Not long ago, Dell gave its sleek XPS 15 multimedia laptop a mobile-workstation makeover and came up with a winner—the Precision 5530, our current Editors' Choice among the engineering, drafting and rendering, and scientific data-crunching set.
That left the XPS 15 2-in-1 begging for the same treatment, and the result is the Precision 5530 2-in-1 ($1,679 starting price; $2,860 as tested): a hybrid with the independent software vendor (ISV) certification chops of its clamshell cousin, plus the ability to flip and fold from laptop to tablet or presentation modes.
Like all 15.6-inch convertibles, it's too heavy for comfortable use as a tablet, but it's a surprisingly powerful option for creative pros who want multimode flexibility.
Honest, Objective Reviews
Daxdi.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
Archrivals on a Chip
I say "surprisingly" because the XPS 15 2-in-1 ($1,329.99 at Dell) didn't permit the surgery that starts 90 out of 100 mobile workstation conversions, namely replacing an Nvidia GeForce or AMD Radeon consumer GPU with a Quadro or Radeon Pro part.
The XPS 15 2-in-1's Radeon RX Vega graphics silicon is built into the same package that holds the Intel Core i7 CPU.
The same is true of the Precision 5530 2-in-1 and its workstation version of the bundle: the Core i7-8706G, which combines a 3.1GHz (4.1GHz turbo) quad-core processor, Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics with 20 compute units, and 4GB of HBM2 display memory.
Codenamed "Kaby Lake-G," the unified silicon allows a thinner system design than a separate CPU and GPU solution.
The $1,679 base model of the Precision offers a Core i5-8305G processor with the Vega M graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), and a full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) touch screen.
My $2,860 test unit stepped up to the Core i7-8706G, 16GB of memory (a low ceiling by workstation standards, though Dell says 32GB configurations are coming soon), a 512GB NVMe SSD, and a 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) touch display.
The company also sent along its $99.99 Premium Active Pen, a stylus that supports 4,096 levels of pressure and tilt control on Wacom AES 2.0 hardware.
(It also works on AES 1.0 and Microsoft Pen Protocol 1.51 systems.)
The Precision 5530 2-in-1 is a streamlined slab in silver aluminum, with a chrome Dell logo centered in the lid.
Its carbon-fiber-composite palm rest makes it look like a silver-and-black sandwich when closed.
The convertible's measurements (0.63 by 13.9 by 9.2 inches) match the XPS 15 2-in-1's.
So does its weight of 4.36 pounds.
That's easily three times the heft of a dedicated tablet, too much to hold in one hand and even a bit awkward to hold in two instead of resting in a lap.
But it's easy to carry compared to full-size clamshell workstations like the Lenovo ThinkPad P51 ($1,340.10 at Lenovo) .
(That one measures 1.02 by 14.9 by 9.9 inches, and weighs 5.6 pounds.) Its closest rival, the HP ZBook Studio x360 G5 convertible, not yet tested here, is heavier (5 pounds) and a bit bulkier (0.74 by 14.2 by 9.7 pounds).
On the system's left edge, you'll find two Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB Type-C and DisplayPort functionality, as well as support for the latest external storage, docking, and graphics solutions.
There's also a microSD card slot and a minuscule button with a row of LEDs that serves as a battery gauge.
Two USB Type-C ports—compatible, like the Thunderbolt 3 ports, with the supplied AC adapter—are on the right side, along with an audio jack and a security-cable lockdown slot.
Missing in action: an HDMI output, and any ordinary USB Type-A ports.
Keep Your Chin Up
Two 360-degree silver hinges let you open the lid, revealing a screen with the super-thin InfinityEdge bezels of the Dell XPS 13 and XPS 15 families—so thin that there's no room for the face-recognition webcam (there's also a fingerprint reader) in its traditional place above the display.
Instead, the camera is centered below the Dell logo below the screen, so while its images are above-average in detail and well-lit, they'll give your Skype colleagues a good view of your chin and nostrils.
"Above-average in detail and well-lit" is an understatement when it comes to the Precision's antiglare IGZO 4 touch screen.
