Gadgetory

so one of my subscribers sent me a message the other day asking if I can pick up the Dell XPS 13 laptop and do a video on it and I said sure why not so I went to Best Buy and picked one up I did spend a very good long weekend with the laptop and I was actually pretty impressed for the most part the bezels are super thin on this and I did some gaming on it I shoot some music and most importantly I got a lot of work done so this video is basically my review and my one-week experience with the Dell XPS 13 laptop I hope you guys enjoy so this is the non-touch Dell XPS 13 laptop the 13 representing the screen size a 13.3 inch 1080p matte display with super thin bezels flat top starts at $8.99 for the base model and Microsoft is actually having a sale right now if you put in the code PC grad 15 before you check out you get 100 bucks off your total price which is a killer deal right now so there are a few versions available we got the basic non touch Core i5 model with 128 gigabytes of SSD space that starts at 899 with two other options with more RAM space and even a better processor for 80 bucks more you can go with the Signature Edition which includes office 365 so the model I picked up is the base non-touch Core i5 model clocked at 2.2 gigahertz with 4 gigabytes of RAM 128 gigabytes of storage space and an Intel HD graphics card as I said before the bezels are super thin in fact the XPS 13 is the world's smallest 13 inch laptop which says a lot the full aluminum body definitely contributes to its superlight 2.6 pound weight popping it open we are greeted with a carbon fiber type material for the armrest and a touch sensitive trackpad like the MacBook I'm not really a laptop user so it took me a few minutes to get used to tapping instead of pressing but I soon found myself using nothing but the tap feature to navigate around it's nice but it's not 100% accurate there will be times where it won't recognize me tapping the trackpad but it's very rare and really bother me at all what bothers me is using the trackpad as a mouse it's not as smooth or responsive as I would expect from a well-built laptop now I'm not sure if it's my particular model or from the software but the trackpad just doesn't register my finger gesture as well sometimes it feels choppy and then there are times where the gesture is delayed and then there's the usual I just scrolled why isn't it scrolling situation so yeah the trackpad could be definitely improved maybe it's a lot more responsive on the i7 model the keyboard however is great the distance between each key press is short and very responsive with no lag whatsoever I have pretty big hands so sometimes when I'm typing on a laptop my palms would get in the way of the trackpad and it would interfere with my typing so I'm forced to lift my palms up while I type on most laptops however on the XPS 13 I can easily rest them without it coming into contact with the trackpad so definitely a huge plus there the keys are nicely spaced and very convenient to reach I do wish that the backspace button was a bit larger though since that is the only key slightly out of reach which forces me to reposition my hands while typing other than that the keys are nicely lit at night and very comfortable to type with taking a look on the right side of the laptop you can find a lock support USB 3.0 slot and a micro SD card reader on the opposite side is where the charging port is located followed by a mini display port another USB 3 and your headphone or microphone jack there's also a tiny button on the side here when pressed will indicate how much battery is left in the laptop taking a look on the bottom of the laptop is where the fans are located along with two long horizontal rubber feet which do a great job preventing the laptop from moving if you are typing on a solid flat surface then there's this flap thing which has a serial number and other very useless information written on there not sure if that's really necessary but I'm guessing they wanted to cover it up to be more aesthetically pleasing last but not least we have the front-facing camera on the lower left of the laptop so the dell XPS 13 has a front facing camera that can shoot in 720p it's located on the bottom left of the laptop which is a pretty weird location but I get why they had to do that the laptop is actually essentially bezel-less so there's no other place to put the camera if you can get used to that it's actually pretty decent fun facing camera the only thing I would suggest is to refrain from typing as you're talking to someone because that would be pretty weird I don't know about you guys but when it comes to Windows 8 laptop I really prefer to have a touchscreen feature it just makes it really easy to navigate and it's one of the reasons why I really like the surface 3 thankfully there is Start eight which is basically a Windows Start bar for Windows 8 I use this on all my PCs I must have a Start menu when I'm using Windows 8 otherwise it drives me nuts for some reason the logo glitched when I installed it on the laptop but usually the Start Menu logo is supposed to appear down here like the usual I will leave a link to where you can download it for yourself down below personally when it comes to Windows laptops I would opt for the touchscreen version since I really do enjoy using that instead of the trackpad but for the rest of us that picked up a non touch screen version the Start menu Edition will definitely make your life a lot easier alright so let's talk about the display instead of a glossy