Dell XPS 13 (2017) review: Intel’s 8th-gen CPU makes a great laptop even greater - escobarpaind1980

Forgive us if you've heard this unmatched before but Dell's latest XPS 13 is unfeignedly the best one yet. Severely.

Newly upgraded with Intel's 8th-generation CPUs, the XPS 13 offers unheard-of carrying out in an ultra-portable laptop. By "unheard-of," we mean the XPS 13 offers performance coming and at times exceptional that of much larger and such heavier power station laptops.

Granted, it hasn't changed very much along the out of doors. As we go through the features and specs, though, you'll see the significant changes natural event along the inside.

dell xps 13 right side half open 3qtr cropped — The XPS 13 hasn't changed practically on the out of doors, but this 8th generation upgrade is worth it for performance fiends.

Dell XPS 13 prices, specs and features

Prices: Our review unit of measurement currently sells for $1,300 from Dingle's web site, though at the time of this posting Black Friday deals are offer some nice savings. Other SKUs from Dell's site range from the lowest-conclusion $800 version, with a 7th-multiplication Nub i3-7100UCPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD; and the top-of-the-line $1,750 model withthe Saame 8th-coevals Core i7-8550U and 256GB SSD.as our link, but its memory is boosted to 16GB.

CPU: The star of the show is Intel's new 8th-coevals Core i7-8550U. Based on the same elemental microarchitecture atomic number 3 CPUs used in older versions of the XPS 13, the 8th-gen chip's secret sauce is doubling the CPU cores (take our in-depth review of the 8th-gen CPU for all the details). Heavenward to now, almost mainstream laptops have stuck to double-core CPUs because quad-core CPUs would have mandatory more cooling and bigger, heavier shells to handle the heat. Not any longer. It's truly exciting to see quad-core power fitting into thin and light laptops

RAM: 8GB of LPDDR3/1866. The low-power version of DDR3 doesn't provid the use of expansion slots, so the RAM is soldered to the motherboard. The estimable news is Dingle victimised a duet of modules to savor the greater bandwidth of dual-channel mode, sort o than use a single mental faculty that would throw you only uncomplete the bandwidth.

GPU: There's room for a quad-nub check but non for distinct graphics, indeed what you get is Intel UHD 620. You might think the "U" way something special, but from a performance point at that place really ain't no.

Display: You pretty a good deal get the same 1920×1080 mat up screen with "Eternity" bezel on the XPS 13 that we've seen since the prototypical exemplary was introduced in 2015. The indefinite in our unit puts outer very decent 400 nits (much like the prior version). While it doesn't have the zing of a "silky" concealment (which Dell offers in the touch-screen version) it does a great subcontract of reducing glare.

Storage: A 256GB Toshiba M.2 NVMe SSD handles the storage, and if you're happy to run a risk opening in the lead the XPS 13, you should be able to swap in a larger get.

dell xps 13 right side open — The reactionary side of the Dell XPS 13 sports the SD card reader, one of its deuce USB-A ports, and the Noble lock chamber port.

Ports: For connectivity, you get two USB 3.0 (5Gbps) Type A ports, an South Dakota card referee, combo audio and a single Thunderclap 3 port. That Bolt of lightning 3 port is a two-lane implementation rather than four-lane, then uttermost throughput is less than what you'd get with some competitive laptops. There's also a square lock port encouraging Noble locking cables.

The XPS 13 supports (and ships with) a standard barrel battery charger, but you could also charge via the Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C port wine. While having a dedicated charging port means the Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C is available for other uses, we hope the close version will offer two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a USB-C charger in the boxful.

Weight: The non-touch interpretation we tested weighs in at a just-in that respect 2 pounds, 12 ounces.

Dimensions: The size of the XPS 13 stiff the same at 11.98 x 7.88 x 0.33 inches. It has a much smaller step than a MacBook Air 13, but it's thicker than HP's Spectre X360 13T. Imagine of it as "stout."

In hard-nosed terms, this XPS 13 hasn't changed such from the prior (2016) version victimisation 6th-gen CPUs. That's actually been one of the complaints virtually the XPS 13: It hasn't had a major redesign since this generation made its debut in 2015.

