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00:00Get over here!
00:03Okay, so this is Dell's latest and greatest XPS 15 for 2019.
00:08This is now the fourth iteration of this product, and it's good.
00:11It's really good for what it was meant to be, but it's not as good as what it could have been.
00:17So when this thing first launched four years ago,
00:20I think it was one of the best-looking devices available in the market at the time.
00:23I think a lot of people felt the same way.
00:25It was just a really nice-looking 15-inch powerful laptop, and it was thin, it was light, but three years later,
00:31it's not as unique of a product as it once was. Now because it's on its fourth iteration,
00:36I'm not going to go through the details of every single component, like a lot of it has not changed even compared to the
00:41first iteration. It still has the same kind of design on the outside, still has the carbon fiber keyboard.
00:45It's a great-looking device, and it's a great performing device for what it is,
00:50but I'm going to focus this video on the stuff that has changed, as well as like a bigger picture discussion on
00:56whether or not this device is for you. Now one of the main features
00:59they've added this year is the option for an OLED panel on the display, and it's a really nice-looking display.
01:05Now this isn't the first OLED panel I've reviewed on this channel.
01:08I've talked about a couple of other devices, mostly gaming devices,
01:11but they all use the same panel. These all use the Samsung panel, OLED, 4k, really nice image,
01:17and it's particularly noticeable in media consumption. Like if you're watching stuff that supports HDR,
01:21or just stuff that has a lot of color and just can show off the vibrancy and the benefits of an OLED screen,
01:27this thing looks awesome.
01:28But I have to say, in comparison to the previous 4k panel that they had available, and they still have that option, like just the
01:344k regular IPS panel, it's not that much better. It's not to say that the OLED panel doesn't look amazing,
01:39it's just that the original 4k panel that you could have gotten with the XPS 15 last year was such a nice-looking panel to begin with.
01:46Now if you're worried about OLED screen burn-in on a laptop, I've talked about this in previous videos,
01:50but I feel like I should mention it here as well. I've done a couple tests,
01:53I've had a screen that just had a static image for over 30 days, and there were no issues with it,
01:58so I feel like for these particular panels, like the Samsung OLED panels that we're seeing a lot of this year,
02:03they're perfectly fine for OLED longevity. Okay, I want to talk about performance.
02:07This is a device that's running the 9th gen i9, so it's an 8-core CPU, as well as the GTX 1650,
02:14a reasonably powerful GPU from NVIDIA.
02:17When this device launched four years ago, it had
02:20thermal limitations, because they're trying to put some powerful stuff into a relatively thin and light device, and four years later,
02:26it still has very similar thermal characteristics to the original model from 2016.
02:31Now, some people look at this device as a kind of business laptop, or kind of like a workstation laptop,
02:37that is powerful and looks relatively good in a thin and light package,
02:40but there are a lot of people, and myself included a few years ago, that look at this device like a nice-looking
02:48gaming laptop, like you should be able to play games on it because it is so powerful, because it's running a NVIDIA video card.
02:54It is not a gaming laptop, and this is something I think a lot of people just have to drill into their minds when it
02:58comes to the XPS branded device.
03:01This is not a gaming laptop, as much as we want it to be, as much as it should be, because it has great hardware in
03:07it, it cannot play games properly to the full extent of what this hardware should be capable of. So this device runs hot.
03:14It doesn't throttle as aggressively as last year's model, but it still has some very distinct thermal limitations. Now, just some anecdotal story here.
03:22Three years ago, when Overwatch first launched, it's a game that I play a lot. If you follow my channel, you'll recognize that name.
03:27It's a game that is not super demanding on your system,
03:31but I used to play Overwatch on the original XPS 15, and I went from Bronze to Masters on that device with a 60Hz screen.
03:38And three and a half years later,
03:40we have the fourth iteration of this device, and the gaming performance is not that much improved.
03:45You can play some lighter titles like Overwatch,
03:47but the moment you play a game that's taxing on both the CPU and GPU, like something like Apex,
03:52it'll throttle and your game will stutter. Now, I get it.
03:55You can do stuff like undervolting, and you can lower the boost wattage on your system.
