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For many of us, Dell might have been the first introduction to personal laptops. Spread across the Inspiron, Vostro and Alienware line-ups, the Texas-based company has its wings spread across consumer categories for decades. Aiming to continue to bridge the gap between portability and performance is the Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320). Here is how it fares.
Design
Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320) | Photo Credit: BIJOY GHOSH
The Dell XPS 13 Plus boasts a slim profile, measuring just 15.28 mm thick and 295.3 mm wide. Made of CNC-machined aluminum and glass, the 13-Inch laptop weighs in at 1.2 kg. While not exactly the lightest Ultrabook, it is still light enough to be easily carried around during my daily commute. The polished, rounded edges ensured that the laptop didn’t sit uncomfortably against my wrist while typing or browsing.
The model I’m reviewing is the 4K UHD+ variant, capable of delivering a crisp 3840 x 2400 pixel resolution. The bezels along the screen are minimal strips ,and the screen features a peak brightness of 500 nits.
Multimedia creators will be glad to know the display supports up to 100 per cent SRGB and 90 per cent DCI-P3 colors, making it an ideal, portable laptop to review photos and videos on the go. The touchscreen fared well as I was able to scroll, double-click and handle navigation with ease.
The laptop features MaxxAudio Pro audio with a total output of 8W. The audio quality was satisfactory, but it lacked depth which was evident while watching Delhi Crime on Netflix and reruns of Monk on YouTube. The keyboard was quite compact and ideal for typing. The zero-lattice keyboard (with no space between the keys) features a decent amount of key travel, and does not cause strain while typing or researching content for videos.
Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320) | Photo Credit: BIJOY GHOSH
The Dell XPS 13 Plus features an invisible glass trackpad which is so seamless that for a second it looked like they forgot to include a trackpad. In reality, it’s placed in the perfect position below the keypad where you’d expect to find it. Palm rejection is good on the trackpad and works smoothly while navigating Windows.
The power button can be found next to the backspace key and doubles up well as a fingerprint reader to quickly log you in. The webcam also features the Window Hello facial recognition which unlocks the laptop quite easily. The 720p was satisfactory for the occasional video call in good lighting, but 1080p would have been much better considering the premium being paid for the device.
Another quirky feature is that the Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320) features a row of capacitive touch function keys which doubles up as media keys.
Performance
Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320) | Photo Credit: BIJOY GHOSH
The unit that I reviewed had the 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1360P (18 MB cache, 12 cores, up to 5.00 GHz Turbo) processor with 32 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD. It was able to easily handle 10-20 Chrome tabs with a mix of YouTube and social media apps as well as a little bit of light gaming and audio/video editing.
The laptop was able to handle casual games like Asphalt 9 from the Windows store without much issues. Truth be told this isn’t a gaming laptop, considering it has Intel Xe graphics which is good for casual gaming and video editing. The laptop frequently ran hot during regular browsing and video watching due to the machined aluminum body and the built-in cooling fan was able to provid only limited relief.
In synthetic tests such as the CineBench R23, the Dell XPS 13 Plus came out on top in single-core category with a score of 1704, beating Intel’s 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 and 9011 in multicore performance, placing it at number five, right below the Intel Core i9-9880H CPU.
Connectivity
In terms of ports, the Dell XPS 13 Plus is quite minimal in its port support with two Thunderbolt 4 ports (USB Type-C with DisplayPort and Power Delivery) ports along with USB-C to USB-A 3.0 adapter and USB-C to 3.5mm headset adapter. While the dongles can compensate for the limited ports, they may add clutter to an otherwise clean setup. Using a Type-C dock can help mitigate this issue when dealing with many external devices.
Battery
The laptop is equipped with a 55 Wh battery, which easily lasted for over 7 hours during regular usage. This included 4-5 hours of browsing, researching, writing and video playback, along with an hour-long audio editing session in Audacity. Bring in more graphics-heavy work like video editing into the mix, it delivers around 3-4 hours on a full charge. The laptop can be charged from 0-100 per cent using the compact 60W USB-C charger in under 2 hours.
Verdict
When it comes to the form factor, performance and display, the Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320) gets it right. However, the device tends to run warm most of the time and has a limited port selection though it sports a heavy price tag. The Dell XPS 13 Plus (9320) might work well for professionals who are looking for the sleekest of laptops with some good performance to boot with the looks.
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