When Dell told us of the skeleton to revitalise the tried as well as loyal XPS laptop line you were flattering damn vehement. With so much code dilution in the past few years — there’s been the Adamo XPS and the Studio XPS — the products have noticeably strayed from providing the stone plain gaming as well as multimedia knowledge they were once known for. There’s a reason XPS stands for Xtreme Performance System, right?! The new line, which includes 14-, 15-, 17-inch systems, has all the mixture to set it back upon lane — including Core i5 / i7 processors, NVIDIA GeForce 400M graphics with Optimus, JBL speakers, the backlit keyboard, an HD webcam and the solid aluminum lid – but has Dell succeeded in formulating a well-rounded multimedia appurtenance? And does it rival the oh-so-adored HP Envy line? We’ve outlaid the final week regulating a more mobile $899 XPS 14, so review upon to find out in our full examination! Dell XPS 14 examination

Look as well as feel

If you wish the honest opinion — and we’re presumption you do — a new Dell XPS machines aren’t beautiful, but they’re not appalling, possibly. These rigs are fairly middle-of-the-road in conditions of pattern, and that’s substantially a reason that the bigwigs in Round Rock haven’t gone out of their way to prominence design upon Dell’s website or in ads. All of the machines have anodized aluminum lids and bottom panels, while the rest of the chassis is made of black and gray plastic. Similar to a Inspiron 14R as well as M101z, a pattern takes on some-more of the crowd figure as the battery is built-in to the base of a system so which it doesn’t protrusion out. We tend to fancy the flared look, but it does give it the chunkier case. We’ll contend it flat out: if you’re looking a some-more attractive 14-inch PERSONAL COMPUTER, you really don’t have to look any further than the HP Envy 14, but if you’re content with the laptop which doesn’t spin heads, the Dell XPS will fit a check.

The 13.9 x 9.7 x 1.3-inch / 5.35-pound XPS 14 is a most mobile system within a new XPS line, though it’s still incomparable as well as thicker than a little allied 14-inch laptops out there – a Envy 14 is thinner at 1.09-inches as well as the ASUS U43jc measures 13.7 x 9.6 x 1.2 inches. That pronounced, it’s not as heavy as HP’s pick, and Apple’s 5.6-pound MacBook Pro 15 will import you down the pinch more. That additional girth does leave utterly the bit of port space – a complement is surrounded by dual USB 2.0 ports, a USB / eSATA combo jack as good as HDMI, Ethernet as well as DisplayPort sockets. Where’s a VGA pier? That’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves for a last week. It’s the flattering big bummer deliberation there’s quite the bit of leftover room to fit a single in. There’s also a headphone as well as headphone / mic ports, though you’ll really cite listening to song through a speakers – some-more on that soon. Lastly, the DVD drive as well as SD label slot live on a right edge. You can add the Blu-ray drive to a configuration for a whopping $450. (That cost seems to go down if you go with an XPS 15 or 17.)

Keyboard, touchpad as well as screen

Unlike every alternative laptop entrance out of a gate, the XPS 14 doesn’t have the chiclet keyboard. Not carrying a additional gaps in between a keys was an composition — we’ve gotten extremely skilful during typing upon those keyboards — however, a single you were means to make. The set of keys itself is quite organisation, as well as there’s no noticeable bend – although, the cosmetic keys have a somewhat as well most give. What happened to a rubbery feeling keys on the M1530 is beyond us, though we’re happy to pointer the apply to to get Dell to bring ‘em back! Still, we typed a whole of this review at a really decent shave and we’re large (big!) fans of a backlight. There’s no earthy button for adjusting a brightness, though you can do that by a toggle in Windows Mobility Center. The tip row of duty keys doubles as multimedia controls, and there’s a frame of LED hold controls above it that includes shortcuts to WavesMax Audio settings, Windows Mobility Center as well as an additional that can be customized to launch a module or website of your preference.

