I really liked last year's version of the Dell xps15 with its great build
quality and strong performance in almost every category but has the 2017 model
the XPS 9560 been able to iterate on
that and remain recommended a year later
well let's find out shall we
we're opening up a new merch store you can check out some of our new gear today
at the link in the video description physically the XPS 15 has
hardly changed from the previous version
not that that's the worst thing ever the thin bezel Infinity Edge screen is now
bordered by glass instead of plastic which is a nice touch and overall I
can't complain about the clean look and solid feel of the XPS
even if it's slightly thicker than some other professional laptops like Apple's
latest MacBook Pro booting up the delx ps15 the first thing that really struck
me was how darn good the screen is there are two versions available 1080P and 4K
and both have excellent viewing angles and brightness our model Sports a 4K
screen capable of greater than the full Adobe RGB color space and it's frankly
amazing to look at my usual complaints
do stand Windows and third-party
applications still scale poorly from
time to time and higher resolution displays do negatively impact battery
life so if you don't have eagle eyes you may want to consider a 1080p model but
it sure is nice to have the option text and icons are crazy sharp making
everything from using word to reading articles to watching 4K video super easy
on the eyes another nice touch
touch is that it's touch enabled I regret opting for a non-touch
configuration of the xps15 when I reviewed it last year so uh glad we got
that fixed this time around IO For Better or For Worse is basically
unchanged you get two USB 3.0 type A's a
Thunderbolt 3 Port which comes with all the wonderful capabilities that it does
including the ability to upgrade the XPS 15 with an external graphics card in
spite of warnings to the contrary and to
adapt it to run a 4K 60 HZ display you
get a full-sized SD card reader and an HDMI 1.4 Port so enough to cover
day-to-day needs and the ability to add a dongle if it doesn't leading us
finally into something different specs
it starts at $11,000 with our config
costing a little bit more with a quad core core i7 processor that boosts up to
3 .8 GHz in our experience a fast NVMe
SSD and a GTX 1050 graphics card General
performance of the aforementioned Hardware brings us back to things that
haven't changed very much Intel's latest kbl processors are more about power
savings and battery life is pretty good in our standard test than they are about
faster um Excel spreadsheet processing
however gaming is a different story if
you're a Casual Gamer who wants a sexy high performance notebook I mean 4K
ain't happening but when bumped down to 1080p which still looks quite sharp
despite downscaling the GTX 1050 handles
AAA games pretty darn well and even in
our synthetic tests temperatures remained acceptable with the CPU
leveling off around 82 and the GPU at
77° the fans did get a little loud but they don't have that high pitched noise
that some other laptops do and I was able to tune it out after a while moving
on the keyboard feels actually really solid with no perceptible Flex the
keystrokes have a nice travel and remain quiet but not mushy sounding and overall
the XPS 15 is great for typing and doing up this review on it was a pleasure the
exclusion of a number pad will be a turnoff for some but I understand the
trade-off here compared to most 15-in class notebooks the thin bezels cut down
on the overall x-dimension size of the device a lot giving Del only a couple of
inches of space on either side below we
find the trackpad which is excellent as well it's got a
surprisingly soft feel that makes
navigating Windows feel like you're
gently touching a a Lover's leg you know it's
like up grades are easyish 12 screws and
you pop the bottom cover allowing you to throw another drive into the 2 and 1/2
in Bay at least in the 57w model the one
we have has that bay taken up by the massive 97w battery and you can also
change out the memory if you're so inclined we do have some constructive
criticism though the wireless solution and Windows don't seem to get along
quite right at this time although this was easily fixed by disabling some power
management settings and a Windows service and given how impressed we've
been by recent Dell Audio Solutions the
speakers are surprisingly bad I'm still unsure why they continued
with the webcam placement on the bottom of the screen when I'm on a Skype call
it looks like I'm staring off into space and placing my hand on the home row
blocks the view of my lovely face I mean is it really that important that the
Dell logo remains centered this is a
huge problem on an XPS branded device
that straddles the line between Enthusiast and business where being able
to engage in conference calls is actually a daily
occurrence but with all those complaints
aside I enjoyed my time with the XPS 15
and I think the excellent screen aluminum and carbon fiber construction
and great keyboard easily make up for
its lame qualities with our model coming in at 2 Grand it isn't exactly a budget
laptop but it does pack a mean punch for
the money as laptops Trend towards being
thinner while sacrificing performance and IO the XPS stands out for its focus
on pragmatic performance and the inclusion of a proper GPU bottom line
though the XPS 15 is a great option for
basic use professional tasks like video or photo editing and even light
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