- It's spring 2018 so that means
we have a lot of new laptops to take a look at.
Today will be the Dell XPS 13,
which has got a nice revision,
but today I'll tell you why it's more
evolution than revolution, stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
The all-new Dell XPS 13 9370,
there are plenty of smaller changes,
the Infinity Edge display is now 23% thinner,
although you probably won't notice as much,
it just looks better than ever.
We're also talking about a new generation
of that Sharp Exo display, we can finally now hit
400 nits without the banding issues that the old one had.
It also comes now in 4K, which I used to think
was overkill in that 13-inch range,
but now well I'm in love, but don't worry
you can still get full HD as well.
I should also mention there is no more gloss
or matte options, instead you get both.
Talk a little bit more about that after.
Perhaps the other big change is
its new rose gold and white version,
I'll talk a little bit more about that later on.
You also have Far Field Cortana microphones,
Windows Hello with facial recognition and more,
let's give a quick tour
of this device and show you what's new.
Coming to the port to the 9370,
you have a device lock as well as two USB type C ports,
those are full Thunderbolt-3,
that means they can do dual 4K displays,
you can also charge the device using that port as well,
and for those paying attention,
yes these are full 4x PCI-E lane supported,
that means you can use an eGPU
and get the full benefits there
so Dell's finally fixed that.
You still get the battery meter
as well, always a nice touch.
One of my favorite changes, though, is this,
Dell has moved the speakers from the bottom edge
of the device to the sides, still not as good
as top-firing, but you know what?
This is good enough for me, these sound really really good.
Not the best speakers on the market,
but I'd put this as near the top.
Coming to the right-hand side,
you still have your headphone jack,
another USB type C, this one though is just 3.1
so you can use it for peripherals
but not necessarily charging,
and a MicroSD slot, that's a bit of a shame
as we do not have the full SD card slot,
which the XPS 13 line was really known for for a long time.
And usually the front of these devices are kind of boring,
but there's some interesting stuff going on here.
Over here you still have a LED light
that shows you when a device is charging,
just a nice little touch, you also
have these four holes here, so you have
four Far Field reaching microphones to use with Hey Cortana
or any other service if Alexa comes
to this device later on as well.
And you can use it with your phone,
and I'll explain a little bit about that later on
but these are very good microphones
and they're there for a reason.
Turn to the bottom of the 9370,
we still have this full grille here for the vent intake,
there are now dual fans on the inside of this
along with Gore-Tex as an insulation material,
keeps it all very cool, it also allows Dell
to run that CPU at a very high rate,
we'll talk about more about that shortly.
You can also see where the XPS logo is
there's no more of that little door that used to flip up,
instead they have all the information over here
so lot cleaner looking, really nice.
You also have your hex screws here if you wanna remove this.
You can't change a lot on the XPS 13 9370
except for maybe the SSD, but the RAM is soldered on
and of course the processor is soldered on as well.
Opening up the XPS 13 9370 and boy does it look gorgeous.
Like I said, those display bezels are actually
a little bit thinner, let's talk about this display.
This is the 4K model, like I said, next generation ixo,
it gets brighter now around 400 nits,
that makes it really good for outdoor use
but I mentioned earlier about the matte glossy option
is no longer in there, instead what it is
it's a glossy display that has a matte anti-reflective
overlay to it so you get the best of both worlds.
This is one of my favorite displays for that reason.
You still get great color contrast,
but it's not gonna get all washed out
with that matte overlay, instead it's still
a full touchscreen and it just looks really good,
the colors are sharp, you're talking 99% SRGB,
also 79% Adobe RGB, so that's a very good
color profile for this device.
I love this display, however I am now a big fan
of the 3x2 aspect ratio and this you're still
gonna get the older one, so that's something
I wish Dell would fix later on, but overall,
not a big deal, let's be honest, this is
the standard way that laptops look these days.
Now let's talk about the camera,
as you can see here Dell has
now centered it, put it right below the logo
and you can see the little band there as well.
This is gonna be a thing, if you use a webcam
every single day and you absolutely rely on it,
this is not your laptop, this is not gonna be any better
for a web camera at all, the benefit though
is they did throw in Windows Hello facial recognition
for the first time with the XPS 13
and I love it, it works very well even though
it doesn't see your entire face,
it actually works with no issue.
Like I said, there's not much you can do about that.