Dell gets a vital point in our book for using an “aged school” touchpad with dedicated right and left rodent buttons. As we’ve pronounced prior to, we’ve become increasingly fed up with the flaky integrated mouse button designs or ClickPads. The 3.2 by 1.8-inch pad isn’t as far-reaching as it could have been, though it does the trick for navigating a display. The dual rodent buttons have been somewhat mushy, though we’d rather which than uncomfortable, firm buttons which have to be broken in.

The 1366×768-resolution, 14.0-inch WLED display is quite bright, as well as was frail enough when watching the 720p Jackass 3D trailer. There’s no higher resolution shade choice upon the 14 — you’ve got to go up to the 15 or 17 to nab the 1920 x 1080-resolution display. The row itself is decent, although horizontal observation angles have been the bit problematic – sloping a shade back a bit while sitting upon a list caused color distortion. Vertical angles were better. Our biggest censure about a shade comes with its silken plastic bezel – we just would have favourite to see the washout glass bezel here or something the lot reduction shinny and fingerprint disposed. The hinge, which sits upon top of a system to assumingly move it closer to you, feels plain and doesn’t wobble most.

Smack in a core of the tip bezel is an HD webcam – a first one ever to boat on the laptop. As you’d expect, the extravagant of the video in the video call over Skype was quite great – our buddy in San Francisco pronounced he could tell that we had woken up early and that we’d not long ago left to a dentist. It’s hard for us to contend if the local cam is improved than a little of the peripheral HD cams from Logitech and FreeTalk given you couldn’t review them side by side, though it’s most improved than a average VGA or 1.3 megapixel webcams, that’s for certain. If you’re a vlogger – you know, a video blogger! — you’ll love the fact that you can jot down 720p video right through Dell’s Webcam Central program as well as upload true to YouTube. Speaking of which program, it’s really the time killer – we outlaid more time than you caring to share distorting the face as well as putting upon different accessories.

Speakers

Rarely do you workat the territory of the laptop review to speakers, though the built-in high-fidelity JBL speakers upon a XPS 14 are so impressive it only seemed right. Dell claims the speakers are a loudest, clearest as well as cleanest found in any laptop out there, as well as you have to admit they might only be right. Of course, we’re waiting for the come-back from the HP Beats team in the matter of moments. The dual 3W speakers on top of a set of keys (the XPS 15 as well as 17 both have subwoofers on a bottom) along with the Waves MaxxAudio record program constructed a little of a best audio we’ve heard upon a laptop…maybe ever. Keep in thoughts you have been yet to exam ASUS’s hulk NX90 with Bang & Olufsen speakers. Compared to the MacBook Pro 13 and a Envy 17, song in Windows Media Player and Pandora was noticeably fuller as well as more detailed. It is almost a mistake surround sound, and even when you played Mafia II upon the rig you were conference voices from one orator and a screeching of the tires through an additional. It’s only an awesome audio experience.

Performance as well as graphics

The Dell XPS 14′s 2.53GHz Core i5 460M processor as well as 4GB of DDR3 RAM didn’t leave us with any opening complaints. Our standard day-to-day activities, which enclosed concurrently surfing a web with over ten tabs open in Firefox, checking Twitter via TweetDeck, chatting in Trillian, writing in Microsoft Word 2010 Starter, as well as light photo modifying regulating Gimp, all went off but a join. The 500GB 7,200rpm hard drive was also quick to open applications, though it appears that you can simply swap it out for the faster SSD if that’s your wouldnt.

