Xps 15 9560 vs Razer Blade (1060)

[Lillchillers]

Hi!

 

I need to buy a new laptop and have been looking at the FHD model of the new Dell XPS 15 and the Razer blade because they meet my requirements of being portable, good battery, enough performance and professional looking (for business meetings).

 

I will mostly use the laptop for regular use (browsing, watching movies, etc.) and sometime game for 2-3h (Cs go, Dota 2, H1Z1) both on the move and at home. I will also use the laptop for work with clients so it needs to look professional. I will not do any coding, music or video production. I won't have a desktop computer  (need to sell it because I have no space for it, blame my girlfriend.. )

 

Between these 2 I know that they both have thermal problems and that there are better options if you consider performance or bang for buck. It's a trade of for being very portable which for me is worth it.   

 

I think I might go for the Dell XPS 15. Here is my reasoning.

 

+ Dell has a bigger screen with the same form factor as the razer blade  (almost)

 

+ Dell has better battery 

 

+ Dell has better support and the availability of the xps 15 in europe is much better.

 

+ Dell has upgradable ram, Razer don't. However it doesn't really matter because 16 GB is more than enough for me.

 

- The Blade will be more powerfull with the 1060 instead of Dells 1050. I think the 1050 will be powerfull enough for the games I play (CS GO, Dota 2, H1Z1) ? 

 

- The Blade have thunderbolt with PCIe x4 instead of the x2 in the Dell.  It will only matter if I use a eGPU and the internal display? If I use a eGPU in the future it will be with a external monitor anyways.

 

- Slow responstime (ghosting) on the Dell. Hope that is better than the old model.

 

Am I wrong? Should I pick the razer blade instead? Are there any upcoming laptop that I should look at instead? Any blade owners who want to change my mind?

 

 

 

[Eason85]

Don't buy a blade. Buy the XPS 

 

- someone who has owned both razer blade, xps 15, and a razer core

[Dark]

While I would absolutely agree with Eason85, I would not want to own another XPS15 until they start shipping with faster screens. 

The screen latency on my previous XPS15 was so bad that gaming was nearly impossible to enjoy.

[Eason85]

50 minutes ago, Dark said:

While I would absolutely agree with Eason85, I would not want to own another XPS15 until they start shipping with faster screens. 

The screen latency on my previous XPS15 was so bad that gaming was nearly impossible to enjoy.

FHD or UHD? I found my UHD fine for gaming.

[Galm]

I would say while the Blade is way better for gaming, your games aren't that intense.  XPS should be fine.

 

Anyone know if it is confirmed a 1050 Ti in the XPS?  I keep hearing that.

[Lillchillers]

1 hour ago, Dark said:

While I would absolutely agree with Eason85, I would not want to own another XPS15 until they start shipping with faster screens. 

The screen latency on my previous XPS15 was so bad that gaming was nearly impossible to enjoy.

Yes I´m aware of the latency. A lot of peoples have complained about it and I hope they have manage to make it better in the 9560. It will never be a gaming monitor of course, but I can´t handle to much ghosting

2 hours ago, Eason85 said:

Don't buy a blade. Buy the XPS 

 

- someone who has owned both razer blade, xps 15, and a razer core

I guess you are one of the many that had the first released units which where a nightmare. In my understanding almost everything have been fixed except the fans in idle which is still spinning at 20% speed. (No stutter, temp < 85 Celsius, 9200-9600 Fire-strike score) However they still have bad Quality control which means some ppls are getting bad units.

[79wjd]

The XPS 15 doesn't have upgradable RAM either or did they change it in the new model? 

 

/still XPS 15 > Blade 

[Lillchillers]

2 minutes ago, Galm said:

I would say while the Blade is way better for gaming, your games aren't that intense.  XPS should be fine.

 

Anyone know if it is confirmed a 1050 Ti in the XPS?  I keep hearing that.

It will only be the 1050 4GB. Early benchmarks say that its on par with the 965m (20-30% faster than 960m).

[Lillchillers]

3 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

The XPS 15 doesn't have upgradable RAM either. 

 

/still XPS 15 > Blade 

Yes it does, they even say on their site that you can buy additional memory separately.

[Galm]

1 hour ago, Lillchillers said:

It will only be the 1050 4GB. Early benchmarks say that its on par with the 965m (20-30% faster than 960m).

Ok because multiple different people have had Dell reps tell them it's a 1050 Ti.  

[Pendragon]

5 hours ago, Lillchillers said:

I guess you are one of the many that had the first released units which where a nightmare. In my understanding almost everything have been fixed except the fans in idle which is still spinning at 20% speed. (No stutter, temp < 85 Celsius, 9200-9600 Fire-strike score) However they still have bad Quality control which means some ppls are getting bad units.

