FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Elegantly efficient

Elegantly efficient

The new laptop from Dell is not only sleek and skinny, it also boasts a full 20 hours of battery life

IT WILL SET you back the best part of Bt80,000 but busy executives permanently on the go will no doubt find the elegant Dell XPS 13 a partner made in heaven. Powerful and light with a gorgeous 13-inch display with 4K resolution, the new laptop is smaller, thinner and lighter than the previous model – just 11.6 mm at its thickest part going down to 7.8mm and weighing a mere 1.21 kg. 
It also has 20 hours of battery life, meaning you can finish your presentation while you’re out and about without having to find a power outlet.

Elegantly efficient

The new XPS13 looks elegant in two colour combo options. One option has a Rose Gold aluminium shell and Alpine White glass fibre-woven palm rest. Unfortunately, the Rose Gold version is not available in Thailand so I got to test the model with a Platinum Silver shell and Black palm rest.
Dell claims that its team of developers took about 11,520 hours and 50 trials to develop the white palm rest with a woven appearance. To give it that stylish weave, the team considered different materials beyond the colour limits of traditional carbon fibre. The solution was an innovative new crystalline silica material with the white literally woven in, like a fabric, in nine composite layers. Dell says it’s the first to use this woven glass fibre in a laptop.
There are several choices of configurations of new XPS 13, depending on the CPU, memory, storage and display resolution. I got my hands on the 9370 model, which is powered by 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8550U 1.8GHz quad-core processor. It’s installed with 16 gigabytes of working memory or RAM – part of which is used by the integrated graphics adapter and a 512 GB PCIe Solid State Drive.

Elegantly efficient

It has Dell’s next-generation Infinity Edge 4KDisplay with 3840x2160-pixel resolution, which is bright and great for viewing photos and watching HD movies. The graphic engine is the Intel UHD Graphics 620 with shared graphics memory. The display is a touch screen that provides fast interaction.
During the test, I enjoyed watching HD movies from iflix and YouTube 4K clips. The movies also sounded good thanks to the stereo speakers professionally tuned with Waves MaxxAudio Pro with 2 watts power.

Elegantly efficient

Dell says the XPS 13 is the world’s first laptop built with Gore Thermal Insulation, the same silica aerogels used in high-tech science and extreme engineering environments to diffuse and dissipate heat. It has been used as insulation on the Mars Rovers and Hyper Velocity Particle capture in the Stardust Probe. This material directs heat out of the device, keeping the system cool while it works hard. 
So it came as no surprise that during the test, I didn’t experience any heat problem.
The new XPS 13’s long battery life is credited to Dell Power Manager that allows you to customise the balance of battery life, charging and thermals.

Elegantly efficient

And the Dynamic Power Mode intuitively delivers maximum power as needed, for such tasks as video rendering applications and advanced spreadsheets, while intelligently monitoring and managing system temperatures. That allows the XPS 13 to sustain its high performance. 
The XPS 13 runs on Windows 10 Home 64-bit. During the test, I found the XPS 13 ran business applications, such as Microsoft Office, very fast and HD video clips also ran smoothly. The laptop took only about 20 seconds to start up and 10 seconds to shut down.
I also liked that the XPS 13 comes with three USB C ports that are compatible with other devices. That means you can use the laptop’s USB C charger to top up the power of your smartphone or tablet as needed. 
It also has fast Wi-Fi connection using the Killer 1435 802.11ac MIMO 2x2 model. I was able to connect it to my home Wi-Fi router Linkysis EA8500 with ease.
Dell XPS 13 has a starting price of Bt79,990, depending on the configuration.

Key Specs
OS: Windows 10 Home 64bit
Processor: 8th Generation Intel Core i7-8550U Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.0 GHz, |4 cores)
Memory: 16GB LPDDR3 2133MHz
Storage: 512GB PCI3 Solid State Drive.
Display: 13.3-inch 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) InfinityEdge touch display
Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 620
Audio and speakers: Stereo speakers professionally tuned with Waves MaxxAudio Pro; 1W x 2 = 2W total4 Digital Array Microphones; Far Field Cortana Capable
Camera: Widescreen HD (720p) webcam with 4 array digital microphones; Windows Hello compliant infrared camera
Wireless connectivity: 802.11ac 2x2 and Bluetooth
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 3 with Power Delivery & DisplayPort (4 lanes of PCI Express Gen 3), 1x USB-C 3.1 with Power Delivery & DisplayPort, 1x card reader, |1x headset jack, 1x Noble lock slot
Battery: 52WHr battery (built-in)
Dimensions: 7.8-11.6mm x 302mm x 199mm (HxWxD)
Weight: 1.21 kg

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