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| Review Details The new Dell XPS 15z is a premium laptop with great features and sleek design. It supports the Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia graphics, and a full-HD widescreen display. It looks a little like the Apple MacBook Pro. Build & Design It supports a polished metal exterior that looks rich and premium on touch, its screen lid and bottom cover are made of anodized aluminum that resists scratch—also they have a lighter silvery hue like the unibody AppleMacBookPro. It supports a darker deck with a plush palmrest and touchpad. There is a difference in quality of finish between the Apple and Dell laptops, and both are very appealing. We like the Dell XPS 15z’s steel accents running along the edges. At 0.97-inch thickness, the Dell XPS 15z is slightly slimmer than the Apple MacBook Pro which has a thickness of 1-inch, so you can hardly feel the difference. This Dell Laptop supports a curved design and the spine juts out which we like as it makes holding the laptop a little easier. We dint like the XPS 15z’s funky, tubular hinge design, which is out of tune and clashes with the speaker grille on the side of the keyboard. The whole unit’s magnesium alloy chassis is very well built—no creaky joints, no cheap plastics—all you feel is a fine aluminum block that encases a good looking, powerful PC. Screen The Dell XPS 15z supports a full-HD, 1920x1080 pixel resolution display with good brightness and contrast levels even at the corner edges. It has an LED-backlit glossy screen and offers great movie-watching experience. Reading on the full-HD screen can be a problem, unless you roll up the native font’s DPI—also the constant reflections aren’t great for extensive reading. Viewing angles of the glossy screen, however, are much better than what we saw on the Inspiron 15R or Sony VAIO S, with acceptable colour shift—not a lot. The HD webcam records HD 720p videos and clicks pictures. You can either upload the photos on Photobucket or videos on YouTube by the click of a button and the camera’s performance is also good. Keyboard and Touchpad It has isolated silver keys which are well spaced and support a slight inward curve. The keyboard is good and easy to use with nice feedback, zero flex from the keyboard deck and the plush, wide palmrest make typing on the XPS 15z extremely convenient. What’s more, the keyboard’s backlit—just hit the F6 key to toggle the backlighting on or off—but unlike the MacBook Pro, there’s no ambient light sensor. It has a nice touchpad with a polished metal surface which makes using the cursor and windows on screen easier. The plush magnesium alloy palmrest has ample space for your wrists while typing. Hardware & Features We received the high-end model of the Dell XPS 15z for review, a powerful machine to say the least. It comes with a dual-core Intel Core i7-2620M 2.9 GHz processor (Turbo Boosts up to 3.4 GHz), 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, 750 GB hard drive spinning at 7,200 rpm, and 2 GB dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 525M graphics. The laptop has onboard Intel HD 3000 graphics also and Nvidia Optimus to intelligently switch between the two. As you can see, the Dell XPS 15z is a powerful multimedia and entertainment laptop. The Dell XPS 15z has good internal hardware and loads of connectivity features. On the left edge of its chassis, you can find an HDMI, mini DisplayPort (with mini DisplayPort to VGA cable), hybrid eSATA and USB 2.0, and two USB 3.0 ports. There’s also a 5-in-1 card reader slot and MacBook Pro style battery indicator—press to see how much juice is left inside. On the right hand side we find the slot-loading DVD drive, mic jacks and headphones. The Ethernet jack and power port are placed on the right hand side. It offers Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0 and supports Intel WiDi for transferring HD content to your TV. It supports Dell DataSafe, and has free 2 GB of online data backup for an year. The Dell Stage is great for accessing music, videos, apps, etc, directly through the desktop. The laptop comes with 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium and three years of limited warranty, which is a great insurance cover. Performance The Dell XPS 15z excelled on most of the benchmark tests. That is what we expected with a powerful dual-core processor, oodles of RAM, faster hard drive and a mid-ranged GPU? The laptop posted one of the highest PC Mark Vantage scores at 8,786 but its 3D Mark 06 score (7381) was behind that of the Dell Inspiron 15R (7752) and Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG (8734). Just goes to show that the Dell XPS 15z could’ve had a better GPU inside, but maybe Dell has restricted the higher-end GPUs exclusively to its Alienware offerings. There was no problem while multitasking even when several apps were open on the Dell XPS 15z, the laptop is good for video editing and graphics rendering as well—not just for commonly used apps. Gaming on the bundled 2 GB Nvidia GeForce GT 525M is quite good for casual gamers—Far Cry 2 at 1024x768 and medium settings played decently at 45 fps; slightly better frame rates by a similar card on the Dell Inspiron 15R. Don’t expect to game at the laptop’s native resolution (1920x1080) with latest games, you’ll be sorely disappointed. The laptop’s hard drive is quite good, transferring 4 GB of data between partitions at 44 MB/s. The laptop gets hot around the edges while playing a game, but not uncomfortably so. The only drawback we found was while watching movies. The full-HD widescreen display does a very good job of displaying crisp, colorful visuals and the accompanying onboard audio is better than most laptops we’ve heard recently. The laptop’s speakers—situated on either side of the keyboard—are loud and clear at high volume with minimal distortion, bass levels are acceptable as well. Watching an HD movie is quite an immersive experience on the Dell XPS 15z. The battery life is average for the laptop. At full-screen brightness, 100% audio volume, high-performance preset, our test video looped for 2 hours 9 minutes. The laptop provides 4 hours of usage on a conservative power plan in a single charge which is good. What’s more, like the MacBook Pro, Dell has sealed off the XPS 15z’s battery compartment, so you can’t really upgrade or replace it. Overall, the Dell XPS 15z’s battery performance is acceptable, not as great as we would’ve liked though. Bottom-line It is priced at approx Rs. 70,800 though our review sample was a higher end model priced at Rs. 81,800. This Dell laptops is sophisticated and is ideal for home entertainment. It’s very well built and feels elegant and premium on touch with a quality finish. And apart from most laptops that come with 1 year warranty, the XPS 15z comes with 3 year Complete Cover, making sure your hefty investment is insured for a long time. Compared to the 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro, the Dell XPS 15z is less expensive and looks almost identical. Barring the Nvidia graphics, the laptop has very good internal hardware and feature set, a bright full-HD widescreen display and offers 2 GB of free online data storage up to a year. Though a little expensive, the Dell XPS 15z is worth the cost for a style-savvy, all-purpose home entertainment laptop. Pros Stylish, well built Full-HD widescreen display Very good features, performance Free 2GB online backup 3-year warranty Cons No dedicated number pad |
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