- Dell has a brand new laptop on the market
called the XPS-15 Two in One, 9575.
And we have both of them here with different processors
and screen resolutions.
Today I tell you if you should buy it, and if so, which one.
Stay tuned.
(mellow techno music)
Alright, so this laptop was announced a few months ago,
and it is finally available.
We have two versions here,
and let's talk a little bit about this device.
So Dell has the XPS-15, the 9570,
which was recently refreshed.
And it's basically the same laptop
as we've known for the last few years.
This, though, is a 9575, and it's not meant to replace it.
It's a different version of the device
that folds into a tablet.
Now there's a lot of questions here
about how useful a 15 inch tablet can be,
but there's a lot of cool things about this device.
And it's not just a retread of the XPS-15,
which is what I really like about it.
Let's go through the hardware, though,
and tell you what's new.
Looking at the exterior here,
we have the familiar CNC machined aluminum from Dell,
silver color, really nice design.
I should point out, there's actually a black version.
We had to dig for it on Dell's site.
It's all jet black.
It is a heavy and solid device.
It's not too heavy,
technically lighter than a regular XPS-15.
It's about two kilograms, or that's 4.3 pounds
in Freedom numbers if you're interested.
Looking at the ports, and very limited selection here.
And that's because Dell was going for a thinner device.
So on the side here, on the left,
you do have a battery meter, which is one of Dell's things.
You hit the little button and it shows you
how much battery you have left in there.
Always a neat little feature, not a big deal though.
SD card reader, but that is a microSD card.
So you won't be able to use full SD, and that's a bummer.
I think for people who wanted to use this for photo editing
would've appreciated the regular full size SD,
but there you go.
We also have two USB Type C ports.
Now on the left side, these are both Thunderbolt 3s.
So you do get four PCIe lanes.
That means you can use this with an external GPU.
Dell's doing that across all their devices now.
So don't really need to ask about it,
but you also use that for charging the device.
It does come with a 130 watt charger,
which is rather large, but it's a little bit bigger
than a Surface Book 2s, but it's not too bad.
130 watts though, that's because of the GPU
that this device has.
Flipping around to the right side,
we have the Kensington lock, headphone jack,
and two more USB Type Cs.
Now these are 3.1, not Thunderbolt 3,
so you will use these for your accessories,
and mice, and all that.
Looking at the bottom here, we can see the large intake vent
for the fans, there are two of them on the inside.
They are using the GORE Thermal stuff
that they use in the XPS-13 to help keep it cooler.
It does keep this bottom pretty cool,
it doesn't get very hot, but it does get warm for a laptop.
So if you wear shorts,
well you may want to be a little bit careful.
We also have the rubber feet here,
which gives you a little distance.
And there are two speakers here on the bottom as well.
I should say the bottom edge.
Pretty good speakers.
As far as Dell speakers go,
these are definitely on the better end.
They're very crisp, very good audio separation.
You're really gonna get very good stereo separation here.
But they don't get very loud,
so that is a limiting feature.
But I would say these are above average speakers.
Should also point out
there a number of hex screws here at the bottom.
You can access the internals of this device.
However the only thing you'll be able to swap out
is the SSD, as RAM is soldered on.
And so we'll take a closer look here at the back,
you can see those new hinges on board,
as well as this little separation here
for venting and cooling.
I think the design of this laptop is absolutely phenomenal.
Dell did a really good job of thinking this through.
Those hinges are smooth.
I would say they're better than Lenovo's hinges,
who have a similar design, as well as HP,
who uses this kind of hinge.
Definitely very firm and solid.
Alright, let's start with the display here.
So this is running their new Infinity Edge.
I say new because technically,
these bezels are thinner than the old XPS-15,
so they are constantly making those even thinner.
Looks really beautiful.
Now, there are two display choices here.
And it's gonna be difficult for you to choose,
but I'll help walk you through that.
This is the Full HD panel, there's also a 4K.
These are the new IGZO, so it's made by Sharp.
And they look really, really good.
And what the difference is,
is now these go up to 400 nits of brightness,
technically a little bit higher, around 430 nits.
If you don't know about nits of brightness,
this is a very bright panel.
It's very good for even outdoor use.
This is a very good display.
The other thing I really enjoy about it,
it has an anti-glare coating.
If you're familiar with Macbook Pros,
they use that on their displays too.
So it's still a glossy display,
but it doesn't reflect light as much.
It's just very good on the eyes.
And it's a really cool effect.
I give Dell a lot of props here.
they did this on the XPS-13 as well.
It just looks really outstanding.
And I should point out,
both the displays, Full HD and 4K, are, of course, touch.
And you need that, because this is a pen enabled device.
This is using Wacom AES 2.0, which is a very good system.
