Dell XPS 13 (2018) - Hands On Review

The 13-inch Dell XPS 13 is now available with a new rose gold exterior option, in addition to the black and silver models that were previously available. The white model features a slightly different material than before, which was designed to be more durable and resistant to wear over time. This new material also gives the laptop a slightly stiffer feel when touched.

The overall design of the XPS 13 is still very similar to its predecessors, but it does feel more modern in the hand due to the reduction in size. The laptop's dimensions are actually reduced by 0.46 inches, making it feel lighter and more compact. Despite this reduction in size, the laptop still weighs a substantial two point six seven pounds.

One of the most notable changes between this model and its predecessor is the ports. The XPS 13 now only features USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports, which may be a disappointment for those who require traditional USB-A ports. However, Dell does include a USB-C to Type-A adapter in the box, which should help alleviate this issue.

The keyboard on the new XPS 13 is still one of the best in its class, offering excellent performance and feel. The touchpad is also very smooth and responsive, making it easy to navigate the Windows 10 operating system using gestures. In terms of display options, both the standard 1080p non-touch display and the optional 4K touchscreen are available. While the 4K option offers superior picture quality, we recommend opting for the 1080p model instead, as it is less expensive and offers similar performance, plus better battery life.

The new XPS 13 features a Core i5 8250 processor, which provides excellent performance for general use and most productivity tasks. However, if you require more processing power, there is also an option to upgrade to a Core i7 processor on the higher-end models. One of the notable improvements over previous generations is the new cooling system, which uses Gore fabric to help direct heat away from the processor. This results in improved performance under heavy loads and reduced wear on the components.

In terms of gaming performance, the XPS 13 is not intended for serious gaming, but it can still handle simple games like Rocket League at 1080p and medium quality settings around 30 frames per second. However, battery life is one of the rare downgrades from previous models, with a smaller battery in this laptop resulting in slightly reduced runtime.

