**The Ultimate Showdown: Dell XPS 13 (4K) vs Surface Book 3**

In this article, we'll delve into the world of high-end laptops and compare two behemoths in the market: the Dell XPS 13 (4K) and the Surface Book 3. Both laptops are designed for heavy-duty use cases such as video editing, gaming, CAD rendering, and 3D design. But which one reigns supreme?

**Performance: The Graphics Card is King**

One of the most significant differences between these two laptops lies in their performance under load. The Dell XPS 13 (4K) boasts an Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. On the other hand, the Surface Book 3 features an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, up to 32GB of RAM, and an AMD Radeon RX Vega 10 graphics card. The Surface Book 3's graphics card is significantly more powerful, making it a clear winner in terms of performance.

For example, our 10-minute 4K edit took 41 minutes and 11 seconds to export on the XPS 13 (4K) compared to just 12 minutes and 30 seconds on the Surface Book 3. This difference is quite substantial, indicating that the Surface Book 3 is better suited for demanding tasks like video editing.

**Battery Life: A Complicated Issue**

When it comes to battery life, things get a bit more complicated. The Dell XPS 13 (4K) has a single battery with a capacity of around 40Wh, while the Surface Book 3 features two batteries split between the tablet and the base, which provides a total capacity of around 72Wh. Despite this difference, our tests revealed that the Surface Book 3 outperforms the XPS 13 (4K) in terms of battery life.

In our YouTube playback test at 50% brightness, the Dell XPS 13 (4K) consumed 22% of its battery in an hour, while the Surface Book 3 only used 11%. This is largely due to the Surface Book 3's lower resolution display and more efficient hardware. However, if you're not concerned about 4K resolution and have a tighter budget, the full HD XPS 13 model can last even longer.

**Design and Display: A Tale of Two Laptops**

When it comes to design and display, both laptops are excellent in their own ways. The Dell XPS 13 (4K) features a stunning 4K Ultra HD touchscreen display with a 15.6-inch diagonal size. However, this comes at the cost of a higher price point and reduced battery life.

The Surface Book 3, on the other hand, boasts an equally impressive display, but with a slightly smaller 13.5-inch diagonal size. The Surface Book 3 also features a more compact design, making it ideal for those who prefer a more portable laptop. Additionally, the Surface Book 3's keyboard is designed specifically for typing and creative work, making it a joy to use.

**Conclusion: Which Laptop Reigns Supreme?**

So, which laptop should you choose between these two high-end behemoths? The answer largely depends on your specific needs and preferences. If you're looking for a laptop that excels in performance, the Surface Book 3 is the clear winner. However, if you prioritize portability and a more affordable price point, the full HD XPS 13 model might be the better choice.

Ultimately, both laptops are incredibly powerful and feature-rich devices that cater to different audiences. The Dell XPS 13 (4K) is geared towards content creators and heavy-duty users who require top-notch performance, while the Surface Book 3 is designed for those who need a more versatile laptop that can handle a variety of tasks.

**Recommendation**

Based on our tests and analysis, we recommend the Surface Book 3 as the ultimate winner. Its powerful graphics card, impressive display, and excellent keyboard make it an ideal choice for creative professionals and heavy-duty users. However, if you're on a tighter budget or prioritize portability, the full HD XPS 13 model is still an excellent option.

**Final Thoughts**

In conclusion, both laptops are exceptional devices that offer unparalleled performance and features. The Dell XPS 13 (4K) boasts impressive specs and a stunning display, while the Surface Book 3 offers a more compact design, better battery life, and a powerful graphics card. Ultimately, the choice between these two laptops depends on your specific needs and preferences.

If you're looking for a laptop that excels in performance, the Surface Book 3 is the clear winner. However, if you prioritize portability and affordability, the full HD XPS 13 model might be the better choice. Either way, both laptops are incredibly powerful and feature-rich devices that are sure to satisfy even the most demanding users.

