Review: Dell XPS 11, this could be the Surface Pro's closest competitor

When we first heard of Dell's XPS eleven 2in1 Ultrabook, it was a case of uncertain identity. A seemingly impossibly thin Windows 8 device fabricated possible by including a touch sensitive keyboard in exchange for a standard mechanical one. Dell's website told united states of america it was an "Ultrabook", only Dell Public Relations insisted it was a "tablet first".

Whatsoever it may be, we sabbatum downwards with it and we are quite impressed, but information technology all depends if you are looking for a tablet or a notebook.

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At that place is no other way to say it and so Dell pulled their latest XPS eleven out of a time car. The XPS xi is a jaw drooping beautiful unit that deserves to be sitting on the desk in Steven Spielberg'south Minority Written report with Tom Cruise.

Form

The lid of the unit has Dell's, now familiar, carbon fiber way blueprint. While the carbon fiber print is apartment, the surface can fox on your eyes when the unit is in bright light; at times the print seems to lift from the lid in a holographic manner. The center of the chapeau holds a shiny metallic Dell logo, which now seems to catch your attention like that of a prestigious keepsake on a luxury auto. To create a sense of depth, Dell has left the pinnacle most office of the lid void of whatsoever design prints – a simple, yet, elegant touch.

The sides of the unit are wrapped in absurd metal ring. Unlike some of Dell'southward previous laptops that had imitation metallic bands surrounding the edges, this is the real bargain and non only looks great, but also feels superbly crafted to the touch.

The Dell XPS 11 has as well kept its side ports simple, just we experience that all of the essential desires will be there for the average user. The front edge is represented simply by its metal band and has a single power button to turn the unit on. As we handle more than and more 2-in-1 machines, we discover that articles are putting their power buttons in more than convenient locations, for when users are in tablet mode. The modernistic clean front edge of the unit is balanced virtually symmetrically with the completely clean back border of the unit.

If you lot are interested in ports, you volition want to turn your attention to the left and right edges of the unit. The right side of the unit is home to an A/C adapter port, powered USB port, HDMI out, and a standard 3.5mm combination headphone jack. The left side of the unit is home to a Kingston lock port, a second powered USB port, and an SD card reader. Each side also houses a single thin stereo speaker under detached metal grills.

Of form, since the unit of measurement's main unique feature is the impact sensitive keyboard, things begin to get nearly interesting once you open the hat. The metallic bands that we saw surrounding the edges of the unit become ever more prominent, equally they wrap inwards and surround the entire bottom and top halves of the inside of the unit.

Before we spring to the keyboard, let us talk most the display – information technology is zero to glance over. The unit'south 11.6-inch screen is covered in Corning Gorilla Glass NBT, which is a new product that is upwardly to ten times more scratch resistant than regular drinking glass. You will want to keep that screen protected too, as it has a stunning QHD resolution of 2560 ten 1440. Non only is the screen high resolution, it is likewise brilliant; the screen is advertised to be 400-nit brightness and using the car makes the difference evident.

Dell has also kept the interior of the unit extremely clean and devoid of whatsoever of its logos. The merely mark you will detect on the inside of the unit of measurement is the Windows logo, which sits nether the display and serves equally a shortcut to your Windows 8 Get-go Screen.

Once your optics take stopped admiring the gorgeous screen, they will eventually slide downwards to the bottom interior one-half of the entire, and that is where both the touch sensitive keyboard and touchpad sit.

I am sure you lot desire us to talk about the keyboard at present, so instead let us talk nearly the touchpad and keep y'all waiting just a scrap longer. The touchpad has a graciously large surface area that nigh dwarfs the touchpad on my Lenovo YOGA 2 Pro. We found the touchpad to perform well with regular navigation and gestures that are more complex; the buttons were also constitute to have a overnice, even so slightly shallow, click to them.

All right, allow us talk about the touch on sensitive keyboard. If you have used one of Microsoft'south Surface Bear on Covers, then you should be very familiar with what we are about to describe, but if non, hither is a brief thought of Dell's approach. In order to achieve a thinner contour for the unit and also to avoid having keyboard keys on the back of the unit when it is flipped into tablet mode, Dell decided to include a apartment keyboard that has no depth at all – non a bit. Instead, the keyboard uses touch sensitive keys to recognize when yous finger has fabricated contact.

For some, this style of keyboard is only not a viable choice, but for others – it can usher in a new earth of use scenarios. If you take never laid your hands upon a Microsoft Touch Cover, so information technology is hard to sympathize the experience at hand (pun intended). We are going to brand our best endeavor to compare the Dell XPS eleven keyboard to the Microsoft Surface Touch Encompass and nosotros promise that information technology volition help you in your shopping effort.

We will start by saying this – if y'all enjoy using the Microsoft Surface Bear on Comprehend, then you volition most likely enjoy Dell's variation. Compared to the Touch Cover, Dell's keyboard keys are farther spaced apart and are more on par with the boilerplate cardinal spacing found on a regular laptop. The biggest divergence that is noticeable is the way in which the keyboard itself detects key presses.

The Dell XPS 11 is very similar to the showtime generation Impact Cover in the sense that each fundamental only senses pressure directly on peak of it. The new second generation Bear upon Cover has the power to predict key presses when your finger lands between ii keys – this is non the example for the XPS 11. Overall, nosotros do non see it existence an issue as the keys are spaced nicely apart from i another.

