Dell XPS 13 (2019) review: XPS notebook perfected?

It looks the same, so what’s new?

Oh ye, of so little faith. Yes, the new for 2019 XPS 13 looks identical to its predecessor but Dell has made some small but very important changes.

Repositioned webcam - It’s a small change but a huge deal. One of the most common complaints about the older XPS 13 models was that the webcam was positioned at the hinge which led to less than flattering camera angles. For 2019, Dell has managed to create a super tiny camera module that is only 2.25mm thick. This allows it to reposition it above the display - where it always ought to be. The downside is that you lose the ability to use Windows Hello with the webcam. But you can log in with the power button which has an integrated fingerprint reader.

Whiskey lake processors - The other big change happens under the hood. The latest XPS 13 is powered by Intel’s newest 8th generation Whiskey Lake processors. Like any new processor, Intel promises greater performance and power efficiency with these new Whiskey Lake processor. You can read more about them in our initial coverage here.

New Frost finish - This is a new colorway and it's a fancy way of saying white. With the new Frost finish, you get a white chassis with the same arctic white woven glass fiber palm rest as last year's rose gold model. Rose Gold (rose gold on white) makes a return as does Platinum Silver (silver on black).

Wait, wasn’t last year’s XPS 13 powered by 8th generation processors?

Yes, but last year’s model was using Kaby Lake R (R for refresh) processor. This year's model is powered by Whiskey Lake. Yes, I know it’s very confusing and you can all blame Intel for this mess.

The rest of the notebook is unchanged?

Yes, the display, overall dimensions, weight, fit and finish are all unchanged so you can read the review of last year’s model to get up to speed on these aspects. This isn’t a bad thing since the last year’s XPS 13 was very close to notebook perfection.

But to recap, like its predecessor, this year’s XPS 13 has an InfinityEdge display with super thin bezels. You can opt for either a standard Full-HD display or a 4K one with touch capability. The display, as you would expect from Dell, is great with nice vibrant colors and sufficient brightness.

As for size, you are looking at a thickness of 11.6mm and a weight of just 1.23kg. The overall build quality is top notch. The chassis feels solid - there’s no wobble or flex in any of the panels - the keyboard has a nice weight and feel to it, and the trackpad, though a little on the small side, is responsive and accurate.

As for ports, you get three USB-C ports - two of which supports Thunderbolt 3 and the third one supports USB 3.1. There's also a microSD card reader and a headphone jack.

How many configurations are there?

Locally, the XPS 13 will be available in no less than seven configurations. To make it easier, look at the table below. Like last year, the configurations are a little restrictive. There's only a single Core i5 configuration, and if you want 16GB of memory you have to pair it with a 4K display and 512GB of storage. Greater flexibility would have been much preferred.

How does it perform?

The unit that we tested is the rose gold model with a Core i7-8565U processor with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. Like its predecessor, the XPS 13 is a strong performer and was consistently amongst the top performers in our tests. Its graphics performance was particularly impressive. It won’t beat notebooks with discrete graphics chips but it managed to eke out the more performance from Intel’s integrated GPU than its rivals and that’s something. For those of you interested in the specifics, take your time to study the charts below.

Here are the charts

How's the battery life?

Battery life is great. In absolute terms, it managed the second longest battery life amongst all of the modern ultraportable notebooks that we recently tested. 261 minutes or 4 hours and 21 minutes may be a long way off the LG’s incredible 490 minutes but it is no slouch. And lest we forget, the XPS 13 has a 4K display. Diving deeper, we can see that its power consumption is a fairly low 11.95W. Again, this is impressive because the Yoga C930 - which also has a 4K display - has a much higher power draining rate of 19.05W.

How does it fare on our Portability Index?

Long-time readers should be familiar with our Portability Index, which is a ratio generated by taking into account a notebook's battery life and its weight and dimensions. The XPS 13 managed a ratio of 5.07, which is, again, second only to the LG gram 14. What’s more interesting is that this is higher than its predecessor’s ratio of 4.86. So in other words, the new XPS 13 is not only more powerful but it is more portable overall because it has a longer battery life.

Is this the XPS 13 perfected?

If perfection is defined as the best that something possibly can be, then, yes, I would argue that this new model is the XPS 13 perfected. You could nitpick if you want but bearing in mind the limitations of present-day technology, I think Dell has done a very commendable job with the latest XPS 13.

The camera has finally been moved to the right position. You lose Windows Hello but this is more a limitation of current day camera technology than Dell intentionally withholding features. Besides, there's an integrated fingerprint reader for quick logins. One might also argue that the trackpad is a little small and I would have to agree. It is small in comparison to some rivals but, again, look at the keyboard and trackpad carefully, there simply isn’t any space left. A larger trackpad would necessitate larger bezels around the display and I don’t think that’s a compromise anyone wants. Truth is, Dell has crammed as much as they possibly can into the XPS 13.

And if that’s not enough, the XPS 13 is cheaper too. Prices now start at S$1,999 - previously it was S$2,099. At the other end of the spectrum, the top-of-the-line model is S$2,699 - previously it was S$2,949. It’s not often that you see brands put out new products and price them lower than the models they replace. This is refreshing to see and very commendable.

You can get the S$1,999 base model from Lazada here, and also the S$2,699 top-of-the-line model from Lazada here.

So in short, the latest XPS 13 is faster, better designed, has a longer battery life, and is cheaper too. If that’s not progress, I don’t know what is.

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