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00:00In late 2015, Dell came out with the first good-looking XPS 15.
00:04This was a time where most laptops were pretty unsightly.
00:08MacBooks looked good, but most Windows laptops looked, honestly, quite bad.
00:11They were plastic, they were thick, and if they were made out of aluminum, they didn't look particularly good.
00:17That first XPS 15 was something special.
00:20It looked good, it was thin, it was pretty powerful, but it had thermal limitations.
00:24And then the year later, they came out with the 9560.
00:27Same design, but the same issues. It had thermal limitations.
00:30Three years later, in 2018, we have this, the 9570.
00:35And this is a different market right now.
00:37In 2018, there are a lot of good-looking, thin and light, powerful laptops.
00:42So, it doesn't really stick out as being the obvious choice for someone that wants something like this.
00:46Is it still good?
00:48It is, but there are some issues that I have with it.
00:51Now, I'm not going to do like a regular review on this, but I will give you kind of like a one-minute overview.
00:56It still has the best in-class exterior build.
00:58For a 15-inch Windows laptop, I still think the XPS 15 is the leader.
01:02It has an awesome exterior, carbon fiber stuff feels nice.
01:05It's soft-touch, it's durable, holds up well over time.
01:08There's a decent port selection, and the Thunderbolt 3 port finally supports four lanes of PCIe.
01:13So, if you want to connect to an external GPU, you're getting full bandwidth.
01:16It has an excellent trackpad, good keyboard with white backlighting.
01:20It only has room for a single SSD slot.
01:23There is room for a secondary drive, it's like an optional kit, but it's a SATA drive,
01:27and you also have to use a smaller battery if you use that.
01:30The speakers are okay, they're also not in the best position, they're underneath the laptop.
01:34The webcam is still a nose cam.
01:36It's centered this year, but it still has that unflattering angle.
01:39It has an awesome battery life.
01:41With the screen at 250 nits, I'm getting a full 8 hours of battery life.
01:44That's better battery than the previous generation.
01:47The screen. This is the 4K panel, and I really like it.
01:50It's bright, it's color accurate, it's excellent for content creation,
01:53or for anyone that enjoys a high-res, high-quality screen.
01:56I think this is its best feature.
01:58Now, I'm going to focus the rest of this video on what I think is the most important feature about this device,
02:03or both of these devices.
02:05It's the performance.
02:06So, these devices have been upgraded from the previous generation by a significant amount.
02:11Both the CPU and the GPU are strong performers.
02:15There's a few configurations for the CPU.
02:17The i5 and the i7 are fast.
02:19The i9 is faster.
02:21The GPU in this one is a 1050 Ti,
02:23and it pushes out really respectable frame rates for most modern titles right now at 1080p.
02:27And it's also great for Adobe content.
02:29The new XPS 15 is quite a bit faster in Premiere than last year's model.
02:33Now, I want to talk about thermal performance,
02:35and I think this is a topic that I think really defines this whole product line.
02:40The XPS 15 from even 3 years ago.
02:42If you push these devices hard for extended periods of time,
02:46you will run into thermal throttling.
02:48The i5 and the i7 throttle occasionally.
02:50The i9 throttles a little bit more.
02:52It honestly questions why they even put the i9 into the XPS 15,
02:56because the thermal limitations of this chassis are quite pronounced,
03:00and just when you stick in a very powerful chip like the i9 into this,
03:04it just... you know?
03:07You're losing a lot of the value of that chip because of the thermal design of this laptop.
03:11So this brings up the question of whether or not this thermal stuff is a serious issue.
03:16So this is my take on it.
03:17There's basically two... well, three ways you can kind of look at it.
03:21One way is to look at this thermal limitation and be like,
03:24you know what? Thermal throttles? Deal breaker. Forget about it.
03:27Let's look at a different brand.
03:29The thing is, I don't feel like that's a legitimate thing.
03:31There aren't really obvious alternatives to the XPS 15.
03:35There are devices that are similar, like the Razer Blade, the Aero 15, GS65,
03:40but none of them are quite like the XPS 15.
03:42This really isn't a class of its own.
03:44None of them are built as well as this, and none of them have the super long battery life like this.
03:48It's a unique product.
03:50So if you want to find something that's like this without the thermal throttling,
03:53it doesn't exist.
03:54So there's really only two realistic options.
03:57Number one, you deal with it by repasting it and undervolting it.
04:02I've done a video on it in the past.
04:03It's not the easiest thing in the world.
04:04It's a bit of a pain, but it is a way to get better thermals on the 9570 if you want.
04:09The other option is to understand that the XPS 15 was not built as a gaming device.
04:15It's not built to run stuff at full tilt, full bore, 24-7.
04:19It is a work-oriented device.
04:21It's a thin and light, quiet laptop.
04:23And if they wanted to, they could crank up the fans, they could make this thing louder
04:27and have better thermal performance,
04:29but it would sacrifice a lot of what makes the XPS 15 what it is.
04:33So depending on what you want to do with this device,
04:35you kind of have to choose one of those two realistic options.
04:38Now, that being said, I don't think that Dell gets a pass anymore.
04:43When they first launched this in 2015, sure.
04:46Last year, it was a little bit of annoying, but sure.
04:49Three years later, I feel like they should have found some kind of engineering solution
04:53to make this issue not even be an issue.
04:56And there are other devices out there now, in 2018,
04:59that have very similar performance to this, like, without thermal issues.
05:04And that's the thing.
05:07Now, if you still want that really amazing build quality, you gotta stick with this.
05:10But if you're just looking for raw performance, there are other options.
05:13I've done reviews, I'll link them down below.
05:15But this is what it is.
05:17It does have thermal issues, yet again.
05:20And it's getting a little stale, Dell.
05:22It's getting a little stale.