Dell XPS 13 (2018) review – in pictures

Just a few months on from its late 2017 refresh, Dell has given the XPS 13 – one of our favourite do-it-all laptops – another spruce-up. It’s thinner and lighter than ever. We think you’ll love it. Unless you just bought the last version. In which case you’ll probably be a bit angry. Sorry.

DESIGN: LIGHTER THAN LAST YEAR

You get the classic carbon fibre-look inside and aluminium on the exterior, but the laptop is now 60g lighter. No big deal. And only 11m thick: bigger deal. Among ultra-slim laptops, the XPS 13 was never the thinnest or lightest; it still isn’t, but this 2018 XPS now isn’t far off the skinniest out there.

DESIGN: NO FLEX

Build quality is great. It’s solid, doesn’t flex, there are no weird seams. And while some of you may prefer aluminium on the inside, the soft touch inner is meant to be part of the XPS 13’s appeal. Metal obsessives have plenty of other options to choose from.

DESIGN: LIMITED PORTS

The one sting, the one part other than the price that makes us chin-stroke for a while about recommending the XPS 13 to everyone, is the connection array. You get three USB-C ports and a microSD. And a headphone jack. That’s it. There are no full-size USBs, no dedicated video outputs. If you want to plug something in, you may well need an adapter.

KEYBOARD: A TYPING PLEASURE

The keyboard is great. It’s your usual slightly shallow key affair, but is quiet, there’s solid resistance and typing on the XPS 13 is a pleasure. If you like your keys with a pronounced click, the XPS 13 doesn’t offer that. The action is on the smoother end here. There’s a backlight too, a single-colour one with two levels of intensity. It’s nothing like the multi-colour array of the Razer Blade Stealth, but the XPS 13 just doesn’t take such opportunities to show off.

DESIGN: SMOOTH TRACKING

The trackpad is a delight, too. It has a super-smooth textured glass surface and a crisp clicker, one that can only really be bested by a MacBook. And even then it’s partly a case of personal preference. The pad isn’t huge, but mostly because there’s not space for anything larger. The XPS 13 also has a fingerprint scanner built into the power button – which happens to be one of the fastest, most reliable Windows scanners we’ve used.

SCREEN & SOUND: CRISP AND CLEAR

As before, the XPS 13’s display is 13.3in across, with an incredibly slim surround. You can have it with either a 1080p or 4K screen: ours is the 1080p version, but the upgrade to 4K costs around £150. That’s not a bad deal, but we’re pretty happy with this 1080p panel: it’s an IPS screen and it nails just about every aspect of image quality. Contrast is great, colours are well-saturated but natural-looking and top brightness is excellent. Glossy laptops like this aren’t always the best fit for use outdoors, but the XPS 13 also has an anti-glare coating that helps take the edge off reflections.

PERFORMANCE: BREEZY

As you’d hope for a laptop that costs well over a grand, the XPS 13 saunters through Windows 10 like it owns the place. It’s responsive, and thanks to Intel’s 8th Gen processor, you get alarmingly good peak performance. This is the norm in 2018: it’s a great time to buy a thin and light laptop. You could easily use the XPS 13 as the brains of a music studio, or to edit those massive photos you took with your DSLR. It does suffer on battery life, though – the 2018 version has a 52Wh cell.

VERDICT: WINDOWS OF CHOICE

The Dell XPS 13 is one of the best, most consistent portable Windows laptops in the world. There are no gimmicks, no flimsy parts. Every element is top-quality. Owners of an XPS 13 from the last year or two probably don’t need to upgrade, unless the idea of shaving off a few millimetres or adding a couple of cores gets you really excited. Everyone else, though? This should be your go-to Windows ultra-portable. If you can afford it.