Dell announces new XPS 15 and 17 laptops

Today, Dell announced a significant redesign to its XPS 15 laptop—which is now marketed primarily at creatives who perform tasks like video or photo editing—as well as a new XPS 17 model. The former is available today; the latter is coming in the summer.

Dell says the XPS 15 is slimmer than its predecessor and has a number of design changes oriented around a higher screen-to-body ratio (more on that in a moment). It also has a new audio solution (four speakers). The company says it took cues from the popular XPS 13 design to make "the first major redesign" to the XPS 15 "in almost five years."

Meanwhile, the XPS 17 shares most of the same design principles and materials, and even mostly the same specs, with upgraded ports and an optional, faster GPU to go with the bigger screen and chassis.

Both laptops offer the exact same lineup of 10th-generation Intel CPUs, ranging from a Core i5-10300H (4-cores, 8MB cache) at the bottom end up to a Core i9-10885H (8 cores, 16MB cache) at the top, with the i7-10750H and i7-10875H available in between. RAM ranges from 8GB to 64GB at 2933MHz. Solid-state storage is standard, with 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB options. There's also Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.

The XPS 15 and 17 both have "InfinityEdge" displays that offer very small bezels that measure equally on all sides. The screen-to-body ratio lands at 92.9 percent, and there's a small HD webcam in the top bezel but no notch. The display is available in 4K or FullHD and has a 16:10 aspect ratio.

Dell claims 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color gamut and 94 percent of DCI-P3 in the 4K display, which also has a 1600:1 contrast ratio, a maximum brightness of 500 nits, HDR 400, and Dolby Vision. The 1,920×1,200 display option also maxes out at 500 nits, but it offers a 1650:1 contrast ratio, and Dell hasn't made any claims about Adobe RGB or DCI-P3 in its spec sheets for that screen.

The two laptops offer the same two display options, with identical specs except for the sizes: the XPS 15's display measures 15.6 inches and the XPS 17 measures, well, 17 inches.

The big spec distinction between the two sizes is, predictably, in graphics. The XPS 15 offers Intel UHD Graphics or an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti with 4GB of GDDR6. The XPS 17 adds the option to upgrade to Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2060 with 6GB of GDDR6. There are some port differences, too. The XPS 15 has two Thunderbolt 3 and one USB-C 3.1 ports, along with an SD card reader and a headphone jack. The 17 instead offers four Thunderbolt 3 ports, plus the SD card reader and headphone jack.

The new XPS 15 is available beginning today, with a starting price of $1,299.99. The XPS 17 will land sometime in summer of 2020, starting at $1,499.99.

Listing image by Dell

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