I don't really care, personally, I barely use web cameras
and apparently 60%-70% of laptop users
barely use it as well, so it is what it is.
Overall though, I love the look of this,
I think it looks really nice.
And if you don't like facial recognition,
you can get the optional fingerprint reader
now built into the power button, it's okay,
it gets the job done, it's still not as fast
as your smartphone but you can use one or the other,
or both at the same time, it doesn't really matter.
If you put a mask on and you don't wanna use
facial recognition, you can use
that fingerprint reader, it'll work too.
Let's talk about this keyboard,
so layout is basically the same as the older version
but the key travel is actually slightly improved,
it's 1.3 millimeters, I really like this keyboard.
I've said Dell's keyboards are really good in the past,
but they never changed them, they made subtle changes
here but they're the right subtle changes
so I give this keyboard really high marks,
love typing on it, now it does have two stage backlighting,
looks really nice with the white keys,
obviously the contrast is not gonna be as good
but it still gets the job done.
I do like how its' basically black for the keys
versus silver which is kinda what HP was using
so during daylight it looks really nice.
Not much has changed with the trackpad either,
still the same size, still the same style,
very smooth glass surface, I really love
the feel of their trackpads, clicking is very good
and yes, precision driver is my favorite of course,
Dell's been using those for a while.
One of the best trackpads you can get on a device,
it just makes your overall experience really really good.
Let's talk about the new deck style here,
as you can see it is glass-woven fiber,
that's different from the carbon fiber
used in the black version, I absolutely love this.
You can actually draw on this with a Sharpie
and it'll wipe off including like a week later.
Now I'm not going to demonstrate that here,
but it does work, I've seen it done in person.
Very stain-resistant though, that's the whole point,
meaning after months and months of usage,
you won't see much stains on this at all.
If I just wipe it down, the other good thing
about this design is it doesn't show fingerprints.
When it comes to the feel of the device,
it does feel like a combination between
linoleum and carbon fiber, it's sort of cool to the touch
and has some texture to it, I think it feels great.
Alright let's talk battery performance,
no surprises here Dell is using the new Intel
eighth generation 8550U, that's a core i7, you can also
get it in 8250 in the core i5 model,
and later this year they will be introducing
a core i3 model as their entry-level
for around $799 or $899 price tag.
For now, though, if you want the
core i3 version, you'll have to get the 9360.
Now Dell's going to continue selling the older version,
the 9360 with the current Intel eighth generation processors
through mid-2018, they're giving people
the choices there, so if you want that version
you can still get it, and it's still a good one,
check out our earlier review for it.
Now when it comes to the actual performance,
the core i7 is outstanding, I do like the fact
that it's a quad-core processor,
that means when it comes to multi-core tasks,
very heavy lifting things, you're gonna get
a little boost of performance, still not a gaming laptop,
don't buy this if you're expecting to play high-end games,
that's only reinforced by the fact
this only ships with a UHD 620 processor for the GPU
so that's just the standard Intel built-in one.
Does not have a discrete GPU, which would
have been nice but the thermals would have been
really tight on the device this small.
Let's talk quickly about that RAM,
so it's 4, 8, or 16 gigs, though the 16 gig
is actually clocked a little bit higher,
2133 MegaHertz so if you're really into performance,
make sure you get the 16 gig option,
remember you can't update the RAM later on,
it is all soldered to the motherboard.
Now when it comes to storage, you have a few options
including 128, 256, 512 or one terabyte,
that's going to be a Samsung PM961 SSD
so very good performance there for at least reading times,
write times are a bit slow for me,
I did not care for that too much,
that's probably just a driver issue
though as that drive is very good.
Now when it comes to battery here,
you're talking a 52 watt hour,
that's actually down from 60 watt hour
the previous version and that may sound bad
but Dell tells me they reworked the motherboard here
so it's a smaller board, it's better wired
for instance now it has that 4x PCI-E lane,
so they moved everything around,
it's a completely new design and because of that,
it's more efficient and they're not really lying.
I'm running the 4K version here with core i7
and a SSD and I get around eight hours of battery life.
Now that's not outstanding but for that performance
and for what the features set here,
I think that's actually very good.
Now if you go for the full HD model
with the core i5, I would say you could
easily get 10, 11, or 12 hours even.
