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For many years, the ideal Windows ultrabook has been the Dell XPS 13. The newest processors could have easily been thrown into the outdated chassis by Dell, and there probably wouldn’t have been many objections. Instead, the company unveiled the XPS 13 Plus, a stunning redesign of what the ideal ultrabook ought to look like. Dell has chosen to maintain the previous model as a different alternative for individuals who aren’t entirely convinced because it is such a drastic change. We were eager to test the new model and see what life would be like with an invisible trackpad, few ports, and serious power.
One of our top Windows laptops for a while now has been the standard XPS 13. The build quality is just one of the numerous ways that it stands out. This model is still available from Dell, who has upgraded the processors to the 12th generation. The XPS 13 Plus is a different model, and from what we can see, it’s for people who want to push this XPS’s performance to the limit—for people who want the most potent performance a 13-inch computer can offer.
Even the most effective designs eventually lose their effectiveness. While Dell’s metal- and carbon-clad XPS machines still have a raw appeal, their design has remained largely unchanged for a number of years and is beginning to look a little stale. Dell has decided it’s time for a change, just as Apple with its M2 Macbook Air. The first of the new breed is the Dell XPS 13 Plus, which rips up the existing blueprints and introduces a completely new, all-metal design along with the newest Intel 12th generation processors. also you can check our article on Dell XPS 13 Plus review.
Design
Despite numerous years of reviewing laptops, we’ve never before seen anything quite as striking as the Dell XPS 13 Plus. The keyboard is what draws the eye first. It extends across the entire width of the deck with no spaces between each key. It looks great, but gives the impression that it might encourage typos. Dell has eschewed all the conventional stylings of your standard laptop, creating something that looks completely unique and far more alluring than even Apple’s MacBook Air.
In actual use, we haven’t found it to be a significant problem. The keys are large enough to readily prod when typing quickly, and while we’ve made a few mistakes while typing this review by hand, we don’t believe the total is higher than it would have been with a more conventional keyboard. Although key travel is a little too shallow for our tastes, there is a pleasant auditory click when the key is depressed.
While not highly visible in a brilliantly lighted area, a white backlight shines through the translucent text and is excellent for typing in the dark. You’ll observe that there isn’t a trackpad below the keyboard, at least not one that can be seen. Dell has positioned haptic feedback motors beneath a glass panel in place of a traditional trackpad. It acts like a touchscreen, but with vibrations replicating the feel of a classic trackpad. we weren’t thrilled with similar technology on the Surface Laptop Studio, but it feels considerably more natural here; it’s hard to believe the panel isn’t moving when you press down.
Keyboard and touchpad
As we’ve already discussed, Dell has made significant changes to the keyboard. By eliminating all the interstitial pieces, or the lattice to use a more formal term, it has managed to accomplish its tight edge-to-edge squeeze. Despite this fat-burning activity, typing never felt like a hardship, and we had no trouble switching from a conventional MacBook chiclet keyboard. That is partially attributable to the keys’ generous size, which is one factor, and partially to the fact that the keys’ feel and travel are perfect.
The move to a capacitive function key bar is something we are not as excited about. In the same way that Dell’s new strategy is effectively sold by the mechanical feel of the physical keys, its chances of success are doomed by the function key bar’s lack of feel. The troubling absence of feedback when trying to print the screen serves as an example. If Dell chooses to stick with this strategy, some haptic feedback akin to a touchpad would be a welcome addition. However, it is undeniably cool how switching the lighting on with the Fn key highlights the secondary function.
Making the touchpad invisible would initially seem to be another dubious choice that prioritized style above substance. However, in actual use, we discovered it to be very simple to use, with the space bar acting as a subtly discernible indicator of its limitations. The fact that the touchpad is of great quality and has good responsiveness and robust haptic feedback is helpful. Both a fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button and an IR camera for Windows Hello are included for biometric authentication. The fingerprint sensor was a welcome addition because the IR camera was occasionally unreliable, especially in dimly lit areas.
Dell XPS 13 Plus review: Display
The latest 12th-Gen CPUs are available in three different flavors through Dell’s XPS line, including the Core i5-1240P, Core i7-1260P, and Core i7-1280P. The intermediate option is included in our test sample, along with a staggering 32GB of RAM (you can opt for more affordable 8GB and 16GB configurations instead). The productivity performance is excellent and comfortably provides enough power to quickly complete several workloads at once.
We never experienced any slowdown during a workday, even though we might have had several web browsers open, Spotify playing music, and YouTube giving me a much-needed excuse to put off doing something. Although we thought the performance was excellent, how does Dell compare against its competitors? Our benchmark results show that it performs poorly. The Apple M2 and AMD’s most recent processor both have significantly greater multi-core speeds, making them more capable computers for demanding applications and multitasking.
Despite having the exact same processor as the Dell XPS 13 Plus, even the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro 360 2 performed better. We assume that Dell throttled performance in order to achieve a super-slim design, with the fan failing to maximise performance. You should probably avoid placing the portable on your lap because we’ve discovered that the bottom of the laptop can get noticeably warm.
Is the performance being throttled a serious problem? We would argue that it isn’t because it is still more than capable of handling typical day-to-day duties and can even manage the occasional Photoshopping. However, if your task is consistently demanding and you want the best value performance available, you’d be better off thinking about something like a MacBook Air or Huawei MateBook 16s.
Audio
Pretty sneaky Dell. we searched the body of the Dell XPS 13 Plus seeking for the speakers only to discover that two of the quad speaker arrangement are concealed under the keyboard while the remainder are located in the laptop’s base. As a result, the audio is loud, occasionally distorted, and has no trouble filling our moderately-sized living room. also you will learn our article on Dell XPS 13 Plus review.
