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Dell XPS 15, polished design and good performance

Before 2020, Dell’s line of XPS notebooks could be clearly defined as entry-level ultraportable devices. Dell changed that perception a bit with the XPS 15 and now the 2020 update offers a high-end design that expands screen size without increasing body size.

We have spent more than a week with the XPS 15 and it has left us quite happy. Unlike the Surface Book 3, which maintains a design that is starting to look a bit old, the XPS 15 doesn’t try to be “too much” or let a confusing design spoil it.

There are many laptops that deserve our attention, but arguably it boils down to software preference. And for Windows devotees, we have found the XPS 15 to be one of the most to be reckoned with.

Dell repeats good design

There’s not a lot of wasted space on the XPS 15. Its slim build can even make you pull out a ruler to confirm that it’s indeed a 15-inch laptop. It is only 1.8 cm. thick and weighs 1.8 or 2 kilos depending on its configuration. The XPS 15 can fit within the dimensions of a 16-inch MacBook Pro with room to spare.

It also incorporates a lot of ports: the right side has a USB-C port, an SD card reader and an audio connector. The left one has two more USB-C ports. Better yet, Dell includes a USB-C to USB-A and HDMI adapter in the box, which is something we firmly believe all laptops should bring. Not only does it make it easier to set up a laptop, it adds more value.

The construction of the XPS 15 feels high-end. Its machined aluminum outer casing is a silver color that looks polished, but does not attract much attention. It’s a little difficult to open at first, but after a few tries you can push up with just a thumb.

The star is the screen. It has almost no bevel. There is no wasted space with thick black bars everywhere. It is thin on the top and bottom, and thinner on the left and right. It is also almost a 16-inch screen, reaching 15.6 inches diagonally.

You can choose between two variants. A FullHD 1920 × 1200 screen or a 4K UltraHD + 3840 × 2400 touch screen. For most of us we are sure that the FullHD variant will do the job, we just wish it had touch support as it is a great way to control Windows 10.

We’ve been testing the high-end 4K UltraHD + display and it really is a beauty. If you plan to do any kind of creative task, or dare we say that even for games, you will want this one. You can see more colors in a precise way.

In everyday use, the XPS 15’s display really appeals to you. Slim bezels lead to a screen-to-body ratio of 92.9%.

As for the keyboard, it’s pretty good. We still prefer Apple’s new Magic Keyboard as the best typing experience. But the XPS 15 is not far. The keys have a different but sometimes even better feel, as the keys bounce around pretty well. The key spacing, along with the respective row spacing, feels quite spacious. However, from time to time, we find ourselves accidentally hitting some function keys. Overall, it’s a forceful experience with a unique top coating that feels like a soft plastic for each key.

Unlike the Surface Book 3, which opted for a small trackpad, the XPS 15’s trackpad is a decent size. It gives ample space for dragging and dropping files. You can move across quite a large surface on the screen with a relatively simple movement. If you choose to do it, you can activate the touch to click but you also have a very good physical click. Like most Windows laptops, it’s not a click anywhere, but rather from the bottom half of the trackpad.

Like the 16-inch MacBook Pro, the left and right sides of the keyboard are flanked with speaker grilles. It is really good and almost on par with Apple computers. But, we found it falls a bit short on the bass, although the depth of the soundstage is almost identical. You can fill a room easily and we don’t hear any audio distortion.

Let’s talk about performance

As with any laptop, you can customize the specifications to your liking, and that leads to variable prices. The Dell XPS 15 starts at $ 1,299 for a fairly standard build with an Intel i5 processor paired with integrated graphics and 8GB of RAM with 256GB of solid state drives. We recommend at least boosting up to 16GB of RAM, and if you plan on using it for photo or video editing (or any creative task) go for a discrete GPU.

For just under $ 2,000, you can get an XPS 15 with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, an Intel Core i7 processor, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 with 4GB of dedicated RAM. This is probably a model that will last for several years and you can scale as your workloads increase.

Our unit was a little more stuffy. We have been testing an XPS 15 with an Intel Core i7 and 16GB of RAM along with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti. All this paired with 512 GB of internal storage. More mundane tasks like writing, checking emails, updating spreadsheets, and monitoring analytics were very easy. We were able to warm things up a bit with Photoshop and Lightroom running at the same time while using Excel to open a large spreadsheet. With higher intensity tasks, we notice that the fan kicks in and the XPS 15 can generate a fair amount of heat.

In battery life, it fell a little lower than expected, and that probably has to do with the 4K UHD display. In the battery test, consisting of a loop video with 50% brightness adjusted and airplane mode activated, we landed firmly within seven hours. Our use in the real world resulted in the XPS 15 reaching 0% closer to 10 hours.

conclusion

The Dell XPS 15 is a fantastic laptop that offers great value. We really like that it includes an adapter in the box to help with USB-C ports, but it’s also a machine that’s as good at design as it is at performance. You can really configure it as a very powerful machine if you opt for a GPU and an Intel Core i7. The end result is a well-priced device that will last for many years.

We really like this updated look on the XPS 15, and we think Dell created a sleek-looking computer that stands out from the rest.

Note: The above prices reflect the price at the time of article posting.

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