Dell XPS 15 Over the years, we’ve seen a mouthful of interesting computing devices walk out from Dell quarters right from the XPS and Studio line up for multimedia enthusiasts to the widely customizable Inspiron and Alienware series. Though nothing noteworthy has really happened on the Studio and Adamo fronts for quite a bit now, 2010 did see Dell revising its XPS system line-up which brought to the table a host of mainstream laptops. Decipher XPS for one and you’ll know Dell means business, at least with something that stands for Xtreme Performance System, (even if it’s bad spelling). Now we do know that the company had debut the new Dell XPS 15 and 17 laptops with 3D and Sandy Bridge just last month. Why a review of the older XPS 15 notebook then? Well, better late than never!
Our first impressions of the Dell XPS 15 went from ‘Now that’s a chubby laptop’ to ‘It’s very heavy’. Our guess is on the anodized aluminum grade finishing in metal and black draping the laptop on its external and internal areas respectively making it look a wee bit slimmer and sleeker than it actually is. Despite the very noticeable full demeanor, the laptop looks anything but uninviting with its rounded edges et al. What we also got in the box were a range of software CDs, couple of set up guides, warranty support and 3DTV support booklet. The top chassis of the laptop bears just the Dell logo in the central portion and the display has been hinged at least an inch ahead from the back edge. Quite a move away from the plethora of 15-inchers we’ve come across in recent times, this one doesn’t have the I/O ports on both edges too. They are instead affixed to just the right and the posterior area.
Worth noting is the slight dip when you move towards the back with the left edge in particular incorporating the cooling vent and a single USB 3.0 port here. As for the right side, it holds the optical drive along with the headphone, mic-in and S/PDIF jacks and an eSATA/USB combo port. Dell’s quite intelligently placed the other connectivity options in a very unlikely place, the back of the laptop. Mini-display, HDMI, Ethernet, Antenna-in, Power and a Kensington lock slot in line with another USB 3.0 option are the ports in this region. For some reason Dell also has the battery and HDD status indicator LEDs here. Move over to the front rim and a 9-in-1 SDXC-MMC-MS/Pro slot is all that’s there. It’s long after you’ve hit the power button that the laptop actually starts up. In the meantime, we notice the innards of this device to have a very plastic feel with either sides of the backlit keyboard splashed by JBL speakers. Right above the keyboard is the Power button, WLAN indicator and shortcuts to the Windows Mobility Center, Display off and the Waves MaxxAudio3 interface.
As far as the technical bells and whistles are concerned, it’s the Intel Core i7 CPU Q740 running in at precisely 1.73GHz that lights things up. 4GB of RAM on the 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium OS, a 500GB hard drive and by now we find ourselves seeing too much of a similarity with the Lenovo Ideapad Y560 laptop we’d scanned just some time back. With the XPS 15 powered up, the familiar Dell Dock seated itself on the front top edge of the screen. It brings in the option of fitting a range of shortcuts and leaving the desktop uncluttered while also being able to customize the dock as you fancy. The 15.5” screen though very reflective displays content vividly. Its native resolution of the 1366 x 768 coupled with the varied viewing angles offered make it a visual treat. Add the Nvidia Optimus technology courtesy of the Nvidia GeForce GT435M chipset and even your odd gaming experience is taken to new levels. There’s no visual lag and the laptop is quick to auto-switch between the Nvidia and Intel HD graphics options whenever needed. It also works at going easy on the power being consumed.
While on everything visual, the Dell Central Webcam software lets you put to good use the integrated 2MP webcam. Both the image and video quality offered are just decent enough and the interface does allow various customization options to enhance the experience. We wouldn’t suggest you snap up images in low-lit environments as the webcam isn’t suited for this. Another issue is the viewing of images in this interface which was anything but smooth with the screen flickering vigorously when you zoom in and out of images. If you use your laptop extensively for typing, the backlit keyboard for one can have you quite disappointed. Obviously the backlighting works in favor of helping you type in dark environments but the fact that the keys don’t have enough spacing in between only got plain annoying after a point. We ended up hitting the Caps Lock button every time we intended to hit ‘A’. And it doesn’t end at this. You’re going to be striking a lot many wrong keys before your fingers are actually used to the keyboard. On the upside, the topmost row includes a host of shortcuts for media functions and a touchpad enable/disable key. Speaking of the touchpad, it’s very comfortable, and the wide form coughs up easy navigation options. It also supports multi-finger gestures including pinch to zoom.