Overall, the new XPS 13 remains our top choice for a 13-inch laptop due to its excellent performance, good battery life, and attractive design. While it may not have all the bells and whistles of some other competitors, including touchscreen capabilities on its base model, we believe that it offers the best overall package in this class.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enDell's last XPS 13 released in 2015 easily took the throne as the best 13 inch laptop and has held it ever since but the crown has become heavy as of late and the now three year old design was in need of a refresh thankfully dell has released a new XPS 13 just in time now the most obvious difference is this new XPS 13 is now available and white with a rose gold exterior in addition to the black and silver model that was previously available now this new interior actually is a slightly different material than before the black one is still the same as before but the white they wanted to make sure that it would wear well over time so it's a little bit more tough than the black material isn't it doesn't give as much when you touch it other than that this new model although it might look very similar in overall dimensions is actually 0.46 inches thick which is a pretty substantial reduction over the last one it weighs two point six seven pounds which is about the same as before now while the overall look is very similar to before it does feel a lot more modern in the hand due to that reduction in the size of the laptop one big difference you'll notice between this and the older model is the ports this one is going all in on USB C and Thunderbolt 3 so you're gonna get two over here one on the other side there is no USB a on this laptop sorry for those of you who want that however Dell does have mercy and they do ship a USB C to type a adapter in the Box now thinning the XPS 13 actually hasn't compromised the keyboard it's still one of the best in its class we also really like the touchpad although it's a little bit small as you can see here it is a very smooth and responsive surface and it does a great job with Windows 10 touch gestures now there are two displays available the standard one is a 1080p non-touch display and you can upgrade that to a 4k touchscreen we do wish touch was standard even on the tani VP model a lot of competitors do offer that now both of the Blaz are very competitive with all the best competitors in this class on contrast color actually color gamut they don't necessarily beat all the competitors in any specific area but overall it's very well-rounded and it does look great now we actually recommend the 1080p display option to most buyers it is less expensive by most metrics it looks just as good as the 4k display and it actually allows for a better battery life so that's just really a win-win-win all around we can only really recommend the 4k if you're really obsessive about watching 4k content on a laptop and we imagine the market for that is pretty small now a Core i5 8250 you processor is standard on the new Dell XPS 13 you can still get the core i3 but only on the old model you can upgrade that processor to a core i7 if you want a little extra performance overall this is a very very quick laptop those new Core i5 and i7 eighth gens are quad core so they perform well by just about any metric and any sort of software you throw at them we actually saw that the XPS 13 seems to have a little bit of an edge against most competitors with the same processor we think that might be because of the new cooling system which makes some use of Gore fabric to help direct the heat inside of it the system doesn't seem the strain as much under heavy load and as a result if you're doing something like video encoding or some other longer tasks that really hammers the processor this laptop seems to get it done quicker than a lot of its competitors now the hard drive is also quicker although in read speeds it does perform a lot better than in write speeds and gaming performance really isn't what this is meant for but if you want to play a fairly simple game like rocket League you can do that at 1080p and medium quality settings around 30 frames per second now battery life is one of the rare down grades between the previous XPS 13 and this one you go down to 52 watt our unit in this laptop a little bit smaller than before now thankfully battery life isn't hurt too much by that the 1080p model gets up to 13 and a half hours of battery life in our video loop while the 4k model gets about ten and a half hours and you know that three hour difference is something that you would probably in everyday use overtime so that's it's another reason that we recommend at the 1080p version of the XPS 13 overall the XPS 13 is still our favorite 13-inch laptop has great performance good battery life and it looks fantastic our only real complaint is that it's not a two-line it doesn't do any fancy it doesn't even have a touchscreen in its most basic version so at $1,000 there are competitors that offer that and if you're attracted to that you might go for them instead still if you want performance and portability in an old-school clamshell laptop the XPS 13 is the PC to buyDell's last XPS 13 released in 2015 easily took the throne as the best 13 inch laptop and has held it ever since but the crown has become heavy as of late and the now three year old design was in need of a refresh thankfully dell has released a new XPS 13 just in time now the most obvious difference is this new XPS 13 is now available and white with a rose gold exterior in addition to the black and silver model that was previously available now this new interior actually is a slightly different material than before the black one is still the same as before but the white they wanted to make sure that it would wear well over time so it's a little bit more tough than the black material isn't it doesn't give as much when you touch it other than that this new model although it might look very similar in overall dimensions is actually 0.46 inches thick which is a pretty substantial reduction over the last one it weighs two point six seven pounds which is about the same as before now while the overall look is very similar to before it does feel a lot more modern in the hand due to that reduction in the size of the laptop one big difference you'll notice between this and the older model is the ports this one is going all in on USB C and Thunderbolt 3 so you're gonna get two over here one on the other side there is no USB a on this laptop sorry for those of you who want that however Dell does have mercy and they do ship a USB C to type a adapter in the Box now thinning the XPS 13 actually hasn't compromised the keyboard it's still one of the best in its class we also really like the touchpad although it's a little bit small as you can see here it is a very smooth and responsive surface and it does a great job with Windows 10 touch gestures now there are two displays available the standard one is a 1080p non-touch display and you can upgrade that to a 4k touchscreen we do wish touch was standard even on the tani VP model a lot of competitors do offer that now both of the Blaz are very competitive with all the best competitors in this class on contrast color actually color gamut they don't necessarily beat all the competitors in any specific area but overall it's very well-rounded and it does look