How Good is the Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen Laptop? An Unbiased Review

Dell’s latest models are pretty up-to-date. These models have introduced innovative features, including a 15.6-inch OLED touch screen and a long battery life that create a fabulous user experience and increase the demand for the product. The same is true for the Dell XPS 15 touch screen. Its Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 GPU is an excellent feature for high-demand tasks. However, it has a premium starting price because of the touch screen addition. It’s the best combination for gaming and fulfilling the needs of a workstation.

In this detailed review, we will present the pros and cons of Dell’s latest laptop model, 9520, which has a touchscreen and plenty of configuration options. It is built of solid quality with premium material and has good speaker quality, but it still has a 720p webcam, which presents an awkward position on display. Moreover, it’s lighter but still weighs 4.21 pounds, which is not included in the portable characteristic.

Specification of Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen
Processor	10th/11th-gen Intel Core i5/i7/i9, 4-8 cores, up to 4.90GHz.
Graphics	Integrated Intel UHD/Iris Xe, discrete Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti/RTX 3050 Ti, 4GB GDDR6.
Memory	8-64GB DDR4/DDR5, 2933-4800MHz, dual-channel.
Storage	256GB-8TB PCIe NVMe SSD
Display	15.6-inch FHD+/3.5K, 60Hz, non-touch/touch, anti-glare/anti-reflective, 500/400-nit, InfinityEdge.
Audio	Quad-speaker, 2.5W woofers, 1.5W tweeters, Waves MaxxAudio Pro, 3D audio, dual-mic.
Keyboard, Touchpad	Backlit, 1.3mm key travel, fingerprint reader, and power button
Ports	2 x Thunderbolt 4, 1 x USB-C 3.2, 1 x HDMI 2.1, 1 x SD card, 1 x audio jack.
Webcam	720p HD, 30fps, Windows Hello, Widescreen, 4-element lens, noise reduction
Battery and Power	56/86Wh battery, 90/130W adapter, up to 13 hours
Operating System	Windows 10 Home/Pro, pre-installed software, updates

Dell XPS 15 Design 

Physical Appearance:

The laptop has a platinum silver exterior and black interior. The Dell’s designers worked hard to make the model ideal as a full-size laptop. The chassis and metal bare lid offer a stark profile on closing the screen. The side edges are attractive, well-functional, and double anodized. 

Aesthetics: 

The backlit keyboard is made of Black carbon fiber, has non-scratch resistance, and makes up 92.9% of the screen-to-body ratio. It has a 15-inch display with the most negligible display Bezels, making the design ultra-modern. Silver chassis with a black keyboard makes the design elegant, and Dell’s black color on the silver screen is quite pleasant, which is the same on all Dell’s laptops.

Dimensions

This laptop has a 15.6-inch 16:10 display. Its thickness is  0.71 inches, 9 inches deep, and 13.5 inches across. The keyboard also has 1.3mm essential travel. With sleek Bezels, it still set the room for webcam adjustment. Meanwhile, for a bigger screen, you can also prefer Dell Alienware M15 r7.

Weight:

With a handsome and durable design, the XPS Touch Screen has a light weight of 4.21 pounds and offers an attractive combination of light and thin chassis with solid performance.

Dell XPS Build Quality

Dell XPS Touchscreen Laptop Review by Best Buy Canada Product Videos

Materials:

The XPS earned top-quality marks. The exterior of the keyboard deck is made up of black carbon fiber. The laptop screen is built with an anti-glare and anti-reflective material and style. The laptop’s lid is made of aluminum, while on all the sides, there is regular plastic.

Exterior:

The laptop’s entire body is CNC-milled aluminum. You can choose either platinum, silver, or black. Surprisingly, Both colors are excellent.

Keyboard:

The backlit keyboard is easy to use and has a 1.3mm key travel. The enter key is large in space and has double height. The arrow keys are more comprehensive than the QWERTY keys. The typing is easy with a slightly click-clack voice. However, it lacks a separate number pad because this space is occupied by speaker grills under the keyboard.

