Gadgetory

most laptops that roll through here get reviewed from a pretty fresh and purely objective perspective since they're not really the kind of thing that I would use as a daily driver anyway and perhaps more importantly they don't have a predecessor with whom I have a very intimate relationship my Dell XPS 13 2015 Edition video will be different it's daddy is clearly the last generation XPS 13 whose name it bears but for me it gets to go head-to-head with its mama the 2013 XPS 12 for Grandma I guess it's generational dur than that a product whose two and one transformation capabilities it doesn't share but to which it otherwise bears a more than passing resemblance the msi gt80 titan is the world's first gaming laptop with a fully mechanical keyboard and features dual gtx 980m s in sli click now to learn more so let's begin with the highlight feature the 13 now this laptop is available with a 1080p non-touch display with standard glass but I think most people would argue that you're not really doing your XPS 13 right unless you opt for the premium super high pixel density 3200 by 1800 IPs gelila glass-covered 10-point multi-touch option that Dell is calling infinity display and as much as that's a silly meaningless marketing word man it's beautiful and like the hyper thin 5.2 millimeter bezel allows the XPS 13 to actually be about an inch less in width and height than my 12 and a half inch XPS 12 while delivering a larger display but of course size isn't everything so you know what's it like once you get it in your hands and start working on it actually a little weird at first to be honest I mean I'm accustom to the screen kind of ending at the edge of the keyboard on most laptops and on this one it just kind of doesn't is surprisingly different feeling but you do get used to it quite quickly there are still issues though text and UI scaling still sucks in Windows 8.1 with some applications displaying blurry text and others UI is completely falling part something I will keep mentioning until it's addressed but the good news is that in browsers and most of the other things you'll normally use man is this monitor gorgeous near-perfect viewing angles retina like sharpness and it's bright too color temperature was a touch cool out of the box but around with the color monkey fix that right up and also told me that I'm sitting at about forty percent brightness getting a hundred and twenty Candela per meter squared out of this thing's that's about ideal for indoors at full brightness it's basically blinding inside but great if you happen to be out in the Sun but of course if you just wanted to hear about how great the screen is endlessly then you could watch this ten-hour loop we created me talking about how great it is if you're not into that sort of thing well then keep watching this video because this parrot has a lot more tricks up its wherever a pony would store tricks the guts for all XPS 13 s contain adele 1560 2x2 802.11 AC wireless card a 52 watt hour battery that Dell figures is good for up to 12 hours on the high res model and 15 on the low res one and built in Intel HD 5500 graphics with depending on the trim level some variety of you or ultra-low power class dual core Core i3 i5 or i7 processor four to eight gigabytes of RAM and anywhere from a 128 to 512 gigabyte n dot 2 SSD little on a second there Linus that SSD sounds like super cool and fast at PCI Express but either I've got like wax buildup in my ear you just said this notebook has four gigs of RAM on the thousand dollar model and a mere eight gigs on the seventeen hundred and fifty dollar model well you might have enough wax in your ear to cause hearing problems gross by the way but that wasn't the issue just now Dells 2015 XPS 13 doesn't even have the option to configure it with more RAM than I can fill up with a single multi tabbed internet browser hook there is more good stuff though the material choices are superb with a similar machined aluminum and real carbon fiber black and silver theme to the one that I have and loved so much the whole device is astonishingly slim yet even while run the work benchmark that I used for battery life testing in PC mark 8 the fan stayed either very quiet and sometimes didn't even spin and the i/o has been dramatically improved for me anyway by the addition of an SD card reader to go with the USB 3 port and lock on this side and the additional USB 3 port 4k capable mini DisplayPort port power jack battery life indicator and 4-pole combo audio jack on the other but I have more criticism - while the bottom is a solid chunk of aluminum with only vent holes and rubber feet to disrupt its awesomeness and the screen itself is phenomenally rigid considering how thin and basically bezel Asit is the keyboard has taken a significant backward step in the build quality department the backlight is nice and white and the layout is pretty much ideal isn't it slightly shorter than I'd like backspace key but the key travel distance is very short the membrane switches have an unsatisfying front-heavy and sudden tactile bump and much more importantly than any of that other stuff the entire keyboard has way more flex than I'd expect in a premium product like this regardless of how thin and sexy it is while I'm calling on I do have some other gripes in no particular order adèle the power adapter is super small which is nice but your friction lock power plug wore out on my old notebook and basically falls out now on that one I'm disappointed this hasn't been revised your nonsense McAfee trial and Dell update we're using 25 plus percent CPU doing mortal he knows what when I first booted the thing up at one point I've since removed them both the speakers are side firing rather than front-facing which bites and there's a bit of a lip on the bezel here that makes swiping in from the right for the charms menu kind of uncomfortable and difficult ok that last one was pretty petty which means we're probably heading to the good stuff again the precision track pads default medium delay for palm rejection is horrible but once I changed that I got used to it pretty quickly there is something I can't quite put my finger on hahahaha what a joke but even now I'm actually experiencing some kind of cursor acceleration based tracking annoyances with fine movements but I'm pretty sure that's Windows fault so as far as the hardware concerned overall accuracy responsiveness and the feel of this glass pad with seamless clicky buttons on the bottom is very very solid and so is pretty much the rest of this device I mean thanks to its 5th gen processor my i-5 equipped model managed to score of 2846 in the PC mark work suite that I ran as a battery life benchmark and to see how far we've come in the last couple of years well it did that while managing 35% yes deep into double digits more battery life than my old product and speaking of battery life Dell actually sent over this battery pack thing which you can use to squeeze some extra out of it and charge other stuff like your phone while you're at it if you're into that sort of thing so we have come a long way but it's bottom line time now and the bottom line is the XPS 13 2015 Edition is a fantastic and stunningly beautiful machine that I love but that lacks the customizability on Dells website that would allow me to configure it into something that I would buy the pre baked options make a lot of trade-offs that sound great on paper like giving up 20% of its rated battery life for a fancy high pixel density display in the premium models but in practice are let down by the awful experience that is using Windows with UI scaling so Dell if you're listening I love this device but here's the one that I would want to see next time 1080p IPS with a touch screen covered in Gorilla Glass so that I can conserve some battery and don't need to scale and 16 gigs of RAM seriously that's critical and let me have whatever processor an SSD that I want and whatever trim level I want it seems like a lot of the options are locked down kind of unnecessarily I build tall order option would be nice speaking of I don't know something that I just said Valentine's Day is fast approaching I know right and today's sponsor ProFlowers has a great solution to this problem excuse me wondrous occasion for our subscribers in the u.s. they're a flower delivery service that saves you the hassle of going to the store and selecting something at the last minute just head over to their website pick out something that you like check out and boom they're set to deliver on Valentine's Day delivery on that day is guaranteed by the way and their flowers last seven days or your money back and today they're offering the Linus tech tips audience a special deal you can get a dozen assorted roses with a glass vase for 20 bucks or you can upgrade to a dozen red roses and elegant Ruby vase and a box of gourmet chocolates and a lavender spa trio for another 20 so click the link in the video description to get the deal it's a great affordable idea and it only takes a few minutes just like watching this video did like it if you liked it dislike it if you just like to leave a comment if your feelings were more complicated than this as always we have links in the video description to support us you can buy cool t-shirt like this one you can give us them at the contribution or you can change your Amazon book perk to one with our code so every time you buy one of these I don't even know if they have these on Amazon probably let's hope they do we get a small kickback thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe