This Laptop Does EVERYTHING! Sorta.
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,459 words · ~7 min read
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some things are made for one task and one task only like this 10 gigabit
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network card it only does networking and
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my car for example is only good for making other people jealous
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conversely this xps laptop is excellent
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at well
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nothing really but it is okay at many things
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so is it like a swiss army knife useful in
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almost any situation or is it like
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a swiss army knife when all you really wanted was a real
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knife
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speaking of useful today's video is brought to you by madrinas madrina's
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percent at the link below
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whether you go for the core i5 or the core i7 model you will immediately
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notice the snappy performance of the 4
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core low power processor but what really separates this puppy from other
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non-gaming laptops is the integrated
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vega GPU to be clear this
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is not explicitly a gaming laptop you
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would need a discrete GPU and a fatter
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heavier form factor for that so don't expect to be playing any
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aaa titles at 1080p ultra details
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but it ain't no scrub either gaming on this machine is a night and
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day difference compared to Intel's own integrated graphics and lighter
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competitive like esports games can break 60 FPS on it but it'll work up a sweat
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when it does the CPU can redline at 100 degrees and
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you will always notice the keyboard getting
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uncomfortably hot over 50 degrees by our
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measurements while gaming even though the clock speed gets
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significantly reduced when the CPU and GPU are both being stressed at the same
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time because due to the way they're designed they actually have to share
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their power okay so it performs better than a thin and light
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but it's not that thin and light and worse than a gaming laptop
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but it's not that thick so all of this makes sense and you got to
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think about this in a two-in-one machine
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gaming performance is purely just a
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bonus and the xps two in one is really intended as a day-to-day laptop
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so sure it's a little on the heavy side
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and if i'm being honest the design is
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anything but edgy but i'm willing to forgive boring design
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when you open up a machine and you get to feel some of the best build quality
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available today the screen and the chassis are both exceptionally
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rigid and like what apple did in 2016
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dell has completely removed the usb type a ports but i'm not mad
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because unlike apple they included
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four type c ports two of which are
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Thunderbolt 3. that's something that's hard to complain about in the 2018
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dongle era as for the screen it's excellent
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fantastic colors really high brightness and touch
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functionality i'd actually recommend though going with
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the 1080p version instead of the 4k one
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because at this size even side by side
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it's not that easy to tell the difference with my eyes but with my
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wallet with my wallet i can tell
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moving down dell has created a completely new type of keyboard for the
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xps two in and
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that's dangerous because i already liked dell's keyboards a lot
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so they're calling this maglev and it's meant to give you a lot of tactile feel
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despite a very short throw distance
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and actually okay the risk was worth it it took a little bit longer to get used
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to than normal having a bit of trouble feeling the
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different keys given how close they are to the key bed but
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once i got rolling i was able to type extremely quickly and hopefully these
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maglev keys don't stop working at the first sign of dust
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going further down the line we get to the touch pad which is one of the many
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things about this laptop that is good but not excellent
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it's sizeable but it has poor palm rejection by default though that can be
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fixed by tweaking the settings and unfortunately the settings won't
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help you solve some annoying acceleration
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issues um it's something that you'll probably get used to
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but for us where we're using a lot of laptops side by side it does stand out
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next in the pile of things that are kind of meh is the extra hundred dollars for
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the dell pen it provides a fairly good writing experience but
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it just doesn't feel as natural as the surface pen which has a softer tip with
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a bit of give and a tiny bit more friction which makes writing notes and
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drawing feel a lot more natural so if you were getting a two-in-one primarily
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for drawing you might still want to consider the surface lineup and to del's
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credit short of inserting it inside the
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chassis this is far and away the best
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attachment mechanism that we've seen
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bringing us to yet another complaint the speakers sound pretty good at lower
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volume but they do start distorting at around 50 percent and at full volume
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sound just plain bad and
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it has one of those abominable chin bar
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webcams which is fine if you flip the screen
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around and use a webcam like this but if i was on a conference call and i
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was trying to take notes with my keyboard all the other participants would see is
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my fingers and speaking of fingers it's a good thing that it has a fingerprint
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reader built into the power button because if i wanted to unlock using the
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Windows hello ir camera that it actually
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has i would end up adjusting my screen basically every time
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future proofness isn't a strong point of this thing either besides the storage
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basically nothing in here can be upgraded or replaced so make sure that
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you get the specs you want including RAM
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up front and by the way this massive 75
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watt hour battery only got us five hours in our work
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battery life test a fairly average result so then
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i've complained about quite a bit over the last six minutes or so
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but these are the sacrifices that come with
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a laptop that is able to do everything
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and don't get me wrong overall i actually quite like the xps 15 two in
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one what other device gives you excellent
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touch support lots of performance
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a beautiful screen super high build quality and pretty good
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battery life all in one okay the surface book 2 which also has a
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better keyboard and a discrete GPU
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and on a level playing field yeah come to think of it i would choose the
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surface but the pricing of the xps saves it with
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what we'd call our recommended loadout coming in at fifteen hundred dollars
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it's not really a budget option but it is a full five hundred dollars cheaper
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than the cheapest surface book that we think is even worth looking at
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so for someone that needs a do it all device and can live without full
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dedicated graphics the xps 15 211 looks
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like a solid all-rounder
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option speaking of a solid option
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text and data that you end up using each month ting gives you full control over
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on your account to keep your usage in check and nationwide lte coverage means
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to the latest galaxy s9 or iphone 10. so
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check out your phone's compatibility at Linus.ting.com and while you're over
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there get 25 bucks off your bill or towards a new phone in the ting shop
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so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to
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where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is
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which you should totally join