XPS 15 Touch

4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor

Windows 8.1
Free Windows 10 upgrade

16GB Memory

512GB Solid State Drive

Touch Screen

CONFIGURATION
PROCESSOR
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4712HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.30 GHz)

OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows 8.1 64-Bit English

MEMORY
16GB DDR3L 1600MHz (8GBx2)

HARD DRIVE
512GB Solid State Drive

VIDEO CARD
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 750M 2GB GDDR5
DISPLAY
15.6-inch UltraSharp™ 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) touch display

WIRELESS
802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, 2x2
PRIMARY BATTERY
91 WHr, 6-Cell Battery (integrated)

SECURITY SOFTWARE
McAfee LiveSafe 12 Month Subscription

SUPPORT
2 Year Premium Support

DIMENSION
Height: 0.3"-0.7" (8 -18mm) x Width: 14.6" (372mm) x Depth 10" (254mm)
Weight: Starting at 4.44lbs (2.01kg)5
BATTERY LIFE
Up to 11 hours of battery life6

PORTS
USB 3.0 w/PowerShare (3)
USB 2.0 with PowerShare (1)
Mini DisplayPort (1)
HDMI (1)
3-in-1 media card reader supporting SD, SDIO, SDXC
Headset jack (1)
Noble lock

CHASIS
Exterior Chassis Materials
Machined aluminum
Carbon fiber composite base
Edge-to-edge Corning® Gorilla® Glass NBT™ display
Silicone palmrest

Keyboard
Full size, backlit chiclet keyboard

Touchpad
Glass integrated button touchpad
REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
Product Safety, EMC and Environmental Datasheets
Dell Regulatory Compliance Home Page
Dell and the Environment

PRICE
Market Value7$2,758.99
Total Savings$9.00
Dell Price$2,749.99

Features & Design

With Windows 8.1 — for a smooth, versatile PC experience.

Visionary detail
The XPS 15 combines jaw-dropping resolution and vibrant color in a large 15.6" touch display.
Its crisp, sharp detail and rich color is perfect for editing photos and graphic design with Full HD
or the optional UltraSharp™ 4K Ultra HD (3840x2160). It’s bright with a wide viewing angle,
so you can easily share your eye-catching display.

Dazzling Screen
See incredible detail: The XPS 15 uses the latest in display technology, with an available
IGZO2 panel in stunning UltraSharp™ 4K Ultra HD (3840x2160). With over eight million
pixels, it’s seven times the resolution of standard HD, four times that of Full HD and over 3
million more pixels than the MacBook Pro 15 with Retina display. With such high resolution,
you can zoom in for great detail when editing pictures and video or see more rows and columns
in your excel spreadsheet to enhance productivity.

Light it up: The bright display (400-nit) is easy to see indoors or outside and it’s 100% brighter
than the typical laptop panel (200-nit). The 160-degree wide viewing angle makes it easy to see
photos and videos from almost any angle.

Vibrant color: With a high color gamut of 72% and a 1000:1 contrast ratio (typical), the whitest
white is 1000 times brighter than the blackest black and more colors are represented for a better
experience when working with graphics and color. Colors are rich, saturated and bold.

Stunning strength
Thin and light: The sleek design – starting at less than 4.44lbs/2.01kg8 and 0.3”- 0.7”/8 - 18mm
thin – maximizes your mobility.

Tough stuff: The machined aluminum construction is precision cut from a single block of
aluminum for a sturdy, durable chassis.

Cool under pressure: The carbon fiber base is strong and thin like aluminum (which is why it is
often used in high-performance cars) while also being lighter and cooler to the touch.

Resists life’s “oops” moments: The edge-to-edge Corning® Gorilla® Glass NBT™ display is
up to 10 times more scratch resistant than soda lime glass, so it helps prevent scuffs caused by
handling, cleaning or wiping9.
Powerhouse performance
The XPS 15 is the most powerful XPS laptop ever. It’s packed with performance features to help
you stay productive and entertained, wherever you go.

Get more done: Up to 4th Gen Intel® Core™ processors (Quad Core™ i7) are powerful and
power-efficient, letting you do more and plug in less.

Navigate smoothly: Windows 8.1, designed for a more responsive touch experience, helps you
interact naturally with your content.

Boost your performance: Game faster and see even richer graphics with the optional NVIDIA®
GeForce GT 750 2GB10 graphics (up to 50% faster than last year’s GeForce GT 650M)11.

Maximum performance
Keep going: Power through a long day with up to 11 hours of battery life. Plus, use your XPS 15
to charge your other mobile devices even when it’s off.