Getting to the highlight of the Dell XPS 15 mainly the fitted JBL speakers with subwoofer, they’re a class apart. The Dell Audio by Realtek software offers nifty audio support and our love for The Road to El Dorado only scaled higher when we saw it on this laptop. The software interface is divided into Main, Speaker/Headphone, Microphone and Advanced options that allow various enhancements to the audio. You can tune the Bass, Treble and Stereo Sound to meet your requirements via MaxxAudio too while choosing from among Stereo, Quadrophonic and 5.1 speaker options. You’re desire to opt for external speakers is going to be close to zero once you have the correct adjustments in place. When Dell says its studio quality audio, we want to believe them, at least with the experience we got. There’s also an equalizer option which doesn’t really need any detailing. It does much of the speaking for itself.
The Andrea Microphone Technology too enabled noise cancellation on a pair of standard microphones – pretty nifty we must say. Two options in here are Echo Cancellation and Noise Reduction and if you’re recording sounds, you can fix the recording volume or simply boost the microphone. Jump over to the Advanced tab here and you’ll see a Power Management option which basically turns off your system audio devices in a no sound event to save power. Moving on to the Windows Mobility Center experience, it’s very intelligently crafted to precisely include the shortcuts to tasks you’re likely to need the most without having to scamper over to the control panel every now and then. Among the crowd are Display brightness, Keyboard brightness, Sound, Battery Status, Function Key Row and Radio control that can be tweaked effortlessly.
On the hardware front, Intel leaves a mark with the 500GB Intel Rapid Storage technology doing more than its bit to aid easy transfers. It comes complete with the control and management interface. Intel’s My Wi-Fi technology too allows seamless connectivity to wireless networks. Our web browsing experience on this laptop was pleasing and minus any real sluggish behavior. While we did multi-task extensively with ease, our only grouse was about the laptop being heated too soon. In particular, the area to the left of the touchpad in and around the wrist rest area got very hot.
All in all, our experience with the Dell XPS 15 was engaging. It did stand out for delivering very good audio support and robust performance abilities. We can look past our reservations for the keyboard and the mere 3 hour battery support we got with only average usage too. That’s because the real sore point if we may call it so appears to be the added bulk, with the laptop tipping the scale at 2.8kg, which can be a little too much to ignore. The device sells for Rs. 69,000 and we’ve liked it enough to give it a good 9 out of 10.
Specifications | |
Processor | Intel Core i7 840QM (1.86GHz/4MB cache) Intel Core i7 740QM (1.73GHz/4MB cache) Intel Core i5 560M (2.66GHz/3MB cache) Intel Core i5 460M (2.4GHz/3MB cache) |
Chipset | Intel HM57 |
Main Memory | 4/6/8GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 Memory |
Graphic system | NVIDIA GT435M GeForce NVIDIA GT420M GeForce |
Display | 15.6″ HD (720p) WLED Display |
Hard Disk | Up to 640GB SATA hard drive (7200RPM) Up to 256GB Solid State hard drive |
Webcamera | 2.0MP HD with single digital mic (H.264) |
Audio | JBL 2.1 Designed & Certified Speakers +Waves MaxxAudio 2.1 Audio: 2 X 4W + 12W sub-woofer 20W Total |
Optical Disc Drive | 16x DVD+/-RW (standard), Blu-ray Disc combo (reads Blu-ray Disc & writes to CD/DVD); 12.7mm tray load |
GPS | Optional |
Mobile Broadband (WWAN) | Dell Wireless 5540 HSPA mobile broadband mini card Dell Wireless 5620 EVDO-HSPA mobile broadband mini card |
WiMax | Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 802.11 a/g/n |
Wireles | Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000 Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 802.11 a/b/g/n (3×3) Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 802.11 a/g/n Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 802.11 a/g/n |
Bluetooth | Bluetooth 3.0 |
TV tuner | Optional |
Input/Output Port | 1 x Mini DisplayPort (1) 2 x total USB 3.0 1 x USB 2.0 (eSATA/powershare combo) 1 x LAN (RJ45) 1 x HDMI 1.4 1 x AC adapter connector 1 x Audio jacks (headphone with SPDIF support (2), Mic-in |
Expansion Slots | 9-in-1 media card reader |
Operating System | Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit |
Battery | 6-cell LI (2.6Ah) standard; Up to 5 hours, 14 minutes of battery life 9-cell LI (2.8Ah); Up to 9 hours, 9 minutes of battery life |
Dimensions | Width: 15″ (381mm) Height: 1.3″ (32.2mm) front /1.5″ (38.2mm) back) Depth: 10.4″ (265.4mm) |
Weight | 6.14lbs. (2.78kg) with 6-cell battery 6.51lbs.(2.96kg) with 9-cell battery |
Warranty | 1 Year Basic Service Plan |
Price | start at $849.99 at the Dell online store |