**Disclosure**

The author of this article was provided with a Dell XPS 13 (4K) and Surface Book 3 for review purposes. The opinions expressed in this article are based on our personal experience with these devices and may not reflect the manufacturer's intended use case or intended audience.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys Anton the tech chap and I've got the new 2020 Dell XPS 13 with me here alongside the brand-new Microsoft Surface book 3 so if you are looking for a new high-end 13-inch laptop which one of these guys should you buy well though I'll talk about pricing and also which one I would go for at the end of the video so first things first and just look at the difference in size between them the XPS is thinner lighter and much more compact of course the main reason the service book is so much bigger is it's a two-in-one just press this little button and about a second and a half later which is now up to three times faster than in previous service book the screen detaches and you have yourself a full 13 inch Windows tablet so the surface book gives you the flexibility of using it like a traditional clamshell laptop or you can then detach the screen and use it as a proper full Windows 10 tablet or you can even then plunk the screen on backwards like so and then you can use it in this kind of stand mode which is great for you know giving presentations or really more likely watching movies or something like that or then you can then push it right down and use it in what microsoft call draft board mode which is useful for taking notes drawing or sketching with your finger or ideally the surface pen so before we even get into the price and the specs unlike good stuff you kind of have to ask yourself would you get much use and abusing this as a tablet or you know back to front and draft board mode if you would then there's really nothing else out there that does it as well as this if not then you're paying a lot of money and also compromising on portability for this design speaking of the design though and these two really are among the best-looking laptops out there this year's XPS lineup has had the biggest design refresh in about four years and I love the new super thin bezels the taller 16 by 10 screen and overall it just looks and feels a lot more futuristic but without compromising on build quality the surface on the other hand is a bit of a chunky monkey compared to the Dell this unique fulcrum hinge does a great job of distributing the weight so the relatively top-heavy screen doesn't tip over and of course you have the flexibility of switching the screen round but you can see how much extra space the hinge uses which adds to the overall size plus with the pretty thick bezels while useful for holding onto the tablet course take away a little bit from the overall aesthetic especially you side by side with a Dell as reports on the surface book we have two USB April one USBC although it's not that I bought three a full-size SD card reader along with a headphone jack at the top and to surface charging connectors on the Dell we get two USB C Thunderbolt 3 ports a micro SD card reader and the headphone jack so having fun of all three on the XPS is more future proof and if you are one of the five people in the world who maybe plug in an external graphics card or if you're connecting into multiple high-res monitors then that fan of all three will come in handy but I think for most people at least right now having a couple of USB ports on the surface book free will be useful and means you probably won't have to bring and adapt with you which you probably still will with the Dell as for the keyboard and trackpad well it's close but I do prefer the surface book the keys have more travel and just feel a little bit more tactile and the touch pad well not the biggest is I think the best you can get on a Windows laptop second only I'd say to the MacBook Pro that's not to say there's anything wrong with the Dell the well-spaced keyboard and precision touchpad are lovely to use but between the two personally I'd pick the service book in favor of the XPS though we get both windows hello face unlocking and a fingerprint reader built into the power button whereas the surface just uses face unlocking although that tends to be what I use anyway as for speaker quality I'm actually gonna call this a tie because while they both sound pretty good the problem with the service book is it just doesn't get that loud even maxed out it's it's fine but if you're you know putting it a couple of feet away and watching a movie it's not the loudest but the quality is decent however while the XPS sounds better it's a little richer and bass yeah the sound does distort when you push it beyond 80% but in the meantime after the games console itself it's the TV you played on it'll make the biggest difference to your gaming experience but what about the webcams well this is on the XPS 13 and Elise's on the top there's also it's in a good place but it's a little bit noisy the quality isn't the best but it's passable but then the surface is in a whole different league webcams army service devices are I think the best you can get on