{"id":1490,"date":"2017-06-23T12:20:46","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T12:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/?p=1490"},"modified":"2017-06-23T12:20:46","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T12:20:46","slug":"dell-xps-15-2017-review-kaby-lake-4k-show-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/dell-xps-15-2017-review-kaby-lake-4k-show-something.htm","title":{"rendered":"DELL XPS 15 (2017) review: Kaby, Lake and 4K show something"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DELL&#8217;s XPS 15 proved iterative, no matter how small the problem remains. External, even if the owner of the first 15 XPS can not tell the difference between the old and the new.<\/p>\n<p>The ports are the same, the keyboard and the trackpad are the same and, well, just about external thing with the XPS 15 looks identical. Yet the internal changes make this year\u2019s XPS 15 a markedly better laptop than last year\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/dell\/xps-m1330-battery.htm\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1491\" src=\"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Dell-xps-m1330-laptop-battery-battaussie-1024x538.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"315\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Dell-xps-m1330-laptop-battery-battaussie-1024x538.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Dell-xps-m1330-laptop-battery-battaussie-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Dell-xps-m1330-laptop-battery-battaussie-768x403.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Dell-xps-m1330-laptop-battery-battaussie.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>It\u2019s what\u2019s inside that counts<\/h2>\n<p>The main difference with the latest generation XPS 15 is, of course, inside. While the previous version sported a 6th-generation quad-core Intel Skylake <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">CPU<\/span><\/span> paired with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M, the latest iteration notches up to a quad-core 7th-gen Kaby Lake chip, and\u00a0graphics upgrades itself to a GeForce GTX 1050.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the Core i7-7700HQ CPU and GTX 1050, Dell has also given the XPS 15 an optional Windows Hello-compliant finger print reader. It\u2019s not the horrible swipe-style reader of yesterday that always took four attempts to work. It\u2019s a modern, full-fingerprint pad reader similar to what you\u2019d find on phones and tablets.<\/p>\n<p>Our test unit comes equipped with a 15.6-inch 4K UHD screen. With its near edge-to-edge \u201cInfinityEdge\u201d display, and glossy Gorilla Glass NBT protective layer, the IGZO panel is truly stunning to behold.\u00a0The near bezel-less design does, unfortunately, banish the integrated webcam to the bottom of the panel, as well as prevent the XPS 15 from integrating a near infrared (IR) camera for Windows Hello support. Consider the fingerprint reader your consolation prize.<\/p>\n<p>Also featured in our test unit are 16GB of DDR4\/2400 in dual-channel mode and a 512GB Lite-On CX2\u00a0NVMe M.2 SSD. The drive uses MLC flash rated at 2.5GBps reads and 1.2GBps writes. On CrystalDiskMark 5.2 we saw about 2.1GBps reads and 1GBps writes.<\/p>\n<p>The other change from the prior generation is an increase in battery capacity, to about 97WHr from the previous model\u2019s largest battery of 84WHr. That\u2019s just shy of the largest lithium ion cell you can carry on a plane legally.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"large \"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Ports<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/dell\/\">Dell <\/a>doesn\u2019t pull an Apple and skimp on ports. The new XPS 15 offers the same basic ports as the 2016 model, including a full-size HDMI 1.4, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5Gbps) Type A ports, an analog combo jack for headphones, and a Thunderbolt 3 port. That Thunderbolt 3 ports supports DisplayPort over USB-C as well as charging using USB-Power Delivery. On this last point, we applaud Dell\u2019s decision to support both a traditional barrel charger and USB-C for charging.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"nativo-promo smartphone tablet desktop\"><\/aside>\n<p>Yes, we know, using USB-C for charging is the future (and it\u2019s already here for much smaller premium laptops) but there\u2019s something to be said for having a dedicated port for a charger. On other \u201cpro\u201d <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">laptops<\/span><\/span> with two ports, if one is used for charging and one for your monitor, you\u2019ll be plugging and unplugging all the time unless you happen to buy a new monitor that\u2019s natively USB-C. That\u2019s just not the world we live in.<\/p>\n<p>For kicks, we ran the XPS 15 on the 87-watt charger <a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/apple\/\">Apple<\/a> ships with its MacBook Pro 15 and had no issues. During a GPU load (which uses the most <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">power<\/span><\/span> on the XPS 15), the Apple power brick supplied up to 60 watts of its 87 watt-rated output.<\/p>\n<p>The actual power brick Dell ships is 130 watts, which should let the XPS 15 charge even under heavy loads where the GPU, CPU, SSD, and monitor are all running hard.<\/p>\n<h2>Half the lanes<\/h2>\n<p>One negative: Dell opted to implement Thunderbolt 3 using a two-lane configuration, which cuts the fancy port from a theoretical 40Gbps over four PCIe-lanes to 20Gbps. Because DisplayPort is carried separately from data, the design decision won\u2019t impact most people today. In three years, though, if you\u2019re running an external SSD RAID PCIe enclosure, Dell\u2019s choice may haunt you.<\/p>\n<h2>Performance<\/h2>\n<p>Big, heavy laptops aren\u2019t used to look \u201ccool\u201d pretending to write the Great American Science Fiction novel at the corner cafe. They\u2019re used to get work done, so performance matters. For our tests, we compared the XPS 15 to a stack of quad-core gaming laptops, last year\u2019s XPS 15, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/hp\/\">HP<\/a>\u2019s Spectre x360 15, which has an entirely different take on how to build a 15.6-inch laptop.