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Dell XPS 13 Plus Is Unusual 🤔 (Full Review)
CNET,Technology,Tech
The new design of the Dell XPS 13 Plus stands up visually, but it also makes for an unconventional experience.
0:00 Intro
0:18 Invisible Touchpad
1:35 Keyboard & Backlit Touch Strip
3:28 Size/Thickness
3:46 Configurations, Price, Displays (including OLED & Touchscreen)
4:50 Processor (i7), Thermals/Fans
5:31 Webcam (720p) compared to MacBook Air M2, Look Away Detect Feature
7:12 Thunderbolt/USB‑C ports
7:57 Battery Life
8:45 Conclusion
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#Dell #XPS #Unusual #Full #Review
* Battery increase in exchange for thinness/weight: YES, always, please.
* 1080p front webcam: NAH, I do not care what quality camera my electrical tape is blocking, get rid of the front-facing camera all together! At least as an option, there is always external cameras as options, and very soon, our much higher quality phone cameras.
* Keyboard layout: I was worried, but typed on it in person and the key spacing was surprisingly well-placed, honestly very surprised.
* Capacitive Function Row: I was not a fan of the capacitive touch concept initially, then I realized one absolutely KEY takeaway for my use cases… It allows the user to LOCK the F1-F12 keys in place instead of the stupid laptop feature keys! This is an absolutely incredible feature for someone such as myself who prefers to have easy access to the F1-F12 keys for keyboard shortcuts while working in apps and doing light scripting/development. A God-send … But that said, making the Delete and Escape keys capacitive seems very short-sighted, in my opinion.
* Ports: 2 USB‑C, 1 for powering the device, is not nearly enough. Carrying a portable hub however does not add much weight or take much space in my bag, so it is not the biggest issue.
All in all I found this laptop to be one of the most well engineered laptop currently on the market, so I went and ahead and purchased it for myself as I was in need of a working mobile workstation.
That keyboard looks like a nightmare. Key separation and key feel is important to me. I’m not a big fan of that design.
And why would you have a hidden trackpad, for crying out loud‽ It wouldn’t make a lot of difference to me in the end, because I just end up disabling trackpads anyway, but it really seems wrongheaded to hide the trackpad.
In all, I think the keyboard would be the dealbreaker for me.
I hate that kind of keyboard
the Dell Adamo is still the best looking Dell laptop
dell xps max = also with an invisible, un-demarcated keyboard with no visible letters, numbers or symbols. completely blank.
Thanks Dan! Great review! I tend to agree that it looks more like change for change sake instead of change for improvement sake. IMHO — The XPS 13 Plus is an engineering marvel that looks more like a “proof of concept” device than a next gen premium PC. I’m sure Dell will listen to customer feedback and make the correct decision for future models. Remember how fast they got rid of their nostril cam and corrected the more recent defective track pads? 🙂
Kudos to Dell for going for the fences but battery life means it fades out at the warning track. I love how I can just grab my MBA without any doubt that I might need a charger.
Good innovation, but too bad it really looks like unlikeable, and the functionality looks so boring… and I don’t know why people still like using 13″ instead of 15″/16″ for good wide view
the no headphone jack and the quality control issues kill this for me. I like the keyboard and the idea of thin and high performance, but this wasn’t great execution. I’d like them to refine this design more before I considered getting it. I have an m1 macbook air and I like it much better
Now i miss the MacBook touchbar 😕🤔
Not a fan of edge to edge keyboard. Make my life miserable when holding the laptop without accidently press any buttons.
I have a laptop, but it’s a battery life with a PC
This keyboard is Amazing to type on ! 90WpM 96% accurate, vegan.
I was watching this video and fell asleep omg😮💨🤣🤣😭😭
So basically Dell cheaped out on this one.….
