Dell XPS 13 Plus 9320 review

After a few years of comparatively minor spec updates, Dell is again with a totally redesigned ultrabook providing within the Dell XPS 13 Plus. I don’t suppose it’s an excessive amount of of a spoiler to say on the outset that it’s downright beautiful.

That includes a real edge-to-edge keyboard, tiny show bezel, an invisible haptic touchpad, and capacitive perform keys, it’s a daring new aesthetic that largely pays off. However can Dell preserve its admirable fame and produce an ultrabook that performs in addition to it seems to be?

The Dell XPS line has at all times been sizzling on efficiency (and infrequently simply plain sizzling), so we received’t contemplate it job executed until the brand new XPS 13 Plus is as aggressive in use as it’s simple on the attention.

Design & Construct

• Beautiful type
• Skinny and lightweight
• Restricted ports

I’ve given the sport away considerably, however you possibly can already see the proof from the photographs. The Dell XPS 13 Plus is a little bit of a looker.

Dell’s new design pushes the keyboard proper as much as the sting of the body, leaving it feeling good and spacious while the laptop computer itself feels pleasingly compact. I’m much less eager concerning the change to a capacitive perform key bar, however we’ll cope with that in additional depth within the related part. Superficially, at the least, it’s nice.

The XPS 13 Plus isn’t spectacularly slim or light-weight for a 13in laptop computer, however it’s not even near being hefty both. At 15.28mm it’s just a little slimmer than the Huawei MateBook X Professional, and at 1.26kg it’s just a little lighter, too. 

One different level price noting right here is that the OLED mannequin is barely heavier than the LCD. In the event you’re after a extra compact OLED laptop computer, you may need to take a look at the Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED.

Construct high quality is nearly unimpeachable, with a stable metallic body and Dell’s signature soft-touch end combining rigidity and luxury. The latter clean end across the keyboard, mixed with the sunshine gray shade of the typing floor, does appear to grubby up with greasy prints fairly rapidly, nevertheless.

Sadly, Dell hasn’t used this revamp to rethink its port provision. If something it’s gotten worse, with simply the 2 USB-C ports, one both facet. Each help Thunderbolt 4’s top-notch speeds, however there’s no microSD slot and no USB-A, neither is there even a 3.5mm jack for plugging headphones in.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

For an ultrabook with Professional pretensions (although maybe tellingly not a Professional identify), it’s a little bit of a disgrace and also you’ll nearly definitely want a USB-C hub.

I additionally discovered that the show hinge was weighted just a little an excessive amount of on the heavy facet, which means the entire laptop computer would slide again after I tried to open it one-handed on my desk. It’s a small element, however a significant one in a premium laptop computer that you just’re going to be opening and shutting tons of of instances all year long.

Keyboard & Trackpad

• Edge-to-edge keyboard
• Capacitive perform bar
• Invisible haptic touchpad

As we’ve already mentioned, Dell has actually modified issues up within the keyboard division. It has achieved its tight edge-to-edge squeeze by eradicating all of the in-betweeny bits, or the lattice to provide it a extra official time period. 

Regardless of this fat-trimming train, typing by no means felt like a chore, and I used to be in a position to transition from a basic MacBook chiclet keyboard with none concern in any respect. A part of that’s due to the dimensions of the keys – they’re good and huge – and a part of it’s as a result of the texture and journey of the keys are each spot on. 

Jon Mundy / Foundry

I’m much less eager concerning the change to a capacitive perform key bar. Simply because the mechanical really feel of the bodily keys actually sells Dell’s new strategy, so too does the dearth of really feel within the perform key bar scupper its possibilities of success. The disconcerting lack of suggestions when trying to Print Display illustrates the purpose. 

Some touchpad-like haptics could be a worthy addition if Dell decides to stay with this strategy. It’s undeniably cool how urgent the Fn key switches the lighting to spotlight the secondary perform, although.

