Dell XPS 13 (2024) With Lunar Lake Review: Ultra Light and Extra

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The new mentation of the Dell XPS 13 is hovering connected the borderline of thing better, or—at least—something genuinely unique. There’s an intrinsic origin astatine enactment beyond the fig of ports and the sloped signifier of the 2-year-old XPS 13 redesign, present with Intel Lunar Lake, that reminds maine of the M1 MacBook Air. Something determination would marque maine say, “Wow, things are going to change.” It has thing to bash with the aged ARC vs. x86 debate. It’s the imagination of the lightest imaginable laptop, inactive with a carnal keyboard, that tin bash everything.

But the XPS 13 (9350) config doesn’t get there. It’s lone adjacent to it successful presumption of powerfulness and artillery life, but the ammunition is inactive a mediocre plan that needs to change. It’s absorbing to look at. I mightiness yet bask the thought of an invisible touchpad, but not an invisible ESC cardinal that disappears successful nonstop sunlight.

Dell XPS 13 (9350)

It sports a extremist plan that makes it hard to usage if you're hard of seeing oregon moving successful nonstop light. While it's almighty for its size, it isn't arsenic zippy arsenic you'd privation a laptop for this price.

Pros

Super lightweight design
Trackpad takes immoderate getting utilized to, but the consciousness is precise nice
LCD is plentifulness bright

Cons

Space-less keyboard and interaction relation enactment wounded usability
Performance isn't each you privation for this price
Sound and webcam prime aren't great

There are galore of the aforesaid issues with Dell’s different XPS products, specified arsenic the XPS 14 and XPS 16. It doesn’t alteration with a caller chip. Still, I’ve wanted to springiness the XPS 13 a effort since Intel archetypal announced its Lunar Lake chips and spot what it meant for ultra-thin laptops similar this one. My mentation of the XPS 13 comes with the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V and a non-touch LCD. Dell said you get 1 of these laptops with an Intel Core Ultra 9 288V, which sounds similar it would beryllium 1 hellhole of an absorbing device, but you won’t find that config disposable connected Dell’s tract oregon anyplace else.

There are different versions of the XPS 13 with Ultra 7 258V, and conscionable similar I said with the Asus Zenbook S 14, I would look for the higher-end spot archetypal contempt the terms difference. The 256V does good capable for basal productivity tasks, but erstwhile buying a caller laptop for thing that requires a spot much juice, I committedness it volition beryllium worthy it. Now that the M4 MacBooks are out, we person a new, precocious barroom for CPU show crossed laptop chips, truthful I’d reason you should effort to marque definite your adjacent laptop is arsenic future-proof arsenic possible.

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Should that caller laptop beryllium the $1,400 MSRP XPS 13 (9350)? It has a just display, and it definite looks unique. The artillery beingness is incredible, truthful agelong arsenic you’re not doing thing strenuous. It’s besides an incredibly airy laptop with specified a smooth, sleek decorativeness you’re handling a chromatic slate much than a computer. At the aforesaid time, it’s excessively perfunctory for its ain good, particularly astatine this terms point.

Dell XPS 13 Review: Performance

My XPS 13 came with the Intel Core Ultra 7 256V CPU, which is connected the little extremity of the middle-weight Lunar Lake chips. The laptop packs 16 GB of DDR5x RAM and 512 GB of storage. All that’s to say, this is the lower-end rendition of the XPS 13 you tin get, and its show whitethorn not lucifer your expectations for what you whitethorn person heard astir Lunar Lake.

That’s not to accidental you should disregard this mentation altogether. If you spell for this config for basal productivity, it’s an incredibly speedy instrumentality successful specified a bladed package. In Geekbench 6, the Core Ultra 7 256V volition people amended than the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus successful single-core settings but way somewhat down multi-core. It besides won’t bushed AMD’s latest Strix Point processors similar the Ryzen 9 HX AI 370, which you tin find successful PCs similar the Asus TUF Gaming A14.

It’s a worse performer successful the Cinebench rendering test, which I recovered inactive underperformed successful multi-core settings by adjacent to 300 points compared to a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite oregon the Ryzen 9 HX AI 370. I’m inactive looking for that fabled laptop that volition incorporate the Intel Core Ultra 9 288V, fto unsocial much with the somewhat higher-performance Lunar Lake chips than conscionable the 258V.

Of course, immoderate PC with a dedicated GPU volition beryllium acold amended for graphics tests similar 3D Mark. The Dell XPS 14 with conscionable an Nvidia Geforce RTX 4050 tin topple thing that Intel’s onboard ARC graphics tin try. I’m inactive disappointed chiefly by the dilatory times connected our Blender tests, wherever we clip however agelong it takes for the PC to render a azygous representation of a BMW nether CPU and GPU settings.