LMFAO 🤣🤣🤣
Fan noise quite noticeable and it gets hot. Mediocre battery life. 720 p camera. Lack of headphone jack. Limited ports. WTF Dell? For a premium price? The Macbook Air M2 doesn’t have ANY of these shortcomings. It also runs Windows faster. Let me say that again: it runs Windows 11, ARM edition, faster. I appreciate Dan’s pointing all the individual problems, but I think at this point in the integrated CPU/GPU landscape, EVERY windows laptop should be compared with apple products- including running ARM versions of windows. One last point: a necessarily specced out Dell (in order to attempt-and fail- to compete with mac performance) costs MORE.
I get crap battery life on the new xps 9520
I read this device really gets hot than usual, how true is that?
Why can’t Dell make a thin and light 15″ XPS
This has guy no idea on the purpose of this device. Oh if they change this or change that…mate that’s called the Lattitude range.
Who is this for?! So many design choices for the sake of design and not function. Imagine if those touch buttons were app-specific customizable? This is a waste of resources.
Meh. It looks nice?…but I have the XPS 15 and the keys on that laptop is awesome, and the touchpad?..is visible. I don’t use Windows..I use Linux, and I use “Edge Scrolling” on my laptop..and NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE THE EDGE?…yeah…nah. I’ll stick to what works
They should make a 15″ version of these
lol “I’m a tapper, not a clicker”
this laptop is a skip..
Wait, hold up, Dell is still making computers???
Battery life on these really suffers when you get an high-res OLED screen. So I guess if autonomous work is important and you want an XPS — you’ll have to make do with FullHD (which, in my opinion, is totally fine for a tiny 13inch laptop)
3.5K resolution + OLED = terrible battery life
This notebook could come without a battery, with no ports, would have to be used with an ice tray underneath, and I would still buy it, and I did, now I have to learn to use Windows! It is simply the most beautiful notebook ever!
recently bought Dell XPS 13+ UHD+, i5, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, and I returned it after 5 days. My total usage in those 5 days was not more than 1-1:30 hours. Reason being extremely pathetic (poor would still be better) battery life, my usage didn’t even include consuming media content yet. It included web browsing and some work on word and battery drained a lot like 1%-1.5% every minute.
If you think UHD resolution is the reason then think again because I had kept it at 720p and around 30% or 30 points of brightness and as per “experts” resolution doesn’t matter to battery life apparently but still battery was in no mood to co-operate. I took it to the vendor and he tried updating it and doing all sorts of magic stuff but could only extract 2–2.5 of battery life. So if you’re planning to buy this laptop then please don’t. It’s not even for a person who uses it for everyday work and for mild entertainment forget about creators. Pro: Design is beautiful Con: The whole above mentioned review which outweighs the pros.
Please Don’t go straight for the expert reviewers opinion because they receive complementary review models (which might be good) and have got nothing to lose whereas you do. Extremely disappointed with Dell.
Where is usb?
So new computers are useless now that’s messed up
The title is misleading. I thought this was review of the Dell Xps13 review NOT a comparison with so and so apple device. I thought CNET was a professional channel with unbiased views. Seemed v one sided to me and nothing to be taken seriously. I doubt this chap every took the time to use this laptop. Looks like I won’t be watching any contact from CNET from now onwards because of obvious reasons…looks like we have know who’s paying him his commission. 😉
I prefer the Lenovo Z13 with AMD Ryzen 7. Faster, longer battery, low operating temp, better camera with f/2.0, actual function keys, Dolby Atmos, and is eco friendly all the way around.
He forgot to mention one key flaw…it runs Windows.
I’m curious how long the battery will last. I have an XPS 13″ 2‑in‑1 and the battery stopped working about 1 year ago. the machine runs so hot it really isn’t a “lap” top. I reached out to Dell to assist and got nada from them. This is how it is. I now have seconds on the battery? It is a 2019 machine. Is it worth replacing battery or just getting a new machine?
bought this on amazon, watched a few reviews. heard about the 4 hour battery. Cancelled order.
XPS 13 Plus or Surface Pro 9?
Great review man!
It would be perfect if they added a 3.5 and a micro SD
Also going for fhd will extend the battery life significantly