Best laptop: Dell XPS 13 Why should you buy
Dell XPS 13 2020 (Core i5)
Who’s
it for: Everyone
except gamers.
Why
we picked the Dell XPS 13:
No
laptop in the past few years has been more influential than the XPS 13. It
started this race to thinner bezels back in 2015, which has now spread to every
gadget that has a screen.
In
its latest iteration, Dell’s taken things even further. The 2020 XPS 13 has
made the screen larger using a 16:10 aspect ratio, all while shrinking the
bottom bezel. The result is a larger screen without needing a larger overall
laptop.
This
year’s XPS 13 also gets a larger keyboard and touchpad, making use of every
possible surface of the device. Of course, it’s just as powerful and
long-lasting as before, not sacrificing function over form. It’s no longer a
cheap laptop, but as far as I’m concerned, the XPS has earned its spot as a
premium brand. It all adds up to what is undoubtedly the best laptop you can
buy.
Why should you buy this: Those who want something shiny to bring to
school.
Why should you buy this: It’s portable, fast, attractive, and reasonably priced.
Performance
It’s
easy to just look at a laptop’s processor and call it good. However, there’s
more to performance than a spec sheet. The XPS 13 makes that obvious. Despite
using the same parts as other laptops, Dell has consistently innovated in
pulling performance out of its components.
All
the same tricks are in play here, such as strips of Gore material used to
dissipate heat. And the processor is now upgraded to the most recent
Intel’s 10th-gen Core ‘Ice Lake’ chips.
Dell
continues to raise the bar for performance.
That’s
not too exciting in 2020, but again, the XPS 13 beats its competitors in raw
single-core performance in Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R20. Even the 16GB of RAM
that came in my review unit was overkill for what most people will do with this
laptop. (The Core i7 model I reviewed is priced at $1,250, though there will
also be a Core i3 option starting at $999.)
This
is among the most powerful quad-core laptops you can buy, even flexing its
muscle in HandBrake video encoding. Late last year, Dell released an
XPS 13 with a six-core processor, but this new model is only 7% slower in
HandBrake. Impressive.
So,
yes, Dell continues to raise the bar for performance. Upgrade to the 4K+ model,
and you have a killer photo-editing laptop. That doesn’t mean you should buy
this laptop for 3D rendering or video editing, but for most tasks, you won’t
find a faster laptop at this size.
It
should be noted that the $999 Core i3 with 4GB of RAM is also
available (though not currently on sale). That dual-core processor won’t have
near the same performance, though I haven’t tested it yet myself. However, if
you just want a laptop for web browsing, Microsoft Word, and watching movies,
the Core i3 will be more than adequate.
Intel’s
discrete graphics have improved quite a bit with Ice Lake, which
means the XPS 13 can play games. Sort of.
Keyboard and touchpad
Moving
down from the screen to the keyboard deck, the design continues to follow the
“more of what matters” philosophy. Not a millimeter of space on the keyboard
deck has been left without a purpose.
The
keyboard takes inspiration from the XPS 13 2-in-1 in look —
though not in feel. The keycaps are larger, with less space between each. They
now stretch up to the sides of the keyboard deck.
The
power button (and built-in fingerprint reader), which was once off to the right
of the layout, is now integrated into the top right, much like it is on
MacBooks. Another small change to the layout I appreciate is the full-size left
and right arrow keys. Previous XPS keyboards have included half-sized keys,
with Page Up and Page Down filling in the gaps. This would often result in
accidental skips down the page.
It
has quickly become one of my favorite laptop keyboards to type on.
One
part of the keyboard I’m happy Dell didn’t redesign is the actual feel of the
key presses. Rather than go the way of butterfly mechanisms (such as on the XPS
13 2-in-1), they still have 1mm of travel and a snappy mechanism. As we’ve seen
even Apple move away from its own butterfly keyboards, Dell made the right
choice here. It has quickly become one of my favorite laptop keyboards to type
on.
The
same is true of the touchpad, which has grown in overall size from last year’s
model. Dell also worked on dampening the click mechanism so it’s quieter. I’d
still prefer it to be even softer, but the tracking and gesture support is excellent,
as always.
