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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tomatek Chap and this is the brand new Dell XPS 15 9510.
00:06So it's the 2021 refresh and it's actually a pretty big upgrade.
00:10This video is very kindly sponsored by Fasthosts and UK viewers can win the ultimate work from
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00:25But this, well it's all about the XPS 15 and if you're a regular on the channel, you know
00:29that I get pretty excited about these new XPS laptops, which sounds a little bit dodgy,
00:34but they're probably the best Windows laptop you can buy.
00:39They're not perfect of course, we've had quality control issues from Dell for many years and
00:43as I'll show you with this, there are still a few areas for improvement, but I'm really
00:48excited to show you this.
00:49I've had it for a couple of weeks now, I've tested it, I've done a bunch of benchmarking
00:52and it's probably one of the biggest upgrades on the XPS lineup for a few years, although
00:58you wouldn't really know from the outside.
01:00So this year is mainly a spec bump and we're getting the latest 11th gen Intel processors,
01:05the H45 series, but I think more importantly, we're getting the brand new RTX 3050 Ti graphics
01:11cards, which are not only faster, but because we've gone from the GTX 1650 Ti in last year's
01:17XPS 15 to the RTX series of graphics cards, we're getting all the RTX features like ray
01:23tracing and DLSS, which really is the big deal and things like Nvidia Reflex and broadcast.
01:29So I think really the graphics card is the biggest upgrade here, but we are also getting
01:33faster RAM.
01:34We've gone from 2933 megahertz up to 3200.
01:37We also now get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, whereas before we had Thunderbolt 3 and if you want
01:42to go crazy with the spec, there's a new 2 terabyte storage option.
01:47But it's also not just what's on the inside because this is an OLED screen.
01:51Now we actually had an OLED version of the XPS 15 two years ago.
01:55They dropped it last year for some reason, but now it's back.
01:58So there's actually three screen options you can buy, a full HD, non-touch, 4K, touch,
02:08and also this 3.5K touch, but it's an OLED screen.
02:13So not quite full 4K, which is a little bit annoying, but they're all this beautiful 16
02:17by 10 aspect ratio.
02:18As you can see with this gloriously thin bezel.
02:21And even though this is pretty much identical in terms of design to last year's version,
02:25although it has lost just a little bit of weight, although you wouldn't really notice,
02:28I still think this is one of the best, most futuristic looking laptops you can buy.
02:33And next to something like the MacBook Pro 16, which is in need of a refresh for sure.
02:39And I think we might be getting one with a very fancy M1X or M2 chip maybe in September.
02:45So that we want to look out for.
02:46But next to this, they're both lovely laptops, but this looks properly good.
02:52And while we are comparing other laptops, here is the 17-inch, it's last year's one,
02:56but it should be visually identical really.
02:59And you can see the size difference between the 15 and the 17, and also the difference
03:03in the colors.
03:05This is the Glacier Arctic, whatever you want to call it, white.
03:08And then we've got the more traditional dark gray, but they're both carbon fiber with an
03:11all aluminum chassis and build quality is top notch.
03:16The 17 really is gigantic actually, and I can't wait to review the new 17, so stay tuned.
03:23But I honestly think for most people, the 15-inch is going to be the better buy.
03:28We'll cover this in the other video, but the big differences really are with the 17, aside
03:32from the bigger screen, is that we get vapor chamber cooling.
03:35So a little bit more sort of beefy cooling.
03:37And also the RTX 3060, whereas this tops out with the 3050 Ti.
03:42So a little bit more powerful and also some slight upgradability differences.
03:46But for most people, I think the 15 is going to be the one to buy, a little bit cheaper,
03:50more compact.
03:51And as I say, actually this has gone on a little bit of a diet.
03:54There's still two battery sizes with this, 56 watt hour and 86, and that does obviously
04:00change the weight.
04:01Also the screens have a very small impact as well.
04:03But at the top end, the previous XPS 15 weighed 2.05 kilograms.
04:08Now we're down to 2.01.
04:10So before we get into the nitty gritty of the review, how much is it?
04:14Well, it varies depending on where you live.
04:16Dell's website is famously awful in terms of, well, in the UK at least, not even removing
04:22the word new on the old XPS models.
04:25So you can buy a new one with 10th gen processors, which is going to confuse a lot of people.
04:29But in the UK, it starts from about £1,600, whereas in the US it starts from about £1,250
04:35or so, but that's a slightly lower spec.
04:37So there's different SKUs for different regions.
04:39And it tops out with this one at about £3,100.
04:43That's for the one terabyte.
04:44If you want to go two terabyte, that'll add a bit more.
04:46So this is very much an ultra premium laptop.
04:49Although if we take the base off, you can see that we have two RAM modules, which you
04:53can upgrade yourself, and also the M.2 SSD, which is under this little protector here.
04:58So you can upgrade the RAM and the storage.
05:00So you might want to go for a slightly cheaper spec to start with, and then perhaps upgrade
05:04it down the line.
05:06So new processors, although sadly still no AMD option, new graphics cards, Thunderbolt
05:104.
05:11There's OLED screens made a return, and that's pretty much what's new.
