NotebookCHECK - Notebook Forum

weird how reviews for macbooks with small bezels aren't titled "basically an xps with mac os"

pitty it has the slow, buggy and overheating intel piece of crap inside.

Does it actually support S3 sleep? If it's pulling idle power or more than idle power while sleeping, something is wrong.

Amazing review as always! But isnt it a little unfair to call it "Pretty much a MacBook Pro 17", especially in the title? You call it unique in the review, but in the end just like any other XPS review on here it comes down to comparing it to a MacBook pro, even if there is none to compare.

Why not just call it a very nice or pretty or unique Laptop, or something?

USB-C power delivery standards only go up to 100W - that's why the power supply can't deliver more than this over USB-C. Dell cannot fix this while remaining compatible with the standard.

If they would cook their own proprietary extension of the standard, it will only work with the Dell power supply (and cable), which loses them one of the key advantages of having USB-C in the first place - a single cable that delivers power and docking connectors.

So I don't expect there will be a "fix" for this. It's just something to consider before purchase.

Apart from that, I agree with most of the review. The display is the key selling point here, although I wish there would be a non-glossy, non-touch option for the UHD+ display. I loathe gloss and don't need touch. But there is hardly anyone else doing 16:10 displays yet.

Only Microsoft's Surface does good displays in non-Netflix aspect ratios, but their hardware is all glued together with zero expansion or repair options. This one at least has sockets and can be opened, although it sounds like it's still a bit annoying to do.

I would've liked some more connectors too, especially since USB has a sad history of never quite working right. No idea why the "Killer" brand Wifi is such a thing these days, Intel must be heavily discounting this nonsense for OEMs.

I also don't find temperatures well over 40 degrees near the keyboard acceptable - it's painful to touch!

And of course there's no trackpoint :-(

Not USB 3.1 type-A connector, only 3 non-standard USB type-C connector ;-(

Almost no one uses this non-standard USB type-C format with fragile connectors !!! Personally I don't want it on my machines !!!

This not a laptop for my...

They still can't get products right.
With all the flexing going on, I'm sure it feels flimsy. They could well afford to bolster the structure of the unit up to make it less flimsy feeling.

How is it that MSI Creator 17 with fancy mini-led display with local dimming, high brightness and HDR has worse contrast than XPS 17 with plain regular IPS display?

Damn, man... Top Rated Award, 88% overall score, 97% application, 95% games and this laptop can't sustain more than 3GHz and over 1400 score in cinebench during cpu *only* load. Two huge ~65mm fans with the vapor chamber (but still loud as hell) and it can't run games for more than 30 minutes without regular low dips. And that is even with 100W cap on power. I'm sorry, but this one is clearly a garbage, especially when one considers its price: 3k USD. WTF. The rating system should definitely incorporate the price. Such rubbish products should never get these high scores.

No matte display kills it for me, then the fact that all this power and superb screen ideal for 3D work but can't use it because it uses battery when even when connected to the socket so what is the point?
What are we really paying for 3000?

Quote from: benkennard on July 15, 2020, 09:10:29
weird how reviews for macbooks with small bezels aren't titled "basically an xps with mac os"

Well, that would be invalid because the point of the XPS being similar to the Macbook Pro is the change from 16:9 to 16:10 screens. That is the main selling point in this XPS entry.

Disappointed by noise level so much. I have expected XPS 17 will be much quieter  :(

what a waste of money, too bad, 4K+ screen is one of a kind at the moment and design is nice but too many problems, and it is not for gamer, not for audio production (DPC Latency problems) and the power supply does not work and the battery will die fast if it is drained that often

Quote from: Yngmar on July 15, 2020, 12:12:54
USB-C power delivery standards only go up to 100W - that's why the power supply can't deliver more than this over USB-C. Dell cannot fix this while remaining compatible with the standard.

If they would cook their own proprietary extension of the standard, it will only work with the Dell power supply (and cable), which loses them one of the key advantages of having USB-C in the first place - a single cable that delivers power and docking connectors.

So I don't expect there will be a "fix" for this. It's just something to consider before purchase.

Yes, Dell is pushing 130 W through USB-C. Yes, you need their supply to do it. If you have a generic 100 W USB PD supply, then you'll be limited to 100 W. The problem is that some configurations of XPS 17 can't reach 130 with a 130 W supply and appear to be capped at roughly 100. While other configurations can. XPS 15 can as well.

It means that their solution has an edge over the generic solutions. The laptop is still compliant and is going to work with the generic solutions (e.g. you can recharge on the go from any USB PD charger, even a phone charger). But they won't give you 130 W. It's up to you. And I imagine the supply is compliant as well. If you connect it to anything else, it's going to behave like a 100 W USB PD supply. So, you can use it to recharge other USB PD devices.

Notebookcheck, do you know if your device was equipped with NVIDIA's Game Ready drivers in GeForce Experience? If it came equipped with Creator Ready drivers instead, would it be possible to test some of the graphics benchmarks again with Game Ready drivers from NVIDIA's website? www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/hgmf58/psa_if_you_plan_on_gaming_on_your_xps_17_update/

Great review! Obviously this is an engineering mistake Dell made on the power supply, let alone other system optimization problems (heat/fan/DPC) found in the review. We better wait for next gen intel where it support TB4/USB4 and multiple charging access on a single unit. This xps 17 apparently is not ready yet.   