 

Firestrike is a bad bench for performance. It's too short. If the Blade couldn't get through Firestrike in the beginning it shows how fucked it was. When you bench it now in a sustained load like Unigine Heave for 15 rounds, everything will throttle way the fuck back down. 

 

Side note, don't get the Razer Blade, don't be that guy who's laptops fan is running 24/7 and when you push a hard excel sheet onto it, it instantly revs up and annoys the whole room. Get the XPS15. 

[Dark]

7 hours ago, Eason85 said:

FHD or UHD? I found my UHD fine for gaming.

I had the UHD.  It was so bad that others around me would look over and ask how I could play on it.  I would never purchase one again if there was any hint of needing to play games on it.

I read the FHD was equally as bad.

 

Having recently ordered the AW 13 R3 OLED, I am eager to see if almost no response time makes up for a lower refresh.

[Eason85]

9 hours ago, Lillchillers said:

Yes I´m aware of the latency. A lot of peoples have complained about it and I hope they have manage to make it better in the 9560. It will never be a gaming monitor of course, but I can´t handle to much ghosting

I guess you are one of the many that had the first released units which where a nightmare. In my understanding almost everything have been fixed except the fans in idle which is still spinning at 20% speed. (No stutter, temp < 85 Celsius, 9200-9600 Fire-strike score) However they still have bad Quality control which means some ppls are getting bad units.

Nope, I actually had no defect on my blades, but they were still trash:

 

Razer blade was so hot (undervolted) that it damaged it's own screen. The chassis was physically painful to touch. The qhd screen is terrible. Like TN quality. Battery life was poor. Could hit 4 hours only idling.

 

The stealth hit 90C with CPU only. Battery life terrible. Bottom case clips would slip out and bulge the aluminum. Would stop charging randomly. The bezels on the Blade 14 are bad enough when you compare it the XPS, but the stealth was really intolerable.

 

The core randomly disconnected all the time because razer's stupid magnet lock is unreliable, and I had to bend the case myself to fix it.

 

Their support is contemptuous. That's about it.

[ChuckMaurice]

38 minutes ago, Eason85 said:

Nope, I actually had no defect on my blades, but they were still trash:

 

Razer blade was so hot (undervolted) that it damaged it's own screen. The chassis was physically painful to touch. The qhd screen is terrible. Like TN quality. Battery life was poor. Could hit 4 hours only idling.

 

The stealth hit 90C with CPU only. Battery life terrible. Bottom case clips would slip out and bulge the aluminum. Would stop charging randomly. The bezels on the Blade 14 are bad enough when you compare it the XPS, but the stealth was really intolerable.

 

The core randomly disconnected all the time because razer's stupid magnet lock is unreliable, and I had to bend the case myself to fix it.

 

Their support is contemptuous. That's about it.

I was considering the same two models, leaning on the XPS as it seems to have better battery life. But the comments on temperature and constant ventilation on the Blade sold me on the XPS. I'm just waiting on information on the HiDPI scaling on Windows to decide for the UHD screen or not on the XPS.

I still find it weird that Linus find the Blade that good if it has problems like terrible screen and damaging temperatures. Didn't he just bought an entire fleet of them?

 

3 hours ago, Dark said:

I had the UHD.  It was so bad that others around me would look over and ask how I could play on it.  I would never purchase one again if there was any hint of needing to play games on it.

I read the FHD was equally as bad.

 

Having recently ordered the AW 13 R3 OLED, I am eager to see if almost no response time makes up for a lower refresh.

Alienware laptops have OLED screens now? so hyped.

[79wjd]

32 minutes ago, jldjul said:

Alienware laptops have OLED screens now? so hyped.

Until you remember that burn-in is still a thing. 

[ChuckMaurice]

30 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Until you remember that burn-in is still a thing. 

Ahhh right. Kinda forgot about it cause TVs have specific software to prevent it, but I thought it was as easy to get than to erase.

@Dark : can you comfirm it's an issue on yours?

[Pendragon]

31 minutes ago, jldjul said:

I still find it weird that Linus find the Blade that good if it has problems like terrible screen and damaging temperatures. Didn't he just bought an entire fleet of them?

Cause it's an office machine for him. Not mentioning the screen is his bias. The 1800p screen is old and awful. His whole new fleet is all with the FHD ones. And he gets Min Liang Tan's ear. So no QC issue, and no terrible cusomter support. He will never run into damaging temperatures cause it's his WORK machine. Not his gaming one. No one in LTT is a hardcore gamer. Work first, game if time permits. Unlike most people who ask here who's primarly purpose of the machine is to game or run instensive tasks. No one here asks if a RB is a good work machine. If they do, Thinkpad. LOL. 

