Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave 2d and this is my review of the Dell XPS 13 so this has been updated to skylake it's the 935 zero model I did a review earlier this year on the 930 for three model but because they're so similar I'm not going to do like a super comprehensive video on this one but I've been using for the past couple of months and wanted to highlight some things that they've changed and some things that haven't changed let's do it okay so it comes in the same black box as before there's no accessories and the same 45 watt AC adapter with its cool light-up tip but the three-position duck head from before was discontinued so you have to just use this long extension cord the exterior is unchanged it's got the same premium aluminum finish on the exterior with that air intake and the serial number hatch on the bottom the screws come off but just like the previous generation only the storage drive is upgradable the RAM is soldered on the build quality hasn't changed everything is still really well engineered and it feels tight and rigid it's good stuff the ports on the outside are unchanged for the most part the only noticeable difference is the mini DisplayPort which has been replaced with a USB 3.1 type C Lightning port so this port has a ton of bandwidth and adds potential for a future connectivity the laptop can also be charged using this port if you have an appropriate charger the unit I have here is a core i5 6200 u running at 2.3 gigahertz a 13.3 inch quad HD touchscreen Intel HD 520 graphics eight gigs of ram 256 gigs of storage all for $1,400 us and going with a 1080p screen instead of the quad HD screen will save you about three to four hundred dollars opening it up you get the same carbon fiber material as the previous generation it's durable it looks good and is a nice rubbery finish to it I love this stuff the screen options are the same as before so my review unit last time had a 1080p screen which was good but nothing super special this unit here has the quad HD screen now this higher res screen doesn't come cheap and it drains batteries quicker but it's really nice so it's an IPS panel with great color reproduction viewing angles and it's really bright like brighter than a 13-inch MacBook Pro both of these screen options still have this amazingly thin bezel which is like the signature feature of the XPS line right now and the webcam is still down here but it doesn't bother me too much the keyboard hasn't changed it's a decent backlit keyboard and the typing experience is something that most users will get comfortable with after a little bit of use the glass trackpad is unchanged in terms of the hardware but there's been a slew of updates since the first iteration launched so if you are an early adopter of the XPS 13 back in February and you hated this trackpad it's had significant improvements since then it's still not an amazing trackpad and the one on the XPS 15 is noticeably better but for a 13-inch windows-based Ultrabook this one's pretty good now drive performance has improved the previous generation used in m2 satis lot this one uses a PCIe slot which is a much faster interface but the drive they have in here is the 256 gig PM 951 drive from Samsung and if you've seen my XPS 15 review it's right speed is a little slow for a PCIe Drive it's still a step up from the previous generation but if you need super fast write speeds you should upgrade this the interface can push much faster write speeds the new skylake processors are faster and the more energy-efficient CPU performance is around 10 to 15 percent better than Broadwell chips but combined with the new HD 520 graphics it's around a 20% increase in gaming performance at least theoretically it's on a gaming laptop but lightweight games can hit 50 to 55 frames per second at 1080p if you're running on low graphics settings but moderately demanding games like Rainbow six or a fallout 4 those get around 35 to 40 frames per second on low graphics settings and really demanding games like Witcher 3 are basically unplayable speakers are the same as before they sound pretty good and they get loud and the fan noise has improved a lot it still idles at around 20 decibels but under load this thing is much quieter than before the older model used to break 40 decibels now it's around 30 decibels the thermals haven't changed it still gets a little warm but it's not too bad there's a slightly bigger battery on the inside now it used to be a 52 watt hour battery now it's a 56 water hour battery and for the first month I use this I was actually less battery life than the previous generation but in early December a BIOS update came out which fixed a battery drain bug so now battery life is very similar to the previous generation with screen at 75% brightness you can expect around 8 hours of regular use on the quad HD screen and about 10 to 11 hours of regular use on the 1080p screen and also got around 2 hours of playing games with screen at maximum brightness so with the updated XPS 13 we're getting the same aluminum and carbon fiber materials with excellent build quality we're getting the same screen options as before both of them with that super thin bezel the 1080p screen is good the quad HD screen is great the keyboard and trackpad are unchanged but the trackpad software has improved significantly over time they're both pretty good now they're running Skylink chips now that are slightly faster than the Broadwell chips and they support USB 3.1 the ram still isn't user upgradeable so make sure you get enough when you order and the storage drive is still upgradable and it now uses a much faster PCIe interface the battery life is really solid for an ultrabook and lasts about the same as the previous generation so to wrap this up this is still my favorite 13-inch windows-based Ultrabook it's not a super budget-friendly device but it's really well built it's got a good performance and it looks good and it's actually one of the few devices that have top-tier build quality top to your performance at a reasonable price that's the end of this review hope you guys liked it thumbs if you did subs if you loved it it's been nice see you guys next time