Review 2018 Dell Xps 13 Touch 2 in 1 I7
Our Verdict
The Dell XPS xiii 9370 offers potent performance, long battery life and a stunning screen in a chassis that's slimmer and more than bonny than ever.
For
- Attractive design; Vibrant screen; Strong performance; Skillful battery life overall; Runs cool
Against
- No USB Type-A Ports; Improved webcam still looks upwardly your nose
Laptop Mag Verdict
The Dell XPS xiii 9370 offers strong operation, long battery life and a stunning screen in a chassis that's slimmer and more attractive than e'er.
Pros
- +
Attractive design; Vibrant screen; Strong functioning; Skillful battery life overall; Runs cool
Cons
- -
No USB Blazon-A Ports; Improved webcam still looks up your nose
Update Jan. viii: Check out our review of the 2019 Dell XPS 13 , which ditches that awkward 'nosecam.'
Dell's XPS 13 has remained our favorite consumer laptop for the past few years, thanks to its beautiful nearly borderless display, light weight and sleek aesthetic. At present, after multiple generations of sticking with the same chassis, Dell'southward premium flagship has a new blueprint with slimmer dimensions and a beautiful white-and-gold color scheme. In other improvements, the XPS 13 9370 ($849 to start, $1,249 / $2,499 equally tested) also offers an optional 4K display, a better webcam, back up for eGPUs and a cooling organisation that promises stronger sustained performance.
Nonetheless, to make its laptop thinner, Dell switched to a smaller bombardment and got rid of USB Type-A ports. As a upshot, some users will prefer the older, XPS 13 9360, which is still for sale and is powered by the same Intel eighth Gen Core CPUs. But if you lot want the best combination of design, portability and power, the XPS 13 9370 is the ultraportable to shell.
Dell XPS 13 9370 pricing and configuration
Dell offers several configurations of the XPS 13 9370, with prices ranging from $849 to well over $two,000. The $849 base model has a 1080p non-impact screen, a Core i3-8130 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD; the white model costs $50 more.
We recommend the $1,099 model, which includes a Cadre i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The tricked-out, $1,869 model has a 4K touch on screen, a Core i7-8550U CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. A 512GB SSD costs $150 more than and a 1TB SSD runs $750.
If battery life is your highest priority, get a model with the 1080p non-touch screen, but the vibrant colors on the 4K panel brand it an even more bonny choice.
Dell XPS 13 9370 pattern
If yous put the last few generations of the XPS 13 in a lineup, you would not be able to tell them autonomously, unless you looked at the CPU sticker on the deck. However, the XPS 13 9370 stands out with its new, optional gold-and-white colour scheme, along with a slightly slimmer and lighter profile. Dell also sells the 9370 in the XPS 13's traditional silverish-and-black artful.
Though information technology costs a little fleck more ($50 extra on the base model), you'll definitely desire to get the white colour, because it'southward just plain stunning. The lid and bottom are fabricated from gilt-colored aluminum, while the white sides and deck are fashioned from woven crystalline silica cobweb. The deck's weave-similar texture adds an air of composure and felt good against our wrists, though not quite as comfy every bit the soft-bear upon carbon-fiber deck on older XPS 13s and on the silver model.
No affair which color you cull, the XPS 13 is a little bit slimmer and lighter than its predecessor. The XPS 13 9370 weighs just 2.65 pounds and is a mere 0.46 inches thick at its thickest point (0.three inches at its thinnest). The terminal generation XPS xiii 9360 weighs 0.thirteen pounds more than and is 0.14 inches thicker. HP'south Spectre 13 is fifty-fifty svelter, weighing two.four pounds and measuring 0.41 inches thick. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon tips the scales at 2.49 pounds, merely is 0.6 inches.
Dell XPS 13 9370 ports
Unfortunately, when slimming the XPS xiii downward to 0.46 inches, Dell had to ditch the standard, USB Type-A ports and total-size SD card reader that appeared on all the previous generations. On the left side of the XPS 13 9370, you'll find two Thunderbolt 3 ports, which can accuse the laptop or connect to high-speed peripherals. At that place's besides a Noble lock slot and a battery guess, which shows the accuse level on a series of 5 white lights.
On the right, y'all'll discover a 3.5mm audio jack, a microSD menu slot and a USB Type-C port, which tin can output DisplayPort video. Both the Dell XPS 13 9360 and ThinkPad X1 Carbon accept standard USB ports in addition to the Thunderbolt three, while the HP Spectre xiii as well lacks USB Type-A connectors.
