Dell Xps 13 2018 Vs 2019

Lighter. Slimmer. Stronger. An

ultraportable

needs all three qualities and more to be considered a pinnacle-tier production. Which brings us to the

Dell XPS 13

and the

Razer Blade Stealth
. The XPS 13 has ruled the roost over the last several years as our top ultraportable. Dell hopes to extend its reign by adding an

Intel Whiskey Lake processor
, a snazzy redesign and by restoring the webcam to its rightful position while maintaining those ridiculously slim bezels.

But non and then fast. The Blade Stealth can’t be hands written off. Not with its sexy redesign and over 8 hours of battery life. It’s also packing Whiskey Lake and

—

a kickoff in the Stealth line

—
Nvidia graphics, making it one of the most powerful ultraportables on the market. But in the battle for ultraportable supremacy, but one organization tin can reign supreme. Read on to observe out which laptop emerges victorious.

Design

Over the past several years, Dell has proven time and time again that its not afraid to play with colour, transitioning from its tried-and-truthful silver and black to a captivating rose-gold anodized

aluminum

finish with white drinking glass-fiber weave. The company has flipped the script again with a new color scheme: Frost Silvery with Arctic White. It’s but as pretty, if only somewhat understated.

However, the biggest design modify in the XPS 13 fixes ane of our longstanding complaints. That’s right, Dell finally found a way to restore the

webcam

to its proper position in the summit bezel, putting an end to the “nosecam.” Information technology accomplished the task past slightly increasing the thickness of the InfinityEdge bezel and creating its smallest webcam ever at 0.08 inches.

That’s not to say the Blade Stealth hasn’t undergone a few changes itself. The system now sports that boxy retro-chichi wait that Razer started with the Bract 15. It’s a subtle modify, only it suits the more serious vibe Razer’s trying to strike with mobile professionals, especially later on swapping out the glowing serpent emblem for a blacked-out glossy symbol. But on the whole, this is the same Razer we’ve come to know and love
—

a svelte beauty fashioned from black anodized aluminum.

Speaking of svelte, I’m used to the Blade Stealth (2.nine pounds,

12 x 8.iii ten 0.6 inches
) being the

lightest

and slimmest in the state. Still, at ii.7 pounds and 11.nine 10 7.8 x 0.iii~0.5 inches, Dell has browbeaten Razer at its own game.

Buy on Dell

Winner:
Dell XPS 13

Ports

Due to the wafer-sparse profiles of both laptops, neither laptop has a lot of space to accommodate a lot of

ports
. Merely of the 2, the XPS 13 offers the most versatility. The Dell has a couple of

Thunderbolt 3

ports as well as a

USB Blazon-C port
, which  doubles as a mini DisplayPort. The arrangement likewise has a microSD card slot in case you want to aggrandize the system’due south storage and a headset jack.

The Blade Stealth too has a pair of

USB 3.i Type-A ports
, two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a headset jack.

Winner: Dell XPS 13

Brandish

Dell might have had to expand the InfinityEdge

display

always so slightly, but it’due south yet got some of the slimmest bezels in the state. Those nearly nonexistent bezels allow you to actually focus on the captivating dazzler of the XPS 13’south xiii.iii-inch 4K display.

Education

I was really impressed by the

color
, sharpness and brightness of the touch screen. It registered 119 percent of the sRGB color gamut during our testing and averaged an impressive 375 nits of

brightness
. The Blade Stealth’s 1080p display was inappreciably a slouch with its 120 percent colour gamut and 346 nits of brightness.

Buy on Razer
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Although we reviewed the Blade Stealth with a 1080p panel, you lot can upgrade it a 4K touchscreen if you lot’re willing to pay a bit more. Conversely, Dell has several configurations of the XPS 13 that feature a 1920 x 1080 not-touch display.

Winner: Dell XPS 13

Keyboard

Razer made some changes to the Stealth keyboard that I’1000 non particularly fond of as a touch typist. The

Right Shift, Enter and Backspace keys have been significantly reduced on the island-style keyboard to make room for the Arrow Keys. As someone who uses Correct Shift more than Left Shift, typing became a very ho-hum, deliberate experience.

And instead of having the ability to programme the lighting on each private key, Razer has
 limited

the light bear witness to only 1 zone. That means that if you lot alter 1 central’s color, you lot change them all. It’s even so pretty as all get-out, and you can still program macros if y’all so desire.

The XPS doesn’t accept any fancy customizable backlighting. Instead, you lot get a stylish Chiclet-style keyboard with bright white backlighting. And while this is fine, I can’t help but imagine how multicolored lighting would expect confronting those white keys.

