Dell XPS 15 review (Late 2015, Skylake) - the ultimate Windows 10 laptop

It’s difficult to not be immediately wowed by Dell’s InfinityEdge bezels, even if the feat of engineering is no longer anything new. But next to the razor thin bezels of the Dell XPS 13, even the slickest of laptops suddenly looks positively dowdy. This hasn’t changed with the XPS 15, which takes much of what I loved about the XPS 13 and applies it to a much larger form factor.

Much like how the XPS 13 is afforded the chassis of a typical 11.1in laptop thanks to its almost bezel-less 13.3in screen, the XPS 15 packs a 15.6in display into a much smaller chassis than your typical 15in laptop. It’s not quite as svelte as the XPS 13, but with bezels measuring just 5.7mm, it's still a beauty to behold.

As a high-end performance laptop, comparisons to the MacBook Pro are almost unavoidable, but the XPS 15 does compare very favourably against Apple's 15in powerhouse, particularly when it comes to size and weight. While the 15in Macbook Pro measures 18mm all the way round, the XPS 15 tapers from 11-17mm in thickness.

Admittedly, the picture above is a little deceiving, as it only starts getting slimmer from around the front 20mm of the device. It certainly looks slimmer from afar, but in reality it's more or less the same as its Apple rival. Both laptops weigh about the same as well, with the touchscreen SSD model of the XPS 15 reviewed here weighing 2kg, and the Macbook Pro tipping the scales at 2.04kg.

Keyboard and Touchpad

As you'd expect from Dell's premium XPS range, the XPS 15 borrows many of the same design cues as its gorgeous little brother, as it uses the same aluminium chassis and carbon fibre composite keyboard and palm rest as the XPS 13. 

That said, I can’t help but feel the carbon fibre loses some of its appeal when applied to a larger surface area. On the XPS 13, for example, its small footprint meant you had less excess space around the edge of the keyboard, making the whole laptop seem neater and more compact. The XPS 15, on the other hand, has the same sized keyboard, but a much wider palm rest, meaning you see a lot more of its lightly checked interior. To me, the additional space means the XPS 15 doesn't look anywhere near as classy as the XPS 13, but that's one of the downsides of choosing a slightly larger laptop. 

The palm rest also becomes slightly warm to the touch during day-to-day use. It never becomes uncomfortable, but it is noticeable. The keyboard itself is sensibly laid out, aside from the rather thin Enter key, but I did eventually get used to it after a while. Still, considering how much keyboard real estate the XPS 15 has at its disposal, it's baffling that Dell didn't decide to go for a slightly larger set of keys.

Fortunately, the rest of the XPS 15's backlit keyboard is very pleasant to type on. It’s not the most accurate keyboard I’ve used but, there’s a respectable amount of travel to each keystroke and I could certainly get close to around 80% of my recorded top typing speeds compared to a mechanical keyboard, which isn’t bad for a laptop.

The large touchpad makes good use of the available space, too. It’s accurate and responded wonderfully to each stroke, tap and multitouch gesture that came its way. As such, navigating around Windows 10 is both slick and intuitive. There are no dedicated mouse buttons, but left and right clicks at the base of the touchpad worked perfectly without any hitches. In fact, you can actually click in all but the top inch of the touchpad for a left click if you don’t jog the current position of your cursor.

InfinityEdge Display

All but the lowest specification from Dell is equipped with a glossy 3,840x2,160 (4K) resolution display. That’s a higher resolution than Apple’s Retina panel on the MacBook Pro (2,880x1,800). The cheapest XPS 15 option only has a 1,920x1,080 panel, however.

My review unit came with the 4K display, and to say it’s simply stunning is a huge understatement. Dell makes some bold claims about its accuracy, stating it can display 100% of the Adobe RGB colour gamut, but our colour calibrator was able to confirm this is indeed the case, showing both 100% coverage of the Adobe RGB and sRGB colour gamuts. If you’re looking for true colour accuracy, the XPS 15 delivers with aplomb.

There’s no shortage in terms of brightness, either. The panel reaches almost eye-searing brightness levels of 363.4cd/m2, so it's unlikely you’re going to struggle when using it outdoors. In fact, I had to dial it down a few notches when using it indoors, as my eyes quickly became fatigued at maximum brightness. Black levels do suffer slightly as a result, however, and our measurement of 0.34cd/m2 is by no means the deepest I've seen at this end of the market. The same goes for its contrast ratio of 1,065:1, which is respectable but unremarkable.

The numbers only really tell part of the story, though. Under more subjective tests, the screen still looks beautiful with plenty of crisp, sharp detail and vibrant colours. The reflective coating did prove occasionally irksome under certain lighting conditions, but no more so than other reflective screens I’ve used.

It also comes with Dell's PremierColor software pre-installed, which lets you fine tune the display to your surroundings, task or taste with ease. Luckily, the XPS 15 doesn’t have the same adaptive contrast that was on the XPS 13, either - as confirmed by this useful tool. As such, creative professionals are in for a treat. 

The ultra high resolution panel option also has a touchscreen coated with Corning Gorilla Glass. It responded perfectly to all manner of swipes and gestures and the laptop’s hinge is strong and firm enough to withstand constant prodding.

