Gadgetory

Dells XPS 13 seems like it's been around forever you can love it or hate it but it's kind of become a staple in the Ultrabook market and it's a machine that's one of the best all-around performers out there but the design was getting a little stale and without much of a change since 2015 it was time for Dell to do something so they did and it may not look much different from the outgoing models but the new XPS 13 packs some new improved changes on the inside and out though not without a few compromises that may make it a deal-breaker a referee rosenthal Tucker Buffalo and here's a look at the brand new and slightly improved XPS 13 okay I'm just gonna say it I really wanted to like the white and rose gold color combo on this laptop but I just can't bring myself to say I do it's a clean looking machine and it's definitely grown on me over the last two weeks I've been using it but to me it makes the bezels as small as they are around the Infinity inch display stand out in a negative way and I know I'm in the minority even hear the TV offices and you guys probably have your own opinion and that's totally okay Dell does make a black and silver option that is still available but to me it makes what is a beautiful high-end laptop from Dell look a little less premium opening this thing up we can see not much has changed inside but that's not necessarily a bad thing we've got the same keyboard that's still super comfortable to type on and it's pretty spacious especially considering the whole size of this machine it's also paired with a trackpad that is great multi-touch support and gesture support that works well for navigating around the webcam has moved locations from the side to the center right under the display and it adds an additional IR camera that makes the whole array windows Hello compatible so I get Y del put the camera there they wanted to keep those bezels around the display as thin as possible but the placement just drives me nuts and anytime you go to use it for a video conferencing or a Skype call you'll be reminded why that compromise for thin bezels did not do you any favors in the camera department another change on this new model specifically on this white and rose gold one is a new material used for the wrist rest area the carbon fiber used on the black model is swapped for a new woven fiberglass material that's to be light and durable and also withstand some dirt it feels pretty comfortable though I'm personally more a fan of the feel and finish of the carbon fiber model it's purely subjective you're getting the same super high quality display on this model that we saw in the last gen but if you can spend a little bit more money when you go to purchase I'd highly recommend paying for the 4k Ultra HD panel over the standard 1080p both get super bright both look good but that 4k panel just looks exceptionally good the optional fingerprint reader from last year's model has also swapped locations it's not sitting on top of the power button which is nice it works well and if you're not crazy about the windows hello camera unlocking it's a good alternative and now it comes standard on all models which is super nice the guts of this machine have also been refreshed Intel's latest processor sits inside giving you the ability to option up an i7 processor and up to 16 gigs of RAM when you go to buy there's not much to say about performance the XPS handles everything really well especially considering those specs though you may see some kind of percentage increase with the processor speed on paper during day-to-day usage while web browsing and multitasking watching videos it's gonna be just as speedy as the last gen and if you want to see a little bit more about how the XPS 13 could handle something like Premiere Pro or gaming you can click the link down below to check out my other review I did on the last gen XPS 13 it's all pretty much the same except for when it comes to i/o the biggest change to this refresh is actually on the side of the machine the USB type a port and Dell barrel power connector have been replaced with USB type-c ports there's two of them here both these ports are Thunderbolt 3 compatible so they can be used for data charging and even capable of running an e GPU we looked up a razor core at our offices here and it worked almost completely plug and play on this machine to be a real contender for that best of both worlds gaming machine you can have your light portable computer that you can take around with you but come home dock it with one cable and it could become a more powerful contender for a real gaming PC on the other side at Delos swap to the SD card port for a microSD card port and there is an additional non Thunderbolt 3 USB C port and a headphone jack I really do wish Dell could have kept that full-size SD card port even if it did make the machine just a little thicker battery life on this new model is still outstanding that high resolution 4k display will suckle little bit more power than the Timmy P panel but I was easily able to make it through a 10 hour a day with moderate usage and switching this thing into extreme power saving mode was able to get me a little bit more juice on the days I needed it the rest of this laptop is exactly the same as previous models and again that's not a bad thing the price on the new XPS 13 ranges anywhere from $9.99 all the way up to our highest end model that we have here that comes in just shy of 2,000 bucks in every tier though you're getting a good amount of performance for your dollar even with the base model having an i5 or gigs of ram and an SSD inside okay so to kind of wrap things up the change is made to this refresh are small but I think they're an important step in making an already great little book even better there are some compromises that Dell has made that still just anointing in terms of design and ports and webcam placement but as an overall package you're getting an incredible looking machine that is honestly probably one of the best Windows laptops that you could go out and buy today so what do you guys think of the refreshed Dell XPS 13 you like me a little bit of herkiman when it comes to giving up those full size USB eight ports in favor of USB type-c I know the USB type-c feature is coming but leave a comment down below and let me know also while you're down there click that subscribe button also hit that Bell icon to make sure you are notified about upcoming videos that are coming up we got a lot of good stuff in the pipeline for you guys make sure to be notified that's all I got for today I'm Robert Rosenfeld with TechnoBuffalo I'll see you the next one