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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So recently Dell released this, the 2-in-1 XPS 13, and
00:14I've been a huge fan of the original XPS 13, but this new version seems better on paper.
00:19It's thinner, it's more versatile because it's got that 360 hinge, and it's similarly
00:24priced. Let's take a look. It has the same design language, aluminum top and bottom panels
00:29with soft-touch carbon fiber on the deck, all very rigid and properly fitted, true to
00:34the whole XPS name. This thing has great build quality. The hinge looks solid, it allows
00:38you to rotate the screen all the way around, and you can kind of one-hand open it from
00:42the side, but because the bottom half is so light, you have to wobble it a bit to get
00:46it open. For ports, we have microSD, an audio jack, and a pair of USB-C ports. One of them
00:52supports Thunderbolt 3. There are no USB-A ports, which is how the device is so thin,
00:57but they include an adapter, so I'm happy. The screen is a 1080p panel. Color gamut is
01:03great. Color accuracy out of the box wasn't amazing, but calibration made it much better.
01:08It does get pretty bright, and the super-thin bezels on the XPS line are always welcome.
01:12There's also a QHD version available if you want. The keyboard is a little disappointing
01:17for me. So the keys themselves are actually bigger than normal. They're a couple millimeters
01:21wider than normal XPS 13 or XPS 15 keys. It doesn't feel too different from the regular
01:27XPS 13 keyboard. It's still a short travel stroke, maybe a little spongier, but similar
01:32enough. But my biggest gripe are the page up and page down keys located here. So I've
01:36been using this thing for two weeks, and I still accidentally hit them when I'm trying
01:39to press left or right. So if you're a database user or a spreadsheet user, or just if you
01:44frequently use the arrow keys, this might be an issue. The trackpad is good. It's the
01:48same shape and size as the regular XPS 13. Windows precision drivers, good tracking,
01:54the click mechanism is solid. Overall, it's a good trackpad. There's now a fingerprint
01:58sensor. It works quickly with Windows Hello. Location is good, and it's tactile. You can
02:03instantly find it in the dark. And there's also the classic XPS webcam. It looks up your
02:07nose. But this one has an infrared cam, so it should support Windows Hello once Microsoft
02:12certifies it. When you open up the bottom panel, the RAM is soldered on, but the NVMe
02:17drive up here is user-replaceable. It's the same Toshiba drive as the XPS 13, so speeds
02:23are pretty good. The 46-watt-hour battery takes up a huge footprint, and we're getting
02:27very good battery life. I'm comfortably getting eight hours with it, and it charges up using
02:31a 50-watt USB-C charger. It's running Intel Y processors, which are fanless. They're normally
02:364.5-watt TDP chips, but if the thermal management is good enough, they can go up to 7 watts,
02:41and that's what Dell does here. The performance is surprisingly good for such a low-wattage
02:46chip. It feels very snappy for single-core stuff like work and light web browsing. Heavier
02:51tasks will still bog the system down, so anything that uses both cores for extended periods
02:55of time, like heavy photo or video editing, can get sluggish. The regular XPS 13 with
03:00the Core i5 or the Core i7 CPUs, those will handle heavier tasks better. Gaming on the
03:062-in-1 XPS 13 isn't great, even compared to the regular XPS 13. You can play some really
03:11light stuff, like CSGO. It does, however, have a Thunderbolt 3 port that uses 4-lane
03:16PCIe. It doesn't officially support external GPUs, but with a couple drivers, it can connect
03:22up. Now keep in mind, it's a fanless dual-core CPU, so CPU-dependent games are still not
03:27amazing, but some games can do pretty well. Your exact frame rates will depend heavily
03:32on the graphics card you use, and it's pretty expensive to set this up for a Core Y processor,
03:37but it works. There's no fan noise, because there's no fan, and thermals still aren't
03:42bad. There's an obvious warmer cluster up top where all the good stuff is, but it's
03:46a very comfortable device to use. So the speakers. When it's in laptop mode, the speakers
03:51are good. They sound very similar to the XPS 13 speakers, but because of their location,
03:56when you have it in tent mode, you lose a ton of audio clarity. The sound bounces around
04:01behind the screen, and you kind of lose the stereo effect. It actually sounds like a mono
04:05speaker, and the same thing happens in presentation mode. In fact, it's actually worse in presentation
04:10mode, and the thing is, these alternative configurations, like these non-laptop positions,
04:15these are the positions that people often use when they're consuming media, where you
04:18want your audio quality to be the best, but that's just not the case. Now, when you have
04:23it in tablet mode, the speaker positioning is fine, as long as you're not covering it
04:26with your hand. I want to talk a bit more about the tablet mode of this device, because
04:31this is a feature that kind of separates the 2-in-1 XPS 13 from the regular XPS 13, and
04:37the bottom line, I don't enjoy using it as a tablet. So, when you fold the screen over,
04:42remember the super-thin bezels? I love them on a laptop, but as a tablet, because of these
04:46thin bezels, there's very little room to hold the device without accidentally making contact
04:51with the touchscreen. And then there's the issue of ergonomics. I just don't find it
04:55comfortable to hold, and this is a problem that almost every single folding 2-in-1 convertible
05:00has. When the keyboard is flipped around, you can feel the keys. They're deactivated,
05:04they don't register keystrokes, but it just feels weird. And there's also that uncomfortable
05:09edge when you're holding it. The soft-touch material is nice to hold, it's grippy, but
05:14holding a 2.7-pound tablet for extended periods of time is just not enjoyable. And there's
05:19no hardware buttons for audio controls. You have to do it through software. So, over the
05:23past couple of weeks, I've been trying to use this thing as often as I can as a tablet,
05:27and I gotta be honest, every single time I try, I just end up reverting back to using
05:30it as a laptop, because it's just so much more comfortable to use as a laptop. And I
05:35get it, this thing was designed as a laptop first, and a tablet as like a secondary option.
05:40If you want to, you can use it as a tablet, but I'm just saying, the tablet experience
05:44is not my favorite. And that leads me to my last point. This thing starts at $1,000, so
05:50the pricing is not that different from the regular XPS 13. This is still a good device,
05:54but unless you really want that tablet mode or the different screen positions, I would
05:58stick with the original XPS 13. This thing is awesome. This is still good, but you're
06:02getting performance for this hinge. And unless you really make good use of this hinge, I'd
06:07skip it. That's the end of this video, hope you guys enjoyed it. Thumbs if you did, subs
06:10if you loved it. I'll see you guys next time.