Dell XPS 1 15 (2020)
A gorgeous laptop with a modicum of gaming ability and a (mostly) ( fabulous display
SCORE
PRICE As reviewed, £ 2,083 (£2,499 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk
While the Dell XPS 15 has been one of our favourite laptops for years, it was starting to look dated. With a lightweight design to match the XPS 13, the all-new Dell XPS 15 aims to establish itself as the laptop of choice for those who value performance as much as portability.
2020’s Dell XPS 15 comes stuffed with high-powered components. You have the choice of either a six-core Intel Core i7-10750H or an eight-core Core i9-10885H, accompanied by a discrete Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti GPU and a range of RAM and storage options.
And it’s all squeezed into a chassis that’s easy to sling in a rucksack.
The biggest update from a physical point of view this year, however, is the screen, which is nigh-on bezel-free on all four sides. Previously, the XPS 15’s
“Infinity f Edge” d display had a large bezel at the bottom; that’s now almost disappeared. Tellingly, the OLED display option of last year’s Dell XPS 15 has gone too, but since the 4K touchscreen on this year’s machine is a wide-gamut unit rated at 100% Adobe RGB coverage, that isn’t a great loss.
Slim by design
Whichever spec you choose, the Dell XPS comes in the same, slim, toughfeeling body. The laptop measures
345 x 230 x 18mm (WDH) when closed and weighs 1.83kg for the non-touch variant or 2.05kg for this 4K model. That’s good for a 15.6in workstation laptop, and the USB-C power supply is remarkably small and light, tipping the scales at 443g.
The finish is smart, with smooth, matte aluminium covering the lid and underside and a natty carbon fibre inside surrounding the keyboard and wristrest. There’s barely a creak when it’s manhandled, and the lid is stiff and flex-free.
There isn’t much in the way of legacy connectivity here – aside from a full-size SD card slot and a 3.5mm headset jack – but you get three USB-C ports. Two of these are Thunderbolt 3 and one is USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbits/sec). Wireless connectivity is handled by a 2x2 MIMO Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650s card with Bluetooth 5.1 support.
“The XPS 15’s resolution of 3,840 x 2,400 gives an aspect ratio of 16:10 and that extra height is a boon for productivity apps”
As expected, the Dell XPS 15’s keyboard is excellent: it has plenty of travel and positive feedback. The layout is great too, with large left and right Shift keys, a double-height Enter key and a power button in the top-right corner that doubles as a fingerprint reader.
The diving board touchpad is a joy to use. It’s a massive 151 x
90mm in size, worked reliably during testing, and the left and right clickers have just the right responsiveness. They’re not too heavy or too light and the sound that accompanies each press is a quiet thunk, rather than the brittle plastic clack of certain touchpads.
Super screen?
The 4K screen on our review sample is top quality. A resolution of 3,840 x 2,400 gives an aspect ratio of 16:10 and that extra height compared to 16:9 displays is a boon for productivity apps such as Adobe Photoshop.
Unlike so many displays on Windows laptops, Dell chooses a wide-gamut unit. Where most laptop screens are only capable of reproducing the sRGB colour space, or marginally more than it, the 4K screen on the Dell XPS 15 can go well beyond.
Indeed, keen photographers will be pleased to discover that the panel covers more than the Adobe RGB (107.7%) gamut. That equates to around 156.4% of the standard sRGB gamut and 110.8% of DCI-P3.
Nor can we complain about peak brightness or contrast: figures of 464cd/m2 and 1,518:1 ensure images have plenty of pop. Colour accuracy also hits the heights. You’ll need to make sure the HDR Windows settings are disabled (or adaptive contrast ruins everything), but you’ll be rewarded with an average Delta
E in Adobe RGB of 1.23.
The Dell’s display is HDR400-certified and Dolby Vision capable. But this is where things start to fall apart, due in no small part to the display’s heavy-handed use of adaptive contrast.
Enable HDR in the Windows settings, fire up the Netflix app and you’ll see that many shows such as Altered Carbon are listed with Dolby Vision logos, showing that something is working. The problem is that, where an advanced TV might deploy local dimming to achieve the high contrast ratio required by Dolby Vision, only dimming and brightening specific parts of the screen, the XPS 15 appears to dim and brighten the entire display. This is disconcerting when scenes transition from dark to bright, with the adaptive contrast lagging a second or two behind cuts.
That’s not the only flaw. Enable HDR and the laptop appears to cap frame rates at 30fps with the result that all onscreen animations, and games, drag horribly. I’d advise against using Windows’ HDR mode as a result, but this does mean missing out on one of the key benefits of the new 4K display. Let’s hope that gets resolved in a future update.
Games and frames
These issues also put paid to the idea that you might use the XPS 15 to game in HDR, which is a shame because the hardware is capable. That said, you can get more for your money elsewhere if you’re after a gaming system: our review unit’s Core i7-10750H CPU and GTX 1650 Ti graphics card compare poorly to the £1,949 Gigabyte’s Aorus 15G ( pcpro. link/313gig) with its Core i7-10875H and RTX 2070 Super, while the Base version of the Razer Blade 15 ( see p54) includes a Core i7-10750H and RTX 2070 Max-Q for £2,100. You can see the effect of their superior graphics chips in the gaming graphs.
The speed of the 1TB Micron SSD is a mite disappointing: 2,088MB/sec sequential read speeds are fine, but 985MB/sec sequential writes are half of what we’d hope for. Still, the XPS 15 is more than fast enough to take on demanding applications such as raw photo editing and video editing, and isn’t that far behind the 16in Apple MacBook Pro in our benchmarks – while costing £600 less.
Battery life is also good for such a large machine: in our video-rundown test, the XPS 15 lasted 7hrs 24mins. That’s a match for the 16in MacBook Pro and superior to both the Gigabyte Aorus 15G and the Razer Blade 15.
Mixed blessings
Let’s start with XPS 15’s positives: the build quality is excellent and the display astounding. The keyboard and touchpad are beyond reproach and there’s enough power for the most demanding creative applications. Plus, it’s a huge amount cheaper than the equivalent 16in MacBook Pro.
However, that wide-gamut display doesn’t deliver on its Dolby Visionenabled promises. And, if gaming is a must, there are rival Windows laptops that offer more bang for your buck.
Yet, despite its foibles, the 2020 XPS 15 is a fine laptop for creatives. If you want a 16in MacBook Pro rival for less, it makes an excellent choice.
SPECIFICATIONS
Six-core 2.6GHz Core i7-10750H processor 32GB DDR4-2933 RAM 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics 3,840 x 2,400 15.6in IPS touchscreen 1TB M.2 PCIe SSD 2x2 802.11ax Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5 2 x Thunderbolt 3 USB-C 3.1 SD card reader 3.5mm jack 86Wh battery Windows 10 Home 345 x 230 x 18mm (WDH) 2.1kg 1yr C&R warranty