Maximum Storage and Responsiveness: Find plenty of room for file storage with a 1TB hard
drive2 plus an mSATA solid-state drive (SSD). Boot and resume12. in seconds with SSD and
Intel® Rapid Start technology13 and get fast access to your favorite multimedia and applications
thanks to the standard hard drive, SSD and Intel® Smart Response.14
 XPS 15 Touch (950)

The Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen laptop (9530, Haswell Edition) was first released in October
2013, is a high-end, premium-class and very potent multimedia notebook. It is the fourth
generation XPS 15, which has taken many of the design elements of the Ivy Bridge Edition XPS
15 but fixes the cooling/throttling, adds a Haswell CPU and an updated 750M NVIDIA GPU,
ditches the optical drive, and on the higher-end SKUs you get an ultra-high resolution
3200x1800 display. Buyers looking for notebooks in this category expect a perfect design,
superior build quality, and lots of power, use it as Windows-based alternative to Apple MacBook
Pro 15. The XPS 15 ships with Windows 8.1 and carries a one-year on-site warranty. Worth
mention is that there are three different models of the new XPS 15 available right now. The base
model XPS 15 comes with a 1920x1080 touchscreen display (it’s not clear if this is a TN panel
or not), 500GB HDD with 32GB SSD cache, dual-core i5-4200H CPU, 8GB RAM, integrated
HD 4400 Graphics, and a 61Wh battery for $1500 (or a 3-year warranty for $1750). Stepping up
to the $1950 XPS 15 will get you the quad-core i7-4702HQ CPU, 3200x1800 PPS (similar to
IPS) touchscreen, 16GB RAM, GT 750M GDDR5 GPU, a 1TB HDD with 32GB SSD cache,
and a 61Wh battery. The high end $2350 edition is mostly the same as the $1950 model but it
dumps HDD storage completely in favor of a 512GB mSATA SSD and adds a larger 91Wh
battery in place of the 2.5” drive. The 2015 update includes an 15.6-inch UltraSharp™ 4K Ultra
HD (3840 x 2160) touch display. The system's QHD+ screen has 10-point touch, and responds
well to standard Windows 8.1 swipes and commands. Edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass NBT covers
the screen. The chiclet-keys of backlight keyboard are matte black and feature a slightly concave
surface area. The 9530 has been criticized for the instability of 802.11ac Wi-Fi.[citation needed]
Currently this model has an issue with respect to an annoying electrical/hissing noise called 'Coil
Whine'. The problem has been reported by a lot of customers on the Dell community forums.[18]

Dell XPS 15 (2015) Review

April 24, 2015 04:00 am

Michael A. Prospero
Reviews Editor
HOW WE TEST LAPTOPS


 THE PROS

Very sharp 4K display; Attractive design; Strong performance; Great audio

 THE CONS

Runs hot

 VERDICT

With a 4K display, the Dell XPS 15 has one of the sharpest screens around--with
performance and looks to match.

4K displays are relatively rare for TVs, and even more so for notebooks -- which is one
of the reasons Dell's refreshed XPS 15 is so interesting. Its crystal-sharp 15-inch touch
screen is a delight for video and photo editors. But, more important, the XPS 15 ($2,549
as configured; starting at $1,599) has the muscle to back it up: a Core i7 processor and
Nvidia GeForce GT 750M graphics. And it's encased in a lovely aluminum and carbon-
fiber shell, making it as -- if not more -- attractive than the MacBook Pro with Retina
display. But is it worth it to spend more than $2K on 4K?

Design
Similar to the MacBook Pro, the XPS 13's lid is made of aluminum but has a darker
finish than Apple's machine. Unlike the smaller XPS 13, which now has an aluminum lid
and undercarriage, the bottom of the XPS 15 remains carbon fiber. Two ridges run
parallel to each other across the width of the bottom, elevating it from the surface of a
table or your lap.

I really like the soft-touch keyboard deck, which felt extremely comfortable on my wrists.
I really like that the all-black keyboard deck is coated in a soft-touch finish. It felt
extremely comfortable on my wrists. The polished stainless-steel trim along the edges is
a nice aesthetic touch, too.
In all, the Dell is more interesting to look at than the MacBook Pro, whose monolithic all-
aluminum design, while attractive, is starting to wear on me.

The Dell XPS 15 has a slightly larger footprint than Apple's notebook and, at 4.6
pounds, is slightly heavier than the 4.4-pound MacBook Pro. Still, it's lighter than the
mostly plastic -- and pedestrian -- 4.8-pound Acer Aspire V15 Nitro.

Display
Packing a quad-HD (3840 x 2160-pixel) touch-screen display, the XPS 15 is one of the
sharpest screens you'll find on a notebook. The MacBook Pro with Retina display is no
slouch, but it has a lower, 2880 x 1800p resolution.
In terms of brightness and gamut, the XPS 15 and the MacBook Pro are pretty evenly
matched. The Dell's display rings in at 320 nits, while Apple's is 317 nits. The Acer V15
came in at a much lower 212 nits.