In an attempt not to be biased because of the fact that I utilise a keyboard for longer portions of the solar day, and thus am extremely disquisitional of my typing surface, I have turned to a random stranger next to me at Starbucks. After talking to him for about twenty minutes and getting his verdict on the keyboard – "he actually likes information technology". Then there you lot go a comment from an boilerplate consumer. At present dorsum to the newsroom…

The entire keyboard and palm remainder are made from a rubber silicone skin. The texture is comfortable to rest your palms upon when typing and nosotros enjoyed the fact that we were able to clean the keyboard in a few seconds past wiping information technology down with a sponge – no more than crumbs in-between the keys!

Before nosotros dive into talking most the performance of the unit of measurement, permit united states of america try to address the unknown identity crisis that this unit of measurement seems to face. We personally side with the Dell Public Relations team in saying that information technology is a "tablet get-go", but as well agree that is technically an Ultrabook. We experience that nearly users who eye the unit will do so considering of the excellent tablet form factor. That being said, this argument also appears when talking about Microsoft's Surface, so it is a point that we feel is best left up for the user to decide.

Function

Dell's XPS 11 Ultrabook starts at $999 with an Intel Core i3 processor and 80 GB of storage. Also available is a Core i5 unit with 128 GB of storage for $one,249 and a Core i7 unit of measurement with 256 GB of storage for $one,449; all units include 4 GB of RAM, Intel'due south HD Graphics 4200 and the QHD resolution display.

The unit of measurement that we received is the middle variation with an Intel Core i5 processor, iv GB of memory, and a 128 GB SSD. We consider the Intel Core i5 processor the perfect processor for the average everyday user – not an overkill in terms of power and usually able to get the total job done when needed. Nosotros would recommend staying away from the cheaper Core i3 processor, unless yous are planning to apply the unit for basic tasks such as playing games from the Windows Store, using Microsoft Office, and browsing the web.

Since we review and then many units with Intel's Core serial processors, we do not tend to go into extreme item of the performance of each machine, as they are quite honestly the aforementioned. If you are eyeing the Cadre i5 variation with 4 GB of RAM that we accept, we will verify that the unit does in fact run smoothly and will be suitable for even light Photoshop piece of work and video rendering.

Dell claims that their impressive little unit will pull in almost 9 hours of bombardment life. We found that the unit lasted effectually eight hours while surfing the spider web. Quite an impressive human foot for such as minor unit and its 40 WHr bombardment.

Nosotros were quite surprised with the lack of "crapware" that Dell preloaded onto the system. Not so long ago, Dell sat as i of the companies that loved to bury their users in software trials, but it seems they have changed – at least on their XPS line of machines.

The Dell XPS 11 that nosotros received had essentially no "crapware" software installed onto it. Pinned to the Start Screen you will observe Intel'due south Experience Heart, Dell'southward Shop, My Dell, and PocketCloud. We could do without PocketCloud, every bit information technology is Dell's deject solution and we would simply prefer to go with Microsoft'south OneDrive that comes built into the operating system. Luckily, the software is non actually setup, and then you tin remove it right away and it will not leave a trace.

On the other hand, we love Dell's "My Dell" software that comes preloaded. The software has your Service Tag and warranty information available at the push of a button, along with the power to keep a shut eye on driver updates and system maintenance. While Windows 8 does push many driver updates through the optional section of Windows Update utility, the "My Dell" software is a great solution to brand sure y'all go the drivers as soon equally they are available.

So, what tin can 1 expect when living with Dell's XPS 11? The experience is quite a dainty one, only it seems to be suited better towards a specific style of user. The device functioned every bit a groovy tablet and was extremely comfortable and light to employ in bed or on the couch. Every night, I tend to snuggle up to the television with my tablet to play some games and the Dell XPS 11 certainly serves the job well.

It is besides worth noting that the Dell XPS 11 is a bit of a multimedia monster, something I did not await at all from this unit of measurement. In addition to the automobile'due south beautiful brandish, the speakers throw out some impressive sound. It seems to break the laws of physics – such a small machine with insanely loud speakers and bass, but it certainly does turn heads.

It took me only a few hours to get used to typing on the keyboard, but fifty-fifty at the fourth dimension of this review, I practise not find myself beating my mechanical keyboard typing speed. I plant the combination of a touch on sensitive keyboard and 11.half-dozen-inch screen to work perfectly fine for typing up news articles and working an hr or 2. After a few hours though, I sincerely wanted to jump on a larger monitor and hear the clicks and clacks of my mechanical, Das Keyboard. Once again, since I write much more than the boilerplate person – the college student should easily be able to output an essay and the businessperson should easily be able to output a large collection of emails.

Conclusion

It is difficult not to employ the unit and see it as a direct competitor to Microsoft'southward Surface Pro 2. For $999, either you can grab a Microsoft Surface Pro two with 128 GB of SSD storage, 4 GB of RAM, and an Intel Core i5 processor, or you lot can grab a Dell XPS 11 with 80 GB of SSD storage, 4 GB of RAM, and an Intel Core i3 processor. This makes the Dell XPS 11 appear a few hundred dollars above Microsoft's Surface Pro, but one must remember to add together the $100+ keyboard to the unit. Overall, Dell'southward XPS 11 volition still be a bit more expensive, but there are tradeoffs to each system

While the Surface Pro 2 will provide you with a stylus and wide array of custom accessories, the Dell XPS 11 will provide you with a much college resolution display, slightly larger screen, and a slightly longer battery life while on the become.

We loved testing out Dell's latest toy, simply information technology is not the perfect device for everyone. If y'all are not a fan of Microsoft'southward Surface Pro with Type Embrace, then yous probably volition not be the biggest fan of the XPS 11. On the other hand, if you have a deep love for the Surface Pro, but only want a bit more similar options to sift through – the Dell XPS xi is a mayhap, although an expensive one. You can discover more than data on ordering the Dell XPS 11 hither at Dell's website.

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