Since its debut at CES in 2012, the Dell XPS 13 (starts at $999.99; $2,049.99 as tested) has racked up rave reviews as what the company calls the world's smallest 13-inch laptop.
It's undergone numerous component upgrades, faced fierce competition (the HP Spectre 13 and the Razer Blade Stealth come to mind), and arguably even gotten a bit long in the tooth, yet the late-2017 XPS 13 (9360) reigns as our Editors' Choice.
Or reigned, we should say.
Today's XPS 13 model recaptures the glamour of the original version with an even trimmer design in a gorgeous rose gold finish with a soft-textured white palm rest made of woven glass fiber.
The latest XPS 13 steals the crown as our favorite high-end ultraportable.
The $999.99 silver-and-black base Dell XPS 13 ($784.78 at Dell) model carries an eighth-generation Intel Core i5-8250U processor and somewhat skimpy 4GB of RAM and 128GB SATA solid-state drive; $1,199.99 gets you 8GB of memory and a 256GB PCIe SSD.
Each of these systems has a full HD (1,920-by-1,080) non-touch display.
Our $2,049.99 tester ($1,999.99 plus $50 for the gold-and-white finish, not counting frequent sales or coupons on Dell's site) features a faster Core i7-8550U chip, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe solid-state drive, and a 4K (3,840-by-2,160) touch screen.
The only option is a 1TB SSD for $400 extra.
Small Gets Even Smaller
At 0.46 by 11.9 by 7.8 inches, the new XPS 13 is 0.13 inch thinner and 24 percent smaller by volume than the previous version.
It's a hair thicker than the larger HP Spectre 13 ($1,499.77 at Amazon) (0.41 by 12 by 8.8 inches).
Weight is unchanged at 2.68 pounds, slotting between the Spectre (2.45 pounds) and the Razer Blade Stealth (2.98 pounds).
The gold top and bottom and white edges of the XPS 13 scream smartphone-like style.
(There's also a platinum silver version with a black carbon fiber palm rest for $50 less.) As before, two wide rubber strips instead of the usual four dots serve as nonskid feet on the system's underside.
Opening the lid reveals the white keyboard, deck, and bezels—razor-thin above and on the sides, broad below the glossy black screen.
Stylish details include a stainless tone-on-tone Dell logo on the lid and laser-etched instead of stickered regulatory details on the bottom.
Dell says the nine-layer glass fiber of the vaunted palm rest (which still hosts the mandatory Intel sticker) not only stays cooler than metal but features a titanium oxide coating to resist yellowing or staining.
The webcam of this XPS 13 is still mounted below the display, since the bezel above is too small, but it's moved from the left corner to the center.
Its images are clear and crisp, but continue to highlight your chin and nostrils, as if you are taking a picture while standing at the base of a statue, as well as your giant Hulk hands on the keyboard.
The webcam works with Windows Hello for face recognition logins, and the power button at the top right of the keyboard doubles as a Windows Hello fingerprint reader.
(We wondered if we could press the button just once to both turn the laptop on and log in, but holding it down that long turned the Dell off again.)
So slim is the new XPS 13 that its USB Type-A and HDMI ports have disappeared.
Instead, on the unit's left side you'll find two Thunderbolt 3 ports, along with a Noble lock slot and a battery gauge consisting of a tiny button and five tiny LEDs.
On the right are a USB-C port, a micro SD card slot, and an audio jack.
Dell provides a USB-C-to-USB-A dongle (colored white, like the AC adapter that plugs into one of the Thunderbolt 3 ports) for connecting an older flash drive or other peripheral, but finding a DisplayPort dongle for an external monitor is up to you.
Would-be gamers will note that the Thunderbolt 3 ports now deliver four instead of two PCI Express lanes, so the new system is compatible with external graphics-card boxes.
The Wonderful World of Color
The petite, side-mounted speakers pump out surprisingly loud sound—so loud that it's rough and raucous at top volume.
Half volume is more than adequate for solo listening, and (except for a predictable lack of deep bass) features appealing instrumentals and vocals.
You'll hear some cooling fan noise when the system is working hard, but it's so faint as to be easily drowned out by the speakers.
We wish Dell offered a 1080p touch screen for the XPS 13, because the standard 1080p display lacks touch and the 4K touch screen is arguably too much resolution for a 13.3-inch panel, making icons and menu text too small unless you crank up Windows' zoom (which is set out of the box to a whopping 300 percent).
But we must admit the 3,840-by-2,160 display makes fine details sharp as a tack, while also offering wide viewing angles.
Brightness is ample, even dialed down a few notches; contrast is excellent; and colors pop like poster paints.
You won't find a better screen in the 13.3-inch class.