It's a beauty, with ample brightness (even with the backlight dialed down several notches), wide viewing angles, and fine lines and image elements as sharp as 4K resolution can make them.
Colors pop whichever color gamut you choose.
The provided PremierColor software offers a menu of Adobe RGB for print, sRGB for the Web, and DCI P3 for cinema, among others, and it lets you fine-tune brightness, contrast, gamma, and color temperature.
Photos, videos, and 3D renderings all look terrific.
The other half of the audiovisual equation is almost as potent: The twin speakers on the system's bottom can easily fill a medium-size room with clear highs and strong midtones, if not a lot of bass.
A 70 or 80 percent volume level is plenty for most listening, and the cooling fan spins up rarely and quietly enough so it won't disturb you.
The 2-in-1's low-profile keyboard lacks a numeric keypad (and its touchpad lacks a middle mouse button for ISV apps), but it provides dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, plus cursor arrows in the proper inverted-T arrangement instead of a row.
Typing feel is shallow but snappy, with slightly stiff, flipping-a-switch feedback and a clatter of clicks as you press the keys.
As I said, the Dell is the size and weight of a desktop replacement (and its side bezels are too thin for thumb grips), so what's great when propped on a table for a presentation is clumsy when held as a tablet.
Resting on a lap or desk in tablet mode, however, the convertible works fine, providing excellent palm rejection for the pricey pen.
The latter keeps up with the fastest swoops and scribbles, drawing different line thicknesses and providing first-class Windows Ink markups of onscreen renderings.
Keeping Up With the Clamshells
Matched against an array of slimline and full-size mobile workstations, plus its XPS 15 2-in-1 progenitor, the Precision 5530 2-in-1 held its own in our performance benchmarks.
The system slipped just under the 3,000 score that we consider excellent in our PCMark 8 Work office productivity test, almost certainly due to the overhead levied by its 4K display.
It also slipped under the hard-to-beat one-minute mark in our Handbrake video-editing exercise, despite packing only four CPU cores to some competitors' six.
The system's Radeon Pro WX graphics couldn't match the Quadro P2000 GPU in the Precision 5530 clamshell, but it clobbered the entry-level Quadro P500 in the Lenovo ThinkPad P52s.
It completed the workstation-specific POV-Ray rendering workflow in a brisk 154 seconds, well ahead of the 211 seconds of the P52s and close to the 146 seconds of the Xeon-powered Dell Precision 3530.
The 5530 2-in-1 was puzzlingly slow in the SPECviewperf workstation app benchmark that uses a viewset from Creo (14 frames per second), but posted a creditable 83fps and 77fps in Maya and SolidWorks respectively, both comfortably ahead of the 3530.
Except for Creo, the only place it fell to earth was our unplugged video-playback test, in which it proved for the umpteenth time that 4K screens are murder on battery life—not that seven and a half hours is truly bad, but you can find more stamina if you seek elsewhere.
A Convertible Alternative
Mobile workstations fall roughly into two categories: usually hefty models able to produce complex workflows and renderings, and usually lighter units suitable for showing those renderings to clients or bosses.
We gave the Precision 5530 an Editors' Choice for bridging the two, packing serious power into just over four pounds.
The 5530 2-in-1 isn't as powerful but throws convertible design into the mix, though what's a commendably light weight for a clamshell is on the ponderous side for a tablet.
Even so, the Precision 5530 2-in-1 fills a nice niche in the workstation world.
Especially when it acquires 32GB of memory, it'll be a top choice for presenting animations and marking up images.
Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1
Cons
Heavy and unwieldy in tablet mode.
16GB RAM ceiling at this writing.
4K screen hurts battery life.
Webcam placement makes you look pinheaded.
View More
The Bottom Line
Dell's Precision 5530 2-in-1 takes the company's XPS 15 2-in-1 convertible and turns it into a mobile workstation with solid performance and a spiffy 4K touch screen, though like all 15.6-inch hybrids, it's too heavy for tablet use.
