Dell XPS 13 (2015) - Beautiful and Functional... But Is It Perfect?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,862 words · ~9 min read
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Most laptops that roll through here get reviewed from a pretty fresh and purely
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objective perspective since they're not really the kind of thing that I would
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use as a daily driver anyway. And perhaps more importantly, they don't
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have a predecessor with whom I have a very intimate relationship. My Dell XPS
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13 2015 edition video will be different.
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Its daddy is clearly the last generation XPS 13 whose name it bears. But for me,
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it gets to go head-to-head with its mama, the 2013 XPS12. A or grandma, I
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guess it's generation older than that. A product whose twoin-one transformation
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capabilities it doesn't share, but to which it otherwise bears a more than
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passing resemblance.
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The MSI GT80 Titan is the world's first gaming laptop with a fully mechanical
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keyboard and features dual GTX 980M and SLI. Click now to learn more. So, let's
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begin with the highlight feature, the 13. Now, this laptop is available with a
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1080p non-touch display with standard glass, but I think most people would
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argue that you're not really doing your XPS 13 right unless you opt for the
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premium super high pixel density 3200
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by,800 IPS Gorilla Glass covered 10point
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multi-touch option that Dell is calling infinity display. And as much as that's
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a silly meaningless marketing word, man, it's beautiful. And like the hyper thin
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5.2 mm bezel allows the XPS 13 to actually be about an inch less in width
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and height than my 12 1/2 in XPS12 while
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delivering a larger display. But of
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course, size isn't everything. So, you know what's it like once you get it in
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your hand and start working on it? Actually, a little weird at first, to be
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honest. I mean, I'm accustomed to the screen kind of ending at the edge of the
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keyboard on most laptops, and on this one, it just kind of doesn't. It's
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surprisingly different feeling, but you do get used to it quite quickly. There
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are still issues, though. Text and UI scaling still sucks in Windows 8.1 with
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some applications displaying blurry text and others UIs completely falling apart.
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Something I will keep mentioning until it's addressed. But the good news is
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that in browsers and most of the other things you'll normally use, man is this
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monitor gorgeous. Nearperfect viewing angles, retinaike sharpness, and it's
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bright, too. Color temperature was a touch cool out of the box, but a run
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with the color monkey fixed that write up and also told me that I'm sitting at
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about 40% brightness, getting 120 candela per meter squared out of this
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thing. So, that's about ideal for indoors. At full brightness, it's
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basically blinding inside, but great if you happen to be out in the sun. But of
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course, if you just wanted to hear about how great the screen is endlessly, then you could watch this 10-hour loop we
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created of me talking about how great it is. If you're not into that sort of
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thing, well then keep watching this video because this pony has a lot more
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tricks up its wherever a pony would store tricks. The guts for all XPS 13s
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contain a Dell 1560 2x2 802.11 AC
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wireless card, a 52-Wh battery that Dell
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figures is good for up to 12 hours on the high-res model and 15 on the low res
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one, and built-in Intel HD5500 graphics
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with depending on the trim level, some variety of U or ultra low power class
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dualcore Core i3, i5 or i7 processor, 4
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to 8 GB of RAM, and anywhere from a 128
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to 512 GB M.2 SSD. Now, hold on a second
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there, Lionus. That SSD sounds like super cool and fast at PCI Express, but
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either I've got like wax buildup in my ear, or you just said this notebook has
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4 gigs of RAM on the $1,000 model and a mere 8 gigs on the
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$1,750 model. Well, you might have
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enough wax in your ear to cause hearing problems. Gross, by the way. But that
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wasn't the issue just now. Dell's 2015 XPS13 doesn't even have the
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option to configure it with more RAM than I can fill up with a single
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multi-tabbed internet browser. There is more good stuff
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though. The material choices are superb
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with a similar machined aluminum and real carbon fiber black and silver theme
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to the one that I have and love so much.
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The whole device is astonishingly slim. Yet, even while running the
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workbenchmark that I used for battery life testing in PC Mark 8, the fan
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stayed either very quiet and sometimes didn't even spin. And the IO has been
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dramatically improved for me anyway by the addition of an SD card reader to go
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with the USB 3 port and lock on this side and the additional USB 3 port, 4K
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capable mini DisplayPort port, power jack, battery life indicator, and four-
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pole combo audio jack on the other. But I have more criticism, too. while the
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bottom is a solid chunk of aluminum with only vent holes and rubber feet to
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disrupt its awesomeness. And the screen itself is phenomenally rigid considering
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how thin and basically bezelless it is. The keyboard has taken a significant
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backward step in the build quality department. The backlight is nice and
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white and the layout is pretty much ideal other than a slightly shorter than
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I'd like backspace key, but the key travel distance is very short. The
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membrane switches have an unsatisfying
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frontheavy and sudden tactile bump. And
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much more importantly than any of that other stuff, the entire keyboard has way
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more flex than I'd expect in a premium product like this, regardless of how
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thin and sexy it is. While I'm piling on, I do have some other gripes in no
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particular order. Uh Dell, the power adapter is super small, which is nice,
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but your friction locked power plug wore out on my old notebook and basically
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falls out now on that one. I'm disappointed this hasn't been revised.
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Your nonsense McAfee trial and Dell update were using 25 plus% CPU doing
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lordly knows what when I first booted the thing up at one point. I've since
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removed them both. The speakers are sidefiring rather than front-facing
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which bites. And there's a bit of a lip on the bezel here that makes swiping in
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from the right for the charms menu kind of uncomfortable and difficult. Okay,
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that last one was pretty petty which means we're probably heading to the good
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stuff again. The precision trackpad's default medium delay for palm rejection
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is horrible, but once I changed that, I got used to it pretty quickly. There is
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something I can't quite put my finger on. What a joke. Uh, but even now, I'm
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actually experiencing some kind of cursor accelerationbased tracking
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annoyances with fine movements, but I'm pretty sure that's Windows fault. So, as
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far as the hardware is concerned, overall accuracy, responsiveness, and
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the feel of this glass pad with seamless clicky buttons on the bottom is very,
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very solid. And so is pretty much the rest of this device. I mean, thanks to
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its fifth gen processor, my i5 equipped model managed a score of 2846 in the PC
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Mark Work Suite that I ran as a battery life benchmark. and to see how far we've
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come in the last couple of years. Well, it did that while managing
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35%. Yes, deep into double digits. More
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battery life than my old product. And
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speaking of battery life, Dell actually sent over this battery pack thing which
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you can use to squeeze some extra out of it and charge other stuff like your
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phone while you're at it, if you're into that sort of thing. So, we have come a
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long way, but it's bottom line time now.
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And the bottom line is the XPS 13 2015 edition is a fantastic and stunningly
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beautiful machine that I love, but that lacks the customizability on Dell's
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website that would allow me to configure it into something that I would buy. The
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pre-baked options make a lot of trade-offs that sound great on paper,
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like giving up 20% of its rated battery life for a fancy high pixel density
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display in the premium models, but in practice are let down by the awful
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experience that is using Windows with UI scaling. So, Dell, if you're listening,
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I love this device. Um, but here's the one that I would want to see next time.
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1080p IPS with a touchscreen covered in
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Gorilla Glass so that I can conserve some battery and don't need to scale and
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16 gigs of RAM. Seriously, that's critical. And let me have whatever
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processor and SSD that I want in whatever trim level I want. It seems
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like a lot of the options are locked down kind of unnecessarily. A build to
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order option would be nice. Speaking of,
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