a laptop right now and you can just see it's the exact same lighting I've just gone from the Dell and it's worlds better in terms of noise quality color and also audio quality because we get to new studio microphones on the new service book 3 so if you're doing lots of video calls web conferencing then the surface is deathly the best option alright let's talk about these screens and they both look incredible now there's actually three options with the Dell a full HD non touch full HD touchscreen and then the one I have here the 4k touch screen it's a little bit simple with the surface book there's only one option really and that's this 3000 by 2000 touch screen so we're actually getting a 3 by 2 aspect ratio here 16 by 10 on the XPS I like both of them and I prefer both these aspect ratios to the normal 16 by 9 but anyway I think the surface book 3 sort of 3 K by 2 K res is a good halfway house between Full HD and 4k so it's a little bit sharper but not you know massively battery draining and that's can on the issue I have with the Dell is the 20 P is fine but an amazing but then I think 4k is a little bit overkill and just completely destroys II of battery life so between the two I think this is a good balance and it's a similar approach to what Apple does with their matte box and also far away with their mate books but color accuracy is also important and while they're both more than good enough first semi-pro editing the 4k XPS actually comes out on top I must admit I do prefer watching movies and shows on the XPS though it's sharper we get smaller black bars and it even supports Dolby vision HDR now the next question is performance which one of these is faster well this is where the surface book 3 shines as well they both pack the same processors up to the i7 1065 g7 but the big difference is the surface book 3 packs in a GTX 1650 max cube graphics card so we get a dedicated Jeep you hear versus the Intel I was plus chip in the XPS which can make a huge difference we also get up to 32 gigs of RAM on both and up to 2 terabytes of storage on the Dell and one terabyte on the surface so these are the specs for the models I have with me here although my XPS only has 16 gigs ram versus they two on the surface so bear that in mind but let's put them to the test and in Cinebench are 20 the surface is 11 a half percent faster however in Geekbench 5 there was only a 1% difference between both a single core and multi-core scores but then testing the graphics in Geekbench 5 and we see a whopping three times boost in performance thanks to the dedicated graphics card so how does this translate into real life well first let's jump into a couple of games and as you might expect the surface blows the XPS out of the water in Rainbow six siege you have full HD Plus with high settings the surface averaged is smooth 88 frames per second versus a barely playable 27 FPS on the Dell in Call of Duty playing war zone with medium settings I have reached 54 FPS on the surface whereas the Dell just kept crashing on the main menu so you can get away with a bit of gaming on the surface book 3 but really these laptops are designed for creators and professionals so fouling up a bit of Premiere Pro and actually scrubbing for the timeline and editing is a similar experience on both as this is mainly using the CPU so for a 4k edit I'd recommend keeping the preview on half or a quarter res to keep things smooth but it's the export time where the graphics card with its cuda cores really comes into play my 10-minute 4k edit took 41 minutes and 11 seconds to export on the XPS 13 vs. 12 minutes 30 on the service book 3 that's a huge difference so I think the results are pretty clear that if you are thinking about doing some gaming or you know using this more likely for a video editing maybe a little bit of CAD rendering or 3d design or digital drawing then the graphics card and the surface book 3 is gonna make a big difference under load the surface State impressively cool throughout although the warmest points were underneath and on the back of the screen whereas I measured a peak of 51 degrees Celsius on the keyboard of the Dell that's hot and actually got quite uncomfortable to use especially if you're trying to type or use the WASD Keys if you're doing something like gaming so this is the clear performance winner but what about when it comes to a battery life well again this is where things get a little bit complicated because if you do go for the T P the Felicity version of the XPS 13 you're probably gonna get about double the battery that you will with this 4k version but comparing the 4k one I have here with the surface book one hour of YouTube at 50% brightness use 22% of the battery in the Dell versus just 11% on the surface so because this actually has two batteries split between the tablet and the base plus it's a lower than 4k resolution we get much better battery life the 4k Dell gets me about 5 hours of use versus around 8 and a half hours of my experience on the surface if you're not first on 4k and also if you know maybe on a tighter budget then actually the full HD XPS 13 will last the longest so by this point in the video hopefully you have