<\/p>\n<p>The first test is Maxon\u2019s Cinebench R15. It\u2019s a free benchmark that measures a laptop\u2019s ability to render 3D modeling. It\u2019s almost a pure CPU benchmark.<\/p>\n<p>The new XPS 15\u2019s performance basically ties with that of Gigabyte\u2019s slightly larger Aero 15 gaming laptop, and it\u2019s roughly seven percent faster than last year\u2019s XPS 15. It also shows you just how much more performance you can get for multi-threaded <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">applications<\/span><\/span> compared to the quad-core Core i5 in the Inspiron 15 7000. Even thought that Core i5 is a Kaby Lake chip, the lack of Hyper-Threading really hurts it. The slowest of the pack is HP\u2019s Spectre x360 15T, but it\u2019s just a dual-core.<small class=\"credit\"><\/small><\/p>\n<h2>3DMark Sky Diver Performance<\/h2>\n<p>Gaming matters for the XPS 15, too. Due to its size and specs, it often gets lumped into the same category as gaming laptops. Running Futuremark\u2019s 3DMark Sky Diver, however, the XPS 15 delivers decent performance, but its GTX 1050 holds it back compared to the larger, heavier gaming laptops. So much for family ties: The affordable (and much, much thicker) Dell Inspiron 15 7000 elbows aside the XPS 15 as well.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"large \"><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The good news for the XPS 15 is that it\u2019s not that far away from an older MSI GS60 <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">laptop<\/span><\/span> in graphics performance. By isolating the GTX 1050 graphics chip in 3DMark Sky Diver, we can see it edging up to the performance of a GeForce GTX 970M, which is still a very decent gaming GPU.<\/p>\n<h2>Handbrake Performance<\/h2>\n<p>Moving back to the CPU, we also ran our standard encoding test using Handbrake 0.9.9 to convert a 30GB 1080p MKV file using the Android <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">Tablet<\/span><\/span> Preset. The Kaby Lake quad-core chip again comes out on top with the Gigabyte Aero 15. Both Kaby Lake quad-cores also offer a decent bump over the previous Skylake quad-cores.<\/p>\n<p>Our encoding test can take 45 minutes on a quad-core and usually reveals thermal throttling or noise issues on laptops trying to balance speed, heat, and fan noise. Our results show there\u2019s no throttling problem with the XPS 15, but we will say it gets pretty loud during heavy testing.<small class=\"credit\"><\/small><\/p>\n<h2>Battery Performance<\/h2>\n<p>Our last test is perhaps the most important of all: battery life. After all, how long you can use your <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">laptop<\/span><\/span> between charges defines true portability. For our test, we set the display brightness at an office-typical 250 nits and run down the battery by looping a 4K video, with a pair of earbuds plugged in and the laptop set to airplane mode.<\/p>\n<p>The XPS 15 gave us 331 minutes of run time. On its face, that may not seem bad considering the hardware it packs, but last year\u2019s XPS 15 configured with the smaller 65-watt-hour <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/dell\/xps-m1530-battery.htm\">Dell xps m1530 laptop battery<\/a><\/strong> pulled in 312 minutes. Remember that this year\u2019s model features a huge 97-watt-hour battery, yet we\u2019re seeing barely 20 minutes\u2019 more run time.<\/p>\n<p>Many factors determine battery life in a laptop, but we\u2019re fingering the power-hungry 4K screen\u2014even though it\u2019s an IGZO panel which should, in theory, use less power. The SSD was also considered, but Lite-On\u2019s specs show it uses just 1.3 watts when active, not enough to suck the battery down that fast.<\/p>\n<p>For comparison, the Gigabyte Aero 15, with a smaller 94-watt-hour battery, quad-core Kaby Lake, and GTX 1060, yanked down 408 minutes. The Gigabyte&#8217;s main difference (besides weight and size) is its screen: just 1920&#215;1080 in <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">resolution<\/span><\/span>, non-touch. The upshot is if you want longer run time, you may want to configure your XPS 15 with a 1080p screen.<\/p>\n<p>To be fair to the XPS 15, we should point out that if\u00a0you think you\u2019re going to encode a video or do any other CPU- or GPU-intensive tasks on any quad-core laptop, don\u2019t expect to do that on battery for more more than an hour or so. Even the 2016 MacBook Pro 15, which can play the same video for 9 hours, will\u00a0go dry quickly\u00a0under heavy CPU or GPU loads.<small class=\"credit\"><\/small><\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>The PC industry often gets flak for keeping people on the \u201ctechnology treadmill\u201d and \u201cupdating for updates&#8217; sake.&#8221; But unless you\u2019re the kind of person who wants to buy a brand-new laptop in 2017 packed full of hardware from 2015, we think the updates are worthy changes.<\/p>\n<p>Is it fast enough that you&#8217;ll run out and replace the XPS 15 you have? No, but we don\u2019t think Dell expected you to do that anyway. This XPS 15 is aimed at someone who wants a fairly compact powerhouse without back-breaking weight and size. Our only real ding is the average battery life from our test unit (your mileage may vary depending on configuration and use). For today, though, the XPS 15 is still clearly one of the top dogs of the 15.6-inch laptop pack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DELL&#8217;s XPS 15 proved iterative, no matter how small the problem remains. External, even if the owner of the first 15 XPS can not tell the difference between the old and the new. The ports are the same, the keyboard and the trackpad are the same and, well, just about external thing with the XPS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,5],"tags":[50,653],"class_list":["post-1490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battery-knowledge-base","category-laptop-batteries-tips","category-laptop-reviews","tag-dell-xps-m1330-laptop-battery","tag-dell-xps-m1530-laptop-battery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1492,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions\/1492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battaussie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}