Dell XPS 15 9530 Review

1. Introduction and Unboxing2. Packaging and Bundle3. Dell XPS 15 95304. Testing Methodology and Configuration5. Sisoft Sandra6. PCmark087. 3Dmark8. 3Dmark119. 3Dmark Vantage10. Cinebench 11.5 64bit11. Unigine Heaven12. Unigine Valley13. HDD Performance14. USB 3.0 Bandwidth Testing15. MKV 1080p Playback Performance16. Video Encoding17. Thief18. Titanfall19. Hearthstone20. League of Legends21. Thermal Dynamics22. Battery Life23. Closing Thoughts24. View All Pages

The Dell XPS 15 9530 is a great laptop to use. The bright, vibrant and incredibly high resolution screen is truly beautiful to look at, though it does have a major drawback – it is extremely reflective.

This makes it very difficult to use in a bright room or in an outdoor environment, as the reflection of your own face will be very distracting. In low light conditions, the gloss screen does help improve media viewing quality, but a matt finish would be more to our own tastes.

That screen looks stunning when playing ‘casual' titles like Hearthstone but it will struggle to run anything moderately intensive at native resolutions … the modest GT750M graphics are just not designed for this. It's not that 1080p looks bad, but it just seems wasteful having all that pixel density and not being able to use it. It might have been nice to see an upgrade option for a 765M or 770M, but then you're crossing over into Alienware territory.

The insanely high resolution can also cause problems with menus that aren't designed to dynamically adjust. EA's Origin service for example is almost impossible to use as the text is so tiny. But that is a problem with third parties rather than Dell.

Despite all the issues though, I still love the screen.

The touch panel is responsive and easy to use and great for certain tasks like photo viewing, or making your way through big buttoned menus. The keyboard is responsive and easy to use in the dark thanks to the backlighting and the touchpad is sensitive enough to cross the high-res screen without multiple sweeping movements.

Other areas of XPS 15 9530 performance are commendable. The 16GB of RAM and caching SSD ensure the laptop is snappy and responsive at all times and it handles intensive tasks without slowing down. The powerful Intel quad core processor is a good partner for media encoding and 3D rendering on the move, if the demand arises.

Noise levels are low during almost all operation. It is only when gaming that the fans will spin up dramatically to ensure high levels of airflow inside. Likewise the underside never gets uncomfortably hot, though the additional purchase of a little cooling pad might be useful for long term sessions.

The XPS 15 9530 is a seriously good mid-range mobile workhorse and would be perfect for a professional working indoors at home or in an office. The XPS 15 9530 is not designed with hardcore gamers in mind, but more for photo editors.

The Dell XPS 15 9530 is only available with Windows 8.1 which may alienate a percentage of the potential user base.

Pricing for the XPS 15 starts at £1180, but this particular version we tested will set you back £1680 when bought straight from Dell, making it a serious investment.

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Pros

• Screen is beautiful, but highly reflective.
• Fast startup and responsive operation.
• Touch interface is nice, but situational.
• Good raw performance in office and business tasks.
• Quiet during normal usage.

Cons

• Lack of ethernet port means native resolution streaming requires 802.11ac supporting router.
• High-res means tiny 3rd party menus, hard to read text.
• GTX750M is underpowered for serious gaming, especially at high resolutions.

KitGuru Says: A great workman's laptop with good battery life, strong performance and some basic gaming abilities – all through a beautiful but reflective touchscreen. 

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