Dell's new XPS 15 and XPS 17 laptops have razor-thin bezels, tons of power

HarborFront

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Dell's XPS laptops have been among the best for years, but, until now, the 15-inch model had a very obvious sore spot: a massive bottom bezel.

Now, with the updated XPS 15 and the all-new XPS 17, that issue is gone. (The XPS 13 was "fixed" with thinner bezels earlier this year.) Both laptops have very thin bezels all around, which means the 15.6-inch and 17-inch displays could fit in a smaller chassis — so small, in fact, that Dell claims these are the smallest laptops in their class. The company claims that the XPS 17 is smaller than roughly half the 15-inch laptops available today, which should make it attractive to users who want a 17-inch laptop but were intimidated by the size.

Dell XPS 15 has two Thunderbolt ports, one USB-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and an SD card reader.

They have an almost industrial look with many shades of grey. The carbon fiber composite surface around the touchpad and above the keyboard looks similar to previous XPS laptops, but it does differentiate the new models from, say, a MacBook.

The XPS 15 weighs 4 pounds, while the XPS 17 starts at 4.65 pounds. That's pretty good compared with the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which weighs 4.3 pounds.


Dell XPS 17 — a 17-inch laptop with a very small footprint.

Dell has improved the sound on the XPS 15, with quad speakers and Waves Nx 3D audio support, which should add some 3D depth to the sound, as well as dual microphones. The larger XPS 17 has the same audio configuration.

Both laptops are available in a large number of configurations. Both start with a 10th generation Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of memory, 256 GB of SSD storage, Intel UHD graphics, a 1,920x1,200 display without touchscreen, and a 56WHr battery.


Dell XPS 15 and 17 come with four speakers and two microphones.

This can be upgraded to Core i9, 64GB of memory, a 3,840x2,400 pixel touchscreen on both models. There are some differences, though: For example, on the XPS 15 you can only upgrade the graphics card to a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti card with 4GB of RAM, while the XPS 17 can be had with an Nvidia GeForce RTX™ 2060 6GB card. As far as battery life goes, Dell claims the starting configuration (with the 1,920x1,200 display) lasts 25 hours on the XPS 15 and 20 hours on the XPS 17.

The XPS 15 has 2 Thunderbolt ports, one USB-C port (a USB-C to USB-A/HDMI adapter is included in the box), a full-size SD card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The XPS 17 has 4 Thunderbolt ports, an SD reader and a 3.5mm jack.

Other tidbits worth mentioning are the improved cooling system, a 720p webcam located in the upper bezel, Wi-Fi 6 support, and a fingerprint reader.

The Dell XPS 15 is available today, starting at $1,299.99. The Dell XPS 17 will be available this summer, starting at $1,499.99.

More info here as well


 
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HarborFront

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I'm impressed with the DELL 17 inch for the

- 10th Gen Comet Lake. Can take up to Core i9-10885H (8 cores, 16MB cache)
- 4xUSB-C/TB ports
- 4K UHD+ (3840x2400 resolution) IPS touchscreen available
- lower DDR4 RAM speed at 2933MHz but expandabe to 64GB
- GPU is upgradable to Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2060 with 6GB of GDDR6
- UHS 3 SD card slot
- battery is 97WHr
- weighs 5.53 lbs (2.51 Kg).......heavier though

Specs below

The LG GRAM 17 comes with

- 10th Gen IceLake CPU Core i7-1065G7 (4 cores)
- 1xUSB-C/TB port and 3xUSB-A 3.1 Gen 2 ports
- non-touch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) IPS LCD screen
- higher speed 3200MHz DDR4 RAM. Can be expanded to 24GB (officially supported by LG) and even 40GB (unsupported by LG)
- GPU is fixed with the Intel® Iris™ Plus Graphics
- battery is 80WHr
- weighs 2.98 lbs (1.35 Kg)


One thing for sure is I'll never go back to anything smaller than a 17 inch screen after using the LG GRAM 17 2020 laptop

The DELL 17 with its premium spec will cost more than the LG GRAM 17 for sure. Gaming-wise the DELL 17 will outshine the LG GRAM 17 with its more powerful GPU as the latter is suited more as a productivity machine
 
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HarborFront

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One disadvantge of the DELL XPS 17 vs the LG GRAM 17 is that the DELL's USB-C ports do NOT support PD charging. So you cannot just buy a 100W USB-C PD power bank to charge it. On the other hand the LG GRAM 17 supports USB-C PD charging for I'm using such a power bank

The proprieatry DELL USB power bank is able to charge it. However, note that it can only act as a 65W power source when used as a battery and a 90W power source in "passthrough mode" when the power bank itself is plugged into a power source.


Watch the youtube below at the battery section where the reviewer talks about the battery




The other DELL main issue is with its weight

Total weight of laptop + ac adapter + DELL 65Wh powerbank = 5.53 + 1.02 + 1.058 = 7.608 lbs (3.45Kg)
 
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HarborFront

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Another XPS 17 9700 problem reported here

2020 Dell XPS 17 9700 facing worrying charging issues, drops from 100 percent to 65 percent battery while plugged in


 

Gandalf_The_Grey

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So avoid new Dell XPS laptops?
No, new ones should be fine:
The Good News
In a worse-case scenario alternative reality, Dell would have turned a blind eye to the problem before silently fixing it on the next generation model which some other OEMs might do. This is fortunately not the case as the manufacturer will now be actively reaching out to existing XPS 17 and Precision 5750 owners to work out a potential solution. You're probably fine if you own an XPS 17 without the GeForce GPU, but those with the discrete GPU may want to kick start the process by contacting Dell technical Support first and initiating the conversation.

If you plan on ordering an XPS 17 or Precision 5750 starting today, then you won't be having any of these problems at all.

The Bad News
Early adopters who were crossing their fingers for a simple software fix may be out of luck as Dell has yet to confirm what the fix will be. It's looking likely that there will be no magical driver or file that Dell will provide for existing owners to download or else they would have done so already. A quick update would have been much easier than telling owners to call customer support. The resolution between Dell and affected customers may be on a case-by-case basis as a result and we will update this page should that change.

See our original page on the charging problem here to learn more about the issue in detail while our full review on the XPS 17 9700 can be found here. The XPS 17 is Dell's most ambitious XPS laptop yet and so it's perhaps unsurprising that the first ones out of the gate were facing some setbacks.
 

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