[ChuckMaurice]

2 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Cause it's an office machine for him. Not mentioning the screen is his bias. The 1800p screen is old and awful. His whole new fleet is all with the FHD ones. And he gets Min Liang Tan's ear. So no QC issue, and no terrible cusomter support. He will never run into damaging temperatures cause it's his WORK machine. Not his gaming one. No one in LTT is a hardcore gamer. Work first, game if time permits. Unlike most people who ask here who's primarly purpose of the machine is to game or run instensive tasks. No one here asks if a RB is a good work machine. If they do, Thinkpad. LOL. 

I want a new slim powerful laptop as a work machine too (for video editing and office work, and sometimes gaming on the go, but only for like 5% of the time). As many people I have a main gaming desktop rig and won't game much on my laptop.

I love my 2013 Macbook Pro Retina for its screen, build quality, reliability, battery life and temperature/fan management. But as Macbooks are not at a competitive price anymore I want to upgrade it for a Windows laptop, and LTT tricked me into thinking that the Blade was the perfect replacement machine.

 

Glad I found users that told me otherwise. When I'll get the money, hello Dell XPS.

[Eason85]

A lot of us here take issue with LTT's preferable treatment of Razer's products for that reason.

[Dark]

40 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Until you remember that burn-in is still a thing. 

I haven't experienced ANY burn in with my LG OLED65B6P.  Besides, it's easy to correct, unlike plasma.

37 minutes ago, jldjul said:

Ahhh right. Kinda forgot about it cause TVs have specific software to prevent it, but I thought it was as easy to get than to erase.

@Dark : can you comfirm it's an issue on yours?

It arrives in 2 days.  I haven't read of any AW 13 owners experiencing burn in (this is not the first year it has been available).

[Pendragon]

8 minutes ago, Dark said:

It arrives in 2 days.  I haven't read of any AW 13 owners experiencing burn in (this is not the first year it has been available).

I agree with this up to a point. the 13in OLED panel was first available was in the Thinkpad X1 series. Up till now, I don't believe people have experienced issues, but 1 year isn't long enough to judge whether it's "good" or not. 

[Dark]

3 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

I agree with this up to a point. the 13in OLED panel was first available was in the Thinkpad X1 series. Up till now, I don't believe people have experienced issues, but 1 year isn't long enough to judge whether it's "good" or not. 

No argument there.  I don't hold on to laptops long enough for that to be an issue.

[Lillchillers]

6 hours ago, Eason85 said:

Nope, I actually had no defect on my blades, but they were still trash:

 

Razer blade was so hot (undervolted) that it damaged it's own screen. The chassis was physically painful to touch. The qhd screen is terrible. Like TN quality. Battery life was poor. Could hit 4 hours only idling.

 

The stealth hit 90C with CPU only. Battery life terrible. Bottom case clips would slip out and bulge the aluminum. Would stop charging randomly. The bezels on the Blade 14 are bad enough when you compare it the XPS, but the stealth was really intolerable.

 

The core randomly disconnected all the time because razer's stupid magnet lock is unreliable, and I had to bend the case myself to fix it.

 

Their support is contemptuous. That's about it.

 

Thanks for the feedback! How was the temps in the Xps 15 during load (gaming), any throttling?

 

9 hours ago, Dark said:

I had the UHD.  It was so bad that others around me would look over and ask how I could play on it.  I would never purchase one again if there was any hint of needing to play games on it.

I read the FHD was equally as bad.

 

Having recently ordered the AW 13 R3 OLED, I am eager to see if almost no response time makes up for a lower refresh.

I would probably have picked the Ailienware If I where 10 years younger. Having a laptop with an alienhead and flashing neon signs like a disco/spaceship doesn't work well when I try to look like a professional physician  :D. 

[Eason85]

2 hours ago, Lillchillers said:

 

Thanks for the feedback! How was the temps in the Xps 15 during load (gaming), any throttling?

 

I would probably have picked the Ailienware If I where 10 years younger. Having a laptop with an alienhead and flashing neon signs like a disco/spaceship doesn't work well when I try to look like a professional physician  :D. 

My XPS 15 6700hqwould  hit 82C gpu and 78C CPU gaming. That's with undervolting, repaste, and fixing the GPU VRAM pad. No throttling.

[Lillchillers]

2 hours ago, Eason85 said:

My XPS 15 6700hqwould  hit 82C gpu and 78C CPU gaming. That's with undervolting, repaste, and fixing the GPU VRAM pad. No throttling.

Great! I have seen that a lot of people have done the repaste and fixing the GPU VRAM. But I havent seen any graphs on how much it effects temps or performance in the xps 15.

 

Is it worth the risk for a guy who even struggle putting a IKEA furniture together?  and does it avoid the warranty?