Gadgetory

I really liked last year's version of the Dell XPS 15 with its great build quality and strong performance in almost every category but has the 2017 model the XPS 95 60 been able to iterate on that and remain recommended a year later well let's find out shall we we're opening up a new merch store you can check out some of our new gear today at the link in the video description physically the XPS 15 has hardly changed from the previous version not that that's the worst thing ever the thin bezel infinity-edge screen is now bordered by glass instead of plastic which is a nice touch and overall I can't complain about the clean look and solid feel of the XPS even if it's slightly thicker than some other professional laptops like Apple's latest MacBook Pro booting up the Dell XPS 15 the first thing that really struck me was how darn good the screen is there are two versions available 1080p and 4k and both have excellent viewing angles and brightness our model sports a 4k screen capable of greater than the full Adobe RGB color space and it's frankly amazing to look at my usual complaints deuced and windows and third-party applications still scale poorly from time to time and higher resolution displays do negatively impact battery life so if you don't have eagle eyes you may want to consider a 1080p model but it sure is nice to have the option text and icons are crazy sharp making everything from using word to reading articles to watching 4k video super easy on the eyes another nice touch touch is that its touch enabled I regret opting for a non touch configuration of the XPS 15 when I reviewed it last year so glad we've got that fixed this time around aisle 4 better our force is basically unchanged you get two USB 3.0 Taipei's a thunderbolt three port which comes with all the wonderful capabilities that it does including the ability to upgrade the XPS 15 with an external graphics card in spite of Dells warnings to the contrary and to adapt it to run a 4k sixty Hertz display you get a full sized SD card reader and an HDMI 1.4 port so enough to cover day-to-day needs and the ability to add a dongle if it doesn't leading us finally into something different specs it starts at $1000 with our config costing a little bit more with the quad core Core i7 processor that boosts up to 3.8 gigahertz in our experience a fast nvme SSD and a gtx 1050 graphics card general performance of the aforementioned hardware brings us back to things that haven't changed very much Intel's latest KB Lake processors are more about power savings and battery life is pretty good in our standard test then they are about faster Excel spreadsheet processing however gaming is a different story if you're a casual gamer who wants a sexy high-performance notebook I mean 4k ain't happening but when bumped down to 1080p which still looks quite sharp despite down scaling the GTX 1050 handles triple-a games pretty darn well and even in our synthetic tests temperatures remained acceptable with the CPU leveling off around 82 and the GPU at 77 degrees the fans did get a little loud but they don't have that high pitched noise that some other laptops do and I was able to tune it out after a while moving on the keyboard feels actually really solid with no perceptible flex the keystrokes have a nice travel and remain quiet but not mushy sounding and overall the XPS 15 is great for typing and doing up this review on it was a pleasure the exclusive a number pad be a turn-off for some but I understand the trade-off here compared to most 15 inch class notebooks the thin bezels cut down on the overall x-dimension size of the device a lot giving del only a couple of inches of space on either side below we find the trackpad which is excellent as well it's got a surprisingly soft feel that makes navigating Windows feel like you're gently touching a lover's leg you know it's like mmm upgrades are easy ish 12 screws and you pop the bottom cover allowing you to throw another drive into the two and a half inch Bay at least in the 57 watt hour model the one we have has that day taken up by the massive 97 watt hour battery and you can also change out the memory if you're so inclined we do have some constructive criticism though the wireless solution and windows don't seem to get along quite right at this time although this was easily fixed by disabling some power management settings and a windows service and given how impressed we've been by recent Dell audio solutions the speakers are surprisingly bad I'm still unsure why they continued with the webcam placement on the bottom of the screen what I want a Skype call it looks like I'm staring off into space and placing my hand on the home robe blocks the view of my lovely face I mean is it really that important that there Dell logo remains centered this is a huge problem on an XPS branded device that straddles the line between enthusiasts and business where being able to engage in conference calls is actually a daily occurrence but with all those complaints aside I enjoyed my time with the XPS 15 and I think the excellent screen aluminum and carbon fiber construction and great keyboard easily make up for its lame qualities with our model coming in at to brand it isn't exactly a budget laptop but it does pack a mean punch for the money as laptops trend towards being thinner while sacrificing performance and i/o the XPS stands out for its focus on pragmatic performance and the inclusion of a proper GPU bottom line though the XPS 15 is a great option for basic use professional tasks like video or photo editing and even light gaming via love anime do you want 30 days of free anime well then you're in luck because crunchyroll if the site created by anime fans for anime fans they offer the most current episodes of new show straight from Japan like Dragon Ball super and twin star exorcists and all the content on their site is professionally subtitled and if you use our link which we will have below the 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