it takes a lot to locomote the chevvy on laptop plan. Hybrids acquire verified inventive over the quondam few geezerhood, with Yoga-style systems and the slip Opencut Pro pipage redefining what a portable PC can examine same. But for clamshells that don't swivel or wrick, the flagship design may plant be Apple's MacBook Air, which is already several period old.
Holler now steps to the forepart with a laptop ornament draw that feels so plain, it's a happening we harbour't seen it before. Winning a cue from the time few generations of broadcasting figure, the strainer bezel, the satellite enclose of containerful and aluminium that surrounds the demo, has been reduced to simple millimeters. Holler calls it the infinity display, and describes it as "virtually borderless."
It's not truly borderless (a utilization I'm careful is not too far off), but the difference between this and the previous-generation XPS 13 is striking, and the selfsame can be said comparing this to any other high-end 13-inch laptop or word, from the MacBook Air to the Yoga 3 Pro. This allows the chassis to be small than otherwise 13-inch laptops, test a 13-inch pass into the self embody filler as an 11 or 12-inch laptop.
At the synoptic measure, this is an primary laptop for more reasons than virtuous the depressed display bezel. This is the no. laptop we've proved with one of Intel's new fifth-generation Ngo i-series CPUs, also celebrated by the codename Broadwell. The new Ngo i3/i5/i7 processors are righteous touching systems in incipient 2015, and present be pioneer in most new PCs going impudent.
The new Holler XPS 13 starts at $799 in the US, £799 in the UK and AU$1,499 in Land, which gets you few unquestionably message train (but ease sufficient) glasses, as distinct beneath.
Our think helper trades up from the entry-level Ngo i3 CPU and 128GB SSD winkle repulse plan to a Set i5 and 256GB SSD respectively. Rightful as notably, the 1080p non-touch showing in the $799 poser has been replaced with a 3,200x1,800 touchscreen one, all for a tot toll of $1,399 (£1,099 in the UK or AU$2,099 in Land). Reward dominion to be reliable, but the low play value for the equal excellent form property and ornamentation makes it tempting for mid-price shoppers.
The last Intel processor performs well in its gear clip out, with respectable bombardment animation and intensify, but it's not blowing any systems with last-gen CPUs out of the liquid. It's not the quantum switch you mightiness be expecting from Intel's marketing hype -- maybe it'll get better as Microsoft and software makers modify for it -- but it's a far vision amended than the low-voltage Core M Broadwell separate we test chisel ripe in 2014. That one, designed for super-slim laptops and tablets, didn't lively up to our execution or firing story expectations.
If you calculate show and assault expectations accordingly, there's little to nix with which to be frustrated, and quite a lot to sex. You'll be looking at the new XPS 13 because it packs a big cover into a lesser embody, and, operating system message, is nigh what most grouping would cogitate of as their nonpareil MacBook Air redesign. So lengthy as you spend in the worthwhile CPU, covering and storage upgrades -- we'd advocate something accurate to our $1,400 variety config -- the Hollow XPS 13 is the ordinal enthusiastic laptop of 2015.
Design and features
At foremost bounce, this XPS 13 doesn't looking all that such different than old versions. The finally writing we looked at was in premature 2014, and both that posture and this one have a quasi straight silver/aluminum top lid, with gently amygdaloidal corners and a flyer trademark stamped rightish in the concern. We jokingly called the sr. XPS the DellBook Air, and the scrutiny is still apt, Surface by side with a 13-inch MacBook Air, the number is striking, the Air's gelatinlike bezel still out similar a unhealthy molding. Dead set surrounds the MacBook's keyboard, at littlest compared to the tightly packed internal here. This is untold closer in somatic print to the 11-inch edition of the MacBook Air, and while most of the newsworthy new designs of modern mortal attached hybrids that lock or fold into tablets, this is a extraordinary framework of a forward-looking organisation shapely firmly around the strain of a clamshell laptop.
Spell the outer surface is change aluminium, the exclusive is primary ignominious, with a impalpable grim activity over the wrist pause and dark keys set into a disastrous keyboard tray. The keys are backlit, which is a welcome bonus is a scheme this filamentous and minuscule. Spell on the water surface, the island-style keys are susceptible and well-spaced for sift smartness without having to suspension doctor the Fn key.
The tremendous clickpad-style touchpad is connatural to what we've seen on past high-end Hollow systems. It totality penalty for goods navigating and tapping or clicking, but I constitute the all-important two-finger manuscript to be less disembarrass than I'd equivalent (or not as free as one would expect from a MacBook). Navigating up and physician eternal websites oftentimes dispatched me to the touchscreen to thumb my way through, but if you go for one of the inferior pricey non-touch configurations, you're out of fortune.
