What happens when you want the best of the best for a laptop? Well, the first thing you want to do is to determine what exactly you want from your new machine. Big? Small? Best screen? You choose; but if you’re in the Windows space, you can be certain that you’ll eventually stumble upon a Dell XPS.
These machines are not only the best Dell has to offer, but also a high reference for the Windows platform as a whole. This is the review of the Dell XPS 9350-8008SLV, one of such models. Keep reading to find out why this laptop sits so high on the scale.
Pros: amazing display, powerful internals, premium construction.
Screen and design
Simply put, this Dell XPS is a very elegant computer. It has an aluminum body that mixes a silver exterior with a black interior where the keyboard rests —a keyboard that also happens to be backlit, of course. But the most striking thing about this machine, without a doubt, is its much-hyped “Infinity Edge Display”.
What that means is that the XPS9350-8008SLV has very, very, very small bezels. The 13 inch screen is almost borderless, so the images manage to pop a lot more, all the while making the machine smaller and more portable than the average 13 incher.
The panel itself is the crop of the crop: besides being touchscreen, it has a whooping 3200x1800 resolution coupled with IPS technology. You won’t see those pixels, only amazing images; and you’ll also be able to look at them from all angles without a worry. This is as good as laptops displays get.
Power and multitasking
In the review of the Dell XPS 9350-8008SLV we can observe that the laptop is packing an Intel Core i7-6560U 4MB Cache processor with two cores clocked at 2.2 GHz that can go up to 3.2GHz. This is a powerful chip aimed at thin and portable machines like this one thanks to its ultra-low voltage profile, which produces less heat and consumes less battery.
You’ll be able to do basically all of the things any standard consumer would want. Web browsing, office work and multimedia consumption like Netflix are a breeze, and even demanding tasks like video editing are also perfectly possible. Don’t be shy, this is a very capable processor from intel’s latest Skylake generation.
You are also not going to run into any troubles on the multitasking department thanks to the 16 GB of LPDDR3 RAM present (with a 1866 MHz speed). To put it simply, this is as big a RAM for laptops as it gets. Open all the tabs you want on your browser while playing music and working at the same time. Running out of memory won't be an issue on this laptop!
What games can I play?
This XPS gets its graphical power from an Intel Iris Graphics 540. This is an integrated GPU. While this machine is not particularly meant for gaming, you should be able to run some modern games on medium and low settings.
According to the benchmarks, some modern titles like The Sims 4 will net you over 30 fps on ultra settings thanks to their low requirements, while others more demanding like Dragon Age: Inquisition are only playable with lower settings. On contrast, 2-D titles (indies more often than not) and classics will run without a hitch.
As long as you keep out of the native resolution, you’ll be fine for some light gaming.
Battery life
Dell claims the Dell XPS 9350-8008SLV can manage up to 11 hours of battery life with the 56wHR, 4-Cell battery present. That’s a very high standard even when expecting a bit less (in the 9 or 10 hour territory), so we believe Dell when it says this machine leads the industry in battery life. Jus expect that number to go down a bit with heavy use (as always).
Connectivity and storage
At first the ports this computer offers seem to be lacking a bit. We have two USB 3.0, one at each side, to begin. But the real magic is a Thunderbolt 3 port that supports an incredible number of different connections (some of them through adapters) like USB 3.1, DisplayPort, HDMI and Ethernet.
While some might miss the versatility of a lot of ports, laptops like the Dell XPS9350-8008SLV don’t usually tend to need all of these connections, and Dell still adds the possibility to use them all the same with that one powerful port. It’s a similar case as with the lack of optical drive on modern machines — just like this one.
Lastly, the storage denounces just how much of a premium product this is. We’re looking at a 512 GB solid state drive, which is bigger than most SSD included on laptops. In fact, right now you’ll rarely find a laptop with a bigger SSD than this. And we can’t stress enough how great SSDs are thanks to their incredible speed compared to conventional hard drives.
What’s the verdict?
After our review of the Dell XPS 9350-8008SLV it’s not very hard to see why this is such a hyped machine and why it won so many awards and recognition. This is as good as Windows laptops get, a direct competitor to Apple’s MacBook Pro, and a better machine in many ways.
It just has it all: the looks, the power, the speed, the screen and the size. If you’re on the look for a premium computer around this size, you really shouldn’t look anywhere else.