Dell made some bold claims when it said it's XPS 13 would be the fastest laptop
in its class and guess what it's true
this is the new Dell XPS 13 completely redesigned and completely different than
the previous model which I happen to have right here this is the previous XPS
13 I'm gonna hold them up what's different physically thinner well
slightly thinner about 16 millimeters versus 19 millimeters and slightly
lighter at two pounds ten ounces versus two pounds 12 ounces so little thinner a
little lighter and a lot faster even though both of these laptops have
essentially what is the same 8th generation Core I Intel processor this
new XPS 13 is just smokin fast but there's a lot more to it than just
performance long overdue on the XPS 13 a Windows hello camera but on the previous
model Dell had the camera down in this corner which of course was the butt of
many jokes because all you got to see was your knuckle when you typed this new
version moves it to the middle and it's an IR camera that supports Windows hello
mode so you can just open up your laptop it'll log in with your face if you don't
want to use your face or the lighting is bad there's also a clever windows hello
supported fingerprint reader in the power button so when you turn on your
laptop you basically touch it again and it turns on also different in the new
XPS 13 is the Gorilla Glass 4 this is Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which gives you
more protection and gives you a very nice glossy feel on the screen the
previous version at 1080p was a matte finish if you really like the glossy
finish this is nice it does look more luxurious but if you are working outside
or you have a lot of glare you may prefer the actual matte finish from the
previous design this is in battle again this is the 1080p version
it puts up 413 it's that's pretty bright for a laptop in this size a lot of them
generally top out at about 350 if they're good maybe 300 so hitting 413
it's that is a decently bright screen a very bright screen in fact for this
class of laptop the most controversial part of the new XPS 13 certainly for me
is a choice of ports I'm gonna hold the game the old XPS 13 previous generation
the new one on the bottom in rose gold on the top we get an SD card a USB type
a a no block on the new one we get a microSD instead of SD card reader a
little smaller a USB C and an analogue audio port flip it around to the other
side the old design gives you your analog another USB a and USB C this one
did support thermal there is also a proprietary charging barrel lock to
support the typical Dell chargers the new one moves completely to USB C
charging these two ports our Thunderbolt 3 and all three of them should be able
to charge the laptop and of course here's that noble lock port again yes
there's no type-a that's really gonna burn a lot of people it does kill me
that they didn't do this I think it's controversial but Dell at least gives
you a nice matching white dongle to go with it my problem you lose these things
and you're on the road you're in bad shape but the nice thing is Dell did say
hey we're giving you a Thunderbolt 3 on this one the old one handed it as well
but it was only Thunderbolt 3 2 lanes the new one supports 2 Thunderbolt 3 4
lane implementation of PCIe that basically means if you don't get it more
performance we're talking 40 gigs per port I believe so a lot more than the
previous generation XPS 13 of course what's inside counts as well and there
are significant differences the previous generation XPS 13 had a larger battery
about 60 watt hours Dell basically had to throw some things out to make it then
and to make it faster the new one has a 52 watt hour battery that's about a 14
percent reduction in battery size the good news an actual runtime doing video
round on tests we found the performance to be just about the same so even though
you're getting 14% less battery life on the new XPS 13 you're getting about the
same 11 to 12 hours worth of runtime as the previous model and of course these
are both 1080p versions if you step up to the pricey 4k version you take a big
hit in battery life at least 30% so you want a battery life go for 1080p another
part of the smaller battery and the new XPS 13 is the improved cooling besides
being thinner devil had to shove more fans more cooling into the new XPS 13
that means smaller battery but that pays dividends and what's the most important
thing and that's performance and the performance message on the new XPS 13 is
all there I just finished testing this laptop and it is smoking fast how fast
this new XPS 13 with its Core i5 8250 you is every bit as fast if not
faster than most of the core i7 8550 you laptops I've tested I'll say that again
Core i5 faster than most core i7 laptops for example in Cinebench r15 this 8th
generation Core i5 laptop is 9% faster than a core i7 8th gen but Cinebench is
a really short test what about something that really heats up the laptop and
takes a long time to run for that we use handbrake to encode a 30 gig file using
one of the presets in the program in that again
the core i5 HN is about 3.5 percent faster than the 8th gen core i7 laptop
even kookier I took 15-inch laptops that are usually cooler and faster because
there's so much bigger I compared those to the XPS 13 and while the XPS 13
wasn't faster it was pretty close in fact I got a say compared to Lenovo yoga
15-inch the XPS 13 turned in the identical handbrakes core and against a
Dell XPS 15 with a skylake quad-core 45 watt processor it's just a little slower
maybe 8% slower than a great big 15-inch laptop with a lot more cooling and a lot
more CPU so the performance message is clear this likely is the fastest 13-inch
Ultrabook in town so the real question is is it worth it I asked that because
Dell is still selling the older XPS 13 on its website alongside the new XPS 13
I gotta say this laptop is gonna win in almost every category it's faster it's
thinner it's a little lighter even the power brick is smaller and lighter and
better but there's one thing that really could have made the new XPS 13 the most
perfect ultra book in the world and that's this if it just included a type-a
port I'd say it would be perfect because this is really the only thing that needs
to be improved on it but if that doesn't bug you to have to carry this dog around
with you I gotta say the new XPS 13 is a way to go