05:15But there's still an awful lot to like here carried over, including these fantastic speakers.
05:20We have dual woofers and dual tweeters, which make up an eight watt system, and it's one
05:24of the best sound setups in a laptop that I've heard.
05:27There's some really solid bass to it, which you don't hear very often.
05:38We also get this lovely keyboard, which is one of my favorites on a Windows laptop, with
05:42a white backlight, and also this massive precision touchpad, which very much is carried over
05:47from something like the MacBook Pro onto here.
05:50But no complaints.
05:51It is lovely to use.
05:53So let's talk about this screen, because as I say, it's the first time we've had an OLED
05:56option on an XPS 15 in a couple of years, and actually, there is no OLED option on the
06:0017 inch.
06:02This is the only one you have, basically.
06:04So as you would expect from an OLED, we're getting near infinite contrast in a really
06:08inky blacks, lovely punchy colors, and also no blooming or light bleed, which is something
06:13that we do get when we're talking about mini LED screens.
06:16All the talk at the moment is whether Apple will go mini LED with the new MacBooks.
06:20They did with the iPad Pro 12.9, and while that obviously is a big step up, and also
06:25significantly brighter than this at peak brightness, you are still getting that sort of haloing
06:29and blooming, which you don't get on an OLED.
06:32The downside of that is that it doesn't get as bright, and actually, when you look at
06:35the specs on Dell's website, the two other screen options, whether it's the full HD plus
06:39non-touch or the 4K plus touch, both are 500 nits, whereas this is listed as 400 nits,
06:46so it's a little bit dimmer.
06:48This is a 3.5K display, which I think is the first one I've ever seen with a very strange
06:53resolution.
06:54This is a little bit under native 4K, so it won't be quite as sharp in terms of the pixel
06:59per inch density, although you'd be hard pressed to notice, and also you can of course still
07:03play stuff in 4K, but you're not going to get it back natively.
07:07So if you're a stickler for that resolution, if you're all about video editing and you
07:10really have to see that full res, maybe that's worth sticking with the LCD, but we're still
07:15getting 100% sRGB, 100% Adobe RGB, and high P3 with this, so it is remarkably color accurate.
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08:29Okay, so far so good, but the big question is how much faster is this?
08:34Well in benchmarks, compared to last year's model with the 1650 Ti, albeit the one I've
08:39got here, has the slightly lower spec 6-core i7 rather than the 8-core i9 I've got in here,
08:45and also 16 gigs RAM versus 64 gigs in here.
08:48So bear that in mind, it's not an exact like-for-like, and we're looking at about a 35% boost in
08:53single-core, and a whopping 74% boost in multi-core, which is massive, although again
08:58we do have the extra cores here.
09:00But as for graphics, and if we just include the GPU part of the Time Spy Test, there's
09:05a 33% average boost.
09:08Although bear in mind that this is a 45-watt TGP variant of the card, so not the same as
09:14something like a 75-watt 3050 Ti you get in the ASUS ROG G14.
09:19So yes it's the same name of card, but it's still a 4 gig RAM, 45-watt TGP, so very much
09:26on the low end, which makes sense given the form factor of this, but it does also therefore
09:30impact performance, particularly in games.
09:32So let's bring up another one of my lovely tables here, and you can see the results are
09:37kind of all over the place.
09:38In Rainbow Six Siege we're getting a 2% boost, which is a bit strange, but in Fortnite and
09:44Cyberpunk we're getting 50 and 70% gains, which is insane.
09:49But the big takeaway from this is the fact that we now get DLSS.
09:52Ray tracing, take it or leave it, it's going to impact your performance and we haven't
09:56really got the power to push it, but DLSS is magic, Nvidia's deep learning super sampling,
10:02and it's why we're seeing a 73% boost in Cyberpunk, going from 23 to 40, which is just about playable,
10:08or up to 73 with Fortnite, and this is all with high or epic settings, so it's less about
10:13the raw horsepower increase, and more about the technologies that come with RTX.
10:23Realistically though, I'm not going to play a ton of games on this.
10:26For me, it's more about the light room and video editing in Premiere Pro, so I was curious
10:31how much of an upgrade we'd see over last year's model in Premiere, and it turns out
10:36nothing that significant.
10:38This new model was about 13% faster in my 10 minute 4K H.264 export, so not exactly
10:44night and day, but a little bit of a gain.
10:47And again, in tasks that use AI, such as the auto reframing here, and there's a bunch of
10:51stuff in DaVinci Resolve, we'll see much bigger improvements in performance because we have
10:56the new RTX cards over the 1650 Ti before.
11:00So I guess really, if you are thinking about buying one of these, and you're maybe weighing
11:03up going for the older version because you could save some money and get a good deal,
11:08the question will be, are you going to play games?
11:10Do those games support DLSS, because really that's the big improvement in terms of performance,
11:15and are you using any of the sort of AI Tensor Core benefits in apps like Premiere Pro?
11:21If not to any of those, then you could probably stick with last year's version.
11:25It's maybe 15, 20% faster overall, but not that significant, and you're getting essentially
11:30the same design.
