this is a new XPS 13 now some of you might be wondering at this point Eber
didn't you just take a look at one like six months ago I did in fact that was
the XPS 13 2-in-1 one a notebook / tablet hybrid it was one of the first devices
to hit the market featuring Intel's 10th gen ice lake cpu's and the performance
was actually really good though I did have some issues with the
functionality of the device some things just didn't add up if you're interested
in checking out my full review of the XPS 13 2-in-1 I'll leave a link right
over here this one in your hand is a standard XPS 13 that's updated for 2020
that's because last year Dell was offering comet lake CPUs on their
standard models and trust me I can start ranting about Intel's ice Lake and
comment Lake mobile processor launches but that's not what we're here to talk
about we're here to find out what's new with this ultrabook and if it's worth
the upgrade from something like a basic laptop or if you're actually shopping
for a new ultra boat alright so the first thing that I want to tackle is
pricing for the new XPS 13 so it starts at $1,200 which isn't too bad if you
think about it when you are getting a premium build notebook with efficient
specs in this case you get a core i5 1035 g1 CPU featuring 4 cores and a
threads 8 gigabytes of RAM with wicked fast memory speeds a 256 gigabyte nvme
SSD and a full HD plus non-touch display now you can spec this thing all the way
up to 2 grand and these are the specs that you'd get but the configuration
that we have over here is somewhere in the middle and it costs about 1750 it
would have been nice to see Dell offering aimed the options but I guess
one can only dream all right so from the outside Dell hasn't made any major
changes to the XPS 13 this is still the best-looking
ultrabook that money can buy crafted from aluminum and then polished by CNC
man this is definitely something that you'll have to feel for yourselves in
hand it's really really that good the hinge is excellent it's nice and rigid I
mean even if you use it as a touchscreen the screen doesn't wobble honestly
it's built like a tank and it's the little attention to details that Dell
has nailed here I also love the fact that you can open the laptop with just
one hand however there is one thing that did start bothering me as you can see
the lip around the screen is not magnetic which means if you close the
notebook it's not gonna stay flush as you can see there is quite a bit of gap
between the main body and the lid if you hold it in a vertical orientation this
may or may not be a deal breaker but I thought that it was worth mentioning the
major design changes have been done on the inside so Dell has expanded the
keyboard edge to edge versus the small layout on last year's model so you're
getting bigger keys which is nice the biggest improvement in my opinion having
used a tuned one is the keys themselves are way way better they're not using the
Maglev mechanism there's proper feedback this time and a bit of travel distance
if you type a lot this is a really good keyboard unfortunately the LED
backlighting still struggles to shine through properly during low-light
environments I personally think this has to do with the white keyboard because if
you're trying to shine white light through a white surface there isn't
proper separation so if you value keyboard backlighting I would highly
recommend picking up the silver and black carbon fiber model in fact that's
what I would get because this Alpine white model costs an extra fifty dollars
so that's something to keep in mind the power button also acts as a fingerprint
reader if you're looking for a secure authentication method to log into
Windows they made the trackpad slightly larger
it still got a glass surface paired with Windows position drivers so navigating
through windows was a breeze I had a fantastic time using the trackpad on the
XPS 13 and what's even cool is that the integrated primary left and right
buttons sound awesome this is something that you have to listen to I mean how
cool is that I think Dell has really nailed the
functionality of both the hardware and the software on the new XPS 13 excellent
job guys now everyone's been raving about the display on the new XPS models
the XPS 15 and 17 were just recently announced and it looks absolutely
gorgeous as much as I'd love to get my hands on them as soon as possible I'm
here stuck with the XPS 13 but I'm not complaining because I have to give it to
Dell for stepping things up to the next level basically they've managed to
implement a 16 by 10 aspect show into a 11 inch body and the result
of that is a stunning four-sided bezel-less screen it's absolutely an
engineering marvel guys and the best part is that they've kept the webcam
where it's actually supposed to be right at the top instead of the lame no scam
setups that we're seeing on notebooks these days the screen itself is another
icing on the cake the resolution is 1920 by 1200 which is
perfect and that's due to these sixteen by ten