We listened to a number of songs, including “Big Ole Freak” by Megan Thee Stallion, which had very little to no low-end. Jamiroquai’s “Time Won’t Wait” provided the best instrumental separation without sounding distorted, so it gave us the best results. We used the Waves Maxx Pro software, which provides more than 10 EQ presets for the best listening experience, to reduce some of that distortion. After experimenting with every setting, we decided on Pop because it produced the most evenly matched performance.
Dell XPS 13 Plus review: Graphics
The Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EU, used in Tiger Lake processors, is an old familiarity; it is also used in Alder Lake processors. Overall, the graphics performance is average, judging by the mixed 3DMark results. The same iGPU showed the best results in the XPS 13 9305. However, the Iris Xe is quite powerful here, although even in simple games you are usually limited to medium or high detail at best.
However, the iGPU Radeon 680M is significantly faster, including in gaming benchmarks. Iris Xe Graphics G7 is a decent choice for everyday multimedia use, as even high definition videos are not a problem. Graphics performance is only slightly reduced when running on battery power. Other GPU benchmarks are available here.
Performance
The Dell XPS 13 Plus is designed to deliver professional-level performance in a compact package, and it mostly gets the job done. We had no problem switching between dozens of tabs and Chrome, responding to multiple Slack messages, and playing Spotify in the background. My only complaint is that the laptop sometimes lost connection with our iPhone when using it as a personal hotspot, which doesn’t usually happen with our 14-inch MacBook Pro.
In the Geekbench 5.4 test, which measures overall CPU performance, the XPS 13 Plus scored a single-core score of 1,797 and a multi-core score of 10,621. And the multi-core score jumped to 11,217 when we put the XPS 13 Plus into Ultra performance mode. That beats the MacBook Air M2 (1,932/8,919) and MacBook Pro M2 (1,898/8,911). The Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 score was just 1,722/7,150. The XPS 13 Plus also performed better in the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test, which measures SSD performance. We saw an average read speed of 4,879MB/s and a write speed of 3,638MB/s.
The MacBook Air M2 only showed 2,800/2,210 MB/s and the MacBook Pro M2 showed 2,953/2794 MB/s, but that’s still lower than the Dell. The XPS 13 Plus beat the competition in our Handbrake test for video editing, which involves transcoding a 4K to 1080p file. It took Dell an average of 8 minutes and 37 seconds in normal mode, but just 6:49 in Ultra mode. The MacBook Air M2 took 7:52 and the MacBook Pro M2 (with active cooling) took 6:51. As for photo editing, the Dell XPS 13 scored 670 in the PugetBench Photoshop benchmark and 691 in Ultra mode.
The MacBook Air M2 scored higher with 821, as did the MacBook Pro M2 (817). A similar story happened with Premiere Pro for video editing. The XPS 13 Plus scored 279 in Normal mode and 327 in Ultra mode versus 452 for the Air and 552 for the MacBook Pro. As for graphics, the Dell XPS 13 Plus can run games, but not very well. For example, when we ran the Civilization VI benchmark, the system averaged 22 fps at 1080p resolution. The MacBook Air M2 showed 40 fps and the Pro M2 showed 51 fps, albeit at a lower resolution of 1440 x 900.
Dell XPS 13 Plus review: Battery life
Here’s the biggest drawback of the XPS 13 Plus: battery life – at least for the OLED model. In the Tom’s Guide battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits screen brightness, this laptop only lasted 7 hours and 34 minutes. That’s a pretty low score, and it actually matches the 7-hour score that Dell indicated in its own Netflix test for this device.
To be fair, if you opt for a regular LCD panel, you can expect a much longer run time. In fact, Dell rates the XPS 13 Plus at up to 13 hours for a Full HD+ model with a non-touch display. By comparison, the MacBook Air M2 lasted 14 hours during our battery test – almost twice as long as the OLED XPS 13 Plus – and the MacBook Pro M2 lasted more than 18 hours. The good news is that the Dell XPS 13 comes with a fast charger that promises to get the battery up to 80 percent in less than an hour.
Heat
We’ve already discussed some of the XPS 13 Plus’s losses; it’s time to discuss one of its gains: bigger fans. Dell was able to fit larger fans, which the company claims delivers 55% more airflow, by omitting the conventional Fn row. We tested it by running a full-screen film for 15 minutes while taking precise measurements at several locations on the laptop’s chassis.
It only got as hot as 85 degrees Fahrenheit on the touchpad. The undercarriage reached 103 degrees, which is higher than our 95-degree comfort threshold, while the Centre of the keyboard reached 90 degrees. But with no negative consequences, we used the notebook on our lap for more than two hours. also you will learn our article on Dell XPS 13 Plus review.
Configuration options
The Dell XPS 13 Plus starts at a fairly high price of $1,299, which is the same price as the 13-inch MacBook Pro M2. The initial configuration includes a 12th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. You’ll also get a non-touch 1080p display.
Our test model costs $1,949, which is about the same price as the $1,999 MacBook Pro 14″, with the processor upgraded to a Core i7 and up to 16GB of RAM. There’s also an OLED touchscreen display on board, which itself costs $300. There are many other XPS 13 Plus upgrades available, including 32GB of RAM, 1 or 2TB of storage, and a 4K display (not touchscreen).
Conclusion
Bring it on if this is the XPS family from Dell’s future. We really like the new keyboard deck design with its concealed touchpad, large keycaps, and capacitive touch bar, and the modernized chassis design gives the tried-and-true XPS formula a fresh new look. When you combine all of it with Intel’s 12th generation CPUs, a fantastic touchscreen display, and a potent sound system, Dell has a winner on its hands. This is a fantastic alternative, but the average battery life puts it behind the M2 MacBook Air.