Dell has included some nice software touches that make working with the ultra high resolution display that much easier. When you click and drag a window, a small pop-up ‘virtual monitor’ appears near the mouse or your finger if using the touchscreen. Dragging the window here will let you snap the window into different positions, saving you from having to maximise them fullscreen or dragging them long distances across the screen. 

Without it, managing multiple windows can often be a slow and cumbersome process on such a high resolution display, particularly if you don't have any scaling options enabled. Fortunately, Windows 10's high-resolution display scaling is much better than older versions of Windows, which has previously been one of our biggest complaints about high-resolution screens. For the XPS 15, you’ll want to turn up scaling to at least 150%, if not 175%, to reach a happy compromise which still lets you read text comfortably.

Performance and Battery Life

As is always the case with Dell's laptops, there are numerous configurations available when buying the XPS 15. At the bottom of the range is the aforementioned 1,920x1,080 resolution model, which costs £1,099 at time of writing and comes equipped with 8GB of DDR4 memory and a Skylake-based quad-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-6300HQ, which can Turbo Boost to 3.2GHz. This is the only model with a Core-i5 processor.

Every other model comes with a quad-core 2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ (with Turbo Boosting up to 3.5GHz) and 16GB of DDR4 memory. Here, the main difference between the remaining models is storage capacity. There’s a 1TB hard disk + 32GB SSD option (£1,449), a 512GB PCIe SSD model (£1,649), and a 1TB PCIe SSD (£1,899) version. All four models come with Nvidia GeForce 960M graphics that has 2GB of GDDR5.

For the specifications, the Dell XPS 15 is priced very competitively against the 15in MacBook Pro with Retina display, especially considering the latter is still based around Intel's 4th generation Broadwell processors. For £100 less than the top-end MacBook Pro, you get double the storage and a more up-to-date processor with the XPS 15, and our 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD model saw sequential read speeds of 1,525.51MB/s and write speeds of 541.54MB/s.

Performance from the XPS 15 in our benchmarks was also excellent. It managed an overall score of 111, with excellent scores across the board when it came to image editing, video editing and multitasking, and this puts it right up there as a viable desktop replacement. With its SSD, the XPS 15 boots up and shuts down swiftly and Windows 10 feels super responsive. Combine the excellent performance with an immaculate screen and you have a system that’s superb for both work and play.

The dedicated GeForce 960M graphics even makes it possible for moderate gaming, too. Dirt Showdown at 1,920x1,080, 4x anti-aliasing and Ultra graphics saw 45.1 fps and even Metro Last Light Redux saw playable framerates. Admittedly, I had to turn off the difficult super-sampled anti-aliasing in this case, but doing so meant framerates of 31.6fps at 1,920x1,080 resolution and Very High graphics.

It’s never going to compete with a proper gaming laptop, but if you’re willing to compromise on image fidelity (and put up with its rather loud fans), you’ll be able to get some playable framerates even on more taxing games. For example, dropping down to Medium graphics quality in Metro Last Light saw the framerate jump up to 51.5fps. For this to even be possible on a laptop like the XPS 15 is an impressive feat. 

The only disappointing part of the XPS 15 was its battery life, which garnered only 5 hours 40 minutes of video playback from its 84Whr battery. This is a far cry from Dell’s advertised battery life of 17 hours, but considering how well specified the system is, this is actually pretty reasonable compared to other 15.6in laptops I've tested, and you'll get a little more in day-to-day use if you're careful.

Usefully, the XPS 15 has a handy LED battery gauge on the side of the laptop to let you know when you're running low on power. It's a shame it doesn't come with the same svelte charger as the XPS 13, but if you need some serious mobile power, Dell does sell a 1,800mAh Power Companion device which adds some extra battery life and lets you charge other mobile devices over USB.

Connections

Like the Dell XPS 13, the XPS 15 has a Thunderbolt 3 multi-function port that can be used for charging, data transfer, and connecting the laptop to an external display. This uses the familiar USB Type-C connector, as such works fine with USB-C devices, but with faster transfer rates of up to 40Gbps versus 10Gbps for USB 3.1 when used with Thunderbolt peripherals. You can also use it with Dell’s optional and yet-to-be-released Thunderbolt Dock will let you output to three displays at 1,920x1,080 or two displays at 3,840x2,160.

Without the dock, there’s a full-size HDMI connection for an external display, two USB3 ports, an SD card reader and a headset jack. For those looking for an Ethernet port, you’ll need to buy an optional USB Type-C to HDMI/VGA/Ethernet/USB3 adaptor. You do, however, get 802.11ac MiMo Wi-Fi.

Conclusion

The Dell XPS 15 is a stunning laptop. It doesn’t have the instant visual impact of the diminutive XPS 13, but there’s no doubt it’s packed plenty of power into a streamlined 15.6in laptop. It marries performance with stylish looks, and it more than meets expectation considering its premium price. 

The build quality is also superb and the InfinityEdge display still looks absolutely stunning. While I can’t attest to the 1,920x1,080 display model, you’ll certainly won't be disappointed by the Ultra HD XPS 15. Between this and the XPS 13, Dell has two shining lights that show off Windows 10 to its fullest. The XPS 15 is the ultimate Windows 10 laptop that competes with, and in many aspects overtakes, the 15in MacBook Pro, and it wins a Best Buy award.

Be sure to check out some alternatives in our regularly-updated Best Laptops and buying guide.