aspect ratio so that means you get more vertical screen real estate when you're
working with different apps it's also IPS so expect beautiful colors with good
contrast in fact if you edit photos this should be on the top of your list
because it covers 80% DCP 3 a hundred percent srgb and 77 percent Adobe RGB
which is really good for a notebook this size there is an ambient light sensor
built-in that dynamically adjusts the brightness of the display depending on
the exterior lighting conditions which is really really cool I should also
mention that the screen does get really bright we're talking close to 500 nits
which is awesome so outdoor visibility shouldn't be a problem
in fact the weather is slowly getting better outside so I can comfortably take
this with me out to my patio to get some work done you can also opt for a 4k
display that's slightly more color accurate but keep in mind that that's
gonna be an expensive addition it's just yeah it's it's too expensive the
speakers are located on the side and they sound really good for a notebook
this size in fact there's more body to the sound depending on the type of genre
that you're listening to I think the only thing that I'm a little bit picky
about is that there isn't proper clarity in the details or the high ends and
that's because there isn't a dedicated tweeter built into the notebook but
that's obvious but honestly for a notebook this size the speaker's sound
phenomenal so this is the webcam test on the XPS 13 it's not the greatest quality
out there in fact I don't think we can expect a better quality about cam on
notebooks these days but they should get the job done the microphone sounds ok so
yeah it should be fine for casual Skype calls or zoom meetings feel like zoom is
getting more popular than Skype these days but yeah that's it's an interesting
fact totally off topic Oh moving on to the i/o and this is where you start
making cover my so you only get two USB type-c turnable
three ports a headphone jack and a micro SD card reader and that's it now this
setup really depends on how you use your notebook on a regular basis if you're
someone who's relying on external accessories that require you to plug in
something to a USB type a port that is something that you're gonna have to make
a compromise on unless if you're willing to accept dongle life because Dell does
include a Type C to type a adapter which is still pretty limiting because you
could just have one of those USB type-c plugs plugged in for power and then just
one of them remaining which definitely turns to be a limiting factor for a lot
of people but I also understand that this notebook is geared for people who
travel a lot and you know people who don't necessarily use a lot of those
ports it's it's a debatable topic I don't think there is a right or wrong
answer in this but I would have preferred to see a USB type a port at
least on this laptop but looking at the design of the XPS 13
it's just nearly impossible to include one because this laptop is just really
really thin the included power adapter is compact and it matches the arktech
white model plus the connector has an LED light notifying that it's charging
the notebook and there's a little light at the front indicating the same thing
it's nice touch also I'm not sure if this is just me but I really missed the
battery indicator from the older XPS models remember the little button on the
side that we know when it press it it gives you a little indication as to how
much battery life you have left regardless with your notebook closed
that was just an awesome signature feature of XPS devices I just really
missed that and I thought that was something just worth sharing
if you're looking to upgrade the XPS 13 later down the line it is pretty limited
as you can see the only thing that you can possibly upgrade is D&B SSD and drie
speeds on my sample are good I mean they're not the fastest that I've come
across razer tends to take the edge in that department but this is still pretty
fast and the battery life on the XPS 13 is outstanding this thing has a 52 watt
hour battery and it ended up lasting be longest among our other thin enlight
notebooks on our light load test refreshing in a Chrome web page for 15
seconds the notebook lasted for more than 11
hours which is just in Haley lives in areas were also very
impressive we rent real bench on a loop and it lasted for more than three hours
so basically what I'm trying to say is that if you're looking for an ultrabook
with the best battery life look no further than the XPS 13 okey dokey time
to get into performance I'm just gonna jump right into it the isolate core i7
CPU on this notebook is fast for a thin and light low power design especially
when it comes to single threaded tests multi-core performance on either hand is
a bit of a struggle especially compared to Intel's commonly used series
offerings and that's because those CPUs are still banking on an old architecture