More: How To Deal With Dysfunctional Keys On Your Keyboard

Regarding actual typing experience, this round goes to the XPS 13. With a 1 millimeter key travel (ane.5-2mm is the ideal range) and 63 grams of actuation force (60g is our minimum), the XPS 13 has just plenty popular to keep me from bottoming out while typing. The Blade Stealth has shallower central travel (0.8 mm), which is somewhat evened out past the 67g actuation. However, the shorter keys brand typing on the Blade Stealth a task.

Winner: Dell XPS 13

Operation

The era of Whiskey Lake is upon us. Armed with a

1.8-GHz Intel Cadre i7-8565U processor

with 16GB of

RAM
, both the Blade Stealth and the XPS xiii are formidable machines. Running our general performance benchmark, the XPS xiii hit 14,936, while the Blade Stealth reached xv,878.

During the File Transfer test, the XPS 13’southward

1TB PCIe SSD

duplicated 4.97GB of multimedia files in 9 seconds. That translates into a lightning-fast 565 megabytes per minute. The Blade Stealth’due south 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD was no match with 254 MBps.

When we ran the video-transcoding test, the Dell XPS 13 took xix minutes and xx seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, while the Blade Stealth completed the task in 20:34.

Winner:
Razer Blade Stealth

Graphics and Gaming

Neither the XPS 13 nor the Blade Stealth volition be playing newer AAA games. However, the Blade Stealth has a bit of an border thanks to its discrete

Nvidia Geforce MX 150 GPU

with 4GB of VRAM. The first of Razer’southward ultraportable laptops to characteristic discrete graphics, the latest version of the Blade Stealth can really play a fair corporeality of games without being tethered to a Cadre X or Core V2.

When nosotros ran the Dirt iii benchmark, the laptop achieved a whopping 164 frames per second. The XPS thirteen with its integrated Intel UHD 620 Graphics GPU delivered a respectable 88 fps.

Winner: Razer Blade Stealth

Battery Life

Something nosotros’ve consistently dinged Razer on is the bombardment life. For all its good looks and ability, Razer laptops typically tapped out on endurance. Thankfully, the 1080p Bract Stealth breaks that unfortunate tendency, lasting 8 hours and five minutes on the

Laptop Mag Battery Test
.

More than: Longest Bombardment Life Laptops

The surprise here is the XPS 13. Because of the 4K panel on our review model and Whiskey Lake’s unexpected power consumption, the laptop lasted only seven:50. All the same, nosotros’re expecting a much better effect from the 1080p configuration.

Pricing and Value

I reviewed the $2,499 version of the Dell XPS 13, which has a 1.8-GHz Intel Core i7-8565U CPU with 16GB of RAM, a 1TB PCIe SSD, an Intel UHD 620 Graphics GPU and a 4K bear on screen.

The base model is a much more reasonable $899, which gets you lot a 2.one-GHz Intel Core i3-8145U CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 128GB Chiliad.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, an Intel UHD 620 Graphics GPU and a 1080p non-affect display. The $i,209 configuration offers a 1.six-GHz Intel Core i5-8265U CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB K.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, an Intel UHD 620 Graphics GPU and a 1080p non-touch panel.

Over the past few years, Razer has been working on giving consumers more price-effective options. Unfortunately, it still has a way to go with the Blade Stealth. The base model costs $1,399, which nets yous a 1.8-GHz Intel Cadre i7-8565U CPU with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, an Intel UHD 620 Graphics GPU and a 1920 x 1080 non-touch screen. For $i,599, you become double the RAM and a Nvidia GeForce MX 150 GPU with 4GB of VRAM and a 1080p non-touch screen.  The $1,899 model doubles the storage and upgrades you to a 4K impact screen.

Winner: Dell XPS 13

Overall Winner: Dell XPS 13

You really can’t go wrong with the latest versions of the Razer Blade Stealth and Dell XPS 13. They both have exquisite designs, beautiful displays and the impressive ability of Intel’due south Whiskey Lake processors. However, the XPS xiii is lighter and slimmer than the Blade Stealth, has a brighter brandish, a more than comfy keyboard and more than versatile ports. And starting at $899, it’s definitely more wallet-friendly.

But the Bract Stealth consistently delivered better functioning, offers longer bombardment life and has actual discrete graphics. It’due south not the strongest GPU out there, only it’south still meliorate than integrated graphics.

Overall, the Dell XPS 13 is our top selection for those looking for a lightweight, all-around work machine, while the Bract Stealth is the best selection for doing piece of work and actual serious play on the go.

Credit: Laptop Mag

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