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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave 2D here. This is the XPS 15 2-in-1. It's not designed to replace
00:08the original XPS 15, they're still making those. It's more of like a supplementary device
00:12for people that want something that's a little more versatile, that can do like different
00:16modes and stuff like this. So it's a thin and light 2-in-1 device that's using the new
00:20Kaby Lake G processors. So those have the AMD GPUs with the Intel CPUs. It's a very
00:24powerful system in a small package. So when you use this thing in tablet mode, it's not
00:30exactly the most comfortable thing if you're going to handhold it. If you have it just
00:33placed down for taking notes or just doing things as a like rested tablet, perfect. But
00:39if you're going to hold this thing, it's a little big, it's comfortable, it's usable,
00:44but it is big. It's just a 15-inch screen is never great for a handheld tablet device.
00:49But you can use it in tent mode or presentation mode. You can pop it up to watch a movie,
00:52you can play games, you can connect up a controller or a mouse and a keyboard. It's
00:56a really nice experience to be up and close to your screen doing stuff. Now, the speakers
01:00are located in the back here. It's not the best location. The speakers sound okay. I
01:04mean, if there's a difference between the regular XPS 15 speakers and these, it's not
01:08a substantial difference. They sound okay, but the location isn't great. And especially
01:12if you have it in tablet mode or something, it does muffle the sound. The ports on this
01:16device are all USB-C. So there's four of them, there's two on each side, and there's four-lane
01:20PCIe support if you're curious about external GPUs. There's no USB-A, and there's only a
01:24microSD slot, which is a little weird to me, because I feel like this is a device that's
01:29really great for creatives, and those are the type of people that would use an SD slot,
01:33but yeah, you're stuck with microSD. The charging is USB-C, and we also have a battery indicator,
01:38which we see on XPS products. I like seeing that. Okay, the display. This is, on the 4K
01:44panel, because that's the one that I have here, is an excellent display. It's very bright,
01:48it's very color accurate, you're gonna like it. The original XPS 15 screen was already
01:52good, so expected good. It's even better than I thought it would be. It's not as bright
01:57as a MacBook Pro screen, but, I mean, I prefer the screen over the MacBook Pro's. It's just
02:01more color accurate, and it's just a nicer looking image to me. There's also a dedicated
02:05pen for the 2-in-1 device. Low latency, really useful for creatives and students. The nib
02:10feels good to me, it reminds me of a Surface product. It's got a little bit of texture
02:13to it when you're writing on the glass. The webcam, still located on the bottom, it's got
02:17that standard, like, up-nose angle from the XPS products, but because it's a 2-in-1, you
02:21can flip it into tent mode, and now you have a normal looking image. You also have Windows
02:26Hello for facial recognition, and there's also a fingerprint sensor at the top of the
02:29keyboard. So this keyboard is a Maglev keyboard. It uses magnets to raise each key, so instead
02:35of a spring or a switch, it uses magnets to basically give each key resistance. And it's
02:40actually one of its more interesting features. The purpose of this tech is to reduce the
02:43thickness of this laptop, so you don't have a switch, you don't have a dome, you basically
02:47shave a couple millimeters off of the base. Now how does it feel? Honestly, when you first
02:51use it, it's going to be a little bit different, but you get used to it quickly. It feels not
02:56like a butterfly switch from the Apple keyboards, but it just, it feels different. The way that
03:00a butterfly switch felt different from a regular chiclet keyboard, this also feels different
03:04in its own kind of way. It's really hard to describe this, but you'll get used to it.
03:10That's the only thing that really matters. You get used to this thing very quickly. After
03:12like 24 hours, 48 hours of using it, I'm very comfortable on it. The keys feel like
03:17they snap back to the resting state a little faster than normal, but yeah, I feel like
03:21most people will like it. The trackpad is great. It's your standard XPS trackpad, glass
03:26surface with great tracking and good button mechanics. Now there is a glitch that I noticed,
03:31and I think it's a software thing. If you have three keys pressed down at the same time,
03:35like they have to be together at the same time, which probably won't happen very often,
03:39but if you do, you sometimes get other keys registering that you didn't even press at
03:42all. It's infrequent, and the reality is you're probably not spamming three keys at once together
03:47very often, but it is a thing right now. Hopefully they patch it soon. Now if you want to get
03:51inside here, it's really easy, kind of like any of the XPS products. A bunch of screws
03:54on the bottom, pops right off, and inside you have a removable drive, which is great.
03:58The RAM is soldered on though, don't love that, and they've also gone with the killer
04:01Wi-Fi card again, which I also don't love. The battery life is not what I expected. It's
04:06actually a pretty big battery, 75 watt hours, but the battery life was short, and I'm not
04:10sure if this is a software thing, or a driver thing, or something that can be improved over
04:14time, but right now I'm getting around 5 hours of battery life at 250 nits on a 75 watt hour
04:20battery, which is a little weird to me, right? I feel like on a device like this, I would
04:23have expected like 7, maybe 8, pretty comfortably. I'm getting 5. It's a solid performer, it's
04:28running the i7-8705G, so the GPU pushes out really similar performance to a GTX 1050,
04:35maybe a little bit faster on some titles, but most modern games can run near 60 frames
04:39per second if you lower the graphics quality a bit. It's good, not mind-blowing though,
04:43but keep in mind it's a thin and light 2-in-1 laptop. Same with the thermals, they're fair,
04:47if you're expecting some crazy performance, you're going to be disappointed. In benchmarks,
04:51I'm not seeing any issues, but if you play heavier games for long enough, it can throttle.
04:55They're using gore material, like the XPS 13, to help channel the heat away from the
04:59keyboard, and away from the bottom panel, so it's comfortable to use, but if you wanted
05:03to pick up a machine for heavy gaming, this is probably not the right one. The video editing
05:07performance is also good, it's not as good as the new 6-core Coffee Lake CPUs, but it's
05:12pretty solid. Render times a little bit slower than a 6-core, but the actual video editing
05:16experience is very similar. It's a good device for that.
05:19The fans come on more often than I'd like. They're quite under load, but when you stress
05:22the system hard, it does get loud. Okay, I feel like Dell put a lot of effort and time
05:27into making this thing. This isn't some kind of half-assed or half-baked attempt that we
05:31see from other companies when it comes to 2-in-1 devices. This is legit, this is well
05:34engineered, it's well thought out. I don't love the battery life, I hope it improves,
05:38I feel like it will improve, but aside from that, this is a kick-ass device. Bear in mind
05:43though, this is not for everyone. If you're looking for a traditional clamshell laptop,
05:47the XPS 15, like the OG one, is going to be a better option than this. But if you're creative,
05:52if you're a student, if you're someone that wants the portability of something that's
05:55really diverse and can do a lot of different things, and you travel frequently, and you
05:59watch a lot of media and watch a lot of movies while you're traveling, this is really cool.
06:04It's better for a lot of things that the XPS 15 can't do, but if you're just looking for
06:08a clamshell device that just does your basic stuff, XPS 15 OG version is a better choice.
06:13Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video, thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it, see
06:17you guys next time.