Dell XPS 15 – Multimedia laptop
Dell XPS 15 is a multimedia laptop and it gives great value for money considering the specs inside. For a price of $849 (base price) you get powerful Core i5 chip, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB hard disk drive, backlit keyboard, and Nvidia GeForce GT420M GPU with Optimus technology. Also, it has USB 3.0 and HDMI 1.4 port which is rare for a laptop in this price range. This laptop is available in 14, 15, and 17 inch sizes.
I got the 15 inch model in my labs for testing which had a 15.6 inch LED backlit glossy screen having 16:9 aspect ratio and resolution of 1,366×768 pixels. This is a low for a high end laptop. On the bright side, the colors were true and bright, the games and movies looked great. For extra $130, you can get full HD display with 1,920×1,080 pixels. This seems to be a worthwhile upgrade and I would also recommend adding up a Blu-ray drive for another $100. The price of the Dell XPS 15 laptop would then go up to $1,079. The cost is reasonable considering the specs inside.
Above the display, there is a HD Webcam which gives records video at 1,280×720 pixels or 1,600×1,200 pixels in HD H.264 format. The framerates are very choppy with normal settings but the HD recording gives watchable and very smooth clips. This Webcam is compatible along with SkypeHD for streaming HD videos. This is a good plus and the manufacturer has put in noise-canceling microphone to the chat package which further improves the chatting potential of the Dell XPS 15.
Dell XPS 15 doesn’t have features like Intel Wireless Display or ExpressCard slot but there are some future proof specs. The USB 3.0 ports let you connect high-speed data transfer devices though they aren’t very popular in the market right now. Through HDMI 1.4, you get Nvidia 3DTV Play which gives you Blu-ray playback and 3D games when connected to a compatible 3D HDTV with HDMI cable. You will need Blu-ray for using 3D TV and I think most of the people will get the Blu-ray player for using this feature.
Dell gives you plenty of configuration options. My Dell XPS 15 review had a Nvidia GeForce 420M GPU with Optimus and Core i5 chip which is a good configuration for a price of $849. The CPUs top out at quad-core Core i7-840QM for an extra $500 and the graphics range up to Nvidia GeForce 435M with 2 gigs of memory for $100 more. Hard drive can be expanded up to 640 GB for $50 more and RAM up to 8 GB for $180. There is also a 256 GB SSD option for $550. I was glad to see that a laptop at this price doesn’t have any major compromises except for the absence of Blu-ray and low resolution screen. This is a better deal than the HP Envy 14 which costs $999 for the Core i3 processor. In my gaming tests, I got 73.6 fps in 1,366×768-pixel resolution for Unreal Tournament III
- Price – $849 (my review model)
- CPU – 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 M460
- RAM – 4GB, 1,333MHz DDR3
- Memory – 500GB at 7,200rpm
- Chipset – Intel HM57
- GPU – Nvidia GeForce GT420M + Intel GMA HD with Nvidia Optimus technology
- Dimensions – 15.0 inches wide x 10.4 inches deep
- OS – Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
- Height – 1.3-1.5 inches
- Display size (diagonally measured) – 15.6 inches
- Laptop weight – 6.3 pounds, weight with the power adapter – 7.2 pounds
- Type – Desktop replacement laptop
