Dell XPS 13 Plus review: A fast and stunningly sexy laptop

Price When Reviewed

$1949

Best Prices Today: XPS 13 Plus 9320

$1949

Like vehicles and trend, laptop computer makers are inclined to all mirror one another’s appears to be like and options. For instance, ridiculously giant bezels had been all the fad till Dell’s unique XPS 13 broke from the pack and launched InfinityEdge bezels. Within a era, any laptop computer with giant bezels regarded years if not a decade old-fashioned. The newest Dell XPS 13 options a lot of the identical design cues, however with some, let’s consider, fascinating adjustments.

The XPS 13 provides blazing quick processing efficiency, a beautiful OLED show, and above-average audio. When it involves what most individuals need in an ultraportable, it tics off numerous containers. It’s light-weight, luxurious, and highly effective. However, it’s lacking a headset jack and there are solely two USB-C ports. The lack of a headset jack is definitely odd, however we nonetheless really feel this can be a implausible choose for enterprise professionals or graphic designers.

Dell XPS 13 Plus specs and options

Let’s take a look at what’s contained in the XPS 13 Plus. The evaluate pattern has an Intel Core i7-1280P CPU. The CPU options a formidable sounding 14-cores (6 efficiency cores and 8 effectivity cores) of Alder Lake CPU inside. Here’s the remainder of the specs so that you can eyeball, however the important thing options embrace an ordinary M.2 Gen 4 SSD and the choice for a luscious 3.5K OLED panel.

• Display: 13.4 3.5K 3456×2160 OLED contact, 400-nit rated, anti-reflective coating
• Processor: Intel 14-core Core i7-1280P
• Graphics: Iris Xe Graphics
• Memory:  8GB-32GB LPDDR5/5200 (16GB as examined)
• Storage: 512GB-2TBGB SSD M.2 Gen 4 PCIe (512GB as examined)
• Ports: 2 Thunderbolt 4 (3.5mm dongle and USB-A to USB-C dongle included
• Camera: 720p with Windows Hello help
• Battery: 55Whr
• Wireless: WiFi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.1
• Operating system: Windows 11 Home
• Dimensions (inches): 11.6 x 7.8 x 0.6
• Weight: 2.71 lbs. for FHD, 2.77 for 4K+
• Price: Beginning at $1949 ($799 as examined)

Trackpad and keyboard

The Dell XPS 13 Plus 9320 as soon as once more tries to set the model stage for all laptop computer makers. The most putting characteristic is its “trackpad-less” look that masks the trackpad beneath a contiguous piece of Gorilla Glass. It offers the consumer the impression of a giant wrist relaxation with out the standard rectangular cutout for the trackpad we’re so used to. The trackpad truly begins across the left facet of the house bar and stretches to the precise Alt key. There’s additionally a slight margin of a few quarter of an inch from the highest and backside as nicely.

In some ways, it’s sized about the identical as the traditional trackpads you’ve seen—however hidden. Feedback is by way of a haptic suggestions very like your telephone’s haptic buzz. On the XPS 13 Plus, the haptic suggestions works surprisingly nicely versus typical trackpads that bodily transfer and click on. With a standard trackpad, it will get practically unimaginable to click on as you method the spacebar the place the hinge pivots. With the XPS 13 Plus, the “click” makes use of tiny mechanism as an alternative and works equally wherever on the trackpad.

Adam Patrick Murray

Although superb to take a look at, one subject with the hidden trackpad is just not understanding the place the sides are. In my expertise, nevertheless, utilizing the trackpad felt as pure as every other. It’s possible years of conditioning from the trackpad all the time being within the central portion between your palms. Others could have their brains damaged with it and wish to see the traces across the edge, however the expertise was seamless for me.

The apparent query is why even trouble with the difficulty if what works ain’t broke? The reply is thought by anybody who desires type over perform, which is a lot of the world. That reply received’t fulfill many, however in case you’re studying this carrying skinny denims as an alternative of loose-fitting denims, you is perhaps a hypocrite about perform taking precedent over type.