In a major improvement over the XPS 13 9360, the 9370's Thunderbolt 3 ports back up four-lane PCI connections, and so you tin use the laptop with an eGPU for serious gaming.
In a major improvement over the XPS 13 9360, the 9370'due south Thunderbolt 3 ports support four-lane PCI connections so you lot can use the laptop with an eGPU (external graphics card) that enables serious gaming. Prior models had only two lanes of PCI connected to their Thunderbolt iii ports, so they couldn't work properly with external graphics. We tested the XPS thirteen 9370 with an Aorus Gaming Box 1070, and information technology worked.
Dell XPS xiii 9370 display
The XPS xiii 9370'southward thirteen.3-inch, InfinityEdge brandish has bezels that are 23 percent thinner than the almost nonexistent borders on the XPS 7360. Because there's nearly no frame effectually the acme and sides of the screen, images just seem to pop more.
We tested the Dell XPS 13 9370 with both a 3840 10 2160 (4K, Ultra HD) touch on screen and a 1920 x 1080 not-bear upon screen. Both models offered impressive brightness, color quality and sharpness, though the 4K screen was noticeably meliorate. When I watched the 4K motion picture Tears of Steel, the neon pink and dark-green lights impressed on both displays, but were richer on the Ultra HD panel. Fine details, such equally the wires on a robot's body and the wrinkles in a character's jacket, stood out on both panels, and colors stayed true, even at xc degrees to the left or right.
According to our low-cal meter, the XPS 13 9370 with 1080p screen achieved an impressive mark of 372 nits, while the model with the 4K panel blew us abroad with 415 nits. Both numbers are significantly higher than the ultraportable laptop category average (290 nits), the X1 Carbon (275 nits) and the HP Spectre xiii (247 nits). The XPS 13 9360 with 1080p screen scored a like 368 nits.
The 1080p screen on the XPS thirteen 9370 reproduced an impressive 117 percent of the sRGB color gamut, but the 4K console was much more vibrant, hitting a full 130 per centum. Both numbers compare favorably to the category average (105 percent) and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (104 percent with 1080p screen). But the 1080p panel is but five to 6 per centum points ahead of the XPS xiii 7360 (112 percentage) and the Spectre 13 (111 pct).
Dell XPS 13 9370 sound
The XPS 13 9370'southward side-mounted speakers deliver sound that's loud, simply rough effectually the edges. When I played AC/DC's "Back in Blackness," the music was boisterous enough to more than than fill our lab, but the guitar and drums were a little harsh and tinny. The pre-loaded Waves MaxxAudio software allows y'all to fine-tune the equalizer. Disabling MaxxAudio, which is on by default, made the music audio hollow and distant.
Dell XPS 13 9370 keyboard and touchpad
The XPS 13 9370's keyboard offers a solid typing experience, even though the keys are a lilliputian on the shallow side. Possibly because the laptop is and so thin, the keys have ane.2 millimeters of travel (1.5 to 2mm is common on mainstream laptops), but they make up for it somewhat past providing a good 72 grams of required actuation force. On the Tenfastfingers.com typing examination, I reached a modest rate of 94 words per minute with a 4 per centum error charge per unit, which is on the low end of my normal range.
Whether I was double-clicking on icons or highlighting small pieces of text in an article, the 4.1 x ii.iv-inch, buttonless touchpad provided extremely accurate navigation, without any sticking or jumping. The left and right click areas provided just the right amount of tactile feedback. The pad also responded immediately and accurately to multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom and iii-finger swipe.
Dell XPS xiii 9370 functioning
For this review, we tested two different configurations of the XPS 13 9370. The high-stop model sported a Core i7-8550U CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and a 4K touch screen, while the mainstream model had a Core i5-8250U processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a 1080p non-bear on screen. From surfing the web to lite gaming and writing portions of this review, both versions of the XPS 13 9370 handled everything we threw at them, without a hiccup.
Because it uses a new thermal setup with dual fans, dual rut pipes and special thermal insulation, the XPS 13 9370 is able to prevent its processor from throttling as aggressively as many other laptops.
Thanks to Dell's new cooling arrangement, these laptops were also capable of delivering better sustained performance on long tasks, such as compressing a 4K video or running the same criterion 10 times in a row.
