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this video is brought to you by NCI XCOM great technology selection and service what's up guys Eber here with hard rock UNIX and Dells XPS line of notebooks have always been known to combine excellent quality good performance and high-end looks into a compact design this is Dells flagship line of notebooks and they have refreshed it with newer models like the XPS 12 XPS 13 and XPS 15 the XPS 13 and XPS 15 have received countless positive reviews but I wanted to shift gears today to a different product and that is the XPS 12 unlike the other notebooks in the lineup the XPS 12 is a true tune one laptop that can be easily converted into a tablet there are two main setup options the one we are reviewing today starts at one thousand dollar price point and includes a dual core core m6 Wi-Fi for processor with a base clock of 1.1 gigahertz that can turbo boost up to 2.7 gigahertz eight gigabytes of RAM a beautiful 1080p IPS screen and 128 gigabytes of SSD with Windows 10 installed for $300 more you can upgrade this configuration to a 4k IPS screen and a larger 256 gigabyte SSD I wish that the 256 gigabyte was offered as a baseline configuration and unfortunately there is no way to upgrade the paltry eight gigabyte of system memory twenty-five percent of which gets eaten up by Windows alone the competition in the two-in-one space is getting fierce right now we have the surface pro 4 and the lenovo yoga series that can be considered as primary alternatives while Apple's MacBook could also be considered if convertibles isn't your thing so is the XPS 12 worth checking out well we're going to find out the XPS 12 design is pretty straightforward its screen is detachable to become a relatively large tablet and it sits within a slot on the keyboard for a secured notebook peel all the components like the battery processor memory the i/o ports are housed within the tablets chassis the keyboard trackpad combo is simply an accessory that needs to be activated by the tablets interface and power meanwhile the keyboard has an incorporated fabric cover and not only does it protects the XPS 12 against scratches but it also acts as a hinge mechanism when opening and closing the notebook it also works relatively well but there are some major shortfalls which I'll go over in a bit despite the fact that Dell uses a combination of a magnesium alloy unibody construction with soft touch finish alongside edge to edge Gorilla Glass the build quality of the XPS 12 is really mixed bag on our sample the top-left corner between the screen and the chassis kept popping out this could be caused due to a weak at visa between the chassis and the display or just poor fitment I also found that the rubberized SD card slot cover tended to pop out and ended up looking pretty cheap after a few weeks of use luckily the power adapter is pretty slim you can easily carry it in your bag plus the device charges via USB see Dells included detachable keyboard on the other hand is outstandingly well built the solid chassis is rock-solid with no signs of flex and typing on it was by far the best experience I've had in a while there is a little bit of travel distance and actuations provide excellent feedback it's also backlit which is good for low-light situations the touchpad was also excellent the surface is so smooth for your fingers to travel because the primary left and right click buttons are seamlessly integrated towards the bottom like the keyboard it produces a nice tactile feedback it does require some pressure to press but I love using the tap gestures thanks to Windows 10 the XPS 12 IPS display comes with a 1920 by 1080 resolution but it is just too dim to use in bright areas even though color reproduction was spot-on viewing angles are good and contrast ratio was more than a capable the real problem here is the display is highly reflective and even if you turn up the brightness to 100% the amount of glare makes using it outside or public transport nearly impossible I wish they adopted the same anti-glare coating from the surface pro 3 or 4 it's just the industry standard in my eyes Dells 12 inch 2 and 1 is also not that bad for consuming content I spent a few weeks watching youtube videos in HD not 4k due to the processing power limitation of the Core M chip as for the i/o you'll find a headphone jack two USB ports a micro SD card reader covered with a flap and volume adjust buttons the problem here is the absolute lack of back compatible USB 3.0 ports or display outputs plugging in an external hard drive flash drive or even an external display to the XPS 12 requires to use of a yet to be released adapter that gets connected to one of the two u.s. PC ports I mentioned previously Dells adapter looks sleek in design and it comes with an HDMI port VGA port on one side and standard Gigabit Ethernet and a USB 3.0 port it's cost a hundred bucks and it doesn't even fit with the XPS 12 design it just sort of hangs there like an overripe fruit Adele should have included this with the XPS 12 otherwise how else are we supposed to connect our peripherals even the active pen has yet to be released seriously Dell what were you thinking about this all the items that are meant to allow this two and one to compete against the likes of the Microsoft Surface are still not launched I had some concerns regarding the headphone jack - Dells built-in amplifier doesn't do quite the right job to produce audio that well with music often sounding muddy the unit comes with Dell smart audio enable that completely puts you in this space where music becomes echoey and turning the feature off makes it sound a little better but not perfect fun fact it's actually worse than my iPod touch I actually had Dmitry try it out so let's hear what he has to say so there's definitely a noticeable quality difference when using you know using the stock audio versus when you use dil audio Mac's audio Pro turning the Mac's audio Pro on it in the largest the soundstage a little bit there's a few presets you can adjust but man it destroys the entire base balance it