The choice to make the touchpad invisible would seem like one other questionable resolution at first, seemingly favouring type over substance. In apply, nevertheless, I discovered it to be surprisingly simple to function, with the house bar serving as a delicate indicator of its limits. It helps that the touchpad itself is of top of the range, with respectable responsiveness and powerful haptic suggestions.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

For biometric authentication, you get each a fingerprint sensor mounted within the energy button, and an IR digicam that prompts once you elevate the lid for Home windows Hey. I used to be glad of the fingerprint sensor provision, because the IR digicam proved to be just a little hit or miss, particularly in decrease lighting.

It’s a disgrace to see a mere 720p webcam right here. Evidently, that skinny bezel has come at a price, and that value is a suitably sharp picture of your mug throughout Zoom calls.

Display & Audio system

• 13.3in OLED contact panel
• LCD fashions accessible
• All 60Hz
• 4 audio system

I used to be despatched the range-topping mannequin for this evaluation, which comes with a 13.4in 3456 x 2160 (aka 3.5K) OLED contact show. You may as well specify the XPS 13 Plus with an Full HD+ LCD or a 4K LCD, with the previous additionally coming in a non-touch specification.

All show choices are 60Hz, so this isn’t a laptop computer that’s significantly amenable to gaming or coping with excessive body price video content material. It’s not an enormous concern by any means, although it’s price noting that the Huawei MateBook X Professional (2022) does offer you a 90Hz show (albeit solely LCD), so it’s a slight disgrace to see Dell not providing an identical choice someplace in its new line.

After all, it might want to deal with the XPS 13 Plus’s battery life points earlier than it may entertain such an concept however we’ll get to that in good time.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

The display on this OLED mannequin is a pleasure to behold. It’s packed stuffed with pixels and is suitably colour-accurate, with an sRGB gamut protection of 94.2% in opposition to a gamut quantity of 98.6%, and a median Delta E of 1.35 (the nearer to 1 the higher). HDR is supported, although it’s off by default, so that you’ll have to activate it within the Settings menu. Be warned although, battery life will take a success.

It’s not the brightest show available on the market, however a peak brightness of round 450 nits ought to be completely ample for regular indoor situations and a few out of doors. It’s a touchscreen panel, too, so you possibly can go hands-on with Home windows 11 if that’s your most popular technique of interplay.

On the audio facet, Dell has offered two tweeters and two 2W audio system. They’re clear and loud, if just a little missing in depth and low finish punch in comparison with the MacBooks of this world.

Specs & Efficiency

• Twelfth-gen Intel
• No discrete GPU choice
• As much as 32GB RAM
• As much as 2TB SSD

Dell has outfitted the highest mannequin of its new XPS 13 Plus vary with a 12-core Intel Core i7-1260P, with built-in Intel Iris Xe graphics. There isn’t a discrete GPU choice. This range-topping mannequin additionally offers you a beneficiant 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. 

It’s a succesful sufficient set-up for a productivity-focused 13-incher, or at the least it’s when the laptop computer is working suitably cool. Sadly, like its predecessors and significantly the early 2020 mannequin, beginning up extra intensive duties like video games, working a number of net tabs and apps, or just plugging the XPS 13 Plus in will rapidly ramp the fan up because the machine grows just a little toasty.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

The fan noise isn’t too obnoxious, however it’s nearly continuously there, even throughout comparatively gentle utilization. 

In benchmarking phrases, the XPS 13 Plus performs nicely in opposition to a few of its rivals, completely smashing the likes of the Huawei Matebook X Professional and the Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED in Geekbench 5 multi-core phrases, and getting impressively near the MacBook Air M2. 

In PCMark 10, which makes an attempt to simulate sensible workloads, it’s aggressive with the Huawei MateBook X Professional (late 2022), and it falls just a little in need of the Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED (2022). It’s an identical story with the GPU-focused 3DMark Evening Raid check.

Battery Life & Charging

• 7+ hours video playback
• Worse with HDR
• Even worse for blended utilization

In our commonplace looping 720p video check, the XPS 13 Plus solely lasted 7 hours and 14 minutes, which falls greater than 4 hours in need of the Huawei Matebook X Professional. You’ll be able to’t pin this poor end result fully on the OLED show offered right here both, because the Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED lasted nicely over twice as lengthy in the identical check. 