As they oestrus up during intense tasks, nigh laptops tedious their CPUs down to cool them downwardly. Because information technology uses a new thermal setup with dual fans, dual heat pipes and special thermal insulation, the XPS 13 9370 is able to prevent its processor from throttling as aggressively as many other laptops.
Nosotros saw evidence of the performance improvement during our video compression test where nosotros utilise Handbrake to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. The Cadre i7-powered XPS 13 9370 took just 16 minutes to complete this task. he XPS 13 9360, on the other hand, which had the same exact Core i7-8550U CPU, took 19 minutes and 35 seconds.
We also ran the Cinebench R15 benchmark, which measures processing power past cartoon a 3D image 10 times in a row on a few different laptops. The XPS thirteen 9370 with the Core i7 processor got a score of 679 on the kickoff run (higher is better), which dropped to 635 on run No. 10, a decline of half dozen.4 percent. Its Core i5-powered sibling, however, went from 666 to 633, a drib of 4.9 percent. When we tried the aforementioned task on a Microsoft Surface Volume 2 (13-inch) with Cadre i7-8550U, it suffered a 26 percent decline from get-go to concluding run. An HP Spectre x360 with the same Core i7 processor remained perfectly stable, getting a much lower mark of 456 on both the first and last runs.
Using the Dell Power Manager app, you tin can configure the laptop's thermal management to offer "Ultra Operation," with warmer temperatures. We ran Cinebench 15 ten times in this mode, and the scores ranged from 707 on the first run to 655 on the 10th run. Though, those are higher numbers, we likewise experienced higher temperatures, with the office row striking a balmy 115 degrees by the end of the concluding run. We recommend sticking with the default, "Optimized" way, which gives y'all the best balance betwixt performance and pare temperature.
When we ran Geekbench four, a synthetic test that measures processing performance, the Cadre Core i5-8250U-powered XPS thirteen 9370 scored xiii,254, while the Core i7-8550U-enabled version registered 14,180. The last-gen Dell XPS thirteen 9360 with the aforementioned Core i7-8550U CPU scored a very similar mark of 14,158. HP's Spectre 13, also with Core i7-8550U inside, scored a lower mark of xiii,090. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon and its last-gen Core i7-7600U processor, hit only viii,571.
The XPS 13 9370 with Core i7 took just one minute and 6 seconds to match 50,000 names with their addresses in Microsoft Excel. The Core i5 model finished in 1 infinitesimal and 15 seconds, while the XPS 13 9360 fell in between the two with ane:08.
The 1TB PCIe SSD in the Core i7-powered XPS thirteen 9370 took just 13 seconds to copy 4.97GB of files, a rate of 399.4 MBps, while the 256GB unit in the Cadre i5 model performed the same chore at a rate of 339.ii MBps. Both numbers are much better than the category boilerplate (232 MBps) and the X1 Carbon (242 MBps). The XPS 13 9360 with 256GB SSD was even faster, achieving a rate of 508 MBps. The HP Spectre xiii (339.3 MBps) basically tied the Cadre i5-powered XPS thirteen 9370.
Dell XPS xiii 9370 graphics
WIth its integrated Intel UHD 620 GPU, the XPS 13 9370 is expert enough for doing light video editing or playing some games at low settings. Its Core i7- and Core i5-powered models scored 85,616 and 77,584, respectively, on 3DMark Water ice Tempest Unlimited, a synthetic graphics test. Both models were far ahead of the category average (62,573), the HP Spectre thirteen (75,114) and the X1 Carbon (68,082). The XPS 13 9360 fell in between the two with a mark of 81,837.
No matter which Dell XPS 13 9370 configuration you cull, you lot'll get higher up-average battery life, but a model with the 1080p not-touch screen lasts several hours longer.
When playing Dirt 3, the XPS 13 with Cadre i7 returned a frame rate of 66.9 fps, whereas the Core i5 model got a still-potent 56.7 fps. The XPS 13 9360 (56 fps) and the HP Spectre xiii (57 fps) got like rates, while the X1 Carbon (28 fps) and category average (42 fps) were way behind.
Dell XPS xiii 9370 bombardment life
No affair which Dell XPS 13 9370 configuration you choose, you'll get in a higher place-average battery life, but a model with the 1080p non-touch screen lasts several hours longer. The XPS xiii 9370 with 1080p non-bear on screen lasted 12 hours and 37 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. The model with the 4K display endured for 8 hours and 53 minutes. Those numbers compare favorably to the ultraportable category average (8:16) and the HP Spectre 13's time of 6:16.
