The XPS 15 has grown stale, and UserBenchmark listings for the 2020 edition suggest that Dell is happy with it remaining that way

[Redaktion]

It seems that Dell has forgotten about the XPS 15. While we continue to award the device top marks year on year, Dell has essentially been releasing minor revisions of the same machine since 2015. Now, several UserBenchmark listings have given us an insight into what Dell has planned for this year's XPS 15, the 9500. Hardware-wise at least, it looks like we are in for another year of Dell flogging a dead horse.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-XPS-15-has-grown-stale-and-UserBenchmark-listings-for-the-2020-edition-suggest-that-Dell-is-happy-with-it-remaining-that-way.459561.0.html

[PaulM]

I was looking forward to a 16:10 4K+ screen. Any news on that?

[Lum Dërmaku]

Take a look at the resolution on the right of the first image, it is 3840 x 2400 which is a 16:10 resolution. At least the overall design of the laptop is changing since it looks like it will finally have 16:10 display configs.

[PaulM]

Take a look at the resolution on the right of the first image, it is 3840 x 2400 which is a 16:10 resolution. At least the overall design of the laptop is changing since it looks like it will finally have 16:10 display configs.

Well spotted! 16:10 will be a big improvement, allowing a larger screen in a similar chassis if it's anything like the XPS 13.

A couple of other features they should add would be pen input (with a slot to hold the pen so you don't lose it), and auto-brightness for the display like every mobile phone already has. An Ethernet port would be nice too.

[Lum Dërmaku]

Take a look at the resolution on the right of the first image, it is 3840 x 2400 which is a 16:10 resolution. At least the overall design of the laptop is changing since it looks like it will finally have 16:10 display configs.

Well spotted! 16:10 will be a big improvement, allowing a larger screen in a similar chassis if it's anything like the XPS 13.

A couple of other features they should add would be pen input (with a slot to hold the pen so you don't lose it), and auto-brightness for the display like every mobile phone already has. An Ethernet port would be nice too.

If it's still a 15.6" screen, 16:10 will not make it larger. It's the same size, just horizontally narrower, vertically taller..

[PaulM]

Take a look at the resolution on the right of the first image, it is 3840 x 2400 which is a 16:10 resolution. At least the overall design of the laptop is changing since it looks like it will finally have 16:10 display configs.

Well spotted! 16:10 will be a big improvement, allowing a larger screen in a similar chassis if it's anything like the XPS 13.

A couple of other features they should add would be pen input (with a slot to hold the pen so you don't lose it), and auto-brightness for the display like every mobile phone already has. An Ethernet port would be nice too.

If it's still a 15.6" screen, 16:10 will not make it larger. It's the same size, just horizontally narrower, vertically taller..

The existing XPS15 has a large bezel at the bottom. If they remove that, like they have done for the XPS13 then it will actually be bigger. Vertical screen space is also more valuable IMO than horizontal and I think 1:9 is not tall enough, so will be an improvement IMO regardless.

[PaulM]

16:9 is not tall enough, so will be an improvement IMO regardless.

[william blake]

this link https://www.userbenchmark.com/System/Dell-XPS-15-9500/180189 is better, all xps-9500 builds :)

[Alex Alderson]

Take a look at the resolution on the right of the first image, it is 3840 x 2400 which is a 16:10 resolution. At least the overall design of the laptop is changing since it looks like it will finally have 16:10 display configs.

Good spot indeed! I have rejigged the article accordingly.

[Jeremy]

If it's still a 15.6" screen, 16:10 will not make it larger. It's the same size, just horizontally narrower, vertically taller..

Interestingly, that's where math comes in.

At 15.6", a 16:10 display would deliver ~705.6cm^2, compared to 15.6" 16:9 ~670.9cm^2. Sure, 16:10 is ~9mm less wide, but it is also ~15mm taller, too.

Even at 15.4", the common size of 16:10 displays of this class, 16:10 will get ~687.7cm^2 more area than 15.6" 16:9. At this point, it's ~14mm less wide, but still ~13mm taller.

I think you can see why manufacturers moved to 16:9 over 16:10 (16:10 came first). While it's not the only reason why, but it allows them to advertise larger diagonal numbers while actually producing less screen in reality. Even fewer pixels (it's true of most common 16:10 resolutions - they just got snipped at the bottom to make a 16:9 screen).

Who even made 16:9 content when 16:9 was introduced? Cinema is often 2.35:1 or 1.85:1 (or 21.15:9 and 16.65:1, respectively), neither of which is 16:9. So even on common content, there are still black bars at the top and bottom (negating the common "complaint" made up by people about 16:10 and 3:2).

In the end, 16:9 was chosen because it was shorter than 16:10 and less square, both of which contributed to a lower manufacturing cost (marginally). We got stuck with 16:9 so the likes of Samsung, LG, BOE, AUO, etc could save a few pennies per display while advertising larger numbers. Who cares about the ergonomic and workflow analysis that lead IBM to develop 16:10? Who cares about the fact that laptops cannot get less tall (without compromising either the KB or the touchpad), leading to chin bezels all around (or drop-hinges to hide the chin)? At least Apple actually cared, preserving 16:10, even as that aspect ratio all but disappeared.