Touchpad:

The Touchpad of this XPS 15 laptop is too large with full gesture support. Dell has used the full possible height to make it comfortable for users.

Ports:

The connectivity of this laptop is limited by having 1 USB-C port 3.2 and 2 thunderbolt4 but also having a 3.5mm audio jack. A full-size SD card reader is also present. Although Dell company includes a USB-C to USB-A and HDMI adapter in their laptops, this Dell XPS Touch Screen needs legacy ports. These ports can provide tremendous support as users will not rely on Wi-Fi connectivity or an adapter. At the same time, wireless connectivity is robust with Wi-Fi 6E and 5.2 Bluetooth.

Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen Display 

Screen size

Dell XPS 15 has three options in the display, and the screen size is 15.6 in all options. First is Full HD with non-touch IPS, the second is UHD with Touch enabled IPS, and OLED touch-enabled with 3.5K.

Resolution and Brightness 

Full HD feature has a Resolution of 1920×1200, UHD has 3840×2400 resolution, and OLED 3.5K has 3456×2160 resolution power. The OLED panel is good and has 500/400 nits Brightness. The Infinity Edge of the screen made it visible in all outdoor and indoor places but not in direct sunlight.

Color contrast and accuracy

The contrast ratio of the laptop is 1750:1, which is best for an IPS panel and makes the screen impressive to work with depth and vibrancy, such as the screenplays Adobe RGB, sRGB color gamut, and DCI-P3/HDR color spaces. The accuracy of colors is good but could be more outstanding.  

Viewing angles:

The screen’s angle ratio is 16:10, which shows the use of the full height of the screen. The angles are correct, and the glare screen makes it properly visible in daylight. 3.5 resolution power presents the display of the screen in a pleasing manner.

Touch functionality:

The touch screen works efficiently. So, you don’t need to entirely rely on the touchpad for web surfing, emailing, programming, and playing games. But, it would be best to keep a cloth handy to wipe the fingerprints and smudges from the screen. 

Bezels:

The Dell XPS 15 touchscreen laptop’s bezels are skinny from all around except for the upper one, which has space for the webcam. The Bezel thickness is around 6.04mm on the sides and top. At the bottom, the viscosity is relatively high, at 11.8mm.

Webcam: 

This laptop has a 720p webcam with Windows Hello support. The power button also has a fingerprint reader. Dell missed some features and needs to be updated as most competitor laptops have reached 1080p. A 720p webcam is not sufficient for professional video calling required at work. But with Windows Hello authentication, the video calling experience can be better.

Dell XPS 15 Audio

Speakers:

This updated model has the same quad-speaker setup as the previous one. Two speakers are fitted next to the upward-firing keyboard, and two speakers emit sound from an angle fitting underneath the keyboard. 2 speakers are Stereo woofers 2.5 W, and 2 are stereo tweeters 1.5 W. The total peak of speakers is 8W.

Sound Quality and Volume:

Tones of sound are differently recognized in detail, with mid and high. The sound quality is good, and the volume is so high that when listening to music or playing a game, there is no need for headphones attachment.

Audio performance and clarity:

This is the first laptop with Waves NX 3D audio for speakers. The excellent stereo separation delivers precise and qualitative sound. Overall, XPS 15 is built with a perfect balance of performance and size.

Dell XPS Touch Screen Performance: 

( Dell Touch Screen with fast SSD, latest processor, and Nvidia graphics card )

Processor

The laptop offers configuration in the processor with i5-12500H, i7-12700H, and i9-12900HK processor with Core 4-8. The refresh rate is also superb at 4.90GHz. Core i7 performed well in Geekbench 5, gaining 1719 points at single core and 9922 at multicore.

Graphics card

XPS 15 displays end-to-end pictures with vibrant colors because it has a graphics card of Nvidia GTX 1650Ti and RTX 3050 Ti 4GB GDDR6. Integrating Eye-safe display technology maintains vivid colors and reduces the harmful blue light for the eyes.

RAM, Storage, And Speed 

The 8GB RAM can be expanded to 64 GB according to customers’ needs. Storage is also 512GB with 1 TB to 4TB. 