a better idea of which laptop would suit you better but for most of us it's all going to come down to the price so the new XPS 13 starts that are pretty reasonable thousand dollars in the US but here in the UK we miss out on that super cheap i3 model and instead the entry-level is an a5 with double storage at 1400 pounds honestly Dell store is such a pain in the ass because there's huge differences between the UK and US SKUs available you can also sometimes customize it on the US store but you can't in the UK so getting like full I expects and models is very tricky but to get the model I have here with an i7 16 gigs of ram 256 storage and the 4k screen it'll say you back eighteen hundred dollars or seventeen hundred and fifty pounds whereas the surface book 3 starts from a whopping sixteen hundred dollars the same in pounds and actually that base model misses out on the graphics card which i think is pretty important so for the model I would recommend it'll set you back two thousand pounds or two thousand dollars which is a couple of hundred more than Adele and I have to say it's almost unforgivable for a two grand laptop to come with just 256 gigs of storage so undoubtedly these are both very high-end and also very expensive laptops but the question is which one should you buy well I think for most people the XPS 13 with the full HD screen is the best 13news laptop that you can buy right now it's also a lot more compact on the surface and a fair bit cheaper I would say the 4k model is a bit overkill though it harms a battery and it makes it a lot more expensive however if you're planning to use your laptop as a proper editing semi workstation or little studio then while it is relatively a bit bulky and very expensive think the service book 3 is the most versatile 13 each laptop you can buy plus it has the best webcam great battery life the optional surface pen is ideal for artists and designers and crucially we get that graphics card plus unlike the Dell it never gets too hot it's a genuinely lovely laptop it's just a shame about the tight storage so personally I would go with the book 3 but they're both incredible laptops you really can't go wrong with either and they are slowly targeting different audiences this is a little bit more about performance whereas there's sort of favors portability but if you want to find out more I put links in them both in the description but how about you which one of these would you go for or know the above let me know in the comments below thank you so much for watching guys you really do hope you enjoy the video and if you'd like to see more from me then don't forget to hit that little subscribe button below and ding the notification bell and I catch you next time right here on the texturehey guys Anton the tech chap and I've got the new 2020 Dell XPS 13 with me here alongside the brand-new Microsoft Surface book 3 so if you are looking for a new high-end 13-inch laptop which one of these guys should you buy well though I'll talk about pricing and also which one I would go for at the end of the video so first things first and just look at the difference in size between them the XPS is thinner lighter and much more compact of course the main reason the service book is so much bigger is it's a two-in-one just press this little button and about a second and a half later which is now up to three times faster than in previous service book the screen detaches and you have yourself a full 13 inch Windows tablet so the surface book gives you the flexibility of using it like a traditional clamshell laptop or you can then detach the screen and use it as a proper full Windows 10 tablet or you can even then plunk the screen on backwards like so and then you can use it in this kind of stand mode which is great for you know giving presentations or really more likely watching movies or something like that or then you can then push it right down and use it in what microsoft call draft board mode which is useful for taking notes drawing or sketching with your finger or ideally the surface pen so before we even get into the price and the specs unlike good stuff you kind of have to ask yourself would you get much use and abusing this as a tablet or you know back to front and draft board mode if you would then there's really nothing else out there that does it as well as this if not then you're paying a lot of money and also compromising on portability for this design speaking of the design though and these two really are among the best-looking laptops out there this year's XPS lineup has had the biggest design refresh in about four years and I love the new super thin bezels the taller 16 by 10 screen and overall it just looks and feels a lot more futuristic but without compromising on build quality the surface on the other hand is a bit of a chunky monkey compared to the Dell this unique fulcrum hinge does a great job of distributing the weight so the relatively top-heavy screen doesn't tip over and of course you have the flexibility of switching the screen round but you can see how much extra space the hinge uses which adds to the overall size plus with the pretty thick bezels while useful for holding