display which will bring you more vivid color more contrast along with deeper blacks you get an anti-glare coating which helps prevent reflections this is especially important if you're going to use the laptop in bright areas or even outside on the direct sunlight but I gotta say for a matte display the colors are very sharp and vibrant you also get really great viewing angles so if you and your buddy want to watch an episode of Game of Thrones together there will be no visual distortion text also look sharp there is no blur or Distortion even when scaling fineness is also great on the XPS 13 even at maximum brightness you still get vivid colors and it doesn't appear to be washed out at all in super low light mode you can dim it all the way down while still being able to see everything clearly productivity wise I think that 13 inches is the perfect screen size as long as you are not editing if you need a laptop for editing I would say either 14 or better yet a 15-inch laptop so you can take advantage of the extra screen real estate if you need a laptop specifically for mobility and watching videos with internet browsing I would say anywhere between 10 to 12 inches with suffice for the rest of us students in particular I would say 13 inches is the sweet spot the screen is large but not large enough where it becomes bulky and heavy and it's compact enough to carry in your backpack or bag throughout the entire day since it has a mini display fold you can hook it up to your larger monitor if you need a bigger screen to work on you can either duplicate your own screen or extend it and use it like a second monitor as long as you keep the resolution at 1080p there won't be any lag anything past that is a disaster all right so now for performance the i-5 is great for most things but lag is still present it's especially obvious and annoying when scrolling through long webpages that's basically where I notice it the most when it comes to multitasking it performs really well it plays videos up to 2k resolution smoothly even with multiple windows open in the background I was actually impressed that it was able to handle bioshock infinity at a consistent 30fps I mean sure the graphics were set too low but still for a core i5 ultrabook that is pretty damn good I don't see why you can't play some of your favorite games on the XPS 13 granted that you lower the settings of course so after playing for about 20 to 30 minutes the fans kicked up to maximum and the laptop got really warm it didn't get to a point where it was hot but warm enough or I could feel the heat emitting from the keys I found myself constantly taking breaks as the keys would get uncomfortably warm for my finger tips I played Bioshock infinity on 50% brightness for about an hour and I noticed that it drained 30% of battery life so I would assume you would get anywhere from 2 to 3 hours of battery life if you were gonna game non-stop of course that would depend on your power plan and level of brightness this was really the only time that the fans kicked up 100% and they were pretty loud gaming aside the laptop got me a solid ten and a half hours of use so I dedicated my entire day using the Dell XPS 13 my morning started at 10:30 a.m. with 100% charge and a laptop died on 834 p.m. same day the brightness was set to 50% and it never turned off I use the laptop for browsing the web writing the script for this video streaming Spotify in the background and I watched a total of 30 minutes of video on YouTube I did not do any gaming as that does drain the battery life a lot faster so I'm pleased to say that the battery life is outstanding on the XPS 13 if you focused on productivity and not CPU or GPU intensive tasks so besides the heating situation when gaming and the backspace button being small and out of reach with the inconsistency of the trackpad I would say that this is an awesome laptop for the price especially since you can get 100 bucks off right now I don't think you can find a better deal anywhere else when it comes to 13-inch laptops it's super compact thanks to its super sexy pin bezels it has great performance and the battery life is outstanding for productivity if you're looking for a 13-inch laptop for school or productivity and some light gaming on the side then the Dell XPS 13 is the one for you if you don't care for gaming and want a smaller more portable laptop then you should check out my review of the Surface three which is a laptop any tablet in one that has a 10-inch screen I will leave a link to that in the description section if you guys want to check that out so anyways that's it for the video I hope you guys enjoyed it if you did feel free to like the video if you didn't you can dislike and overall I gotta say that this is a very solid laptop for the price point if you guys you don't win $2 discount then you get an even better deal on an awesome looking 13-inch laptop if you guys are looking for something slightly larger than the 13-inch laptop then you guys should check out the Lenovo flex 3 it's the 14 inch screen and for the same price you get double the RAM the same processor and more space you also get eight gigabytes of SSD space and I'll be the link to that in the description section if you guys want to check that out but as far as the 13-inch range that is they saw the laptop to go with anyways thanks again for watching if you guys want me to review a different laptop or product definitely let me know by dropping a comment down below but anyways is that from tech stores I will see you guys in the next video you