 PCMarkVantage 3DMark06
 Battery Life 

Dell XPS 14 (Core i5-460M, NVIDIA 420M) 5796 6827 / 1955 2:58 

HP Envy 14 (Core i5-450M, ATI HD 5650) 6038 6899/1928 3:51 

Sony VAIO Z (Core i5-450M, NVIDIA 330M) 9949 6193 4:25 

ASUS U33Jc (Core i3-370M, NVIDIA 310M) 5574 1860/3403 5:10 

Toshiba Portege R705 (Intel Core i3-350M) 5024 1759 4:25 

Being a single of a first laptops to come in the “lab” with NVIDIA’s newest GeForce 400M graphics cards, you were flattering eager to see how this man fared against older systems and only how good it could energy by a little of our the one preferred games. As you can see in a chart on top of, a GeForce GT 420M label scored noticeably higher on 3DMark06, that only tests graphics, than the other systems we’ve reviewed with the previous generation GT 300M cards. However, it didn’t measure as tall as the Envy 14′s ATI HD 5650 GPU. Nevertheless, a GT 420M card blew by Batman: Arkham Asylum during 30fps as well as Shattered Horizon during 42fps. Our new favorite title – Mafia II – looked stately on the screen as well as we were crusin’ in our Smith Custom during 42fps and sharpened our MP40 during 34fps. Obviously, a card was additionally able hoop both 720p as well as 1080p video flawlessly.

Of course, you never had to lift the finger when it came to switching in between Intel’s integrated graphics as well as a discrete GPU, thanks to NVIDIA’s Optimus. The GPU automatically flipped on when we launched a demo version of Mafia as well as even the 1080p shave. However, you should mention you couldn’t get it to flog on when trying out the demo version of Lara Croft: Guardian of Light — a software isn’t listed in NVIDIA’s profiles. We had to go into a Steam printed matter, find the game, as well as right click to launch it with the GPU on. Oh, how did you know the GPU wasn’t upon? Well, the lower frame rates were the great indicator, though additionally NVIDIA’s got which brand-new tool up there to help with that. Up until right away, when we’ve wanted to see if a GPU was upon or off we’d have to use a tool which NVIDIA written for reviewers, however, the XPS comes with NVIDIA’s ultimate Verde drivers, that essentially displays the GPU wakeup during a moment as good as which programs are regulating it.

The G420M label additionally supports NVIDIA’s new 3DTV Play record, which allows you to plug in a laptop around HDMI to a three-dee TV and play your the one preferred 3D games or cinema. Sadly, we don’t own the 3DTV and to illustrate, couldn’t test it out. We’re peaceful to gamble which most of you have been in the same vessel.

The XPS 14 isn’t defense to warm heat and tall fan sound. The system got considerably toasty when playing Mafia. The fan on a left side did go into overdrive, but the comfortable air got irritating sufficient on our path that you opted to put it upon the desk. During regular use, a system was much cooler, yet the palmrest did get a bit comfortable overtime.

Battery life and program

To be honest, we expected a Dell XPS 14 to last longer upon the charge. On our video rundown test, that loops the same video at 65 percent brightness, a six-cell 56Wh battery with a GPU off lasted just bashful of 3 hours. During unchanging use, you got closer to 4 hours prior to we had to scour around for an opening. There are positively other laptops with identical tools that final longer (eh hem, Envy 14!), and given a fact which Dell went with Optimus, it’s a bit puzzling because the complement didn’t essentially have better continuation. Dell does offer the nine-cell 92Wh battery for the XPS 14 for an extra $40, though, of course, that will supplement a bit some-more weight to a chassis.

Like most of Dell’s new machines, a XPS 14 boots to the really clean desktop with just Dell’s dock centered at a tip of a screen. As for deleteware, we’re happy to contend we didn’t find all that most of it stealing within the Start menu. Dell does throw upon Skype, CyberLink PowerDVD, Roxio Easy CD and DVD as well as McAfee, though there were no signs of website shortcuts sheltered as programs!

Wrap-up

Without the doubt, the Dell XPS 14 packs a little extremely tasteful features: a system’s JBL speakers have been some of a best ever put into a laptop, the Core i5 processor combined with NVIDIA GeForce GT400M provides seriously plain gaming as well as performance flesh, as well as its HD webcam captures crisp video and cinema. When you cruise you get all that for $899 it sounds rather than amazing, though it’s distant from the perfect complement – it’s chunkier than a others out there, doesn’t top the character charts, as well as the customary battery is gonna keep you tighten to the wall. If you’re after the improved combo of beauty as well as brawns, we have to contend a $999 HP Envy 14 or $1,299 Envy 17 have been your best bets, but a XPS positively has sufficient starting for it to have it worthy of its moniker.

Via Engadget