Not long ago, Dell gave its sleek XPS 15 multimedia laptop a mobile-workstation makeover and came up with a winner—the Precision 5530, our current Editors' Choice among the engineering, drafting and rendering, and scientific data-crunching set.
That left the XPS 15 2-in-1 begging for the same treatment, and the result is the Precision 5530 2-in-1 ($1,679 starting price; $2,860 as tested): a hybrid with the independent software vendor (ISV) certification chops of its clamshell cousin, plus the ability to flip and fold from laptop to tablet or presentation modes.
Like all 15.6-inch convertibles, it's too heavy for comfortable use as a tablet, but it's a surprisingly powerful option for creative pros who want multimode flexibility.
Honest, Objective Reviews
Daxdi.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering Labs-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services.
Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.
Archrivals on a Chip
I say "surprisingly" because the XPS 15 2-in-1 ($1,329.99 at Dell) didn't permit the surgery that starts 90 out of 100 mobile workstation conversions, namely replacing an Nvidia GeForce or AMD Radeon consumer GPU with a Quadro or Radeon Pro part.
The XPS 15 2-in-1's Radeon RX Vega graphics silicon is built into the same package that holds the Intel Core i7 CPU.
The same is true of the Precision 5530 2-in-1 and its workstation version of the bundle: the Core i7-8706G, which combines a 3.1GHz (4.1GHz turbo) quad-core processor, Radeon Pro WX Vega M GL graphics with 20 compute units, and 4GB of HBM2 display memory.
Codenamed "Kaby Lake-G," the unified silicon allows a thinner system design than a separate CPU and GPU solution.
The $1,679 base model of the Precision offers a Core i5-8305G processor with the Vega M graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), and a full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) touch screen.
My $2,860 test unit stepped up to the Core i7-8706G, 16GB of memory (a low ceiling by workstation standards, though Dell says 32GB configurations are coming soon), a 512GB NVMe SSD, and a 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) touch display.
The company also sent along its $99.99 Premium Active Pen, a stylus that supports 4,096 levels of pressure and tilt control on Wacom AES 2.0 hardware.
(It also works on AES 1.0 and Microsoft Pen Protocol 1.51 systems.)
The Precision 5530 2-in-1 is a streamlined slab in silver aluminum, with a chrome Dell logo centered in the lid.
Its carbon-fiber-composite palm rest makes it look like a silver-and-black sandwich when closed.
The convertible's measurements (0.63 by 13.9 by 9.2 inches) match the XPS 15 2-in-1's.
So does its weight of 4.36 pounds.
That's easily three times the heft of a dedicated tablet, too much to hold in one hand and even a bit awkward to hold in two instead of resting in a lap.
But it's easy to carry compared to full-size clamshell workstations like the Lenovo ThinkPad P51 ($1,340.10 at Lenovo) .
(That one measures 1.02 by 14.9 by 9.9 inches, and weighs 5.6 pounds.) Its closest rival, the HP ZBook Studio x360 G5 convertible, not yet tested here, is heavier (5 pounds) and a bit bulkier (0.74 by 14.2 by 9.7 pounds).
On the system's left edge, you'll find two Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB Type-C and DisplayPort functionality, as well as support for the latest external storage, docking, and graphics solutions.
There's also a microSD card slot and a minuscule button with a row of LEDs that serves as a battery gauge.
Two USB Type-C ports—compatible, like the Thunderbolt 3 ports, with the supplied AC adapter—are on the right side, along with an audio jack and a security-cable lockdown slot.
Missing in action: an HDMI output, and any ordinary USB Type-A ports.
Keep Your Chin Up
Two 360-degree silver hinges let you open the lid, revealing a screen with the super-thin InfinityEdge bezels of the Dell XPS 13 and XPS 15 families—so thin that there's no room for the face-recognition webcam (there's also a fingerprint reader) in its traditional place above the display.
Instead, the camera is centered below the Dell logo below the screen, so while its images are above-average in detail and well-lit, they'll give your Skype colleagues a good view of your chin and nostrils.
"Above-average in detail and well-lit" is an understatement when it comes to the Precision's antiglare IGZO 4 touch screen.