However, Dell'due south slightly older XPS 9360 with 1080p screen lasted a much-longer 16 hours and 5 minutes on our exam. That'due south because, in making its laptop thinner and lighter, Dell switched from a sixty watt-hour bombardment on the 9360 to a 52 watt-hr unit on the 9370.
Dell XPS 13 9370 estrus
Both XPS 13 9370 configurations nosotros tried stayed pleasantly absurd throughout our testing. Later streaming a video for 15 minutes, the touchpad, keyboard and bottom of the Core i7-powered model hit 82, 86.v and 88 degrees Fahrenheit, all well beneath our 95-degree comfort threshold. The Core i5 model got similar temperatures of fourscore, 85.5 and 88 degrees.
Dell's Power Manager app allows you to configure the laptop's thermal management for maximum performance, everyman temperature or least noise. We used the default, Optimized setting during nearly of our testing, and the laptop always felt cool to the bear on. Yet, when we switched to the "Ultra Performance" mode we got slightly higher scores, but the top of the keyboard hit 115 degrees.
Dell XPS 13 9370 webcam
With the XPS 13 9370, Dell has moved the webcam from the lower left corner of the bezel to the centre bottom.
Yes, it'southward notwithstanding a "olfactory organ cam" that looks up at you, but considering the lens is centered, information technology gets much ameliorate angles. When I shot a selfie, I was able to become my caput in the center top of the frame, with the camera looking up at me, by lowering and raising the lid.
Image quality was on a par with other premium laptops; colors like the blue and gray in my shirt were true, and there was only a limited corporeality of visual racket in the background.
Dell XPS xiii 9370 software and warranty
Dell preloads the XPS 13 9370 with a few useful utilities and some bloatware. Dell Ability Director lets yous tweak the arrangement settings for maximum performance (with more estrus and noise), coolest skin temperature, quietest fan noise or a balance among the 3. Dell Help & Support offers tutorials and warrant data. Dell SupportAssist checks organisation health, shows configuration data and helps y'all download new drivers. Dell remote Desktop lets you remote-control the laptop from another device.
The system also comes with its fair share of bloat. Dell packs on a trial of McAfee LiveSafe and a Dropbox promotion, which gives new users 20GB of complimentary space for a year. Microsoft packs on its standard set of Windows 10 pre-loads, including Minecraft, March of Empires, Bubble Witch 3 Saga, Autodesk Sketchbook and a link to purchase Drawboard PDF.
Dell backs its laptop with a 1-twelvemonth, limited warranty on parts and labor. See how Dell fared on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Laptop Brand Ratings.
Bottom line
From its middle-popping 4K display to its speedy operation and beautiful design, in that location'due south a lot to love about the Dell XPS 13 9370. Although even so non ideal, its centered webcam is a huge improvement over the left-aligned one on prior models. The 9370's power to work with eGPUs also makes it a great pick for people who want to play demanding games.
Consumers who demand the longest possible endurance or who can't live without USB Type-A ports should consider the XPS xiii 9360, which Dell will keep to sell for the foreseeable future. However, if you want the best combination of performance, portability and aesthetics, the XPS 13 9370 is made for you.
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Dell XPS 13 9370 (2018) Specs
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 4.1 |
| Brand | Dell |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-8550U |
| Company Website | http://www.dell.com |
| Display Size | 13.three |
| Graphics Card | Intel UHD Graphics 620 |
| Hard Drive Size | 256GB SSD |
| Hard Drive Speed | n/a |
| Hard Bulldoze Type | SSD |
| Highest Available Resolution | 3840 x 2160 |
| Native Resolution | 1920x1080 |
| Operating Arrangement | Windows 10 |
| Optical Drive | None |
| Optical Bulldoze Speed | north/a |
| Ports (excluding USB) | Headphone, Thunderbolt iii, Noble Lock |
| RAM | 8GB |
| RAM Upgradable to | 16GB |
| Size | 11.98 x vii.88 x 0.46 inches |
| Touchpad Size | 4.1 10 2.3 inches |
| USB Ports | 2 |
| Video Memory | Shared |
| Warranty/Support | one-year |
| Weight | ii.65 pounds |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac |
| Wi-Fi Model | Killer 1535 Wireless Ac 2x2 |
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Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/dell-xps-13