Compared to its previous models, there is a modest increase in single-core speed performance, but multicore performance is boosted high.

Multitasking

With 16 GB memory, it can handle multitasking efficiently. It can handle office tools and multi-browsing at a high speed and doesn’t heat up during work. Its thermal system is built with two fans and pipes, and it also has exhaust vents fitted with a slight angle to increase airflow. 

Productivity 

The test was conducted on the benchmark to check its productivity, creativity, work skills, and multitasking, but this laptop gained low points in the PCMark10 complete bench. The laptop can be used to edit videos and export them quickly.

Gaming and creative workloads 

The creative work is satisfying due to the ratio of color accuracy, which, with DeltaE, is 1.0 or less than what is considered excellent. It produces rich blacks, deep, sharp detail, and vibrant colors in gaming, but the gaming section can still be improved more.

Dell 15 Touch Screen Battery Life

( Dell Touch Screen with long-lasting battery and low charging time )

Battery Capacity

The battery capacity of the XPS15 OLED touch screen is 86 watt-hours, which helps a lot to provide power to a high-resolution OLED display and high-end components.

Charging time

I plugged in at 32%; after 15 minutes, it was 44%, and in the next 15 minutes, it reached 57%. Charging of 45 minutes, it charged from 32 to 69%. So, the charging speed is high, and the charging time score is relatively lower. 

Battery Life And Power adapter  

The battery life of XPS 15 is up to 13 hours, which is the time to end standard work while streaming with an OLED model lasts more than hours. The power adapter is 90W to 130W with a C-type USB.

Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen Software 

( Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen with Windows 11, MS Office, Maxx Audio pro controls, and identity protection software )

Operating System

The Dell XPS Windows operating system is Windows 11. All operating systems work on 12th-generation processors and have options for configuration. 

Pre-installed software

It has Microsoft Office software to handle the workload. Maxx Audio Pro controls the access of speakers and sound quality. Comprehensive digital protection, including antivirus and identity protection software, is also installed.

Updates 

Pre-installed software can be updated to core i9 – 12900 HK processor with Windows 11pro and UHD touch screen.

Other Features

User Interface

The user interface is very responsive. It provides you with a smooth and hassle-free work experience. The laptop speakers, webcam, and ports make the user experience enjoyable. 

Security

The security feature is the fingerprint reader on the power button. Touching the power button will start after confirmation of installed fingerprints, which is a good security step. You can also log in by facial recognition. Also, Keep your device secure with the latest Dell Command Update software updates.

Support:

XPS 15 is connected with expert support; you can get help in your creative work and prove productive output. You can choose 1 year of premium support for personal use, and for business, you can choose pro support.

Warranty:

The device has 1 one-year basic warranty. One-year hardware warranty and 1-year accidental damage protection.

Customer service: 

This product got 4.5 stars out of 5 from customer reviews, which is a good score.

Pros And Cons of Dell XPS 15 touchscreen

Pros	Cons
Powerful performance for demanding tasks	720p webcam underperforms and has an awkward placement
Stunning touch screen with excellent responsiveness and quality	GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU not optimized for gaming
It has a sleek design with durability. Also, it is made of premium materials and has a thin and light profile.	Performance is limited, which may cause overheating and fan noise.
Versatile connectivity options, including two Thunderbolt 4 ports	The touch screen adds more to the price and may not be very useful for some users
Long battery life with up to 13 hours of runtime and a fast-charging adapter	No Ethernet port, which means users have to rely on Wi-Fi or use an adapter

FAQs

Final Analysis

The Dell XPS 15 has an OLED touchscreen as a compliment, but by adding this feature, it has become pricy, and most of the customers want to use something other than this touching option. The laptop’s build quality is good, and speakers are also standard in configuration. Enhancing the storage with a specified 4TB is quite impressive. With all these high-ending features, the adjustment of the 720p webcam is a disappointing feature. The lack of connectivity options is also notable. But if all these shortages are not your concern, this laptop is worth buying.