What’s maybe scary intelligent in regards to the trackpad is that it’s so consideration grabbing it’s possible you’ll skip the opposite issues price speaking about. For instance, the opposite little observed design change with the XPS 13 Plus are the capacitive contact perform keys (these change mechanical buttons). They default to media capabilities and display screen brightness. With the press of the perform key to the left of the spacebar, it converts to F1 to F12.

Look, I don’t thoughts the display screen brightness and quantity being capacitive contact, however having the escape, delete, dwelling, and finish key as capacitive contact is especially jarring. Pressing Ctrl-Alt utilizing bodily keys after which having your finger crunch into the capacitive Del key simply feels improper. The all necessary Esc simply doesn’t really feel proper with out bodily suggestions.

Dell stated the capacitive contact keys wasn’t achieved to anger you additional. It simply selected perform over type. The capacitive contact keys take no house whereas an ordinary bodily key will eat up treasured millimeters of house.

Connectivity

When it involves ports on the XPS 13 Plus 9320, it’s about as minimalistic because the trackpad. In truth, it’s barely clinging on to even being a plural. Yes, it has two USB-C ports, however lose a kind of and the XPS 13 Plus goes type “ports” to port. You can see that under the place the left facet of the has a single USB-C port obtainable.

We don’t have any want to point out you the opposite facet as a result of that it’s basically a mirror picture of the left facet. There’s no 3.5mm combo jack in your headset or a USB-A port. The excellent news is Dell does no less than provide you with a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle in addition to a USB-A to USB-C adapter. This isn’t the primary XPS 13 Plus to ditch a headset jack nor USB-A, nevertheless it nonetheless makes us unhappy. Yes, eradicating ports saves on inside house—however that’s beginning to sound like an excuse for every part.

At least each ports provide Thunderbolt 4 help, so you possibly can cost and run an exterior show of off a single port at very excessive speeds (with a dock or hub). On the highway, nevertheless, plug within the 60-watt charger and you’ve got one port free.

Adam Patrick Murray

Sound and webcam

Dell has been leaning into higher audio on its XPS-series of laptops and the XPS 13 Plus doesn’t disappoint. The audio system are backside firing by slots milled into the aluminum physique. It will get decently loud with pretty wealthy sound. To be trustworthy, the XPS 13 Plus sounds higher than most skinny gaming laptop computer’s we’ve seen.

Other premium laptops are providing 1080p decision and better so the XPS 13 Plus’ 720p webcam appears fairly pedestrian. In actuality, the picture high quality is okay. The webcam module additionally features a separate IR digicam for Windows Hello biometric help.

The XPS 13 Plus helps presence detection, which implies the display screen dims once you look away after which brightens up once you stroll as much as it. With Windows Hello enabled, it is best to be capable to have it log in for you as nicely. If you’re not into all of the facial options, you can even simply contact your finger to the ability button, which has an built-in finger-print reader.

IDG

Performance

If you’re the sort of laptop computer purchaser extra fascinated with what’s inside, we’ll kick off our take a look at efficiency of the XPS 13 Plus in Maxon’s Cinebench R20 benchmark. For our CPU and graphics testing, all the exams had been performed in Windows 11 and with the laptops set to their efficiency presets.

Cinebench is a check primarily based on the identical engine utilized in its skilled 3D modelling product. We run the check utilizing all cores, and a single core.

Under a multi-core load that scales nicely, the XPS 13 Plus and its Core i7-1280P simply outpaces laptops primarily based on Intel’s older 11th gen CPUs in addition to all generations of AMD’s Ryzen U-class CPUs. The upshot is in case you’re searching for extremely moveable laptop computer that may truly belt out respectable efficiency for 3D modelling the XPS 13 Plus is a contender. That additionally possible means it ought to do nicely with compiling code in addition to different duties that use all the cores.

In single-threaded or single-core efficiency the XPS 13 Plus additionally leads the pack which implies it ought to do nicely in lightly-threaded duties similar to most issues folks do in Office, picture enhancing and searching.