great now we actually recommend the 1080p display option to most buyers it is less expensive by most metrics it looks just as good as the 4k display and it actually allows for a better battery life so that's just really a win-win-win all around we can only really recommend the 4k if you're really obsessive about watching 4k content on a laptop and we imagine the market for that is pretty small now a Core i5 8250 you processor is standard on the new Dell XPS 13 you can still get the core i3 but only on the old model you can upgrade that processor to a core i7 if you want a little extra performance overall this is a very very quick laptop those new Core i5 and i7 eighth gens are quad core so they perform well by just about any metric and any sort of software you throw at them we actually saw that the XPS 13 seems to have a little bit of an edge against most competitors with the same processor we think that might be because of the new cooling system which makes some use of Gore fabric to help direct the heat inside of it the system doesn't seem the strain as much under heavy load and as a result if you're doing something like video encoding or some other longer tasks that really hammers the processor this laptop seems to get it done quicker than a lot of its competitors now the hard drive is also quicker although in read speeds it does perform a lot better than in write speeds and gaming performance really isn't what this is meant for but if you want to play a fairly simple game like rocket League you can do that at 1080p and medium quality settings around 30 frames per second now battery life is one of the rare down grades between the previous XPS 13 and this one you go down to 52 watt our unit in this laptop a little bit smaller than before now thankfully battery life isn't hurt too much by that the 1080p model gets up to 13 and a half hours of battery life in our video loop while the 4k model gets about ten and a half hours and you know that three hour difference is something that you would probably in everyday use overtime so that's it's another reason that we recommend at the 1080p version of the XPS 13 overall the XPS 13 is still our favorite 13-inch laptop has great performance good battery life and it looks fantastic our only real complaint is that it's not a two-line it doesn't do any fancy it doesn't even have a touchscreen in its most basic version so at $1,000 there are competitors that offer that and if you're attracted to that you might go for them instead still if you want performance and portability in an old-school clamshell laptop the XPS 13 is the PC to buyDell's last XPS 13 released in 2015 easily took the throne as the best 13 inch laptop and has held it ever since but the crown has become heavy as of late and the now three year old design was in need of a refresh thankfully dell has released a new XPS 13 just in time now the most obvious difference is this new XPS 13 is now available and white with a rose gold exterior in addition to the black and silver model that was previously available now this new interior actually is a slightly different material than before the black one is still the same as before but the white they wanted to make sure that it would wear well over time so it's a little bit more tough than the black material isn't it doesn't give as much when you touch it other than that this new model although it might look very similar in overall dimensions is actually 0.46 inches thick which is a pretty substantial reduction over the last one it weighs two point six seven pounds which is about the same as before now while the overall look is very similar to before it does feel a lot more modern in the hand due to that reduction in the size of the laptop one big difference you'll notice between this and the older model is the ports this one is going all in on USB C and Thunderbolt 3 so you're gonna get two over here one on the other side there is no USB a on this laptop sorry for those of you who want that however Dell does have mercy and they do ship a USB C to type a adapter in the Box now thinning the XPS 13 actually hasn't compromised the keyboard it's still one of the best in its class we also really like the touchpad although it's a little bit small as you can see here it is a very smooth and responsive surface and it does a great job with Windows 10 touch gestures now there are two displays available the standard one is a 1080p non-touch display and you can upgrade that to a 4k touchscreen we do wish touch was standard even on the tani VP model a lot of competitors do offer that now both of the Blaz are very competitive with all the best competitors in this class on contrast color actually color gamut they don't necessarily beat all the competitors in any specific area but overall it's very well-rounded and it does look great now we actually recommend the 1080p display option to most buyers it is less expensive by most metrics it looks just as good as the 4k display and it actually allows for a better battery life so that's just really a win-win-win all around we can only really recommend the 4k if you're really obsessive about watching 4k content on a laptop and we imagine the market for that is pretty small now a Core i5 8250 you processor is standard on the new Dell XPS 13 you can still get the core i3 but only on the old model you can upgrade that processor to a core i7 if you want a little extra performance overall this is a very very quick laptop those new Core i5 and i7 eighth gens are quad core so they perform well by just about any metric and any sort of software you throw at them we actually saw that the XPS 13 seems to have a little bit of an edge against most competitors with the same processor we think that might be because of the new cooling system which makes some use of Gore fabric to help direct the heat inside of it the system doesn't seem the strain as much under heavy load and as a result if you're doing something like video encoding or some other longer tasks that really hammers the processor this laptop seems to get it done quicker than a lot of its competitors now the hard drive is also quicker although in read speeds it does perform a lot better than in write speeds and gaming performance really isn't what this is meant for but if you want to play a fairly simple game like rocket League you can do that at 1080p and medium quality settings around 30 frames per second now battery life is one of the rare down grades between the previous XPS 13 and this one you go down to 52 watt our unit in this laptop a little bit smaller than before now thankfully battery life isn't hurt too much by that the 1080p model gets up to 13 and a half hours of battery life in our video loop while the 4k model gets about ten and a half hours and you know that three hour difference is something that you would probably in everyday use overtime so that's it's another reason that we recommend at the 1080p version of the XPS 13 overall the XPS 13 is still our favorite 13-inch laptop has great performance good battery life and it looks fantastic our only real complaint is that it's not a two-line it doesn't do any fancy it doesn't even have a touchscreen in its most basic version so at $1,000 there are competitors that offer that and if you're attracted to that you might go for them instead still if you want performance and portability in an old-school clamshell laptop the XPS 13 is the PC to buy\n"