Gadgetory

all right check out this bad boy 12 megabytes of RAM 500 megabyte hard drive built-in spreadsheet capabilities and a modem that transmits at over 28,000 bps Wow what are you gonna use it for games and stuff it's laughable right I mean by today's standards yeah definitely twelve megabytes of RAM but Chandler was right at this point in the show roughly nineteen ninety-four what he had was top-of-the-line the one he's sporting is actually a Compaq contour the twelve megabytes of RAM was a special feature as was his unique color display not the prettiest looking thing but if you wanted a portable computer back in the day you really had no choice I mean check out those bezels Wow so 22 years later we have this what I believe to be one of the most beautiful laptops in existence not only for its relative size nor almost bezel as display but also its attention to the finer details a carbon fiber finish on the inside CNC machined aluminum front and back panels sturdy hinge and seamless trackpad it's not a perfect laptop as you'll see here shortly but I believe it's the closest anyone's ever gotten meet the Dell XPS 13 let's begin with a tour the top aluminum panel reveals only a Dell logo an excellent size in my opinion fits the form factor the bottom much of the same to extended rubber feet to prop it up a vent that spans the entire contour and an XPS labeled plate that can be lifted up to reveal unique product information the back sports nothing but a hinge and the front reveals only a subdued white LED when charging the right side reveals a single USB 3.0 port with power share as well as a full-size SD card reader and the left another 3.0 port a charging port a USB type-c Thunderbolt 3 port a headphone microphone jack and an LED battery notification hub opening the laptop we find a chiclet keyboard with well spaced keys but that aren't necessarily the biggest I wish they were slightly bigger than they already are roughly 1.3 millimeters of key travel still a huge improvement from my 12 inch macbook mind you they're a bit mushy not as tactile as I'd like but nothing to pout over their LED backlit adjustable via the f10 key these are dead gated switches by the way so no function but needed I'm glad to see that Dell didn't compromise on the shift-key extension look I know it doesn't sound like a big deal to those of you who only use the left shift key but try only using the right one from now on and you'll see exactly where I'm coming from with the yoga 910 to the right of the keyboard you'll find a power button with a slight linear illumination nothing overkill glad to see it followed by one other piece of important hardware worth mentioning down below the trackpad it's not as smooth as my Mac books nor as responsive but it's still pretty darn good to finger scrolling is cake if calibrated correctly tap clicking can be done anywhere and the left and right physical clicks are prudent yet defined now let's talk about the XPS lineup hallmark the screen if the form factor alone doesn't reveal how far we've come in just a couple of decades this infinity display surely does what you're looking at is a 13.3 inch edge to edge glossy EXO IPS panel capable of insane viewing angles and fairly accurate color reproduction with minor calibration this here is the stock calibration what you'd get out of the box in terms of color reproduction at 3200 by 1800 pixels at most a higher PPI density than Apple's own MacBook Pro retina models 276 PPI versus 226 and while not as accurate on the Adobe RGB spectrum as the Apple counterpart this variant of the XPS sports a touchscreen this display is also fairly bright approaching 400 nits of brightness compared to 300 to 350 from its closest competitors it varies from model to model and even unit to unit although nowhere near the brightness of the MacBook at roughly 500 and now the infamous trademark of the XPS lineup introducing the chin cam how lovely you won't look great from really any angle and there's really no fix for that here seeing as though it isn't a 2 in 1 laptop but I'd rather have this gorgeous display than a gorgeous camera angle just my personal preference at 720p 30fps it's nothing to brag about but at least it's not 12-inch MacBook quality yeah I went there now let's discuss internals I bought this one fully loaded cable a core i7 7500 u 16 gigabytes of RAM 512 gigabyte solid state drive and of course the qhd+ display you can purchase much cheaper variants of this laptop one sporting a 1080p matte screen for example or core i3 or Core i5 counterpart and smaller storage increments as low as 128 gigabytes the cheapest combination will run you around eight hundred US dollars although I recommend at least opting for Core i5 if you're going to buy an XPS 13 while this model here is more in the ballpark of about $1,500 the only thing I could have still upgraded potentially was the SSD Dell does offer a one terabyte version but it's nothing I'm willing to drop an extra 200 bucks on at this point storage and the Wi-Fi card are both swappable by the way in this laptop although I'm not sure why you'd want to replace the killer 1535 wireless AC card from Qualcomm it's already plenty fast as it is speakers are moderately tinny typical of most ultrabooks although I will admit I was a bit spoiled by my 12 inch macbook the speakers were so good there are two side firing speakers on the XPS 13 that are decent up to about 50% distortion takes over past that base is relatively inaudible here's a sound comparison between my 12 inch MacBook and the XPS 13 lastly I'd like to discuss battery life it's a flaky subject mainly because it varies from user to user as well as model to model I consider myself a power user I usually have a few chrome tabs open as well as Pandora and Microsoft Office a few other programs running in the background so the laptops not just sitting idle or streaming something like Netflix I managed to get about seven to seven and a half hours of battery life at 50% screen brightness 50 not 15 so half brightness that's still plenty doable it's not too dim you know it's not like some screens at 50% brightness sometimes you can't actually enjoy the screen but here at 50% it actually looks you know like some other screens at 75 to 80% at 100% constant brightness expect that figure to fall near five hours Netflix and other video streaming though thanks to advancements in KB Lake architecture can yield times near 9 to 10 hours it really all depends on what you're doing but in general I'd give it a solid 8 out of 10 in the battery life Department that's a solid 8 out of 10 most cases it's around 6 to 7 so I'm glad to see that battery life wasn't compromised here not exactly a 12-inch MacBook or even MacBook Pro in this regard but then again we're packing twice the power of a 12-inch MacBook into a form factor that really isn't much different so if you're wondering why I ditched the yoga 910 for this and decided to just do a review on this one instead there are two reasons the first is the terribly placed short shift key on the right if you think that's stupid would ever bite me and the second is the fan noise the yoga was so loud and so abrupt I'd be typing something like a word document with no background tasks running no Windows 10 updates ensuing none of that I checked task manager consistently and I'd hear the turbo spool that's what I call it turbo spool very high pitched not sure what was causing the CPU to get so hot but the XPS is experienced none of that and keep in mind both of these laptops were sporting the exact same internals when the fan does kick on the XPS 13 its subdued and infrequent something I expect from an ultra-low power laptop I'll be uploading both synthetic and gaming benchmarks of this machine in the coming days as well as a video editing rendering showdown between this and the 12-inch MacBook for now I need to edit this video quickly back and beyond my way home to Florida tomorrow what time is it 357 am I really need a hobby anyway that's where I'll see you shortly you know the routine thumbs up thumbs down subscribe thanks for learning with us