Most laptops that roll through here get reviewed from a pretty fresh and purely
objective perspective since they're not really the kind of thing that I would
use as a daily driver anyway. And perhaps more importantly, they don't
have a predecessor with whom I have a very intimate relationship. My Dell XPS
13 2015 edition video will be different.
Its daddy is clearly the last generation XPS 13 whose name it bears. But for me,
it gets to go head-to-head with its mama, the 2013 XPS12. A or grandma, I
guess it's generation older than that. A product whose twoin-one transformation
capabilities it doesn't share, but to which it otherwise bears a more than
passing resemblance.
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keyboard and features dual GTX 980M and SLI. Click now to learn more. So, let's
begin with the highlight feature, the 13. Now, this laptop is available with a
1080p non-touch display with standard glass, but I think most people would
argue that you're not really doing your XPS 13 right unless you opt for the
premium super high pixel density 3200
by,800 IPS Gorilla Glass covered 10point
multi-touch option that Dell is calling infinity display. And as much as that's
a silly meaningless marketing word, man, it's beautiful. And like the hyper thin
5.2 mm bezel allows the XPS 13 to actually be about an inch less in width
and height than my 12 1/2 in XPS12 while
delivering a larger display. But of
course, size isn't everything. So, you know what's it like once you get it in
your hand and start working on it? Actually, a little weird at first, to be
honest. I mean, I'm accustomed to the screen kind of ending at the edge of the
keyboard on most laptops, and on this one, it just kind of doesn't. It's
surprisingly different feeling, but you do get used to it quite quickly. There
are still issues, though. Text and UI scaling still sucks in Windows 8.1 with
some applications displaying blurry text and others UIs completely falling apart.
Something I will keep mentioning until it's addressed. But the good news is
that in browsers and most of the other things you'll normally use, man is this
monitor gorgeous. Nearperfect viewing angles, retinaike sharpness, and it's
bright, too. Color temperature was a touch cool out of the box, but a run
with the color monkey fixed that write up and also told me that I'm sitting at
about 40% brightness, getting 120 candela per meter squared out of this
thing. So, that's about ideal for indoors. At full brightness, it's
basically blinding inside, but great if you happen to be out in the sun. But of
course, if you just wanted to hear about how great the screen is endlessly, then you could watch this 10-hour loop we
created of me talking about how great it is. If you're not into that sort of
thing, well then keep watching this video because this pony has a lot more
tricks up its wherever a pony would store tricks. The guts for all XPS 13s
contain a Dell 1560 2x2 802.11 AC
wireless card, a 52-Wh battery that Dell
figures is good for up to 12 hours on the high-res model and 15 on the low res
one, and built-in Intel HD5500 graphics
with depending on the trim level, some variety of U or ultra low power class
dualcore Core i3, i5 or i7 processor, 4
to 8 GB of RAM, and anywhere from a 128
to 512 GB M.2 SSD. Now, hold on a second
there, Lionus. That SSD sounds like super cool and fast at PCI Express, but
either I've got like wax buildup in my ear, or you just said this notebook has
4 gigs of RAM on the $1,000 model and a mere 8 gigs on the
$1,750 model. Well, you might have
enough wax in your ear to cause hearing problems. Gross, by the way. But that
wasn't the issue just now. Dell's 2015 XPS13 doesn't even have the
option to configure it with more RAM than I can fill up with a single
multi-tabbed internet browser. There is more good stuff
though. The material choices are superb
with a similar machined aluminum and real carbon fiber black and silver theme
to the one that I have and love so much.
The whole device is astonishingly slim. Yet, even while running the
workbenchmark that I used for battery life testing in PC Mark 8, the fan
stayed either very quiet and sometimes didn't even spin. And the IO has been
dramatically improved for me anyway by the addition of an SD card reader to go
with the USB 3 port and lock on this side and the additional USB 3 port, 4K
capable mini DisplayPort port, power jack, battery life indicator, and four-
pole combo audio jack on the other. But I have more criticism, too. while the
bottom is a solid chunk of aluminum with only vent holes and rubber feet to
disrupt its awesomeness. And the screen itself is phenomenally rigid considering
how thin and basically bezelless it is. The keyboard has taken a significant
backward step in the build quality department. The backlight is nice and
white and the layout is pretty much ideal other than a slightly shorter than
I'd like backspace key, but the key travel distance is very short. The
membrane switches have an unsatisfying
frontheavy and sudden tactile bump. And
much more importantly than any of that other stuff, the entire keyboard has way
more flex than I'd expect in a premium product like this, regardless of how
thin and sexy it is. While I'm piling on, I do have some other gripes in no
particular order. Uh Dell, the power adapter is super small, which is nice,
but your friction locked power plug wore out on my old notebook and basically
falls out now on that one. I'm disappointed this hasn't been revised.
Your nonsense McAfee trial and Dell update were using 25 plus% CPU doing
lordly knows what when I first booted the thing up at one point. I've since
removed them both. The speakers are sidefiring rather than front-facing
which bites. And there's a bit of a lip on the bezel here that makes swiping in
from the right for the charms menu kind of uncomfortable and difficult. Okay,
that last one was pretty petty which means we're probably heading to the good
stuff again. The precision trackpad's default medium delay for palm rejection
is horrible, but once I changed that, I got used to it pretty quickly. There is
something I can't quite put my finger on. What a joke. Uh, but even now, I'm
actually experiencing some kind of cursor accelerationbased tracking
annoyances with fine movements, but I'm pretty sure that's Windows fault. So, as
far as the hardware is concerned, overall accuracy, responsiveness, and
the feel of this glass pad with seamless clicky buttons on the bottom is very,
very solid. And so is pretty much the rest of this device. I mean, thanks to
its fifth gen processor, my i5 equipped model managed a score of 2846 in the PC
Mark Work Suite that I ran as a battery life benchmark. and to see how far we've
come in the last couple of years. Well, it did that while managing
35%. Yes, deep into double digits. More
battery life than my old product. And
speaking of battery life, Dell actually sent over this battery pack thing which
you can use to squeeze some extra out of it and charge other stuff like your
phone while you're at it, if you're into that sort of thing. So, we have come a
long way, but it's bottom line time now.
And the bottom line is the XPS 13 2015 edition is a fantastic and stunningly
beautiful machine that I love, but that lacks the customizability on Dell's
website that would allow me to configure it into something that I would buy. The
pre-baked options make a lot of trade-offs that sound great on paper,
like giving up 20% of its rated battery life for a fancy high pixel density
display in the premium models, but in practice are let down by the awful
experience that is using Windows with UI scaling. So, Dell, if you're listening,
I love this device. Um, but here's the one that I would want to see next time.
1080p IPS with a touchscreen covered in
Gorilla Glass so that I can conserve some battery and don't need to scale and
16 gigs of RAM. Seriously, that's critical. And let me have whatever
processor and SSD that I want in whatever trim level I want. It seems
like a lot of the options are locked down kind of unnecessarily. A build to
order option would be nice. Speaking of,
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