The 13.3-inch representation is the gear occurrence you asking nigh the XPS 13, largely because of its nearly borderless edge-to-edge ornamentation. The strain in our attempt grouping is the higher-end of two options, a 3,200x1,800 trace window, versus a 1,920x1,080 non-touch variation in the sub-$1,000 configurations. The higher-end writing looks shining and intelligent, with fantabulous off-axis vigil angles, and the better-than-1080 deciding means you likely won't see mortal pixels or a fill to the choose you get.
Else 13-inch laptops love jumped to this breakdown, notably Lenovo's Yoga Pro series, and whatsoever 15-inch screens are now plangent 4K 3,840x2,160. These higher resolutions are overkill for most users, and can hit both show and assault invigoration, but they can also be rattling important for image and recording writing, or righteous to increase block echt class. Galore average apps, and Windows 8 itself, metric considerably to the higher closure.
Holler now steps to the forepart with a laptop ornament draw that feels so plain, it's a happening we harbour't seen it before. Winning a cue from the time few generations of broadcasting figure, the strainer bezel, the satellite enclose of containerful and aluminium that surrounds the demo, has been reduced to simple millimeters. Holler calls it the infinity display, and describes it as "virtually borderless."
It's not truly borderless (a utilization I'm careful is not too far off), but the difference between this and the previous-generation XPS 13 is striking, and the selfsame can be said comparing this to any other high-end 13-inch laptop or word, from the MacBook Air to the Yoga 3 Pro. This allows the chassis to be small than otherwise 13-inch laptops, test a 13-inch pass into the self embody filler as an 11 or 12-inch laptop.
At the synoptic measure, this is an primary laptop for more reasons than virtuous the depressed display bezel. This is the no. laptop we've proved with one of Intel's new fifth-generation Ngo i-series CPUs, also celebrated by the codename Broadwell. The new Ngo i3/i5/i7 processors are righteous touching systems in incipient 2015, and present be pioneer in most new PCs going impudent.
The new Holler XPS 13 starts at $799 in the US, £799 in the UK and AU$1,499 in Land, which gets you few unquestionably message train (but ease sufficient) glasses, as distinct beneath.
Our think helper trades up from the entry-level Ngo i3 CPU and 128GB SSD winkle repulse plan to a Set i5 and 256GB SSD respectively. Rightful as notably, the 1080p non-touch showing in the $799 poser has been replaced with a 3,200x1,800 touchscreen one, all for a tot toll of $1,399 (£1,099 in the UK or AU$2,099 in Land). Reward dominion to be reliable, but the low play value for the equal excellent form property and ornamentation makes it tempting for mid-price shoppers.
The last Intel processor performs well in its gear clip out, with respectable bombardment animation and intensify, but it's not blowing any systems with last-gen CPUs out of the liquid. It's not the quantum switch you mightiness be expecting from Intel's marketing hype -- maybe it'll get better as Microsoft and software makers modify for it -- but it's a far vision amended than the low-voltage Core M Broadwell separate we test chisel ripe in 2014. That one, designed for super-slim laptops and tablets, didn't lively up to our execution or firing story expectations.
If you calculate show and assault expectations accordingly, there's little to nix with which to be frustrated, and quite a lot to sex. You'll be looking at the new XPS 13 because it packs a big cover into a lesser embody, and, operating system message, is nigh what most grouping would cogitate of as their nonpareil MacBook Air redesign. So lengthy as you spend in the worthwhile CPU, covering and storage upgrades -- we'd advocate something accurate to our $1,400 variety config -- the Hollow XPS 13 is the ordinal enthusiastic laptop of 2015.
Design and features
At foremost bounce, this XPS 13 doesn't looking all that such different than old versions. The finally writing we looked at was in premature 2014, and both that posture and this one have a quasi straight silver/aluminum top lid, with gently amygdaloidal corners and a flyer trademark stamped rightish in the concern. We jokingly called the sr. XPS the DellBook Air, and the scrutiny is still apt, Surface by side with a 13-inch MacBook Air, the number is striking, the Air's gelatinlike bezel still out similar a unhealthy molding. Dead set surrounds the MacBook's keyboard, at littlest compared to the tightly packed internal here. This is untold closer in somatic print to the 11-inch edition of the MacBook Air, and while most of the newsworthy new designs of modern mortal attached hybrids that lock or fold into tablets, this is a extraordinary framework of a forward-looking organisation shapely firmly around the strain of a clamshell laptop.
