Dell XPS 13 Review – Iconic Design, Performance, and More

Dell XPS 13 Review

A few months after the Dell XPS 13 review entrance, now is the Dell XPS 13 9310. This 9310 classical uses the 11th generation of Intel Core.

(Tiger Lake) processors with the Xe graphics architecture and the Evo platform. Intel just announced it.

What all you should know about Dell XPS 13

• Unlike Apple, Dell can release multiple models of its XPS in very short intermissions. Difficult to circumnavigate between all these very similar models on paper. The third time Dell has updated the XPS 13 in the last 12 months.
• The US company previously upgraded the XPS 13 in September 2019 to use 10th generation Intel Core processors.
• Still, presumably due to insufficient supply of the new Intel Ice Lake platform, Dell has selected to iterate with Comet Lake-U mainframes in April 2020.
• This 9310 model, unconfined in October 2020, uses the 11th generation of Intel Core processors (Tiger Lake) with the Xe graphics building and the Evo platform.
• It is not a question of fully retesting the XPS 13 here, as you already have access to the full text of the 9300 model in April 2020.
• Therefore, we offer you a quick test, where we will mainly focus on the differences in performance. Between the two models, be it the CPU’s performance, the iGPU, and the autonomy.

What are the characteristics of the tested Dell XPS 13?

Processor: Is in Intel Core i7-1165G7 11th Generation (12MB Cache, up to 4.7 GHz)

Display: 13.4 ″ InfinityEdge FHD + (1920 x 1200 pixels) , non-touch, anti-glare, 500 cd / m²

RAM: 16GB of 4267MHz LPDDR4x, soldered

Storage: 1A M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD

Appareil Photo: HD Webcam (720p)

Battery: 4 cells, 52 Wh, non-removable

Sound and speakers: Is in stereo speakers (2.5 W x 2 = 4 W peak)

Graphics chip: Is in Intel Iris Xe with shared graphics reminiscence

Colors: Are Platinum Silver with Black Carbon Fiber Palm Rest, Aluminum Exterior
Wireless connectivity: Killer AX1650 (2×2) with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 support

Iconic design:

• When Apple started redesigning its MacBook Air around the Retina display, Dell had already redesigned its XPS around the InfinityEdge show long before Apple did.
• Therefore, its strong point is the addition of this IPS screen with very few edges: the screen/frame ratio is 91.5%.
• As a cue, the “New” XPS 13 uses a 13.4-inch with a 16:10 aspect ratio, so it offers more height than traditional 16: 9 screens on laptops.
• You can choose it in Full HD description in a matte finish (non-touch) or 4K UHD in a glossy finish (touch). Unfortunately, Dell doesn’t offer an OLED option, which can be found from Razer or HP.
• We still appreciate this excellent, efficient touchpad or even the scissor-like keyboard, which, in the absence of finesse (1mm of travel, that’s still acceptable), has the benefit of dependability.
• The set is well constructed and gives a very raw touch. The Dell XPS has nothing to envy the MacBooks.
• Dell has avoided the use of USB Type-A ports, instead offering a single USB Type-C port on each side of the laptop.
• Luckily, we still have a 3.5mm headphone jack on the right and a micro SD card reader on the left.
• Although the XPS 13 suffers from light connectivity, this is offsetting by these two USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt 4 technology.
• More on that later. Please note that Dell includes a Type C to Type A adapter in the box.

How to Upgrade to 11th Gen Intel Core Processors (Tiger Lake)?

In April 2020, the alteration from Comet Lake to Ice Lake was a huge change. Thus, the XPS 13 was able to benefit from Intel’s new Sunny Cove processor architecture, as well as the improved Gen 11 graphics chip. The move to Ice Lake also brought support for LPDDR4X memory.

The latest change, which interests us in this test, is the change to Tiger Lake (11th generation Intel Core) dating from September 2020.

Intel has proclaimed a quad-core processor for ultrabooks with a thermal envelope of 12 to 28 W.

Inside are four cores based on Intel’s Willow Cove architecture, generation after Sunny Cove. These four cores are mating to a 96-unit iGPU running on the new Xe graphics style.

Performance of the Dell XPS 13:

• So what does the Core i7 1165G7 offer? The differences are significant compared to the Ice Lake-equipped XPS 13 9300.
• Daily, you probably won’t see significant differences. However, our various benchmark tests show a real increase in overall performance.
• We run various tests, including some very web-oriented, but also file compression and decompressing tests. In all of these quizzes, the Dell XPS 13 9310 outperformed the 9300.
• Intel, with its Tiger Lake, made a significant leap forward. But Intel lags behind the Ryzen 5 4500U and the Ryzen 7 4700U that we find in more and more references.
• As for the change to the Intel Xe (Gen12) iGPU, we’ve seen some very significant improvements as well.
• It is the case in traditional benchmarks, but also in the performance observed during our gaming sessions.
• We ended up with many games playable in HD 720p definition and Full HD definition for some. We recommend that you set games to medium graphics quality.
• You will often get at least 25-30fps. Therefore, this notebook PC can occasionally be used to relax in a PC game, but it is not a mechanism designed with this in mind.
• If you want to play frequently, you will have to turn to machines with dedicated graphics chips. It is the case with Nvidia GeForce-equipped PCs, even on Dell’s XPS 15 range.