11:31Thunderbolt 4 isn't that much of an improvement over Thunderbolt 3.
11:35So yeah, you could probably go with last year's version and save a few quid.
11:37Oh, and I think it goes without saying that you should game at 1080p or 1200p on this
11:42screen, not 4K because that just destroys your frame rate.
11:45Although again, DLSS will have a bigger impact improvement in terms of performance at that
11:50res, but play at 1920 by 1200.
11:53Now when this thing is under load, it does get pretty toasty, particularly underneath.
11:58I measured a peak exterior temperature of 53 degrees Celsius, so your lap will get hot
12:03with this.
12:04I would definitely use it on a desk.
12:05It's not uncomfortable on top, though the keyboard and touchpad never got too warm.
12:08And also I did notice it was a little bit quieter than last year's model under load,
12:13although you can still hear the fans, but it's not to an annoying level.
12:16And also I haven't heard any coil whine.
12:19And finally, as for battery, as I say, we're getting two different sizes, whether you go
12:22for the full HD or the 4K.
12:24Still a 86 watt-hour battery, not quite the 99 watt-hour battery we get in the MacBook
12:29Pro 16, for example.
12:31And it's okay.
12:32I'm getting about six hours of use.
12:35I'd say it's on par with last year.
12:37And of course, if you are gaming, you'll get about an hour and a half with lower performance
12:40as well.
12:41So with light use, it'll get you through a full office day probably.
12:44And also the power brick isn't too big.
12:45And as you can see, it's actually color coordinated to the model you go for as well, which is
12:49quite nice.
12:50Also, the actual plug itself is black, so that kind of ruins the theme a little bit,
12:56but it is pretty portable.
12:57And like last year, it still charges via USB-C, which is nice.
13:01So you can use that for your phone as well, assuming you're on Android.
13:05However, as good as this is, of course, there is some room for improvement.
13:08Unfortunately, the webcam is a little bit rubbish, as you can see.
13:12It's still 720p 30.
13:14I've got proper natural lights on me here, and it's still really noisy.
13:18The colors keep shifting.
13:21Obviously, we've got very thin bezels, and it's a plus that it is on the top bezel, so
13:26it's not directly looking up your nose.
13:27But considering how important webcams are at the moment and after the year we've had,
13:32it is disappointing.
13:33It's definitely one of those features I want to see upgraded in the future.
13:36However, as good as this is, of course, there is some room for improvement.
13:40The webcam is pretty bad, which is a real shame given how important that is these days.
13:45Also, it's a bit of a shame we have to compromise with the 3.5K res on the OLED model.
13:50It would be the best of both worlds if we had proper 4K, but it's not really a big deal,
13:54I guess.
13:55It would also maybe have been nice to have an AMD 5000 series option for this, although
13:59of course, Intel's new H45W series CPEs do directly go up against it.
14:05That would be nice, although you'd probably lose Thunderbolt as a result.
14:08And also, while I haven't had any quality control issues with this, I've not had a single
14:12problem.
14:13I've actually tried this myself, it's not a fancy review sample that they've chosen
14:16for me.
14:17Obviously, Dell's have famously had some QC issues in the past, so we'll have to see.
14:22If you do battle for yourself and have any issues, let me know in the comments, but so
14:26far so good.
14:27And also, you know what?
14:28It would be great if they got rid of that 56Wh battery on the base Full HD version.
14:34If you could get that 86Wh battery with the Full HD screen, you'd have a really, really
14:39good battery life and it'd be a great 15-inch travel laptop.
14:42And also, I would actually love a Quad HD version of this.
14:46We've not had one so far, but we're starting to see gaming laptops offer QHD resolutions
14:51and I think that would be perfect for the screen size.
14:54You get a little bit of your battery back, it wouldn't kill your frame rates as much
14:57in games, and obviously you wouldn't maybe have to drop to 1080p, and also it would be
15:01a good deal sharper than if you go for the cheaper Full HD version.
15:05So it would be a bit more like a halfway house that you get on a MacBook Pro.
15:08So I would love to see a Quad HD resolution, but not this year.
15:13So that is the new XPS 15.
15:15I always look forward to reviewing this.
15:16As I say, it's one of my favorite laptops.
15:19Pricey, but very, very good.
15:21And if you want a premium portable powerhouse, the triple P, I should work for Dell's marketing,
15:27then you can't really get better than this.
15:30There are, of course, other Windows options and the MacBook lineup, but maybe before you
15:34take the plunge on this, wait to see how the XPS 17 fares and which one actually ends
15:39up being the better buy.
15:41In terms of my recommended spec, I would probably go with the i7, OLED screen, the 3050 Ti,
15:47and also maybe 16 gigs of RAM and 512 storage or 1TB, but as I say, you can always upgrade
15:53the RAM and storage yourself later, which is great.
15:55So yeah, if you fancy checking this out for yourself, I will leave links below.
15:58And if you did enjoy the video, then a cheeky like and subscribe would be lovely.
16:02And stay tuned for my 17 inch review and also my big comparison video thing.
16:08Thank you so much for watching, guys.
16:09I'll see you next time right here on the Tech Chat.