becomes very distorted you know just things become mush and very and in the high ranges just become you know treble is very harsh you can obviously adjust up but just turning it off cleans out much of that I think the headphone jack isn't as powerful as it should be it's not as pronounced even its default state like you know if you listen to like an iPod you know this is not the iPod quality and how much is this thing fifty hundred bucks I don't know if you're looking to listen to audio on this thing it'll pass but he won't be blown away okay back to the review I had mixed feelings using the XPS 12 boat as a tablet and as a laptop I'll start with the tablet mode first of all Windows 10 finds it difficult to communicate with the unit itself I've experienced touch issues often sometimes when I plug in the headphones the device doesn't recognize the headphones and they have to be plugged in numerous times before Windows allows for switching between them and the integrated speakers Windows 10 isn't exactly as touch friendly as it should be either while huge steps have been taken when compared to Windows 8.1 the interface just feels clunky and half-baked and this isn't Dells fault but it doesn't detract from the XPS 12 tablet experience dell also offers another accessory called the dell active pen think of this as a surface pro combo except you have to pay an extra $70 for it the pen comes with two types of batteries one for the stylus pen itself and the other for the bluetooth module when you paired it up via bluetooth it does its thing you can certainly take notes with it in class but I found a Windows logo button at the bottom to be annoying it tended to get activated by my hand as I was jotting down notes palm rejection works okay but the takeaway from this is that it's not even close to what you would expect from a surface pro for using the XPS 12 as a laptop still gave me some issues to to join the screen to the keyboard module its power interface has to precisely align with the eight electrical pins within the channel built along keyboards top edge they are not magnetized which means you cannot carry the tablet or the keyboard in one hand you also have to be careful when placing the tablet on the keyboard since almost 50% of the time I miss the pins and the keyboard couldn't be recognized actually getting them aligned required a bit of adjustment taking a few seconds to slide the tablet through the rail until you hear the click it became extremely annoying the screen itself can only be oriented in one angle which is disappointing because you lose the ability to maneuver with different angles to compensate for screen glare it kind of loses the point of being a laptop and paying $1,000 for a tune one device becomes questionable another major concern I had was the ability to wake the device from sleep sometimes the power button responded with just a press to put the computer to sleep but other times it was hard for me to actually wake up the system as it either stopped responding or I had to force shut down the system which would potentially lose data again this comes around to the point where I talked about how Windows doesn't communicate that well with the XPS 12 performance was okay in my opinion but don't expect miracles from the dual core Core M processor it's a far cry from the core i5 options available in some competitors you can get the day-to-day tasks done pretty well but certainly not gaming or video editing I also found myself having issues with Wi-Fi connectivity it just randomly stops working when web browsing and I had to restart the computer to make it properly function I'm not sure if this is a Wi-Fi card issue but perhaps Dell could fix this with a future update the battery life was certainly not the best either and I was expecting a lot more from that efficient Core M chip I was only able to get 5 to 6 hours of use with casual web browsing and script writing when a consuming content expect around 3 to 4 hours at most with screen at 75% brightness and I should also note that when you use the XPS 12 in tablet mode I also encountered overheating issues when watching videos while the unit was charging so I would recommend using the XPS 12 in laptop mode during battery charges the XPS 12 feels like a rushed product from Dell one that was pushed out of the door in an effort to compete against the surface yoga and other similar devices the build is not the best I wished it came with a quad HD configuration for the price the volume adjust buttons and the power button gives you a mushy feel when pressing and sometimes you might even have to use your nail to turn on the device palm rejection while riding with the active pen was not the best as the windows logo button got in the way the Wi-Fi performance was not the best either as I faced disconnecting issues and the Wi-Fi adapter not responding until rebuilt the keyboard on the other hand was excellent the keys had one of the best tactile responses but the trackpad was definitely a pleasure to use updates may fix some of these issues in time but for now there are a few Stoppers here that can't be overlooked I think the problem here is that I just can't wrap my head around the pricing of the XPS 12 based on what you get there are just far too many compromises here but there are also quite a few things that Dell can build upon to create an amazing product in a future unfortunately paying 1k for Windows machine does mean that you are entering into a premium category and a field Dell could have improved the XPS 12 to usability and build quality granted from a specification perspective it does have a leg up on the surface pro 4 which costs significantly more when equipped with its type cover so Dell certainly has the value quotient on their side well that concludes our review of the Dell XPS 12 2 in 1 laptop be sure to let us know your thoughts on this device and what would you like to expect in their next revision go as much as you want in the comments down below I'm Eva with hurricane axe don't forget to subscribe for more similar content and we'll see you in the next one