Dell XPS 15z [Review]

FULL REVIEW

Dell claims this laptop is the thinnest 15-inch PC in the world, under an inch thick. When we go into details, it’s not much different than the Mac Book Pro. My first impression after seeing it for the first time was: did the chief product designer of Apple just change jobs?

Design
The style statement made by the Dell XPS 15 Z comes from its aluminum lid, magnesium-alloy chassis, and chrome trim around the edges. The Dell XPS 15z boasts of a solid metal, monochrome construction and the anodized aluminium with its elemental sheen looks good and has a good ‘up market’ feel to it. The hinge on the XPS 15Z is a ribbed barrel, it looks good when a single groove lights up when plugged into an AC power.

At 15.2 x 10.3 inches, the XPS 15z's footprint is slightly larger than the MacBook Pros (14.4 x 9.8 inches), but it’s just 0.97 inches thick, marginally thinner than the Pro (1 inch). It's enough for Dell to boast that the XPS 15z is the thinnest 15-inch notebook on the planet, but you're not likely to notice the difference. Still, the regular XPS 15 (1.5-inches thick) looks positively chunky in comparison. Weight is not an issue either as it’s lighter than the XPS 15.

The 15z's island-style keyboard is well spaced and looks pretty. The keyboard is backlit, but when the backlighting is turned off, it's hard to read the letters and numbers. There's a dedicated eject button for the DVD drive. The generously proportioned 3.9 x 2.3-inch touchpad is spacious and friction-free. Sadly the review unit wasn’t as responsive as one would expect, it was a good finger exercise trying to execute multitouch functions such as pinch-to-zoom, rotate, and scroll. The two mouse buttons are so large that you won’t have problems clicking the right button even with your winter gloves on.

Display and Audio
The XPS 15z has a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel glossy display which is bright and crisp. Watching animated movies was a great experience as you can make out even the smallest details. Specs wise, the XPS 15z's panel also has a higher resolution than the 15-inch MacBook Pro, which sports 1440 x 900 pixels.

While it’s not the JBL speakers on the original XPS line, the two large speakers on either side of the XPS 15z's keyboard pump high-quality sound. The two speakers also take a lot of space and are designed aesthetically, but sacrifice the potential integration of a separate numeric keypad which could have easily made it a class apart.

Ports
On the left side of the XPS 15z are two USB 3.0 ports, one USB/eSATA with PowerShare, HDMI 1.4, Mini DisplayPort, and a 9-in-1 card reader. The right side has a slot-loading DVD drive and headphone and mic jacks. The rear has an Ethernet port.

Performance
Our review unit was the best possible configuration, with a 2.7-GHz Intel Core i7-2620M processor with and 8GB of RAM. The 750GB 7,200-rpm hard drive booted into Windows 7 Home Premium in just over a minute, which is slightly on the slower side. Over all it gives a good performance when it comes to multitasking and churns out every bit of power out of the processor. The XPS 15z comes with two graphics chips: an integrated Intel HD GPU, and a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT525M processor with 2GB of video memory. Using Nvidia's Optimus technology, the XPS 15z switches between the two based on need. I played Far Cry 2 on the 15Z and graphics performance was top notch. But the exoskeleton really heats up after long hours of play and the heat is felt even more due to its magnesium alloy exoskeleton.

Battery Life
Dell claims a battery life of 7 hours on the XPS 15Z, but it lasted for just over 4 hours when I was using it, which was still very decent.

Configurations
The base model of the XPS 15z costs Rs. 55,000. For that, you’ll get a 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-2410M processor, a 1366 x 768 (200-nit) display, 4GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce GT525M graphics with 1GB of video memory, and a smaller hard drive. The unit that we reviewed has a price tag of Rs. 86,800 to it on the Dell India website.

Software
The XPS 15z comes with trialware editions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, McAfee Security Center, Microsoft Office Starter 2010, Roxio Creater Starter, and Skype. Dell-branded apps include Webcam Central and Dell
Stage, which provides shortcuts to programs, multimedia files, support, etc., but takes up a lot of room on the desktop.

Verdict
The slimmed-down Dell XPS 15Z has a more elegant, streamlined look and measures less than an inch thick. Plus, you get a decent battery life. My only major complaint was with the multi-touch functions on the touchpad, as it was not very responsive. Also the area around the palm rest gets extremely hot during long hours of gaming. But apart from these two or three minor niggles, if you're shopping for a Windows notebook, the XPZ 15z is one of the better 15-inch machines that money can buy.