In the end, 16:9 was marginally cheaper to produce (not that you would ever see those savings) since it produced a smaller display vs the size rating. Consumers were dumb enough to be deluded, hence 16:9.

[Jeremy]

Adding to my previous post:

In reality, Dell would just design the laptop around the display (with some accommodations for engineering realities).

When moving their XPS13 from 13.3" 16:9 to 16:10, Dell upped the size to 13.4". Seemingly small change, but it allowed the 16:10 display to be only 6mm less wide, while being 15mm taller. This meant Dell was able to just make the laptop marginally less wide (they made the KB larger to compensate) while allowing the 16:10 screen to eat up the ungainly plastic chin.

What's really funny? To preserve the same width as 16:9 15.6" (see my previous post about the math and deception of 16:9 vs more square aspect ratios), Dell would need to move to a 16.0" 16:10 display. The new hotness in laptops displays (nowadays, where Apple "courageously" goes, every company meekly follows).

[gerger]

The existing XPS15 has a large bezel at the bottom. If they remove that, like they have done for the XPS13 then it will actually be bigger.

Duh... if they remove that bezel, the chassis just becomes smaller, unless they actually change the screen size.

They actually increased the screen size with XPS 13; it's now 13,4" at 16:10 ratio compared 13,3" at 16:9 ratio, totaling in 33 cm2 larger screen.

[_MT_]

I think you can see why manufacturers moved to 16:9 over 16:10 (16:10 came first). While it's not the only reason why, but it allows them to advertise larger diagonal numbers while actually producing less screen in reality. Even fewer pixels (it's true of most common 16:10 resolutions - they just got snipped at the bottom to make a 16:9 screen).

Who even made 16:9 content when 16:9 was introduced? Cinema is often 2.35:1 or 1.85:1 (or 21.15:9 and 16.65:1, respectively), neither of which is 16:9. So even on common content, there are still black bars at the top and bottom (negating the common "complaint" made up by people about 16:10 and 3:2).

In the end, 16:9 was chosen because it was shorter than 16:10 and less square, both of which contributed to a lower manufacturing cost (marginally). We got stuck with 16:9 so the likes of Samsung, LG, BOE, AUO, etc could save a few pennies per display while advertising larger numbers. Who cares about the ergonomic and workflow analysis that lead IBM to develop 16:10? Who cares about the fact that laptops cannot get less tall (without compromising either the KB or the touchpad), leading to chin bezels all around (or drop-hinges to hide the chin)? At least Apple actually cared, preserving 16:10, even as that aspect ratio all but disappeared.

Well, I believe DVDs were 16:9. Of course, they supported 4:3. And actually, I believe even the 16:9 content is stored as 4:3 by compressing the horizontal like it's done on film. It might appear super wide in a cinema, but the film itself is 3:2. And as a result, pirated movies were 16:9.

It's questionable whether they saved money. Because there was also a push for "full HD". Before, cheaper laptops had poor resolutions. Under 800 vertical (I think 768 was pretty common). While expensive 15.4" laptops could have 1920x1200 and actually lost resolution in this process, cheap laptops gained resolution by switching to 1920x1080. Back in 2006, even the one step lower 1680x1050 wasn't common among cheaper laptops IIRC. And then, of course, came YouTube and company. 16:9 is a video/ TV aspect ratio. That's what consumer cameras offered. 16:9 @ 1080p is what video/ TV industries were pushing to consumers as "duck's guts". Normally, I would suspect they were looking to consolidate TV/ portable DVD player and computer display manufacture, but laptop displays are pretty small for TVs and large for portable players and I don't know how the volumes work out.

I don't know about workflow and ergonomic studies, I'm not sure 16:10 (really, it should be 8:5 - it's like everybody was asleep in math classes) is optimal for a laptop. Even a fairly large 15.4". For me, personally, vertical space is critical. I don't want to give up any unless I get something useful back. A wide screen is only really useful to me as a multiple monitor setup replacement. It's just not wide enough for that. At 15.4", it's enough for toolbars and such, for permanently docking something on the side like a list of contacts for an instant messenger. But two A4 won't really fit. It depends on what you use, how much horizontal space you can make use of. It's been ages since I worked on a 4:3 screen. I remember the experience as horizontally cramped, but it was trivial to solve this by hiding panels I didn't need all the time. At 8:5, I could have everything pinned in place and still had room to spare I couldn't really use. Maybe a 3:2 could be a good compromise? Unfortunately, this shift in displays coincided with Microsoft introducing ribbons. What a stupid and ill-timed move. We're gaining horizontal space at the expense of vertical and they gave us a vertical oriented GUI that's rigid compared to old toolbars.

[_MT_]

What's really funny? To preserve the same width as 16:9 15.6" (see my previous post about the math and deception of 16:9 vs more square aspect ratios), Dell would need to move to a 16.0" 16:10 display. The new hotness in laptops displays (nowadays, where Apple "courageously" goes, every company meekly follows).

To me, that only makes sense when you actually need the width. On a 13" laptop, you need the width to fit a good keyboard. On a 15", you don't unless it has a numerical keypad. To me, that was the only advantage of wider 15.6" laptops over the narrower 15.4" laptops. So yes, if you want to preserve a numerical keypad, you'd either have to make the bezel thicker or make the display wider (increase diagonal). Without it, there is a tonne of space even on a 15.4" laptop with big, full size keys.