The new Dell XPS 17 is drop-dead attractive, skinny, comparatively quick, and has what appears like a probably show-stopping charging downside.
How severe is it? We’ll simply say that primarily based on our assessment unit, it’s sufficient to advocate that you simply put a pause on a possible buy till the issue is addressed by Dell.
The charging subject first got here to mild on July 10, when revered expertise web site Notebookcheck.com reported that its XPS 17 9700 review unit discharged the battery underneath heavy hundreds even when plugged into the wall.
This in all probability isn’t a shock to anybody who pays consideration to the unsung hero of laptops: the facility brick. When we noticed that Dell had chosen a 130-watt USB-C charger for the XPS 17, we even expressed our concern in a video posted on YouTube in May.
If you don’t have time to look at the video, you must know that the overwhelming majority of laptops we’ve seen with six- and eight-core CPUs plus GeForce RTX 2060 GPUs function 180-Watt energy bricks utilizing standard “barrel” plugs.
Why use a much less highly effective lighter energy brick?
Why use “only” a 130 watt energy brick? The reply is much less weight and barely much less bulk. That could seem trivial to many, however the XPS 17’s 130-watt brick weighs simply shy of a pound (0.9 kilos, to be exact). A typical 180-watt brick weighs about 1.3 kilos, about 30 p.c heavier.
Power consumption on a laptop computer isn’t fixed, both. Doing mild duties you may use 40 watts, whereas a video encode may use 100 watts.
Dell’s math is that most individuals will not be going to push a laptop computer to 11 all day lengthy. Instead, they could push it to 11 for a half-hour or perhaps an hour. For these occasions when a laptop computer is definitely drawing greater than the 130-watt energy brick can ship, Dell makes use of a “hybrid” system, the place it’s going to faucet the reserve energy from the battery for the hour or so it’s wanted, then recharge the battery as soon as the heavy load is finished. The finish result’s a lighter total weight on the highway.
Dell isn’t the primary to do that. Microsoft’s Surface Book 2 did it, as have others who used smaller energy bricks to boost portability. For each one that argues a 17-inch laptop computer like this must be designed to run at 100 p.c all day, on daily basis, there’s an individual who argues they’d quite have much less weight of their bag.
The Dell XPS 17 9700’s 130-watt energy brick is simply barely much less cumbersome than a typical 180-watt energy brick, but it surely’s a couple of third lighter.
Here’s the place it will get tough
If you settle for the reality that each one laptops are a stability of cooling, efficiency, acoustics, weight and value, you may say no large deal. We may even agree, besides the issue with the XPS 17 9700 seems to run deeper than a “hybrid” under-sized energy brick design selection.
As Notebookcheck.com found in its testing, and we’ve duplicated in our personal assessment unit from Dell, the XPS 17 9700 doesn’t appear to have the ability to attain 130 watts from the already under-sized energy brick.
One factor we need to word is that whereas Notebookcheck.com’s unit and our unit appear to do the identical factor, different reviewers apparently have not stumbled upon this subject. Some customers on Reddit have reported the identical expertise, but it surely’s attainable the issue is restricted to our unit, Notebookcheck’s, and people of some unfortunate of us on Reddit. We can’t say it’s a blanket subject with all Dell XPS 17 9700 items.
We can say we reproduced it, although.
We first took the XPS 17 9700’s 130-watt energy brick and related it to the Dell XPS 15 9500 that we simply reviewed. It really makes use of the identical energy brick because the XPS 17 9700, however we used it with the XPS 17’s energy brick to assist get rid of variables. We then measured the facility consumption on the wall socket of the XPS 15 9500 underneath numerous hundreds utilizing a logging watt meter. In the chart beneath, you may see the crimson line representing watts consumed on the wall each second.
We first set off Maxon’s Cinebench R20. This explicit take a look at is pure CPU and doesn’t contact the GPU. The XPS 15 9500 spikes as much as about 130 watts after which tiers down because the work progresses.
We then began the CPU-intensive recreation, PUBG, setting the in-game decision to 1920×1080 and Medium high quality. With the CPU and the GPU working, the laptop computer is pulling 130 watts on the wall.
IDGThe XPS 15 9500 is in a position to attract 130 watts from the XPS 17 9700’s 130-watt energy brick.
We then powered down the XPS 15 9500 and plugged the identical energy brick into the XPS 17 9700. If you have a look at the chart, the crimson line once more represents wattage consumed on the wall by the laptop computer. Running Cinebench R20, the XPS 17 attracts about 105 watts on the wall. We then began PUBG set to 1920×1080 and Medium high quality, and once more, we see the laptop computer will draw not more than 105 items on the wall. In neither of these runs did we see observable battery discharge.
We then began Quake II RTX and ran the in-game benchmark. Again, we see roughly 105 watts most draw from the laptop computer. With each video games, we didn’t see discharge in the course of the brief time we ran them.
IDGWe may by no means get the XPS 17 9700 to attract greater than 105 watts from its 130-watt energy brick.
We subsequent ran LuxMark 3.0, an OpenCL benchmark that may be run concurrently on the discrete GPU and the built-in Intel graphics. With this intense workload, we really did start to watch a discharge of about 7 watts from the battery in the course of the run.