Low activation, 4096 levels of pressure,
really, really good inking experience on this.
Just really impressed.
Let's talk about this camera here.
You can see, of course, it is below the display.
Dell loves doing that.
I don't belabor this.
If you use the web camera, you're gonna hate this.
If you barely use the web camera, you won't care.
But this does have infrared on there,
so it does use Windows Hello facial recognition,
which works very well.
Never had any issues with it, 100% accuracy all the time.
Besides facial recognition,
you do have this power button on the top deck
that's also a fingerprint reader.
And you can use both, either, or neither, it's up to you.
Very good fingerprint reader, very fast,
I had no issues with it.
Now it's a little weird.
I love power buttons on the top deck,
but this does transform into a tablet.
Most tablet devices put the power button on the side.
You don't have that here.
A little weird.
But considering I don't think most people are gonna use this
as a full tablet most of the time,
I actually think that's smart decision.
I just want to point it out there,
'cause it is a bit different.
Looking at the keyboard deck itself, it is carbon fiber.
It is the familiar design very soft to the touch,
feels really nice and inviting
versus some laptops which are cold to the touch.
Now, as always with this kind of design,
it does pick up grease a little bit from your hand,
so you will have to wipe it down frequently.
Not a bad thing, but just something to be aware of.
Turn to the trackpad, it is a pretty large size,
very good clicking, it is glass and smooth.
Also using precision drivers from Microsoft.
I have really no complaints about this.
Some people, you know, are a little wish-washy
on Dell's trackpads.
I've never had a problem with them.
I think they're one of the better ones on the market.
This one, too, is very good.
Just feels very smooth, and tracks well.
Alright, let's talk about this keyboard a bit here.
It's one of the more interesting aspects of this device.
And if you go back to our original video,
when we did the hands-on,
I left the door open whether it's good or bad.
Alright so what's the big deal here?
Well, this is a Maglev keyboard.
And more than that, it has very shallow travel.
So it uses, like, a butterfly switch,
which you might have heard from the Macbook Pros,
which are super controversial.
A lot of people don't like them.
I don't care for them myself.
Those are very, very shallow.
Plus they have a very high failure rate.
I don't want to dwell on that.
These are similar to that,
but they use a high capacity magnet underneath
that gives you the bounce back up.
It's one of the first times
this technology's being used in a laptop,
and Dell's being cautious with it.
They're only putting it in this device,
basically to get feedback from users.
So the travel is very shallow, .7 millimeters.
To put that in perspective,
a lot of laptops are about 1.1 millimeters,
some go up to 1.3.
So how is this keyboard?
I actually like it a lot.
I think Dell should put this in more of their devices.
It is a very fast keyboard to type on.
And some keyboard I've used
take a couple days or even weeks to get used to.
I didn't find that here.
It's more like a couple hours at most.
I also found that the keys were very even
in their distribution and actuation.
So the way they feel was very similar.
Alright, so one downside about this keyboard
is it's a little bit loud.
So if you type in a library, or a meeting,
or in a quiet coffee place, well you're gonna hear it.
It's this very clicky kind of keyboard.
Some people actually like that, right?
Mechanical keyboard users.
It's not quite as loud as those,
but it is a louder keyboard than say
what you'd find on the Lenovo.
Okay, besides an interesting keyboard
these devices also have some fun, unique processors.
So these are running Intel G Series,
that's the eighth generation.
And what makes them different from any other processor
we've seen is these share AMD graphics on board.
Specifically, let me read this off,
AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics with four gigabytes of RAM.
That's a heck of a mouthful.
All you need to know is that those graphics
share the same chipset as the Intel.
So that allowed them
to make a smaller chipset on board here.
And you don't have to use the Intel HD 620 graphics,
which, you know, are okay.
You find those in like the XPS-13,
most Ultrabooks use those, but they're not very powerful.
So how good are these chips?
Well, you can compare them to the Nvidia 1050,
or Nvidia GTX 1050Ti, it's around that range.
It's not gonna be a 1060,
which is found in the Surface Book 2 15 inch,
but yeah, you can do gaming on this.
It's also very good for video output.
I really like the performance,
and it doesn't matter if you get the Core i5 or the Core i7,
you're going to get the same AMD graphics.
Now let's talk about the actual processor.
I said Core i5 or Core i7.
These are really good processors.
In fact, the Core i5 on here
is as good as a Core i7 in an Ultrabook.
So take the XPS-13 with a Core i7.
Well, the Core i5 in here is equivalent to that.
So keep that in mind.
The reason I say that is
if you're looking to buy this laptop,
I am totally okay with recommending the Core i5.
It's very fast, and you're gonna get
much better battery life with it.
Now the downside of that Core i5
is you can only get 8 gigabytes of RAM.