You can probably find a better keyboard, although the XPS 13's is all right—it feels shallow (no surprise in such a slim laptop) and plasticky, but responsive for all but the fastest typing.
The Delete key is small, but we're pleased to find dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys instead of having those functions doubled up on the cursor arrows.
The medium-sized touchpad glides and taps smoothly, though the lower-corner "buttons" are a bit stiff.
Dell includes a one-year warranty.
Strong Performance, but 4K Screen Saps Power
Plenty of other ultraportables, including the XPS 13 9360, carry the same Core i7-8550U quad-core CPU as our model 9370, so we easily collected a crop of competitors for our benchmark tables.
The number that jumps out at you is our PCMark 8 office productivity performance test, where the new XPS' score of 2,988—though essentially reaching the 3,000 that we consider excellent—trailed the 3,580 of last year's version, largely because the test fares poorly on systems with 4K screens.
Pushing four times as many pixels is also the main reason the new XPS 13 lacked the old one's battery life, lasting a respectable nine and a half hours in our video playback test (and beating the 3,200-by-1,800 Razer Blade Stealth ) but coming nowhere near the full HD model's nearly 16 hours.
Between a less-demanding display and a slightly bigger battery, the 9360 prevailed easily.
See How We Test Laptops
On a more positive note, the 9370 excelled in our Cinebench CPU measurement and Handbrake video editing exercise, and it was tops in our 3DMark graphics tests—although none of these ultraportables, with their integrated as opposed to discrete graphics, are meant for more than casual gaming at full screen resolution.
A Choice of Editors' Choices
If you want to save a few dollars and get a few more battery watt-hours (or need USB 3.0 ports), the XPS 13 9360 remains a first-class ultraportable buy.
But it's only human to want the latest and greatest, and in the case of the 9370 there are other reasons as well—the even trimmer design, the cutting-edge Thunderbolt 3 ports, the dual Windows Hello options, and the fact that the gold-and-white unit is one of the best-looking laptops we've ever seen.
If you want to stand out from the crowd, the newest XPS 13 is an easy Editors' Choice pick.
Cons
No HDMI or USB Type-A ports.
4K display means shorter battery life than its predecessor.
Webcam looks up your nose.
The Bottom Line
A new rose gold and white color scheme—well worth an extra $50—makes the Dell XPS 13 a stunning fashion statement, and it's backed by strong performance and a svelte but sturdy build.
Flagships don't have to be big.
Since its debut at CES in 2012, the Dell XPS 13 (starts at $999.99; $2,049.99 as tested) has racked up rave reviews as what the company calls the world's smallest 13-inch laptop.
It's undergone numerous component upgrades, faced fierce competition (the HP Spectre 13 and the Razer Blade Stealth come to mind), and arguably even gotten a bit long in the tooth, yet the late-2017 XPS 13 (9360) reigns as our Editors' Choice.
Or reigned, we should say.
Today's XPS 13 model recaptures the glamour of the original version with an even trimmer design in a gorgeous rose gold finish with a soft-textured white palm rest made of woven glass fiber.
The latest XPS 13 steals the crown as our favorite high-end ultraportable.
The $999.99 silver-and-black base Dell XPS 13 ($784.78 at Dell) model carries an eighth-generation Intel Core i5-8250U processor and somewhat skimpy 4GB of RAM and 128GB SATA solid-state drive; $1,199.99 gets you 8GB of memory and a 256GB PCIe SSD.
Each of these systems has a full HD (1,920-by-1,080) non-touch display.
Our $2,049.99 tester ($1,999.99 plus $50 for the gold-and-white finish, not counting frequent sales or coupons on Dell's site) features a faster Core i7-8550U chip, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe solid-state drive, and a 4K (3,840-by-2,160) touch screen.
The only option is a 1TB SSD for $400 extra.
Small Gets Even Smaller
At 0.46 by 11.9 by 7.8 inches, the new XPS 13 is 0.13 inch thinner and 24 percent smaller by volume than the previous version.
It's a hair thicker than the larger HP Spectre 13 ($1,499.77 at Amazon) (0.41 by 12 by 8.8 inches).
Weight is unchanged at 2.68 pounds, slotting between the Spectre (2.45 pounds) and the Razer Blade Stealth (2.98 pounds).
The gold top and bottom and white edges of the XPS 13 scream smartphone-like style.
(There's also a platinum silver version with a black carbon fiber palm rest for $50 less.) As before, two wide rubber strips instead of the usual four dots serve as nonskid feet on the system's underside.
Opening the lid reveals the white keyboard, deck, and bezels—razor-thin above and on the sides, broad below the glossy black screen.
Stylish details include a stainless tone-on-tone Dell logo on the lid and laser-etched instead of stickered regulatory details on the bottom.
