratch your head a little bit on one side you have afull-size USB 3 port and an SD card slot which is fantastic and on the other sideyou have a battery indicator light a headphone jack another USB 3 port a USBC port and then something that brings sadness to my heart Dell's proprietarycharging port the speakers on the XPS 13 are just okay they get decently loudthey give a little bit of volume and a little bit of bass but I think you'regonna have a much better time plugging in a good pair of headphones to thisthing or using its built-in bluetooth 4.

1 to connect in even better pair ofheadphones to get a better overall sound experience and if you're in the marketfor a good pair of wireless bluetooth headphones the fine folks at Sennheisersponsored this video and they also sent over their 4.

50 Bluetooth noisecancelling headphones these things are bluetooth noise cancelling headphoneswith phenomenal battery life you could use them for up to 25 hours without thatnoise canceling feature and up to 19 hours if you have it turned on they haveBluetooth 4.

0 built in and NFC for easy pairing and exceptional sound quality aswell as just a super lightweight foldable andto carry around with you design I wore these things for a long time during mytesting they were very comfortable on my ear I didn't get that weird kind ofpressure sensation that you get when wearing some headphones they also havetrack controls on the side of the headphone so you can adjust the volumeof the current track you listening to and also skip forward and back as neededand they also have a detachable cable so if you want to listen to these thingsplugged in and wired you can totally do that but if you want that fully wirelessexperience you can unplug that cable and do that as well if you guys want tolearn more about these headphones check out the link below in the videodescription alright so let's take a step back and kind of wrap things up it's gotgreat build quality really solid performance and the battery life on thisthing is phenomenal and over my days of testing I really just enjoyed using thislaptop so what do you guys think of the Dell XPS 13 I know you guys had a lot ofcomments on my last video telling me to check this thing out so now that I didwhat do you guys think is this gonna be your next contender for an ultrabookleave your comment down below and let me know always appreciate doing thesevideos for you guys thank you so much for watchingI'm Robert Rosenfeld from TechnoBuffalo see you guys in the next one you.

Source: Youtube

Dell XPS 13: The Most Powerful Thin Laptop?

- Hey guys, this is Austin.

This plain-looking box containsone of the most exciting laptops I've seen in quite a while.

This is the Dell XPS 13.

I really do like the LG Gram.

So, we've already donea full video on this.

What's nice is, is thatwhen I'm at the office, I can plug it in via USB-Cto a monitor and use it like a desktop for stufflike email and notes.

When I'm on the go, not onlydoes it have some of the best battery life I've ever tested, but it's also superlightweight and portable.

That's where the XPS 13 comes in.

(tapping) (thudding)Ahhhhh.

So the XPS 13 has been aroundfor a couple years now.

But, this is the most recent version.

What makes it reallyspecial is that it is one of the very first laptops to ship with the eighth generationIntel Core processors.

Now, normally, that doesn'tsound like it would be any kind of huge difference, but in this case, it means that it's going to be a lot faster.

At least, I hope so.

One of the nice things aboutthe XPS 13 is that it actually is made out of aluminum.

I can immediately tell that,while it is definitely a little bit heavier than the Gram,it feels really substantial.

Pop this guy open, and oneof the first things you're going to see is the fairlylarge 13.

3-inch display and a very, very small chassis.

So, when the XPS 13 first came out, this sort of bezel was really impressive.

Now, it's getting alittle bit more common, but it still looks really nice.

The outside of the XPS 13 is all aluminum, but on the inside it hasthis carbon fiber finish.

It actually feels pretty good.

It almost feels a little bit more rubbery than you would expect out of carbon fiber.

But, it's nice and comfortable.

There's also a nice selection of ports.

So, not only do we have our power in, but we also have a Thunderbolt 3 port, which you can also useto power the laptop, a USB 3.

0 port, headphone jack, as well as the battery indicator, which looks like it's dead, which is cool.

If we flip it over to the other side, what you're going to findis another USB 3.

0 port as well as a full size SD card reader.

Having that Thunderbolt 3 port is nice, as not only does itdouble as a USB-C port, but you can also do stuff likeconnect a 4K monitor to it, accept power in, and intheory, you could connect it to an external GPU forbetter gaming performance, although unfortunately, itonly uses two lanes of PCIe, which means that's probablynot going to be a great idea.

It will get bottlenecked.

The display is 13.

3 incheswith a 1080p resolution, but it is not a touch screen.

If you want that, you have toupgrade to the 1800p model, which is a lot more expensive.

Now, I actually like 1080p as I feel like it's a good sorta sweet spot between screen resolutionas well as battery life, and this panel is decent.

So, the color is fine, viewing angles are solid.

However, it just doesn't get quite as bright as I would like.

The biggest problem withthe display is that means that the webcam has to beput in the left corner, which means that it looks really weird.

Not only are you looking up at my nose, but I'm always looking tothe side of the laptop.

- Hey guys, this is Austin.

This laptop might have some of the best battery life in the world.

- And this laptop haspretty decent speakers.

So, one of my issues with theGram was that the speakers were a little bit tinny.

However, here, even thoughthey're not front firing, they come out the sides, it sounds a lot better.

I also like the keyboard and trackpad.

So, the keyboard has nicespacing, the feel is good, and it's backlit.

The trackpad uses WindowsPrecision drivers.

So, no, it's not quiteas good as something like a glass trackpad on a MacBook,but it is right up there.

My only real issue isthat to get a touchscreen, you have to pay another $350, which to me is kind of hard to justify.

What really makes this newXPS 13 stand out though are those eighthgeneration Core processors.

Now, typically, when yougo from one processor to the next as far as generations go, it's usually not a huge difference.

But with this guy, we're goingfrom dual-core processors to quad-core.

And in a small, thin, andlight laptop like this, that makes a huge difference.

This XPS 13 is powered by the i7-8550U.

So, the base clock is 1.

8 gigahertz, but it's almost always above that as you guys will see in a minute.

It can turbo all the wayup to four gigahertz.

Now, that's backed up byeight gigabytes of RAM and a 256 gig NVMe SSD.

Run this guy through Geekbench, I legitimately had totriple check my results.

Not only is this one of thefastest laptops I've ever tested as far as single thread performance goes, but even with multi thread,it is right up there with high-end Core i7s fromgaming laptops of last year.

One thing to keep in mindis that this is still a 15-watt processor, sofor longer, sustained use, such as gaming or rendering, you will see the clock speed start to dip.

But, for most stuff likevideo editing or web browsing, you're gonna see it be incredibly fast.

Unfortunately, gamingperformance doesn't see the same kind of gains.

So, here on Rocket League,we're getting anywhere between 40 to 50 framesper second at 720p quality, which is fine for lighter titles, but it's really not goingto see a major benefit over something like Skylake or Kaby Lake.

Under normal usage, thelaptop is basically silent.

However, once you fireup something like a game or some video editing, you'llsee that the fan does get a little bit noisy.

Dell claims that you canget 13 hours of battery life streaming video, and about22 hours of light usage, which might be a littlebit of an exaggeration, but with a 60 watt-hour battery,it should absolutely last you all day.

There is a lot to like with the XPS 13.

So at $1300, I feel like this spec is a little bit expensive.

However, once you can actuallyget a Core i5 in this guy, and especially if theyadded a more affordable touchscreen version, thisis gonna be hard to beat.

I am really excited to seethese new processors roll out to more and more laptops.

Having this much power insuch a thin and light laptop, honestly is a game changer for me.

So, what do you guysthink about the XPS 13, as well as these neweighth gen processors? Let me know in the comments below and I will catch you in the next one.

Source: Youtube