with higher clock speeds so they have a significant edge over ice lake in that
regard in some of our tests the XPS did trail behind the razor blades 1213
featuring the same CPU but honestly for this size it's respectable because it's
thinner than the blade switching over to some real-world tests starting with
Adobe Premiere the new update that leverages AMD NVIDIA GPUs doesn't really
come in handy here because this notebook doesn't have a discrete GPU so render
times aren't the best ultrabooks aren't geared towards video editors I'm sure
you can do some casual work but nothing serious for some reason I'm still having
trouble rendering our ten-minute DaVinci Resolve project it's still a mystery
with isolate and it's applications so keep that in mind now before I get into
gaming performance I should mention something very important the XPS 13 by
no means is a gaming ultra book in fact there are other options out there
offering ice lake and comet Lake CPUs with discrete graphics like a gtx 1650
or a 1660 they'll give you much better frame rates but if you're just looking
for like casual gaming maybe once in a while this thing can handle a little bit
of that so let's see how it does as you can see what less demanding games
like csgo overwatch and rocket League this notebook can push respectable frame
rates at 1080p at medium to low setting status but it's obviously nowhere near
what discrete graphics can offer so that's something to keep in mind when
you're shopping for an ultrabook are you gonna be dedicating 50% for
gaming and 50% for productivity or 90% for productivity and 10% for gaming I
think that's the question that you need to answer before making that buying
decision now some of you might have noticed that we've
started to include temperatures and frequencies over time to see how the CPU
behaves under certain conditions and workloads especially with desktop CP
reviews moving forward we've decided to include them on notebooks as well so
let's see how the XPS 13 does starting with blender the CPU clock speeds starts
strong at 3.5 gigahertz on all course but naturally as temperature rises the
frequencies take a dip averaging between 2 to 2.5 gigahertz what's really
interesting about the boost algorithm is that whenever the CPU temps hits 70 to
see the algorithm says hey I have thermal Headroom let's boost those clock
speeds and it shoots up to 3 gigahertz but that doesn't stay long temperatures
hit 90 C and the clock speeds dip again and that gets repeated over and over
again instead of these peaks and valleys it would have been really nice to see
balance between clock speeds and temperatures that stays consistent
switching to premier this one needs a bit of an explanation basically since
rendering utilizes both the CPU and GPU and both are on the same package they
contribute to the overall package power and temperatures that means the CPU
clock speeds take a hit averaging around 1.4 to 1.6 gigahertz while maintaining
temps around 73 degree Celsius so frequencies seem to be held back by
power rather than heat exterior surface temperatures were not that bad it does
get warmer when you place it on your lap while rendering files but it's nothing
worrying now through guards to fan noise this laptop was dead silent under idle
scenarios in fact on my sample I didn't experience any coil lines or that weird
hum that was a known issue on previous XPS notebooks so that's pretty awesome
now during load the fans do pick up speed but it's pretty tolerable it
doesn't sound like a giant fan so I think it's time to conclude my thoughts
on the new XPS 13 and the first thing that comes to my mind is the fantastic
design and build quality this is the gold standard of ultrabooks it's really
that good the display is also one of the best
it's Bryant color accurate I can't really complain anything about it I
would honestly rock this if I were a student because it's got amazing battery
life good performance given the form factor I mean I think that's what we're
all looking forward to when we're shopping for an ultrabook excellent
performance battery life good design and build quality and this
thing delivers the price is also very reasonable only enough in the reviewers
guide that Dell sent us I did see a core i3 model for $9.99 and another model
with 32 gigabytes of RAM so maybe Dell will offer or launch those models later
on but for now if you're shopping for an ultrabook this should be on the top of
your list or if you're someone coming from a basic 400 to 500 or laptop and if
you're looking to upgrade to something like the new XPS 13 you're in for a
treat the only thing really the only thing that you need to watch out for is
lack of i/o because you're only getting two type-c ports and if you're willing
to bypass that if you're willing to accept the dongle life by carrying you
know one of these it's I don't have an answer so on that note thank you so much
for watching I hope you guys are staying safe and sound spend responsibly my
friends and I'll talk to you guys in the next one