now if you fancy grabbing yourself an incredibly portable new laptop that doesn’t skimp on performance dell’s xps range has always been one of the best around and the fresh new dell xps 13 2020 is a near perfect update of an already fantastic machine packing some impressive specs into next to no space whatsoever now this model here is the super duper top-end skew so what you’ve got is a 10th gen core i7 chipset a gorgeous 4k touchscreen and one terabyte of storage and it’s sure in cheap at 1 800 quid however if you don’t mind scaling back the performance streaming the resolution down to full hd and trimming back the storage a bit as well then you can get that price whittled down to about 1 400 pounds thus potentially saving yourself half a kidney i’ve been using this as my full-time laptop for basically everything apart from video editing because it’s good but it ain’t quite that good and here’s everything you need to know in my dell xps 13 2020 review and for the latest greatest sec please do poke subscribe and ding that notifications bell cheers now first up the construction of this 2020 notebook certainly matches up with that premium price tag the aluminium chassis is incredibly slender measuring just shy of 15 mils at its thickest point while weighing a mere 1.27 kilos if you actually still bother to commute these days then that compact design will suit you down to the ground the dell xps 13 20 20 is one of the most compact laptops that i’ve
seen outside of those chromebook jobbies it’ll fit into even a tiny backpack or a bag quite comfortably plus that metal frame is as tough as a bit of beefeater black pudding that lid barely flexes at all even under extreme pressure and that smart silver lid also seems pleasantly resistant to scratches as well not any scuffs or marks have appeared on there after a full week of pre-full-on abuse the rest of the chassis seems just as tough and meanwhile that display has got a nice cord and a gorilla glass 6 covering it as well so you can consider your investment pretty well protected and you’ve also got some nice soft touch carbon fiber palm rests inside which feel really nice against your skin although they do require constant wiping if you don’t want them to look all greasy and gross so far so great but one disadvantage with ultra portable laptops like the dell xps 13 2020 is the limited connectivity on here you’ve got two thunderbolt ports housed on opposite edges both offering display port support and that’s pretty much it beyond the microsd memory card slot and a headphone jack there’s no usb ports to speak of for instance but you do at least get a usb air to type c adapter bundled in the box with the xps good news if like me you’re clinging on some of those older peripherals and dell’s fantastic design continues to the xps 13 2020’s keyboard as well which is absolutely fantastic for smashing out essays scripts whatever you fancy over the course of a long afternoon those keys are spread across the entire width of the
laptop so they’re a good size and well spaced despite the limited area that dell had to work with the travel as you strike each key is rather shallow as you would expect from such a slim fella but you still get enough feedback for touch type and at speeds while that type in action is nice and firm you’ve got two stage backline as well which can be quickly cycled using this handy function key very handy if you end up smashing out that essay at 3am because you were down the pub getting the skin full meanwhile up in this top right corner you’ll find the power button which also doubles as a very responsive and accurate fingerprint sensor as well as you can see that just works in milliseconds on the other hand if you just treated yourself to a nice greasy donut and chips and that fingerprint sensor ain’t working for you right you’ve got a good bit of face and lock instead and that proves just as reliable as the fingerprint sensor even in very low light so far so very good and it’s even more good news when you turn your attention to the 13.4 inch ips panel this is framed by some of the skinniest bezels i’ve ever seen on a laptop maybe outside the huawei matebook x pro and unlike that matebook you actually still get a webcam conveniently positioned above the display and this 720p camera is absolutely fine for a bit of zoom
microsoft teams all of that kind of shenanigans although if you’re in a room with quite ambient lighting as you can see they do appear kind of fuzzy and grainy and i don’t know if you’ll even be able to make this out on camera but there is a tiny little light just next to that camera that flashes on whenever it’s in use just to warn you in case any apps using it in the background without your knowledge but it is so small that to be honest you’d easily miss that especially if you’re sat outdoors and unfortunately there’s no kind of blind and switch or anything like that but it’ll do the job whatever and certainly when i was on the likes of the zoom call i had absolutely no problems with the audio either the mic clearly picked up my voice i didn’t have to shout or scream to make myself heard as for the screen itself well that is definitely another highlight of this miniature beauty the dell xps 13 2020 is one of few 13-inch laptops to boast ultra hd visuals so prepare to make a mess of your undercrackers at the absolutely stunning 4k images when you’re checking out photos or streaming some light entertainment and good news for photographers and other creative users as well because the color accuracy is on point you’ve got 100 srgb gamut