So far a standard ultrabook for 2018 review,
but I want to talk about something unique
to the Dell XPS line, and actually new Dell devices
coming out in 2018, that is Dell Mobile Connect.
And no one else is doing this as much as Dell,
so what is Dell Mobile Connect?
It's a U-BPF, that is you download it
from the Microsoft store and it connects
to your Android or iOS device.
Okay, you can do that for a while now,
Airdroid has been out on the market for a long time,
but this app is so good I almost recommend
buying this laptop for this app.
More specifically, if you're a big person
who carries a laptop around with them
and their smartphone all the time,
well this is gonna be an awesome solution.
So what it does is it allows you
to actually take phone calls on the laptop,
that is you can keep your phone in your bag,
if a phone call comes in you get a little pop-up,
and what's really neat about this pop-up
is no one can see who it is, so if you're
sharing your computer with someone and a call comes in,
it doesn't reveal who's calling.
You have to put the mouse cursor over it
and now it shows their picture
and their phone number and all their personal information,
I just love that little detail there.
You can also do full SMS text messaging,
so if a message comes in you can respond right to it,
you can also create new messages, you can even do emoji,
although you can't really do full pictures
and some other things, but it's getting there.
The other cool feature if you're running Android
is it does full mirroring of the device
so that is you can show your entire smartphone
on your PC and then interact with it
including running apps, you can run Instagram
through your phone, you can do everything
on your phone through the PC now,
and it works really well and the reason is
is because Dell is using a combo
of Bluetooth and Wifi Direct technology.
That means it doesn't go through Wifi,
it's not going the the cloud first then to the PC,
it direct connects so you don't need a local network.
I can't express how cool this feature is,
soon as you open the laptop, it gives you
a little bubble saying it's connected to your phone
and you can just use your phone as if it were
through the PC and if that sounds something
very interesting for you and you can use it
in your daily life, that is a very cool option.
I would love to see Microsoft integrate that
into Windows 10 for everybody, but for now
if you want that, you'll have to buy
a brand new Dell laptop, but I recommend it.
Alright, let's bring it all in, so the XPS 13 9370,
what an excellent laptop, I really don't have
much negative to say about it,
the battery life for me was very good,
typing was excellent, I love the trackpad,
that display is really really nice,
the whole form factor just feels really nice,
and I really like that new white and gold version,
now if you don't like that don't worry,
silver and black is still an option available.
Performance is also very good, I didn't see
a lot of throttling and now you can plug this in
to an external GPU if you want that.
The port selection's pretty good,
I would have still preferred to have
a USB type A port there on the side
or a full SD card slot, but it's 2018
and clearly all these companies
are now moving towards that new future
and I guess I'm okay with that as well.
So what about negatives?
Well of course there are a few,
that web camera is still just awful.
Now like I said, doesn't bother me,
but if you rely on a web camera every day,
you know, that's going to be possibly a deal killer,
that's a shame unfortunately.
There's also the issue with coil whine,
yes I did experience coil whine with this device.
Now it doesn't bother me, it can but I know
some people are super sensitive to high-pitched noises.
I did hear it, especially when plugged in
just like Surfacebook 2, seems to be a feature
of that new Intel processor, unfortunately.
It's also a little bit of an expensive laptop,
it starts at $1,000 but you can go well
over $2,000 when you spec it all out,
but it is a premium device, after all.
And finally, there is no core i3 option available,
now I don't think that's a huge deal
but it would have brought that price down
to around $799 as a starter price,
so you'll have to wait a few months
before that hits the market.
So to summarize, Dell did a very good job here
with the 9370, now some people wanted them
to revolutionize this device all over again,
I'm actually glad they kinda didn't.
This has always been a very forward-looking laptop
and they address all the concerns and criticisms I had
of last year with this version, so because of that
I have to give them a choice award
and a rating out of five out of five,
that is you should definitely check it out.
So if you're wondering how this compares
to the HP Specter or the Surface laptop,
well leave me a comment below and maybe we'll do
a comparison in the coming weeks between those devices.
If you want more information and more details
about this full review, make sure you
hit the link in the description below.
It will have that on Windows Central.
If you like this video, give us a thumbs up
and don't forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching, take care everybody.
Perhaps the biggest change is the new
why is my voice all (bleep) up?
Sorry, Marky, I apologize.
I'm getting hiccups and my voice is.
Don't record this.