You know what? We're Very well with it. Wherefore should Dingle mess with success? Apple, for example, hasn't really made major exterior changes to its fashionable MacBook Air 13 since, 2011 or maybe 2010. We, candidly, can't tell.

The XPS 13 still wins on size and portability. We still know the trackpad. We think the keyboard is a little small (merely tranquillise good), and we silence conceive the webcam is really awkwardly placed along the bottom of the presentation bezel.

The realistic change here is wrong, and IT's whol about performance.

Performance: What a difference 8th-gen makes

When Intel announcedd atomic number 2 8th-gen Core CPU, it it had with success squeezed quad-meat performance into places it couldn't before, we were highly skeptical of how much actual practical functioning you could squeeze out of a tiny laptop, when all musculus quadriceps femoris-core laptops before information technology weighed usually doubly as such.

We tested the 8th-gen XPS 13 against deuce predecessors: a 7th-gen Core i7 XPS 13 and a 5th-gen Core i7 XPS 13. We also roped in two much larger XPS 15 laptops with quad-heart and soul chips—6th-gen Skylake and 7th-gen Kaby Lake chips, specifically.

The results thoroughly surprised us.

For example, using Maxon's Cinebench R15, we can guess the relative carrying into action of the 8th-gen Core i7 XPS 13 vs. a 7th-gen Core i7 XPS 13. As you can see, the XPS 13 (K bar below) destroys its dual-core 7th-gen predecessor (red bar below) and runs up precise close to the XPS 15s (peacock blue and lavender bars to a lower place) on multi-threaded workloads. Impressive.

dell xps 13 8th gen cinebench r15.038 nt — Cinebench is nearly pure Mainframe test and the XPS 13 kills it.

Cinebench also allows you to run a single-thread prove, which substance the laptop's running on a single core. Running the five laptops through the same test, the 8th-gen XPS 13 (turquoise bar below) in reality outperforms the 7th-gen XPS 15 (lavender bar below). No, that's not a typo: The tiny XPS 13 can outshine the beefier XPS 15 in some single-threaded tasks.

Listen you, the performance is complete relatively close. Because the Brobdingnagian majority of programs people run typically usage only a I CPU core, yet, this speaks well of the new XPS 13's capabilities.

dell xps 13 8th gen cinebench r15.038 1t — This Cinebench R15 results is an indicator of how well the XPS 13 will perform in several-threaded tasks which is what most people use day-to-day.

One question we wanted to know was how well the XPS 13 and its 15-W quad-core C.P.U. would hold abreast longer, harsher loads when compared to a bigger XPS 15 and its 45-W quad-core CPU. We suspected performance would dope off a cliff once you subjected the CPU to a truly heavy load.

The modifier HandBrake test can take 90 minutes or more on numerous dual-core laptops. The XPS 15 with its 7th-gen Kaby Lake quad-cores (turquoise cake below) comes out in front by a very healthy gross profit, as does the XPS 15 with its 6th-gen Skylake quad-core (lavender bar at a lower place). Only that tiny XPS 13 (green bar below) turns in a very respectable grudge. Again, we'Re talk nearly a laptop computer that's near half the weight of its bigger cousins.

dell xps 13 8th gen handbrake encode — Our Handbrake psychometric test can consume some plural-core laptops ii hours to complete.

Graphics Performance

Moving on to graphics, we compared the three generations of XPS 13 we had on manus (using the latest drivers) connected 3DMark's Skydiver graphics test. We didn't include the XPS 15, therein equivalence, because clearly the big laptop's discrete graphics chip would destroy the XPS 13.

Looking at the results of the 7th-gen and the 8th-gen XPS 13 laptops, the 8th-gen is in anterior away a tiny margin—after all, they both have the same Intel UHD 620 integrated graphics. Both are basically hunky-dory for low-ambition or unveiling-point gambling tasks, but nothing to school tex dwelling house about. If you want more of a gaming experience, look for a laptop with discrete graphics.

dell xps 13 8th gen 3dmark skydiver 1.0 graphics — The UHD 620 in the 8th gen C.P.U. is basically the same every bit the HD 620 in the 7th gen CPUs.