onto the tablet course take away a little bit from the overall aesthetic especially you side by side with a Dell as reports on the surface book we have two USB April one USBC although it's not that I bought three a full-size SD card reader along with a headphone jack at the top and to surface charging connectors on the Dell we get two USB C Thunderbolt 3 ports a micro SD card reader and the headphone jack so having fun of all three on the XPS is more future proof and if you are one of the five people in the world who maybe plug in an external graphics card or if you're connecting into multiple high-res monitors then that fan of all three will come in handy but I think for most people at least right now having a couple of USB ports on the surface book free will be useful and means you probably won't have to bring and adapt with you which you probably still will with the Dell as for the keyboard and trackpad well it's close but I do prefer the surface book the keys have more travel and just feel a little bit more tactile and the touch pad well not the biggest is I think the best you can get on a Windows laptop second only I'd say to the MacBook Pro that's not to say there's anything wrong with the Dell the well-spaced keyboard and precision touchpad are lovely to use but between the two personally I'd pick the service book in favor of the XPS though we get both windows hello face unlocking and a fingerprint reader built into the power button whereas the surface just uses face unlocking although that tends to be what I use anyway as for speaker quality I'm actually gonna call this a tie because while they both sound pretty good the problem with the service book is it just doesn't get that loud even maxed out it's it's fine but if you're you know putting it a couple of feet away and watching a movie it's not the loudest but the quality is decent however while the XPS sounds better it's a little richer and bass yeah the sound does distort when you push it beyond 80% but in the meantime after the games console itself it's the TV you played on it'll make the biggest difference to your gaming experience but what about the webcams well this is on the XPS 13 and Elise's on the top there's also it's in a good place but it's a little bit noisy the quality isn't the best but it's passable but then the surface is in a whole different league webcams army service devices are I think the best you can get on a laptop right now and you can just see it's the exact same lighting I've just gone from the Dell and it's worlds better in terms of noise quality color and also audio quality because we get to new studio microphones on the new service book 3 so if you're doing lots of video calls web conferencing then the surface is deathly the best option alright let's talk about these screens and they both look incredible now there's actually three options with the Dell a full HD non touch full HD touchscreen and then the one I have here the 4k touch screen it's a little bit simple with the surface book there's only one option really and that's this 3000 by 2000 touch screen so we're actually getting a 3 by 2 aspect ratio here 16 by 10 on the XPS I like both of them and I prefer both these aspect ratios to the normal 16 by 9 but anyway I think the surface book 3 sort of 3 K by 2 K res is a good halfway house between Full HD and 4k so it's a little bit sharper but not you know massively battery draining and that's can on the issue I have with the Dell is the 20 P is fine but an amazing but then I think 4k is a little bit overkill and just completely destroys II of battery life so between the two I think this is a good balance and it's a similar approach to what Apple does with their matte box and also far away with their mate books but color accuracy is also important and while they're both more than good enough first semi-pro editing the 4k XPS actually comes out on top I must admit I do prefer watching movies and shows on the XPS though it's sharper we get smaller black bars and it even supports Dolby vision HDR now the next question is performance which one of these is faster well this is where the surface book 3 shines as well they both pack the same processors up to the i7 1065 g7 but the big difference is the surface book 3 packs in a GTX 1650 max cube graphics card so we get a dedicated Jeep you hear versus the Intel I was plus chip in the XPS which can make a huge difference we also get up to 32 gigs of RAM on both and up to 2 terabytes of storage on the Dell and one terabyte on the surface so these are the specs for the models I have with me here although my XPS only has 16 gigs ram versus they two on the surface so bear that in mind but let's put them to the test and in Cinebench are 20 the surface is 11 a half percent faster however in Geekbench 5 there was only a 1% difference between both a single core and multi-core scores but then testing the graphics in Geekbench 5 and we see a whopping three times boost in performance thanks to the dedicated graphics card so how does this translate into real life well first let's jump into a couple of games and as you might expect the surface blows the XPS out of the water in Rainbow six siege