It's a beauty, with ample brightness (even with the backlight dialed down several notches), wide viewing angles, and fine lines and image elements as sharp as 4K resolution can make them.
Colors pop whichever color gamut you choose.
The provided PremierColor software offers a menu of Adobe RGB for print, sRGB for the Web, and DCI P3 for cinema, among others, and it lets you fine-tune brightness, contrast, gamma, and color temperature.
Photos, videos, and 3D renderings all look terrific.
The other half of the audiovisual equation is almost as potent: The twin speakers on the system's bottom can easily fill a medium-size room with clear highs and strong midtones, if not a lot of bass.
A 70 or 80 percent volume level is plenty for most listening, and the cooling fan spins up rarely and quietly enough so it won't disturb you.
The 2-in-1's low-profile keyboard lacks a numeric keypad (and its touchpad lacks a middle mouse button for ISV apps), but it provides dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, plus cursor arrows in the proper inverted-T arrangement instead of a row.
Typing feel is shallow but snappy, with slightly stiff, flipping-a-switch feedback and a clatter of clicks as you press the keys.
As I said, the Dell is the size and weight of a desktop replacement (and its side bezels are too thin for thumb grips), so what's great when propped on a table for a presentation is clumsy when held as a tablet.
Resting on a lap or desk in tablet mode, however, the convertible works fine, providing excellent palm rejection for the pricey pen.
The latter keeps up with the fastest swoops and scribbles, drawing different line thicknesses and providing first-class Windows Ink markups of onscreen renderings.
Keeping Up With the Clamshells
Matched against an array of slimline and full-size mobile workstations, plus its XPS 15 2-in-1 progenitor, the Precision 5530 2-in-1 held its own in our performance benchmarks.
The system slipped just under the 3,000 score that we consider excellent in our PCMark 8 Work office productivity test, almost certainly due to the overhead levied by its 4K display.
It also slipped under the hard-to-beat one-minute mark in our Handbrake video-editing exercise, despite packing only four CPU cores to some competitors' six.
The system's Radeon Pro WX graphics couldn't match the Quadro P2000 GPU in the Precision 5530 clamshell, but it clobbered the entry-level Quadro P500 in the Lenovo ThinkPad P52s.
It completed the workstation-specific POV-Ray rendering workflow in a brisk 154 seconds, well ahead of the 211 seconds of the P52s and close to the 146 seconds of the Xeon-powered Dell Precision 3530.
The 5530 2-in-1 was puzzlingly slow in the SPECviewperf workstation app benchmark that uses a viewset from Creo (14 frames per second), but posted a creditable 83fps and 77fps in Maya and SolidWorks respectively, both comfortably ahead of the 3530.
Except for Creo, the only place it fell to earth was our unplugged video-playback test, in which it proved for the umpteenth time that 4K screens are murder on battery life—not that seven and a half hours is truly bad, but you can find more stamina if you seek elsewhere.
A Convertible Alternative
Mobile workstations fall roughly into two categories: usually hefty models able to produce complex workflows and renderings, and usually lighter units suitable for showing those renderings to clients or bosses.
We gave the Precision 5530 an Editors' Choice for bridging the two, packing serious power into just over four pounds.
The 5530 2-in-1 isn't as powerful but throws convertible design into the mix, though what's a commendably light weight for a clamshell is on the ponderous side for a tablet.
Even so, the Precision 5530 2-in-1 fills a nice niche in the workstation world.
Especially when it acquires 32GB of memory, it'll be a top choice for presenting animations and marking up images.
Dell Precision 5530 2-in-1
Cons
Heavy and unwieldy in tablet mode.
16GB RAM ceiling at this writing.
4K screen hurts battery life.
Webcam placement makes you look pinheaded.
View More
The Bottom Line
Dell's Precision 5530 2-in-1 takes the company's XPS 15 2-in-1 convertible and turns it into a mobile workstation with solid performance and a spiffy 4K touch screen, though like all 15.6-inch hybrids, it's too heavy for tablet use.