Dell says the nine-layer glass fiber of the vaunted palm rest (which still hosts the mandatory Intel sticker) not only stays cooler than metal but features a titanium oxide coating to resist yellowing or staining.
The webcam of this XPS 13 is still mounted below the display, since the bezel above is too small, but it's moved from the left corner to the center.
Its images are clear and crisp, but continue to highlight your chin and nostrils, as if you are taking a picture while standing at the base of a statue, as well as your giant Hulk hands on the keyboard.
The webcam works with Windows Hello for face recognition logins, and the power button at the top right of the keyboard doubles as a Windows Hello fingerprint reader.
(We wondered if we could press the button just once to both turn the laptop on and log in, but holding it down that long turned the Dell off again.)
So slim is the new XPS 13 that its USB Type-A and HDMI ports have disappeared.
Instead, on the unit's left side you'll find two Thunderbolt 3 ports, along with a Noble lock slot and a battery gauge consisting of a tiny button and five tiny LEDs.
On the right are a USB-C port, a micro SD card slot, and an audio jack.
Dell provides a USB-C-to-USB-A dongle (colored white, like the AC adapter that plugs into one of the Thunderbolt 3 ports) for connecting an older flash drive or other peripheral, but finding a DisplayPort dongle for an external monitor is up to you.
Would-be gamers will note that the Thunderbolt 3 ports now deliver four instead of two PCI Express lanes, so the new system is compatible with external graphics-card boxes.
The Wonderful World of Color
The petite, side-mounted speakers pump out surprisingly loud sound—so loud that it's rough and raucous at top volume.
Half volume is more than adequate for solo listening, and (except for a predictable lack of deep bass) features appealing instrumentals and vocals.
You'll hear some cooling fan noise when the system is working hard, but it's so faint as to be easily drowned out by the speakers.
We wish Dell offered a 1080p touch screen for the XPS 13, because the standard 1080p display lacks touch and the 4K touch screen is arguably too much resolution for a 13.3-inch panel, making icons and menu text too small unless you crank up Windows' zoom (which is set out of the box to a whopping 300 percent).
But we must admit the 3,840-by-2,160 display makes fine details sharp as a tack, while also offering wide viewing angles.
Brightness is ample, even dialed down a few notches; contrast is excellent; and colors pop like poster paints.
You won't find a better screen in the 13.3-inch class.
You can probably find a better keyboard, although the XPS 13's is all right—it feels shallow (no surprise in such a slim laptop) and plasticky, but responsive for all but the fastest typing.
The Delete key is small, but we're pleased to find dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys instead of having those functions doubled up on the cursor arrows.
The medium-sized touchpad glides and taps smoothly, though the lower-corner "buttons" are a bit stiff.
Dell includes a one-year warranty.
Strong Performance, but 4K Screen Saps Power
Plenty of other ultraportables, including the XPS 13 9360, carry the same Core i7-8550U quad-core CPU as our model 9370, so we easily collected a crop of competitors for our benchmark tables.
The number that jumps out at you is our PCMark 8 office productivity performance test, where the new XPS' score of 2,988—though essentially reaching the 3,000 that we consider excellent—trailed the 3,580 of last year's version, largely because the test fares poorly on systems with 4K screens.
Pushing four times as many pixels is also the main reason the new XPS 13 lacked the old one's battery life, lasting a respectable nine and a half hours in our video playback test (and beating the 3,200-by-1,800 Razer Blade Stealth ) but coming nowhere near the full HD model's nearly 16 hours.
Between a less-demanding display and a slightly bigger battery, the 9360 prevailed easily.
See How We Test Laptops
On a more positive note, the 9370 excelled in our Cinebench CPU measurement and Handbrake video editing exercise, and it was tops in our 3DMark graphics tests—although none of these ultraportables, with their integrated as opposed to discrete graphics, are meant for more than casual gaming at full screen resolution.
A Choice of Editors' Choices
If you want to save a few dollars and get a few more battery watt-hours (or need USB 3.0 ports), the XPS 13 9360 remains a first-class ultraportable buy.
But it's only human to want the latest and greatest, and in the case of the 9370 there are other reasons as well—the even trimmer design, the cutting-edge Thunderbolt 3 ports, the dual Windows Hello options, and the fact that the gold-and-white unit is one of the best-looking laptops we've ever seen.
If you want to stand out from the crowd, the newest XPS 13 is an easy Editors' Choice pick.
Cons
No HDMI or USB Type-A ports.
4K display means shorter battery life than its predecessor.
Webcam looks up your nose.
The Bottom Line
A new rose gold and white color scheme—well worth an extra $50—makes the Dell XPS 13 a stunning fashion statement, and it's backed by strong performance and a svelte but sturdy build.