you have full HD Plus with high settings the surface averaged is smooth 88 frames per second versus a barely playable 27 FPS on the Dell in Call of Duty playing war zone with medium settings I have reached 54 FPS on the surface whereas the Dell just kept crashing on the main menu so you can get away with a bit of gaming on the surface book 3 but really these laptops are designed for creators and professionals so fouling up a bit of Premiere Pro and actually scrubbing for the timeline and editing is a similar experience on both as this is mainly using the CPU so for a 4k edit I'd recommend keeping the preview on half or a quarter res to keep things smooth but it's the export time where the graphics card with its cuda cores really comes into play my 10-minute 4k edit took 41 minutes and 11 seconds to export on the XPS 13 vs. 12 minutes 30 on the service book 3 that's a huge difference so I think the results are pretty clear that if you are thinking about doing some gaming or you know using this more likely for a video editing maybe a little bit of CAD rendering or 3d design or digital drawing then the graphics card and the surface book 3 is gonna make a big difference under load the surface State impressively cool throughout although the warmest points were underneath and on the back of the screen whereas I measured a peak of 51 degrees Celsius on the keyboard of the Dell that's hot and actually got quite uncomfortable to use especially if you're trying to type or use the WASD Keys if you're doing something like gaming so this is the clear performance winner but what about when it comes to a battery life well again this is where things get a little bit complicated because if you do go for the T P the Felicity version of the XPS 13 you're probably gonna get about double the battery that you will with this 4k version but comparing the 4k one I have here with the surface book one hour of YouTube at 50% brightness use 22% of the battery in the Dell versus just 11% on the surface so because this actually has two batteries split between the tablet and the base plus it's a lower than 4k resolution we get much better battery life the 4k Dell gets me about 5 hours of use versus around 8 and a half hours of my experience on the surface if you're not first on 4k and also if you know maybe on a tighter budget then actually the full HD XPS 13 will last the longest so by this point in the video hopefully you have a better idea of which laptop would suit you better but for most of us it's all going to come down to the price so the new XPS 13 starts that are pretty reasonable thousand dollars in the US but here in the UK we miss out on that super cheap i3 model and instead the entry-level is an a5 with double storage at 1400 pounds honestly Dell store is such a pain in the ass because there's huge differences between the UK and US SKUs available you can also sometimes customize it on the US store but you can't in the UK so getting like full I expects and models is very tricky but to get the model I have here with an i7 16 gigs of ram 256 storage and the 4k screen it'll say you back eighteen hundred dollars or seventeen hundred and fifty pounds whereas the surface book 3 starts from a whopping sixteen hundred dollars the same in pounds and actually that base model misses out on the graphics card which i think is pretty important so for the model I would recommend it'll set you back two thousand pounds or two thousand dollars which is a couple of hundred more than Adele and I have to say it's almost unforgivable for a two grand laptop to come with just 256 gigs of storage so undoubtedly these are both very high-end and also very expensive laptops but the question is which one should you buy well I think for most people the XPS 13 with the full HD screen is the best 13news laptop that you can buy right now it's also a lot more compact on the surface and a fair bit cheaper I would say the 4k model is a bit overkill though it harms a battery and it makes it a lot more expensive however if you're planning to use your laptop as a proper editing semi workstation or little studio then while it is relatively a bit bulky and very expensive think the service book 3 is the most versatile 13 each laptop you can buy plus it has the best webcam great battery life the optional surface pen is ideal for artists and designers and crucially we get that graphics card plus unlike the Dell it never gets too hot it's a genuinely lovely laptop it's just a shame about the tight storage so personally I would go with the book 3 but they're both incredible laptops you really can't go wrong with either and they are slowly targeting different audiences this is a little bit more about performance whereas there's sort of favors portability but if you want to find out more I put links in them both in the description but how about you which one of these would you go for or know the above let me know in the comments below thank you so much for watching guys you really do hope you enjoy the video and if you'd like to see more from me then don't forget to hit that little subscribe button below and ding the notification bell and I catch you next time right here on the texture\n"