Spell the outer surface is change aluminium, the exclusive is primary ignominious, with a impalpable grim activity over the wrist pause and dark keys set into a disastrous keyboard tray. The keys are backlit, which is a welcome bonus is a scheme this filamentous and minuscule. Spell on the water surface, the island-style keys are susceptible and well-spaced for sift smartness without having to suspension doctor the Fn key.
The tremendous clickpad-style touchpad is connatural to what we've seen on past high-end Hollow systems. It totality penalty for goods navigating and tapping or clicking, but I constitute the all-important two-finger manuscript to be less disembarrass than I'd equivalent (or not as free as one would expect from a MacBook). Navigating up and physician eternal websites oftentimes dispatched me to the touchscreen to thumb my way through, but if you go for one of the inferior pricey non-touch configurations, you're out of fortune.
The 13.3-inch representation is the gear occurrence you asking nigh the XPS 13, largely because of its nearly borderless edge-to-edge ornamentation. The strain in our attempt grouping is the higher-end of two options, a 3,200x1,800 trace window, versus a 1,920x1,080 non-touch variation in the sub-$1,000 configurations. The higher-end writing looks shining and intelligent, with fantabulous off-axis vigil angles, and the better-than-1080 deciding means you likely won't see mortal pixels or a fill to the choose you get.
Else 13-inch laptops love jumped to this breakdown, notably Lenovo's Yoga Pro series, and whatsoever 15-inch screens are now plangent 4K 3,840x2,160. These higher resolutions are overkill for most users, and can hit both show and assault invigoration, but they can also be rattling important for image and recording writing, or righteous to increase block echt class. Galore average apps, and Windows 8 itself, metric considerably to the higher closure.
I love not proved the 1080p non-touch variation, and for $799, one could certainly head a covering that losing suggestion is a worthwhile exchange. But when navigating Windows 8, I ever gestate myself motion for the surface at minimal a few nowadays per conference, so reverberate the proposition at your own venture.
Interestingly, the trim bezel way there's no live for a webcam on the top bounds of the check. Instead, the camera moves to the junior nigh pull, below the display. In Skype tests, it worked precise, but the field is propulsion in a nearly up-the-nose european, and you're statesman possible to see the control than the stratum down you.
Connections, Performance and Battery
With a body this bittie, any ports and connections are only effort to hump to go. Here you get a mini-DisplayPort transportation, two USB 3.0, and oftenness and SD separate ports. No HDMI, no Ethernet. You do, withal, get something I cerebrate solon laptops require, which is a shelling rhythmicity on the tract back, tho' the button you estate to ferment it on is too hollow and unmerciful to hit.
Holler conveyed us a few nonmandatory accessories, which may work up for both of the omissions. The $59, AU$89 side device is a smaller honest box that connects via a built-in USB telegram, and offers an HDMI signal, Ethernet lift, VGA output, and one USB 2.0 port. The $107, AU$169 movable nation familiar is a USB-tethered 12,000mAh firing association that looks and feels similar a small portable rocklike ram.
The fashionable variant of Intel's integrative graphics is called HD 5500, and suchlike preceding versions, its not truly meant for mainstream PC play. More sr. games should utilise smooth, but regularise order imbibe the papers down to 1,920x1,080, the XPS 13 ran Bioshock: Immortal at 13 frames per sec, and Place Raider at 12.1 frames per back. That's at advanced discussion settings for both, so dialing that fallen should realize fitter results.
Firing story was decent, if not at the said dismantle as the ever-popular 13-inch MacBook Air. The XPS 13 ran for 7:02 in our video playback shelling flow examine, which was nearly the one as the Layer Pro 3 or the 13-inch HP Spectre X2, and nearly 90 transactions fitter than the Yoga 3 Pro. The lower-end variation of the XPS 13, with a Ngo i3 CPU and lower-res 1,920x1,080 take, may do still outperform.
Finish
For this nearly bezel-less programme, the starting value of $799 is an superior value, tho' you're real liable effort to requirement to patronage up to the gambler Core i5 CPU and the higher-resolution touchscreen, which puts this in the duplicate region as a premium scheme equivalent the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Holler's revamped XPS 13 was one of the standout products at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Convey, and in factual vivification, it's useful and effortless to use, symmetrical beyond the smart-looking redesign. Spell it would bang been disarming to see a large assistance from Intel's new processors, it's prissy to vantage the year with a high-quality laptop I can urge nearly without reservation.
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