04:00There's a lot of things you can do to work around those issues, but for the average person,
04:04they're not doing that. Like, if you're looking at buying this system,
04:08chances are you just want it to pick it up and go and do its thing. If you do,
04:12understand that this is still a thermally limited chassis. Now, there is something that I thought was a little bit strange.
04:17This device does not have an undervolted CPU.
04:21We've seen companies like Acer and Razer and even Apple, they all undervolt their CPUs to get the best possible thermal performance on their devices.
04:28Because this is such a thin and light chassis design,
04:32I would have thought that they would have just taken the opportunity to undervolt it as well,
04:36because I manually undervolted it, and you do get better performance when you do.
04:40Other things. Oh, the inside. So, not a lot has changed internally,
04:45but they do have better VRM cooling. Now, one of the issues that they've had with all the XPS chassis before,
04:50they did not cool the VRMs properly, and this year they have a heatsink on top of them.
04:55The rest of the inside hasn't really changed. It's now running a new Wi-Fi card.
04:58It's still a killer card, but at least it's got Wi-Fi 6, and the battery is also unchanged.
05:03It's still a very large battery, but on the OLED screen, it's a little bit less than last year.
05:07So, last year I was getting over 8 hours of battery life.
05:09I got 7 running the exact same test, so 7 and 3 minutes on the same battery test as the previous generation.
05:15So, still a solid battery life, but not as good as the regular IPS panel.
05:21Also, the webcam. So, it's now moved up to the top.
05:23This is a big thing for a lot of people. It used to be down on the bottom, the nose cam,
05:27and a lot of people complained about it for years. It's now at the top.
05:30I actually think it's cool that Dell spent the time and resources to do this.
05:34It's actually one of the few thin-bezeled laptops that has the webcam up at the top.
05:39Okay, I think that basically wraps up the kind of physical changes with this device,
05:44and I want to talk about the value proposition that you're getting with the XPS 15 right now.
05:50If you're on the market for an XPS 15, chances are you're looking for a device that's relatively portable,
05:55but also relatively powerful.
05:56And the other device that may have popped up on your radar is the Razer Blade 15.
06:01This is my personal device.
06:02Now, I'm not saying that I like the Razer Blade over the X...
06:07That's a lie.
06:07I do like the Razer Blade more than the XPS 15, but I'm not saying it's the better choice for everyone.
06:12I play a lot of games, this is why I go for it.
06:15If you play games and you actually want to get a device with the intent of playing games regularly,
06:22do not get the XPS 15.
06:24You will be disappointed.
06:25Like, the amount of money that you spend on an XPS 15 can be better spent on a bunch of other devices
06:30that are just better for playing games.
06:31But if you want something specifically for video editing, or photo editing,
06:36or just want something that is, like, powerful for, I don't know, development,
06:41but you don't play games, this is still a great option.
06:44The thermal issues are way less pronounced this year,
06:46and if I did not play games, I would choose the XPS 15 over the Razer Blade.
06:51One of the things that I like the most about the Dell device is the keyboard and the keyboard deck.
06:55I love the carbon fiber.
06:56I love how it feels.
06:57I like how it ages.
06:58It doesn't get gross and bad over time.
07:01It just stays really clean over the years, as long as you wipe it down once in a while.
07:04And the keyboard layout is good.
07:06Like, I've never loved the keyboard layout on the Razer Blade.
07:09It's a really good device overall, except I really wish they would fix the thermals.
07:14It's weird that even after four years, they couldn't engineer themselves out of this thermal issue,
07:18but that's what we have.
07:20Now, I don't think that they'll be using this design and this chassis going forward.
07:24I feel like next year's device is probably going to have a completely new redesign,
07:28which would be good in my books.
07:30Like, I feel like they've reached the limitations of this thing, so time to move on.
07:34But if you're interested in picking this particular year's model up,
07:37I still think it's a solid device.
07:39Just temper your expectations.
07:41Understand that it is not a gaming laptop,
07:43but more of a just workstation and just powerful productivity device.
07:47Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
07:48Thumbs if you liked it.
07:49Subs if you loved it.
07:50See you guys next time.