Do you guys think that if it was spec with FHD+ display it would drain less power from battery ?

I'm a Tech Professional and want to purchase a laptop for my work as well as personal use. My workflow includes multi resource-intensive parallel runs applications as well as photo and high-end video editing.

I had XPS 9500 and faced thermal and other issues. I had very bad experiences with the Dell Advance resolution team but had a good experience with Dell's technical service team.

I looked at XPS 17 with i7 8core, 32 GB RAM, Nvidia 2060 MaxQ , Vapor chamber cooling, excellent sound, and 4k display. However, after reading your great review, I'm holding off from XPS 17 9700.

I looked at Lenevo and they do not have i9 or 10th Gen i7 8 core processors with upgradable RAM and high-end graphics card like NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2060 6GB GDDR6 with Max-Q.

Can you please recommend a reliable and durable windows laptop that I can use for the next 5 years without any issues which have a great 4k display for video editing, excellent cooling system, 10th Gen 8 core processor, RAM and SSD upgradeability, high-end graphics card, and great sound quality.

I occasionally play games but do not need a gaming computer,
This will be my only work machine and I need to carry my laptop for business meetings.   

Thanks in advance

Quote from: kkdev9 on July 15, 2020, 23:12:06
I'm a Tech Professional and want to purchase a laptop for my work as well as personal use. My workflow includes multi resource-intensive parallel runs applications as well as photo and high-end video editing.

I had XPS 9500 and faced thermal and other issues. I had very bad experiences with the Dell Advance resolution team but had a good experience with Dell's technical service team.

I looked at XPS 17 with i7 8core, 32 GB RAM, Nvidia 2060 MaxQ , Vapor chamber cooling, excellent sound, and 4k display. However, after reading your great review, I'm holding off from XPS 17 9700.

I looked at Lenevo and they do not have i9 or 10th Gen i7 8 core processors with upgradable RAM and high-end graphics card like NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2060 6GB GDDR6 with Max-Q.

Can you please recommend a reliable and durable windows laptop that I can use for the next 5 years without any issues which have a great 4k display for video editing, excellent cooling system, 10th Gen 8 core processor, RAM and SSD upgradeability, high-end graphics card, and great sound quality.

I occasionally play games but do not need a gaming computer,
This will be my only work machine and I need to carry my laptop for business meetings.   

Thanks in advance

HP's ENVY 15 or Zbook create(cannot say about sound quality though), depends on how much you could pay... The early impression from nbc about Envy 15 looks really good.

ENVY 15: i9-10885h/2060 max q/4K OLED/vapor chamber for about 2400 USD

Zbook create: i9-10885h/2070 or 2070s or 2080s max q/4K OLED or DreamColor LED/vapor chamber, will be released in August...

Allen, regarding the 100W power adapter limit:

1. Is there a specific dedicated USB-C port for charging, or ANY of the 4 can be used?

2. If the latter: is it possible to plug TWO adapters simultaneously? Will the laptop be able to pull more than 130W?

I own a 9700 with an i7 + 1650Ti + FHD screen.

• System flex?  It feels rock solid in my hands. It's better than literally every other laptop I've ever owned, including the first XPS 15 model and first Zbook 15 model.  Perhaps it isn't the best, but it definitely is not a con.
• Measured at the wall, I can get a consistent 127W from the wall and my battery will charge while playing Forza Horizon 3 on High Settings (103 fps)
• For a regular PD adapter, the laptop won't do better than 90W.  I only have 1 100W PD adapter (Choetech GaN) so it could just be the adapter.

[li]Running at 90W, I get a small battery drain when playing Forza Horizon 3 -- about 4% per hour.
[/li][/list]

Waiting on the FHD+ review.

Quote from: Joel on July 20, 2020, 14:40:30
I own a 9700 with an i7 + 1650Ti + FHD screen.

Joel (or anyone?) could you tell us what the panel model is for the FHD+ version?
The UHD in this review was a Sharp LQ170R1, but wondering which panel is in the FHD version.

I have the 9700 with the FHD display, RTX-2060 MaxQ, and Intel Core i7-10875H and I am not able to run the Port Royal benchmark. The test states "The rendering device is not connected directly to the selected display. The frame rate may be limited by PCI Express bandwidth and other factors." and when I run the test no results are provided. I am confused as I see you were able to run the Port Royal benchmark. I am not able to run or get a result. It starts and stops shortly afterwards with no results. Am I missing a setting? Also my FireStrike results are 12 864 which seem significantly lower than your results?

I have the i7 10875 1TB SSD 1920x1200 FHD 32GB 2060 MaxQ and it's a good machine once the defective trackpad on delivery was replaced (known problem with this model).  One issue is moderate banding on gradients possibly due to drivers or the 8 bit panel (Dell hasn't resolved this yet).