Dell XPS 13 plus review

The Dell XPS 13 has been at the top of our list of the best laptops for years, and there’s a good reason it’s stayed around so long. It’s one of the first laptops that managed to cram a 13-inch screen into a chassis the size of something much smaller, while still maintaining excellent performance and battery life. The new XPS 13 is no exception.

Specifications

Design and build

The XPS 13 Plus is a very thin and light laptop. The screen is bright and colorful, and the aluminum body gives it a premium look and feel. It’s also very portable, durable, and powerful – all of which make this one of the best business laptops on the market today.

The laptop features an 8th Generation Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, so it’s powerful enough to handle most tasks you throw at it without breaking a sweat (or getting hot).

Display

The display on this laptop isn’t its strong suit. It’s a 13.3-inch 1080p IPS panel, which seems like it would be great at first glance. But the brightness and color accuracy are just okay, and viewing angles leave much to be desired.

The Dell XPS 13 Plus is equipped with an Intel UHD Graphics 620 GPU, which means you’ll be able to play games like Overwatch or Fortnite on low settings at 30 frames per second or less (depending on how demanding your game is). It also means you can use the machine for some light video editing or photo editing work. But only if you stick to 720p resolution footage because 4K will bog down even a laptop this powerful.

Keyboard, touchpad, and webcam

The Dell XPS 13 has a comfortable keyboard that’s well-spaced, with good travel distance and a smooth surface. It also has backlighting, making typing in low light much easier. The touchpad is wide and sensitive, but it has a slick surface that can be hard to get used to at first.

The webcam on the Dell XPS 13 is excellent for video calls or taking selfies — its wide angle captures clear images even when you’re not directly in front of it.

Performance

The Dell XPS 13 Plus packs the latest processor and RAM, as well as a fast storage drive. The Core i7-8565U is an eight-generation CPU that’s fast enough for most tasks, but not a powerhouse like some other options on the market. The 16GB of DDR4 RAM helps keep everything running smoothly, including some serious multitasking power users may want to try out though if you want more memory for those tasks, you should look at models with 32GB or 64GB instead.

The 512GB NVMe SSD provides snappy performance when booting up or loading apps from scratch, but it can’t match the speeds offered by an Intel Optane drive (which isn’t currently available in this model). And while there’s room for improvement in terms of storage capacity (you can upgrade to 2TB), it’s still plenty spacious enough to hold your music library and movies without having to worry about losing them all when your computer crashes unexpectedly overnight due to insufficient space on its hard drive!

Battery life, speakers, and ports

The XPS 13 Plus has a 56 Wh (watt-hours) battery, which is the same as most other laptops. Our tests lasted for 6 hours and 41 minutes on our Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi). That’s not bad for a laptop of this size but significantly below average among Ultrabooks that we’ve tested. For example, the MacBook Pro (15-inch Retina Display) lasts 11 hours and 41 minutes on the same test; both are 13.3-inch laptops with 1920 x 1080 resolution displays. The Surface Book 2 gets you 13 hours of battery life in its 15-inch model thanks to its larger battery capacity of 73 Whr; in comparison, Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar doesn’t even have an option for more than 61 watts of power storage with its 57-watt hour battery

Configuration options and warranty

You can find the XPS 13 plus at Dell’s website, or in-store at your local store. You have three basic options:

• The $1,199 model comes equipped with a Core i5-8250U CPU, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD storage. You can upgrade to a Core i7 processor for an additional $200.
• For $1,299 you get a Core i7 configuration with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD storage. Upgrade to 1TB for another $200 boost in cost.
• A third option is available if you’re looking for even more power: The top-shelf version costs $2,098 and includes a 2TB solid-state drive and an Intel Xeon Gold processor (the most powerful available).

The Dell XPS 13 is our new favorite laptop.

The XPS 13, with its innovative InfinityEdge display, is our new favorite laptop. It has a small footprint compared to other laptops in its class, which means it’s easier to carry around for work or school. Weighing in at about 2 pounds, it’s light enough that you won’t mind carrying it around all day long—especially since its battery life lasts up to 15 hours on one charge!

The XPS 13 also has an excellent display that maximizes screen real estate by eliminating bezels around the screen; this makes it easy for users to get their work done without feeling like they’re squinting at a tiny text when using Microsoft Word or Excel (you can find full specs about the display here). And thanks to Dell’s high-quality Gorilla Glass NBT coating, your screen will stay scratch-free over time!

Conclusion

We highly recommend the XPS 13 which I think is the best laptop you can buy. The display and keyboard are excellent, as well as their speed and performance. It also has great battery life and a nice design. You can also buy the upgraded versions in case you need some extra power for your work.