Dell XPS 15 Review: The 13 inch's bigger (and better) brother.

[LucidMew]

Source: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/dell-xps-15-review-a-bigger-version-of-the-best-pc-laptop/

 

Yes, the Dell XPS 13 has been out for quite a while, and even got updated to Skylake (the one Linus reviewed is a Broadwell i5 5200U), so Dell thought it was a good idea to upgrade the screen size.

 

Introducing... the Dell XPS 15 Skylake edition, next to its little brother, the XPS 13

 

From first glance, it looks like someone selected everything but the keyboard and dragged the corner to resize it larger. The only thing that's different is the larger screen (obviously) and possibly a slightly larger touchpad, it's hard to tell from the photo. 

 

The review had some problems with the graphics driver.

 

 

The XPS 15 with the same latest driver remains stuck at 36fps. On the other hand, the XPS 15 scores better than the Surface Book in two of the 3DMark tests (Ice Storm and Cloud Gate) but not in the others (Sky Diver and Fire Strike). And even with the new drivers, the Nvidia GPU's offscreen T-Rex score is beaten by the integrated GPU of the XPS 13.

 

None of these results make a great deal of sense. Both driver issues and thermal issues strike me as plausible reasons for the odd results, but none of these are exotic benchmarks or unusual situations. If a system is going to ship with a discrete GPU, it seems that the discrete GPU should be demonstrably faster. For the results to be so inconsistent is peculiar. It may well be that Intel's integrated GPUs are a lot faster than they used to be, but they surely shouldn't win, should they? Why bother with that extra cost and complexity if they don't?

 

 

So, unsatisfied with that meager performance (the 960m should be so much better than HD 520 that's on the XPS 13), I decided to do my own testing. I recently got the Dell Inspiron 7559, with nearly identical specs. 6700HQ, 960m (though mine's 4 gig, not 2), with 16 gigs of ram, and a high res display. (basically the high end option of what PcPer and Linus reviewed)

 

I ran the same benchmarks they did and here are my results.  https://imgur.com/a/e9rFv

 

 

 

 

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/7371263

https://www.3dmark.com/sd/3777010

https://www.3dmark.com/cg/3406528

https://www.3dmark.com/is/3575094

https://www.3dmark.com/is/3575078

 

 

The Dell Inspiron 7559 sweeps the floor with nearly everything, save for Ice Storm, but that's an anomaly and shouldn't even be tested imho. I even tested it twice and still got the same, crap score.

Something is wrong with Ars's results, since we're testing nearly the same exact system (I highly doubt that an extra 2gigs of vram accounts for this large discrepancy) the results should be within spitting distance of eachother, but clearly, they're not.

[tareyza]

To be honest, ArsTechnica's laptop reviews are pretty low-quality:

 

They use onscreen benchmarks as a metric of GPU horsepower (which obviously no gamer on a 4K display would play at native 4K on game, the 4K is for less performance intensive tasks) for example.

 

There's also a general lack of any in-depth information (things like an actual brightness test, color gamut test, etc. instead of relying on Dell's numbers), and their sparse benchmarks without explanations (GeekBench is the ONLY CPU benchmark they really explained what it meant) leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Then there's the fact that one of their battery life tests also measures performance, so high performing laptops will score lower by the nature of their more powerful processors. (Ars generally fails to mention this in their reviews.)

 

If you're looking for a proper XPS 15 review, I'd suggest you look at MobileTechReview or another reputable source. At best, that review was more of an overview; much of it is just a commentary on options and price points Dell offers, not an analysis into the product itself.  

[GodSpoon]

To be honest, ArsTechnica's laptop reviews are pretty low-quality:

 

They use onscreen benchmarks as a metric of GPU horsepower (which obviously no gamer on a 4K display would play at native 4K on game, the 4K is for less performance intensive tasks) for example.

 

There's also a general lack of any in-depth information, and their sparse and general poor choice of benchmarks (GeekBench is the ONLY CPU benchmark they had graphs for...) leaves a lot to be desired.

 

Then there's the fact that one of their battery life tests also measures performance, so high performing laptops will score lower by the nature of their more powerful processors. (Ars generally fails to mention this in their reviews.)

 

If you're looking for a proper XPS 15 review, I'd suggest you look at MobileTechReview or another reputable source. At best, that review was more of an overview; much of it is just a commentary on options and price points Dell offers, not an analysis into the product itself.  

 

I cannot listen to MobileTechReview for more than 30 seconds before I want to violently kill something and rip my ears out of my skull

[tareyza]

I cannot listen to MobileTechReview for more than 30 seconds before I want to violently kill something and rip my ears out of my skull

 

I was mostly referring to the exceptionally in-depth written reviews on their website; I agree that sometimes the videos can be somewhat dull.

[Sauron]

Personally I'd rather get the 13" model if I had to choose, as long as the specs are the same I don't think I'd benefit from a larger screen.

[Misanthrope]

Personally I'd rather get the 13" model if I had to choose, as long as the specs are the same I don't think I'd benefit from a larger screen.

Long term use is much more comfortable on a bigger screen. I've switched from 13 to 15 laptops at works and its night and day.

[Trixanity]

The problem is that the smaller footprint generally gives you smaller thermal headroom and therefore low power hardware versus potentially powerful hardware. So that's why you'll often be forced to go for 15" laptops instead if you need the performance.

Also, I don't see the problem with Lisa as a reviewer. Sure, she's not flashy or highly energetic but the reviews are sound albeit not overly technical. But you do get a fairly thorough walk-through and gives a good picture of a device as a daily driver.

[ForsakenLive]

I cannot listen to MobileTechReview for more than 30 seconds before I want to violently kill something and rip my ears out of my skull

Why not? Lisa is awesome

[Nineshadow]

Dell, just one thing : why no numpad on a 15" laptop? D:

[RedRound2]

Wasn't this laptop released ages ago (15" one)