(Sigh)

Well, yes. Dell just released their new lineup of high-end laptops. And in these were the updated XPS 15 and the brand new XPS 17 which Dell had never done before.

And let me tell you this, these are incredible pieces of machinery. But we are going to focus on the Dell XPS 17 in this blog. The review of the XPS 15 will be in another blog, so stay tuned for that.

Design

For a laptop to be good, it needs to feel good in the hand. And the XPS 17 doesn’t miss out on that. It feels really good in the hand and that sweet carbon fiber weave on the deck of the laptop - top notch! Also, that carbon fiber weave on the deck offers superior thermal resistance to other laptops that have a metal deck. And that unibody aluminum chassis with the diamond-cut edges, give the laptop a premium feel in the hand.

And there’s the screen. And let us get it out of the way. It’s the best screen on a laptop (period). If you think that the MacBook Pro 16’s bezels are small, you definitely haven’t seen this laptop. It embarrasses the MacBook and almost every other laptop on the market with its Infinity Edge display which has those razor-thin bezels and this also houses the Windows Hello Facial Recognition cameras in the top bezel, which is really impressive, I really mean it.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The XPS 17 Trackpad [Credits - Colby Brown]

Now, let’s get to the keyboard of this thing. It is great! It has a 1.3 mm key travel and has slightly larger keycaps than the older XPS’s. And just for the sake of comparison, the MacBook Pro 16 offers 1mm travel. Just keep in mind, that more the key travel, the more tactile feedback you get.

The XPS 17 Keyboard [Credits - Colby Brown]

And that trackpad….

It is the biggest trackpad and best trackpad, but the Razor gets kinda close.

But that trackpad is as good as the MacBook trackpads, just lacking the force touch which helps the right and left click uniform around the trackpad rather than the bottom left and right parts of the trackpad. Man! That trackpad is huge and that’s a big deal as you don’t need to worry that your fingers go “out of trackpad”.

Display

Dell has put a lot of work on this display. Not only does it have a sweet, sweet, 16:10 aspect ratio which gives you that extra vertical space, but it also is a really, really good display and that 4k resolution gives you that extra sharpness you need when reading your Google Docs in their thumbnail preview.

The screen is well protected by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 6 and covers 100% of the Adobe 1998 color spectrum and 94% of the DCIP3. It also comes with an optional touchscreen version. This adds a nice touch to the laptop.

Speakers

The speakers on the XPS 17 are exceptionally good as you have a pair of upward-firing speakers and a pair firing downwards. But surprisingly, it doesn’t

Sound as good as the MacBook Pro 16. But don’t get me wrong, these speakers are really good, but the MacBook edges out with a little bit better bass and clearer highs. But still, this was a close call.

But in the end, these speakers will definitely please you.

Performance

One of the main reasons people buy 16 or 17-inch laptops if because of their power. And this one doesn’t fail to deliver that. You can spec this up to be an absolute beast. The highest-end model comes equipped with a 10th generation Intel i9 10885H with a 5.3 GHz turbo boost. That’s some serious power.

XPS 17 Cooling Vapor Chamber [Credits - Dave Lee]

Another seriously impressive thing Dell has done is the cooling system. The new XPS 17 runs a vapor chamber which a way more efficient and better system than a traditional fan cooling system. And I’m very happy about that.

Also a quick note on the battery life, it’s great. It comes with a big boy 97-watt hour battery which is almost exactly the same capacity of the MacBook Pro 16.

And this laptop comes with four Thunderbolt 3 ports, a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card slot. You also get a USB-C to USB-A dongle in the box. Thank you!

Final Thoughts

So, should you buy this laptop? Dell offers an incredible amount of hardware in the XPS 17 and if you ask me, this is the best laptop you can buy in the market, period.

But, if you use an iPhone, Apple watch, and deep into the Apple ecosystem, you should probably consider the Mac. Also, if you’re not a power user, you should consider buying the XPS 15 or the XPS 13 which are more portable and make a smaller hole in your pocket than this premium offering from this company.

Thanks for reading and hang on until the next one.

STAY HOME.

STAY SAFE.

#LOCKEDUPINTHELOCKDOWN

Peace !!!!

Dell XPS 17 Impressions - MacBook Pro 16 Killer?