Dell XPS 13-9350 InfinityEdge Ultrabook Review

[Derek]

Hi,

Will there be a 9350 QHD review? I'm really wanting to see the battery life comparison...

[Matthew Stanton]

Will there be an XPS 15 review coming soon? I have seen very few professional reviews for this laptop

[thesilentassassin]

Hey Steve Schardein,

Dell has apparently sent reviewers at laptop LaptopMag.com an updated bios which fix the issue of NVMe SSD (256GB and up) draining more power than expected. The battery performance by their benchmark has improved around 20%.

Before bios update: https://web.archive.org/web/20151...touch-2015 - 9:37

After bios update: http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/...touch-2015 - 11:54

Can you by any chance get this updated bios and test the laptop again and post any differences in battery life? Much thanks.

[Steve Schardein]

Hey guys,

Thanks again for all the comments / questions.  Sorry I couldn't get to every single one of you -- I hope the review has been informative enough anyway!

To quickly address anyone requesting further testing of the machine, I've already shipped it back to our labs actually.  They may still have it on hand there and if so, they may be able to perform additional tests (such as of this new BIOS for lower NVMe power consumption), however I won't be able to do it personally.

Thanks again for reading, really appreciate it! :-)

Steve

[shopper]

You said "users who are bothered by the CBAC auto-brightness may well consider this a significant reason to purchase the QHD+ model instead".

That's a totally useless statement. Without actually buying the FHD model, how would I know if I'm bothered by the CBAC? That's what I'm reading your review to find out!  You're the reviewer - did it bother you?  None, a little, a lot?  An XPS13 is a stretch purchase for me BUT I can justify it if there are no significant drawbacks.  So this could be a deal-breaker.  But, maybe not!  No way to find out here...

[Tomatot]

This is a great test and it made me buy this beautiful laptop. So thank you very much. I don't know if you heard, but battery life being not as good as the early-2015 version is mostly because of the SSD consuming too much in light usage. However Dell is going to give a fix through a BIOS update. Are you going to update the review because of that ? Maybe it'll reach 90% haha.

[Tomatot]

This is a great test and it made me buy this beautiful laptop. So thank you very much. I don't know if you heard, but battery life being not as good as the early-2015 version is mostly because of the SSD consuming too much in light usage. However Dell is going to give a fix through a BIOS update. Are you going to update the review because of that ? Maybe it'll reach 90% haha.

Oops I'm sorry, you already answered that.

[tommi]

Gold touch version reviewed
https://youtu.be/JSztFtveyOg

[emike]

To quickly address anyone requesting further testing of the machine, I've already shipped it back to our labs actually.  They may still have it on hand there and if so, they may be able to perform additional tests (such as of this new BIOS for lower NVMe power consumption), however I won't be able to do it personally.

When will update come?

[qqqqqq]

in the video review you say that idle runtime is about 30 hours for the FHD..  in fact 56 watt divided by1,8 watt per hour is about 30 hours.

in the written review you say only 13 hours


why?

[Sebastian Plaza]

There is something i don't understand...
Why all these laptops are coming with only ONE ram slot.. and SOLDERED!?

Where is the dual channel optimisation ?

[j]

I am choosing between the xps 13 (skylake) and the new asus ux303ub.  It seems the asus has the better value with higher specs and the same price as the xps 13.  But the asus is graded at 85 while the xps13 is graded 89.  Is the xps 13 the better laptop?  Does the better value of the asus still lag behind the xps?  Thx.

[Thomas Dahl]

I have the i7/16GB/1TB 9350 version and it is a great laptop.  There are however a couple of issues that you need to be aware of.

The battery life is about 5-6 hours with light use. Dell's advertising talks about 14+ hours and this is simply a lie.

I only got the QHD Touch version as this was the only way to get the 1TB drive.  I would seriously recommend getting the normal nin touch version.  The battery life is around 50% higher and the screen almost as good.  Touch is tortally pointless on this machine as you have a touch pad. Once the novelty wears off you will never touch the screen again.

The HD Intel graphic chip/driver has some big issues which mean that the driver crashes several times per day.  It seems to happen more often when connecting to an external monitor.  As of Feb 10, 2015 there is no solution and I am working with Dell to resolve.  You may be better off gettting the newer Iris chip - although it still has to be proven.

A great laptop.  You will love it.

[dellnever]

Advise; i bought this computer. Its screen fails.

[Paolo]

The Precision touchpad is also once again excellent, and yet again unchanged from the previous model. To quickly summarize our previous impressions, it's accurate, smooth, sufficiently large, and it features very good integrated buttons. Gestures are once again flawlessly interpreted.

Whoever is wondering about this statement, try just to google Dell XPS 9343 touchpad to see the "excellence" reported by the users across the Globe.