The don't allow you to configure it higher.
That RAM is soldered on to the board too,
so you don't get much choice.
Now, I don't have any issues with that.
That price point for this is around $1499.
You can actually go to $1299,
but you're gonna get a smaller hard drive.
$1499, though, gets you that Core i5, AMD graphics,
and it's a very good performing device.
I think overall, for Windows 10 users,
if you're a casual user, a student,
that's a great bargain price right there.
Now, if you want the Core i7,
you're gonna pay a lot more money.
With the Core i7, you're also gonna get the 4K display,
as well as 16 gigabytes of RAM.
But that goes up to around the $2000 mark.
I should mention,
to make things a little bit more complicated,
if you really want the Core i7 with the Full HD display.
You can totally do that as well.
That may not be a bad choice.
That would be very good performance.
If you're looking to pick this laptop,
I would go with the Core i5 and the Full HD.
And the reason I say that is the battery life.
So let's talk about that there.
Battery life on these devices are okay.
These are 75 watt-hour batteries.
And they're decent,
but they're not gonna blow you out of the water.
The Core i5 with the Full HD
will get you around 8 hours in regular work flow.
Obviously if you're gonna be doing gaming or video output,
that'll be a lot lower.
The Core i7 though, in 4K.
Well, if you hit six, six and a half hours,
that'll be pretty good for casual usage.
That obviously goes down further
if you're doing gaming and more intensive tasks.
This kind of laptop is one of those laptops where
I think a lot of people use them to bring
between the office and home,
and use it for a little while, say, on the train.
They're not necessarily all day things like my Envy x2.
In that regard, they're not too bad.
And I found them totally acceptable,
but you may have different expectations,
and those are below average for a 2018 laptop.
Luckily, you do have a rather large charger,
but there's USB Type C fast charging on there,
so you can top off the battery pretty quickly.
Now for storage, you have many options,
including 128 gigabytes, all the way up to one terabyte.
That 128 though, is a SATA drive.
I would kind of probably avoid that.
Go for 256, that's gonna be the PCIe NVMe drive,
going to have much better performance.
Speaking of, the performance is okay.
You're gonna get around 2600 megabits per second
for read speeds, which is what you're gonna use
it most of the time.
But the write speeds I found disappointing, around 600.
And that's definitely way below average.
Now you can swap out the drive there.
I would put in, maybe a 970 from Samsung.
You'll get much better performance.
And of course, if you go up to the 512 or one terabytes,
you will get much better performance
just due to the way NAND memory works.
Alright, let's talk about heat and fan noise.
So the Core i7 obviously runs a lot hotter,
and this device can get warm.
But it is kind of smart, so it has Gyroscope.
So if you're using it in your lap,
it kind of knows that
and won't throttle the processor as hard.
So it keeps it a little bit cooler,
versus when it detects it's flat
and you're using it as a traditional laptop,
it'll push it a little bit harder.
Dell also has some pretty smart software on board.
Here we can control the heat, and fan noise,
and all that stuff.
So it's kind of up to you.
Both these devices, the fans are audible,
meaning if you're just doing some light workload
you'll be okay.
As soon as you start pushing it though,
doing some, say, gaming or video output,
those fans do come on
and they're a little bit louder than usual.
You do have two fans on board.
Not the most quiet, or cool laptop on the market.
Okay, so let's bring it all in.
I really like these laptops.
They're a lot of fun to use.
The one downside is gonna be battery life,
but for some people it's not as big of a deal.
I think as a tablet you probably don't want to use it
as a tablet for very long.
It's gonna be quite heavy.
But being able to rotate into, say,
display or presentation mode, or tent mode,
it's pretty awesome.
It's very convenient to use,
and watching videos on this in that mode
is an excellent experience.
Speaking of the displays, those are very good on here.
I would say go with Full HD,
unless you absolutely need 4K.
Don't forget that 4K panel is an extra $400,
which is super expensive.
Plus you're going to need that Core i7 processor with it.
Now you're up to $720.
That's an expensive upgrade.
If you can do it, stick with Full HD and Core i5.
I think it's an overall good experience,
but if you're a video or photo editor,
well, go for the 4K version, you'll appreciate the display.
Otherwise, the fundamentals are good here.
Audio is very good, typing is great,
it's got a good trackpad, and it's a fun device to use.
I just really enjoyed kind of playing around with it.
And that's really important here
when you're picking a laptop.
So if you think this fits your needs,
and you're okay with those ports,
I can give the XPS-15 Two In One a high recommendation.
Alright, so that does it for this review,
now if you want more information about these devices,
you can head to Windows Central,
and ready my full review there.
If you like this video, give us a thumbs up,
and don't forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching, take care everybody.