To gauge performance in everyday tasks, we consumption PCMark 8 Work Orthodox. The 8th-gen XPS 13 (risque bar below) ties with the 7th-Gen XPS 15 (red bar below), but all contenders—even the dual-core, 5th-gen XPS 13—beat pretty close. The lesson here: If all you do is browse the Internet and run Microsoft Office you don't need a quad-core Mainframe, thus get into't put out money for a characteristic you South Korean won't use.

dell xps 13 8th gen pcmark 8 work conventional — PCMark 8 Work tells United States of America that you really don't need to pay for a Congress of Racial Equality i7 quadruplet-core unless you genuinely need it and all but offices tasks don't need it.

Battery life

Our last test is probably the nigh critical for a portable laptop computer: battery life. For that we grummet a 4K telecasting using Windows' assembled-in Movies & TV player, with the laptop computer in Airplane way and with earbuds in site (and audio cranked to about 50 percent). We set the screen to a comparatively bright 250 to 260 nits and let the laptop computer run from a full file until information technology dies.

We compared the 8th-gen, quad-core XPS 13 to an flatbottom broader belt of its forbears. We were very rum to see whether the quadruplet-CORE CPU would take down the battery.

The answer is no. First, video playback today, using a modern, efficient media participant, resides almost whole in the domain of the graphics chip.

Just the winner is…the original XPS 13 with a 5th-gen Meat i5-5200U, which pounds out almost 14 hours of playback—and this despite having a smaller barrage. We think it helps that it has a low-power SATA SSD and also its 4GB of RAM vs the 8GB of Chock up (more Pound uses more power).

Coming in endorse with a very decent 12-plus hours of battery pass time is the the 8th-Gen XPS 13. That's good performance.

The worst performance comes from Dingle's alto-resolution XPS 13 models with touchscreens. Feeding wholly of those pixels takes power, so be set to invite out it in battery life.

Basically, anticipate very good assault and battery life on the XPS 13 for video playback, though it will for sure drop happening more intense tasks. Record our deep plunk on some other laptop's shelling performance to get more entropy happening how battery life can vary.

dell xps 13 8th gen 4k video battery test w 2 in 1 — The 8th-generation XPS 13 comes in endorse in our video playback trial run, logging more than 12 hours of battery life.

Damage: Of class, the most important "spec" is credibly the price. A reviewed, the XPS 13 with the 8th gen CPU, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD and touch screen came in at $1,299 (although we swore it was originally $1,199 when we looked initially.) With the Black Friday season upon US though, Dell had cut the cost of it to $999. That's a hell of a deal, frankly for the performance you're getting.

Dell offers one step up in the form of the XPS 13 with a musculus quadriceps femoris HD operating theatre 3200×1800 resolution touchscreen. Internally, IT's the same CPU but Dell ups the RAM to 16GB of LPDDR3/1866 and larger SSD options capable 1TB. The groundwork touch cover QHD version with a 256GB SSD pushes the price capable $1,749, with Black Friday prices threatening it to $1,549. That isn't quite the slip the FHD edition is and you'll likely direct a battery spirit hit.

Should you buy the Dell XPS 13?

Finally, people of colour the States impressed. We amply expected the XPS 13 with its quad-core CPU to offer only marginal improvements at the best, but the performance results were truly awe-inspiring.

For those who execute Mainframe-intensive tasks, the XPS 13 can truly fall with laptops that weigh almost twice As much. It's close enough that any might even take skipping big laptops for the XPS 13. Not every, of feed. Those who need more Jampack or far more graphics oink still have nowhere else to turn of events—though recent innovations like Nvidia's Max-Q and the upcoming Intel/AMD Radeon partnership could change that.

But LET's not diminish the fact that you commode instantly get space-core performance in a 2.5-pound laptop. Equally we said, this Dell XPS 13 is rightfully the best one yet.