IDG

Although Cinebench R20 is a fantastic measurement for an all-core load that will take a minute or three, some issues take far longer. Longer workloads construct up warmth. Laptops take care of this by growing fan noise or just by slowing down the CPU.

For this check, we use the free and common Handbrake encoder to transform a 4K 6.3GB video encoded in H.264 to the extra environment friendly H.265 CODEC utilizing the CPU. The duties leans extra CPU cores and takes fairly a while to run. On the quad-core 11th gen MSI Prestige 14 Evo, for instance, it takes about one hour and 40 minutes.

The XPS 13 Plus manages to outpace the Asus Zenbook 13 with its 8-core Ryzen 7 5800U. It outpaced the latest Zenbook 13 S OLED with its 8-core Ryzen 6800U by a hair.

You can even see the direct influence of the laptop computer maker’s selections with the older Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7, which slides in entrance of the XPS 13 Plus. Performance on very lengthy operating and CPU-heavy duties places the XPS 13 Plus in good firm, nevertheless it doesn’t fairly find yourself in first place. Realistically, it’s fantastic.

IDG

Up subsequent is UL’s PCMark 10, which is a benchmark that makes an attempt to measure utilization duties in video conferencing, doc enhancing, and digital content material creation similar to 3D modelling and rendering. The general winner is the Zenbook 13 S OLED with its Ryzen 7 6800U, however we’re principally taking a look at an expansion of about 4 p.c. Overall, we’d name it not a giant deal and most of the people will probably be proud of both.

The actual upshot is that for what most individuals do on very skinny and really mild laptops, any of the machines will do fairly nicely. On the flip facet, the Intel-based laptops do higher within the Essentials class, which measures app startup utilizing Chromium, Firefox, LibreOffice Writer, and GIMP picture editor. Both Intel laptops additionally do higher in video conferencing.

In digital content material creation, the XPS 13 Plus and the newer Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED simply outpace their rivals.

IDG

Although gaming isn’t usually what folks do on premium extremely moveable laptops, we take a fast take a look at graphics efficiency utilizing 3DMark Time Spy. It’s a preferred artificial and dependable benchmark. The benchmark is weighted towards graphics efficiency and the newer Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED with its Ryzen 7 6800U and RDNA2 graphics has an honest edge over Intel’s greatest Iris Xe graphics. The XPS 13 Plus does lead within the CPU efficiency, however gaming remains to be largely about graphics efficiency and it reveals.

IDG

Battery life

We definitely didn’t count on the stellar run time like we noticed within the Asus Zenbook 13 S OLED with its Ryzen 7 6800U, particularly because it has a 22 p.c bigger battery, however we had been hoping for comparable run instances because the MSI Prestige 14 Evo with the identical dimension battery. As I famous above, the display screen decision of the XPS 13 Plus is way increased than the Prestige 14 Evo, however on the identical time—it’s an OLED, which ought to do higher on video run downs.

The upshot is battery life received’t be horrible on the XPS 13 Plus, nevertheless it definitely received’t impress both. It lasted just a little over eight hours on a single cost.

IDG

Conclusion

There’s so much to unpack with the XPS 13 Plus. Dell’s resolution to lose the headset jack and minimize down to 2 ports in addition to the inclusion of capacitive contact keys aren’t precisely welcome. But is it sufficient to knock out the opposite design cues? The hidden haptic trackpad, for instance, makes the XPS 13 Plus downright trendy and stylish trying. Yes, many will declare to not care about model. However, one take a look at your garments, automobile, and furnishings will point out that model does largely dictate client selection.

Although the model of XPS 13 Plus isn’t assured to set the usual for different laptops to comply with, there’s numerous historical past that claims it’s going to. Beyond the model, you’re nonetheless getting vanguard efficiency and an attractive OLED panel all wrapped in a stunningly lovely laptop computer. It’s nonetheless a stable possibility for enterprise professionals and graphic designers.

Adam Patrick Murray