The Dell XPS 13 gets a makeover and a new colour

Being a user of the Dell XPS 13 laptop, I was especially interested in seeing where they’d reached with this product three years later. The old XPS 13 has served me well, giving no trouble and continuing to work much as it did when it arrived, except that I’ve moved on from using laptops for work on an everyday basis.

As I lift the Dell XPS 13 2018 out of its box — regular, not terribly fancy packaging — I see that the top definitely looks related to my XPS 2015. It’s made of the same aluminium material and has the same design, roughly speaking. But this time we have another colour option to add to the silver and black from earlier. The review unit is a pale rose gold with a glinting Dell logo in the centre of the cover. I’m relieved to see the rose gold isn’t overdone and feel that men shouldn’t find it too ‘feminine’ and offending of their sensibilities. It’s the palest shade and looks very executive.

From the sides, the body line is like an elongated tear-drop, such as on the MacBook Air, and looks interesting on this model because the inside is white and shows through, sandwiched between the two thin gold lines. It looks very elegant and distinctive.

Open up the lid and press the round flat button on the right of the keyboard to turn on the machine. And then just stare at what is one of the most stunning screens on an ultra-portable laptop.

Beautiful view

The Ultra HD 4K IPS display is so crisp and bright and vibrant (without being over-the-top saturated) that I found myself just staring at wallpapers for a long time. With 400-nit brightness, the view is lovely from any angle. The 4K touchscreen display does however leave its mark on the battery life, so consider what is more important to you and see if you would rather do with another variant. What’s making the display even nicer is the ‘Infinity Edge’ border, 23 per cent thinner than before. Thin bezels are very in, of course, and no device can hope to get away with prominent edges. On three sides, the bezels on the XPS 13 are as slim and pretty, especially in white. The fourth border, which joins the hinge between keyboard and display, is necessarily thicker and it’s where Dell has put the camera, a position that makes for very unflattering views of your face when on video calls. I couldn’t find an acceptable angle, actually, and moreover there was no way to fix one’s gaze so that it seems like you’re looking someone in the eye when talking to them. This is not going to be fun.

The 4K screen is in an optional model — there are other variants without the 4K screen. But the model I got to see also has a touchscreen that’s quite responsive, giving me no cause for complaints there, though I have seen more fluid and fast touchscreens on some laptops before.

The display panel on this laptop does not go all the way back and fold up to make a tablet. This isn’t a hybrid but a conventional laptop, meant for professionals who want straightforward but sophisticated gear to work with.

The entire touchpad and keyboard panel is white and in an interesting textured material. The material is rather a good choice because the panel can be wiped if it gets dirty, though it is said to be stain-resistant.

Great typing experience

I’m very sensitive to keyboard quality, which can make or break a purchase or usage decision for me like nothing else. On the XPS 13, I find it an eminently comfortable keyboard that I can type on for hours.

The keys are soft and springy without having so much travel that they would make a big noise or become tiring to use.

There’s an optimum amount of room that keys should have and I feel this keyboard has it right.

Touch typing was quite a joy because the keyboard has just a sense of expansiveness and your fingers still touch the right key accurately.

But there’s one thing I didn’t like on the keyboard and that’s the blue backlighting. Somehow it doesn’t feel even or helpful.

Luckily I don’t look down when I type, so was able to ignore it after a while, but if you don’t touch type, the lighting may not be the best feature on this device.

The top-end variant sent to me works with Intel’s 8th gen quad core processor with 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD. It’s fast and would more than do for the everyday business executive. Videos present no problem on this machine, especially with this display. There are two speakers on each side of the keyboard, a little towards the lower side. They’re not stellar, but good enough.

In a bid to make the laptop more mobility friendly, it has software to let you connect your smartphone and mirror its screen using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. An app on iOS and Android lets you make calls, send messages and get notifications from the phone to the PC’s screen. Otherwise, of course, the PC works with Windows 10. It wouldn’t be amiss to mention that the Dell XPS 13 is a CES 2018 award winner and many have referred to it as the best 13-inch laptop one can get. It’s expensive in the 4K screen variant, but there are other variants and configurations that one should check out.