The best laptop is now even better. Dell has given the XPS 13 ($799 to start, $1,399 with touch) a brighter screen, longer battery life, a new USB-C port with Thunderbolt 3 and your choice of Intel's latest 6th-generation Core Series CPUs. Dell also kept all the features we liked on the previous model, including the sexy aluminum and carbon-fiber body, optional quad-HD infinity display, and comfy backlit keyboard. While the location of the webcam still feels out of place, this latest XPS 13 continues to reign supreme.
Specs
| CPU | 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-6200U |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
| RAM | 8GB |
| RAM Upgradable to | |
| Hard Drive Size | 128GB |
Design
Like the previous version, from early 2015, the current XPS 13 features a carbon-fiber deck sandwiched between a brushed-metal lid and bottom, which creates an appealing and modern two-toned look.
I really like Dell's attention to detail, which is best seen in the bottom-mounted aluminum flap, whose sole purpose is to cover up the ugly service stickers and labels required by the Federal Communications Commission.
When you open the lid, you're treated to Dell's infinity display (pictured above), which features an almost nonexistent bezel that seems to just disappear into the background. It's intimate and engaging, and when you watch movies, it's feels like the video player is just hovering in midair.
MORE: Dell XPS 13 -- Frequently Asked Questions
The Infinity display isn't just for looks either, as the smaller lid means the XPS 13 also has a small footprint. Measuring 12 x 7.9 x 0.33-0.6-inches and weighing 2.7 pounds (2.9 pounds for the touch-screen version) this notebook is even smaller than some of the tiniest 13-inch systems, including the MacBook Air 13 (12.8 x 8.9 x 0.11-0.68-inches, 2.96 pounds) and the Lenovo Yoga 900 (12.75 x 8.86 x 0.59 inches, 2.8 pounds).
Gold Edition
The Gold Edition of the Dell XPS 13 is physically identical to the original with the exception of the Gold version's luminous yellow exterior.
It comes in only one, $1,650 configuration featuring a QHD touch screen, 6th-generation Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, integrated Iris graphics and 256GB of storage.Keyboard and Touchpad
The XPS 13 features a backlit keyboard with two levels of lighting.
Dell makes up for the keyboard's somewhat shallow 1.2 mm of travel by adding a good spring at the bottom of the stroke, so even though there's not a lot of room to work with, it's not painful when you bottom out while typing.On my first attempt at 10fastfingers.com's typing test, I recorded 85 words per minute, which is 5 more words per minute than my typical pace.
MORE: Best Laptops
The 4.1 x 2.3-inch touchpad features a seductively smooth, matte-black surface that my fingers simply couldn't get enough of. Mouse movement and multifinger gestures, such as pinch-to-zoom and two-finger scrolling, responded quickly and accurately.
Even better is the feeling of the touchpad's mouse click, which offers a really satisfying snap every time you press down.
Display
The Dell XPS 13's 13.3-inch quad-HD (3200 x 1800) touch screen is a sight to behold. It features wide viewing angles, and even better brightness and great color range than the nontouch, full-HD version of this notebook.The result is a display whose picture lags behind only that of the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. When I watched the trailer for Gods of Egypt, the radiant blue light of Horus' eye provided a good contrast to the dark and gloomy dungeon. When compared side by side with the nontouch XPS 13, the quad-HD model featured brighter and more-saturated colors. However, the nontouch model exhibited less glare.
The touchpad features a seductively smooth surface that registered gestures accurately.When measured with a light meter, the XPS 13 produced 336 nits of brightness. That's more than the Yoga 900 (284 nits) and the nontouch XPS 13 (318 nits) could muster. However, the pricier Surface Book (387 nits) is brighter.
Color range was on point, with the XPS 13 covering 103.6 percent of the sRGB spectrum. The MacBook Air 13's color range was significantly more limited, at just 66 percent, although the nontouch XPS 13 (92 percent), Yoga 900 (93 percent) and Surface Book (99) percent) weren't far off.
Interestingly, despite good brightness and great color range, the XPS 13's color accuracy is only slightly better than average. The touch-screen model turned in a Delta-E rating of 3.13. (Closer to 0 is best.) The nontouch model was much less accurate, with a score of 8.2.
Audio
Even though size is at a premium, the XPS 13 still puts out a lot of sound. When I listened to DJ Mehdi's "I Am Somebody," I was surprised by the Dell's better-than-average bass and overall volume (which was more than enough to fill our testing lab), although I would have liked more crispness from the percussion.Heat
The touch version of the XPS 13 ran hotter than the nontouch model. After streaming HD video for 15 minutes, a section near the vent on the bottom of the touch XPS 13 registered a disturbing 112 degrees Fahrenheit, far above our typical 95-degree threshold.Other areas, such as the touchpad and space between the G and H keys, were much less worrisome, at 87.5 and 98.5 degrees, respectively.
The nontouch version of the XPS 13 stayed cooler. The hottest spot on the notebook after our video test was the bottom right corner, at 97 degrees.
Ports and Webcam
New on this year's XPS 13 is a reversible USB Type-C port with support for Thunderbolt 3. Though it doesn't charge the laptop, this Type-C connection transfers data at up to 40 Gbps, or outputs video to multiple 4K displays over a single cord.
The XPS 13 also includes two traditional USB 3.1 ports, an SD card reader and a combo headphone/mic jack.
Due to the laptop's slim bezel, the XPS 13's webcam is located beneath the display.The 1280 x 720 camera features dual mics for better audio during video calls, although it's a little awkward to always be looking down at the bottom-left corner. This can often cause shadows to fall on your face. Despite the good detail and sharp focus I saw in a selfie I took in our office, the picture ended up looking a little dark.
Performance
We tested two versions of the Dell XPS 13 -- one with a touch screen and one without -- but each one featured a 6th-gen 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-6200U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB PCIe x4 (aka NVME) SSD.This machine can multitask, stream video and crunch numbers with the best of them.In our tests, this machine multitasked, streamed video and crunched numbers with the best of them. Even when I streamed multiple 1080p 60 fps videos in YouTube with 15 other tabs open in Edge, there wasn't a hint of slowdown.
On Geekbench 3, which tests overall system performance, the XPS 13 scored 6,374. As expected, the MacBook Air 13 (5,783) with its older, 5th-gen Core i5 CPU, didn't score quite as high, although the Yoga 900, with the same i5-6200 U, was in the same ballpark, at 6,264. The Surface Book finished even higher due to its slightly faster Core i5-6300 chip.
When we used OpenOffice to match a spreadsheet containing 20,000 names and addresses, the XPS 13 finished the task in 4 minutes and 28 seconds. While this is a good deal faster than the ultraportable average, it was slightly behind the times from the Yoga 900 (4:18), Surface Book (4:17) and even the MacBook Air 13 (4:03).
Source From: http://www.laptopmag.com