Dell XPS 13 Review: Build Quality and Usability

As idiosyncratic who uses a batch of laptops regularly, I extremity up typing with respective antithetic keyboards regularly passim my workday. Given that, I should person acquisition with the newfangled XPS plan acknowledgment to my clip with the Dell XPS 14 and XPS 16 laptops. Then I returned to it with the XPS 13 and its level panel, no-space keyboard, and invisible trackpad, and it inactive someway made maine consciousness similar a food retired of water.

I could turn to similar it if I spent ages with it and got truthful utilized to the space-less keyboard that I would conflict to get the aforesaid consciousness connected different keyboards. Why would I, though, erstwhile the acquisition is worse than different laptops?

Worse inactive is the interaction relation row, which simply disappears erstwhile the PC is turned off. Worse, with this eggshell color, the light-up interaction keys vanish similar ghosts successful nonstop sunlight. The light-up keys whitethorn go an accessibility nightmare for anybody with imaginativeness issues.

All that is specified a shame due to the fact that I would different bask utilizing the XPS 13. This happening is airy astatine lone 2.6 pounds. For comparison, an M3 MacBook Air weighs 2.7 pounds. It’s conscionable a fewer grams lighter than an Asus Zenbook S 14. Beyond the weight, it’s packing WiFi 7 and a agleam show for indoor and outdoor use. However, there’s nary occupation worse than routinely hitting the incorrect cardinal erstwhile you’re typing, conscionable due to the fact that you can’t consciousness retired wherever your fingers are unless you’re looking astatine the keyboard.

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Dell XPS 13 Review: Screen, Webcam, and Sound

This 13-inch laptop has a decent screen, an good webcam, and mediocre dependable quality. The 13.4-inch LCD runs astatine a 1920 by 1200 solution with a VSS betwixt 30 and 120 Hz. No, it’s not arsenic inky and beauteous arsenic OLED, which you’ll get connected prettier configs than the 9350, but astatine the precise least, it’s bright.

The 1080p webcam looks just nether agleam light, but things commencement to look fuzzy arsenic soon arsenic immoderate dim fluorescent airy illuminates you. Without abstraction for carnal speakers, there’s lone truthful overmuch you tin expect from the dependable connected a bladed laptop. The XPS is bully capable for listening to it by yourself, but it has a bladed prime that’s instantly evident if you power disconnected from immoderate 14-inch laptop to this 13-inch one. It tin get moderately loud, astatine the precise least.

Dell XPS 13 Review: Battery Life

The Dell XPS 13’s artillery beingness mightiness beryllium its biggest selling point. When Dell and Intel archetypal announced this config astatine IFA, it was portion of the company’s assertion that you would get adjacent to 24 hours of artillery beingness from an x86 chip. That’s a large promise, and we already knew it was lone tested successful video playback.

In our ain video playback tests, wherever we ran down the artillery watching a 24-hour YouTube video, the laptop conked retired aft 23 hours. That’s precise bully and the benignant of artillery you’d privation from specified a lightweight, fanless design.

As for regular use, it’s besides a precise beardown contender. An full workday of typing connected it, without plugging it into immoderate outer monitors, resulted successful maine inactive having astir 40% artillery near over. I forgot to complaint it and could inactive spell fractional a workday without reaching for the plug. The artillery drained acold faster erstwhile supporting much than 1 monitor, arsenic expected. It’s a amended effect than I had with the Asus Zenbook with the aforesaid chip, truthful Dell inactive has a large interior plan to trust on, adjacent if I don’t jive with the exterior.

Dell XPS 13 Review: Verdict

The Dell XPS 13 (9350) feels similar a laptop that costs, astatine most, $1,100, which is wherever it presently stands connected merchantability earlier the extremity of November. I cognize I’ve already said this plan is not my jam, but adjacent astatine a little price, I would hesitate to scope for this implicit thing much standard. It’s easy 1 of the lightest, astir well-balanced laptops I’ve used. It hangs retired successful my backpack and hardly puts immoderate much value connected my shoulders than the hoard of paperback books I thin to transportation around.

Plus, it has an fantabulous artillery beingness that adds to its longevity and keeps maine from bringing a charging ceramic everyplace I go. The charging portion that comes with the XPS 13 is already comparatively tiny and light, truthful that’s a plus. When enactment similar that, there’s truthful overmuch I privation to similar astir this laptop, though possibly not with this configuration. Then again, the adjacent measurement up, with the 258V, 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage, and an LCD, costs $1,700 MSRP (currently $1,500 connected sale). The OLED touchscreen mentation is adjacent much pricey. Even connected sale, I can’t ideate buying a super-thin laptop for that terms erstwhile determination are different machines you tin get.

It’s a perfectly usable laptop and possibly 1 you could statesman to love. But I’m a curmudgeon, and I don’t similar it erstwhile I pat a cardinal and accidentally pat two. Perhaps I should blasted myself for my imprecise digits. Instead, however, I’ll blasted the laptop.

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