That is with the default set-up of Balanced battery mode, and with HDR switched off. Flick that HDR change on for the complete gamut of show colors, and the looping video end result dips to five hours 28 minutes.

In sensible phrases, the straightforward truth is you received’t be capable of get via a full working day with the Dell XPS 13 Plus on a single cost. I discovered {that a} morning of largely Chrome-based work duties (phrase processing in GDocs, a podcast, and a number of other different lively tabs) with some gentle communication app utilization (WhatsApp, Mail, and Slack) and a few 10-minute YouTube movies emptied a full tank in 3 hours and 40 minutes.

That’s a little bit of an issue in a compact laptop computer that’s in any other case constructed for comfy long-term utilization, and I’d implore Dell to contemplate upping its battery life recreation in future revisions.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

See also  Asus ROG Ally review

With half-hour of charging from the equipped 60W charger, the XPS 13 Plus received it as much as 25%. That’s not one of many faster charging charges we’ve come throughout in a laptop computer of this type. The Huawei Matebook X Professional will hit double that proportion utilizing its considerably sooner 90W charger, although that’s an exceptionally speedy end result.

Software program

• Home windows 11 House
• Vary of pre-installed apps

The Dell XPS 13 Plus ships with Home windows 11 House, as you’d count on. You additionally get some pre-installed apps that can both be welcome time and labour-saving inclusions or irritating bloat, relying in your proclivities.

To my thoughts, this record of preinstalled apps is generally defensible, together with the generally used likes of TikTok, Instagram, Spotify, Whatsapp, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video. You’ll additionally must put up with McAfee antivirus bugging you to improve sometimes, however that’s hardly uncommon.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Value & Availability 

Costs for the Dell XPS 13 Plus begin from $1,299/£1,298.99, which is able to snag you an i5-1240P CPU, 8GB RAM, 512GB storage, and a Full HD+ LCD display.

My check mannequin sits on the top-of-the-range within the UK, with a ‘3.5K’ OLED show, Intel Core i7-1260P processor, 32 GB RAM, and 1TB of storage for £1,998.98. Nonetheless, you possibly can spec as much as an i7-1280P and 2TB of storage for a cool $2,399 within the US.

With three totally different processors, three RAM capacities, 4 SSD sizes and 4 screens, there are numerous attainable SKUs.

You should purchase Dell in the US in addition to Amazon and Finest Purchase.

Within the UK, you may get the XPS 13 Plus from Dell, Amazon, Currys, John Lewis, Box, Very and Laptops Direct.

Take a look at our chart of the most effective laptops to see extra choices.

Verdict 

The Dell XPS 13 Plus represents a daring and largely profitable redesign of a well-liked and extremely regarded premium compact laptop computer. The brand new edge-to-edge keyboard is as simple on the attention as it’s a delight to sort with, whereas the invisible trackpad proves surprisingly purposeful. In the meantime, the addition of a pointy 3.5K OLED show choice makes for a shocking media canvas.

Not each redesigned ingredient works, with the capacitive perform bar, particularly, coming throughout as innovation for innovation’s sake. There are extra urgent points elsewhere, with a vital lack of ports and disappointing battery life key amongst them. The machine additionally continues the XPS tendency to run just a little sizzling and loud, too.

All in all, the Dell XPS 13 Plus represents an thrilling evolution for the collection and one of many highest 13in laptops on the market for writing and for media consumption. Energy customers may need to look forward to a revision that concentrates just a little extra on a few of the down and soiled sensible considerations, nevertheless.

Specs

• Mannequin examined:
• Home windows 11 House
• 13.4in 3.5K AMOLED show (16:9 facet ratio, 3456×2160) 
• Intel Core i7-1260P
• Intel Iris Xe graphics 
• 32GB LPDDR5 RAM
• 1TB SSD
• Full-size keyboard with backlighting 720p HD Digital camera
• Twin 2W audio system
• Fingerprint energy button
• IR digicam (Home windows Hey)
• 2x Thunderbolt 4
• Wi-Fi 6E 
• Bluetooth 5.2
• 55Wh battery
• 60W charger
• 295.30 x 199.04 x 15.28mm 
• 1.26kg