coverage and just over 80 of the adobe rgb as well i suddenly don’t have any qualms with a nice sharp contrast either and as far as the brightness goes it almost hits 400 nits on that maximum level so perfectly fine for working outdoors on the audio front you’ve got a pair of downwards fire and stereo speakers here on the arse end of the dell xps 13 2020 but even though they’re downwards firing i found that audio seemed to permeate up through the keyboard giving you a rich full bodied sound on top volume the dell xps 13 2020 audio isn’t super powerful though i certainly found if i was in quite a noisy room or sat outside sometimes i struggled to hear what was going on in a zoom call or when i was watching a show so you kind of end up pressing your head against the laptop trying to make it out now on to performance and dell has stuffed one of intel’s 10th gen core i7 chipsets in here namely the 1065 g7 backed in this model by 16 gigs of ddr4 ram so it’s not too surprising that the xps 13 2020 can basically burn through any tasks you throw its way i found that even when i was working full-time in chrome with well over a dozen tabs open and i had apps in the background open like the likes of zoom deezer and i was even downloading files and stuff as well it was handling all of it simultaneously no worries and thankfully this laptop did not overheat under duress either i did find the bottom got a little bit warm when it had been on for a while but it was actually felt quite nice against the old thighs on a chilly evening and it suddenly got nowhere near
genital scorching temperatures and if you happen to have a deep love for benchmarking well silly bench 20 spaffed out a score of 1390 while pc mark 10 coughed up a result of 3962 perfectly respectable and you’ve got full wi-fi 6 support here on the dell xps 13 as well so if you’ve got yourself a wi-fi six router then you can expect a fast dependable connection however this xps isn’t an all-powerful beam because on the graphics front it is integrated iris graphics all the way there’s no dedicated gpu which means naturally that for the likes of video editing and really serious intensive creative tasks all right out although that said i had absolutely no problem tinking around with photos and likes of likewise if you want something for gaming on the go then you’ll really have to temper your expectations even recent games that are relatively restrained for resource goblin were a stuttery unplayable mess you’ll definitely have to stick to older titles if you want a smooth enjoyable experience back to the good stuff though and somehow dell has managed to cram a full one terabyte of storage into this top end model and it’s pleasingly fast storage as well you comfortably get over three gigabits per second read and write speeds in all of the testing so it’s just as strong as most rivals like the hp spectre 360.
And last up is the battery life another crucial component of course of the general portability and thankfully despite its compact size the dell xps 13 2020 performed pretty admirably on this front too i finally got anywhere between five and six hours of use from a full charge and that was as previously mentioned usually working in chrome which is a bit of a juice gobbler with lots of apps running in the background as well and this was usually outdoors so that screen brightness was cranked all the way up to full and that’s certainly nothing spectacular it’s about the same as what i got from plenty of other ultra portables like the huawei matebook x pro but it’s certainly not bad either and i also love that funky led strip on the xps 13’s lip which tells you when the laptop is charging and when it’s fully charged ready for action very cool and that right there is what i think of the dell xps 13 2020 after using it as my full time laptop and as you can see if portability is your priority but you also want dependable performance and one of the best laptop displays out there then it’ll do the job the only real limitation is that lack of dedicated graphics was definitely right out for the likes of video editing but anyone else who actually finds themselves on the move on a regular basis these days will definitely be more than happy so that’s what i think of the dell xps 13 20 20.
well do you reckon have you been using it as your full-time laptop would be great to hear your own review down in the comments below please do post subscribe ding that notifications bell and have yourselves a lovely rest of the week cheers everyone love you you .
Read More: Preview Oppo Reno 4 Pro 5G Full Tour