The final take a look at we ran was a HandBrake 1.3.1 HEVC encode utilizing the CPU cores, not the discrete graphics or Intel QuickSync {hardware}. While no energy discharge was noticed, we once more see the laptop computer will draw not more than 105 watts from the 130-watt energy brick.
Gordon Mah UngAt greatest, the XPS 17 9700 will draw 105 to 107 watts from its 130-watt energy brick.
Of all the checks we ran, we noticed discharge charges solely in the course of the LuxMark 3.0 benchmark. That shouldn’t make you breathe an indication of aid, although, as a result of it’s really fairly straightforward to induce energy discharges from the laptop computer underneath what we consider are cheap hundreds.
To take a look at that we restarted PUBG and let it sit in a number of coaching matches. Using Passmark’s BatteryMon, we then logged the discharge charge of the battery with the sport set to 1920×1080, Ultra high quality. The display screen brightness (which consumes a number of watts of energy) was set to its excessive setting and, after all, Wi-Fi is on, which additionally consumes energy. BatteryMon reported the battery discharging at about 7.2 watts. The laptop computer’s efficiency was set to Optimized for this run, which ought to technically use rather less energy than its Ultra Performance setting.
IDGPUBG will induce an influence discharge from the Dell XPS 17 9700’s battery even when on AC.
This clearly begs the query of simply how a lot the XPS 17 9700 will discharge. To discover out, we let PUBG run by way of 4 coaching periods after which let it sit in on the important foyer, which is a 3D scene. Even if it’s not heavy gaming, it’s nonetheless sufficient to maintain the GPU operating at its rated draw of 65 watts.
At slightly below 5 hours, we checked the laptop computer: The battery had dropped to 23 p.c. You can see this within the chart beneath utilizing information from Passmark’s BatteryMon. The energy drain, if BatteryMon is appropriate, really elevated as time dragged on, and we noticed almost 15-watt discharge charges from the battery. At 23-percent capability, the battery drain stops—however the body charges additionally drop. We haven’t verified this, however we suspect that is the purpose the place the XPS 17 9700 sheds efficiency quite than eat into its battery reserve.
IDGThe XPS 17 9700 will draw down its battery to 23 p.c earlier than the bleeding stops.
Why that is taking place
PCWorld contacted Dell with our findings. Officials stated they’re trying into why our unit isn’t charging at greater than 105 watts, however there’s no official remark but.
We do have a fairly good thought of what’s up, although. As the mantra of the XPS 17 9700 is glossy magnificence, you actually can’t say that with a severe face whereas utilizing the standard and ugly-as-hell spherical barrel charger we’re used to utilizing with fatter gaming laptops. Hardware reviewers wrinkle their noses at such issues, and most of the people suppose they’re a relic.
Gordon Mah UngThe USB-C energy brick on the XPS 17 9700 means you may cost your cellphone or pill as nicely your laptop computer with one charger. The extra typical barrel charger is seen principally as an unlucky relic as we speak.
For the XPS 17 9700, and the XPS 15 9500, Dell adopts the modern-day USB-C plug. The downside with USB-C and the USB Power Delivery spec, although, is that it’s at the moment restricted to a most of 100 watts. That’s simply not sufficient, so Dell does a little bit of a “cheat” on the restricted energy spec by constructing intelligence into the laptop computer’s charging circuit and the facility brick to let it do a particular Dell handshake. If the handshake occurs, the facility brick breaks spec and provides as much as 130 watts of energy. Plug that Dell 130 energy brick right into a MacBook Pro 16 or HP Spectre x360, although, the place they don’t know the particular handshake, and the facility brick will provide solely as much as customary USB-PD specs.
We suppose that in some way, our XPS 17 9700 unit and apparently not less than a number of others by no means realized the right Dell handshake. Therefore, the 130-watt energy brick will provide solely 100 watts, as if it had been an Apple or HP product.
This decrease output doesn’t replicate nicely on the Dell XPS 17 9700’s hybrid design. We suspect that if the brick provided 130 watts, as was meant, the discharge charges operating intensive duties can be a lot more durable to breed. The XPS 17 9700, as-is, is operating with 20 p.c much less energy than meant, so even brief and easy benchmarks can induce discharging.
Can this be mounted?
The $9,700 query is whether or not this will simply be mounted. Again, Dell officers are nonetheless investigating the facility negotiation subject we suspect to be on the coronary heart of this, however the firm has made no statements but.
We consider it’s one thing that might be corrected by a firmware replace to an embedded controller within the laptop computer. If this ends on a great word, Dell will subject a firmware or UEFI replace, we’ll all patch it, after which we are able to return to debating the deserves of “less weight vs. more wattage” in energy bricks.
If this ends badly, nonetheless, it may very nicely imply new energy adapters and even presumably sending laptops again for a repair.
Far worse, nonetheless, can be for Dell to say operating an 8-core Core i7-10875H, GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q, 32GB of RAM and 500-nit 4K display screen on 100 watts is simply advantageous and inside spec.
To us, it’s clearly not.
DellThe left facet of the brand new XPS 17 9700 options two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a wedge-style lock.