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Dell XPS 15 (2023)
PC Pro
|August 2023
Still a stylish, high-quality and speedy laptop, but we expected more from this annual update
PRICE As reviewed, £2,582 (£3,099 inc VAT) from dell.co.uk
The new Dell XPS 15 is a refresh of the phenomenal version from 2022 (see issue 337, p54), which scored a perfect five stars. Sadly, we can't say the same of this year's model.
Prices start at £1,499, for which you receive a Core i7-13700H, Intel Arc A370M graphics, 16GB of DDR54800 RAM, a 512GB SSD and the basic 1,920 X 1,200 non-touch IPS display. For us, Dell upgraded to GeForce RTX 4070 graphics, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and the 3.5K 15.6in AMOLED touchscreen. As it happens, you can't buy that spec in the UK: upgrading to this top-end graphics option automatically switches you to the Core i9-13900H, and suddenly you're looking at a price of £3,099.
Essentially, this turns the XPS 15 into a gaming laptop in disguise.
And that disguise is all too effective.
Gaming laptops will move mountains to feed the graphics card with power, but here the RTX 4070 is undercooked: a 3DMark Time Spy result of 7,124 is far behind even the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra (see issue 344, p46), which returned 9,342.
Mind you, that laptop included a Core i9-13900H processor compared to the 17-13700H in our review sample.
This story is from the August 2023 edition of PC Pro.
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