MORE: Best Laptops

Likewise, the Dell and the Mac can reproduce 88.3 and 89.8 percent of the sRGB
spectrum, respectively. (The Acer scored a near-perfect 97.8 percent.) Where Apple
pulls ahead is accuracy: Its Delta-E score of 1.4 is near-perfect, and much better than
the XPS 15's score of 7.2.

Keyboard And Touchpad

You'll get a near desktoplike experience when typing on the XPS 15's large keyboard.
The keys are well spaced, and the caps have a nice concave shape that cups your
fingertips. The keys have a fairly deep travel of 1.6 mm, and require 63 grams of force
to press.
On the 10FastFingers typing test, I averaged about 60 words per minute on the Dell,
which is close to my desktop score of 60 wpm. Still, I preferred the snappier action on
the MacBook Pro's keys; as a result, I averaged about 66 wpm on the MacBook Pro.

The XPS 15's spacious 4.1 x 3.1-inch touchpad has the same finish as the rest of the
deck. Executing Windows 8 gestures and two-finger scrolling was smooth for the most
part. There were several instances, though, where, instead of scrolling down a page,
the cursor would select icons or text. The soft-touch finish -- similar to that on the rest of
the keyboard deck -- didn't feel as comfortable here, and made for slightly less-accurate
navigation compared to what I defined.experienced with the MacBook Pro's touchpad.

Ports And Webcam

On the left side of the XPS 15 are two USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort, an HDMI port,
and headphone and power jacks. Over on the right are two more USB 3.0 ports and an
SD card reader. It's a nice assortment.
The XPS 15's webcam delivered bright images, but they had a bit of visual noise, which
degraded sharpness.

Performance
It's not just the XPS 15's screen that impresses. Inside the notebook was a 2.3-GHz
Intel Core i7-4712HQ processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB solid-state drive. I had no
trouble playing videos, running scans and browsing the Web simultaneously on this
machine, but in our performance tests, it fell a bit short of the competition.

HOW THE DELL XPS 15 STACKS UP

3DMark Fire Strike
1 of 14
Tests notebook graphics performance.
Dell XPS 15 (2015)
Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition
Category Average (as of 08/31/15)
1981
3723
2807.17
 0
800
1600
2400
3200
4000
4800
 3DMark Fire Strike
 Battery Life

 Bioshock Infinite (high, 1080p)

 Color Accuracy
 Display Brightness (Nits)
 Graphics Performance (3DMark)
 Hard Drive Speed

 Metro Last Light (high, 1080p)

 Overall Performance (Geekbench 3)
 Peacekeeper Browser Test
 Sound Volume
 Spreadsheet Performance
 Sunspider
 World of Warcraft (auto, native)
MORE: Best 2-in-1 Laptop/Tablet Hybrids
On Geekbench 3, which measures overall performance, the XPS 15's score of 11,816
was about 2,500 points higher than the category average of 9,308. However, the
MacBook Pro and the Acer V15 Nitro, both of which also have Core i7 processors,
notched even higher scores of 13,352 and 12,843, respectively.

The XPS 15's 512GB SSD was fast, duplicating 5GB of multimedia files in 33 seconds -
- more than a minute faster than average. Again, though, the Dell was trumped by the
MacBook Pro's PCIe-based flash storage (18 seconds), as well as the Acer's more
conventional 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD combo (25 seconds).

Similarly, the XPS 15 matched 20,000 names and addresses in OpenOffice in 4

minutes and 9 seconds, which is also more than a minute faster than the average but
slower than its closest competitors. The Acer was a few seconds faster (3:55), while the
Mac was a minute faster (3:04).
 Graphics
The Nvidia GeForce GT 750M processor and 2GB of vRAM in the XPS 15 are strong
enough for video editing as well as high-end games, albeit with the settings turned
down.

Heat
One of the few areas where the XPS 15 could improve is heat dissipation. After it
played a Hulu video at full screen for 15 minutes, the underside of the notebook hit 114
degrees Fahrenheit. That's nearly 20 degrees hotter than what we consider acceptable.
The space between the G and H keys was also too warm, at 100 degrees. Only the
touchpad, at 77 degrees, was cooler than our threshold.

Battery Life
Although the configuration has a 91-watt-hour battery -- larger than the 61-Wh batteries
in all other configurations of the XPS 15 -- the review unit lasted 6 hours and 59 minutes
on the Laptop Mag Battery Test.

Configurations
Dell offers four configurations of the XPS 15. The least-expensive one starts at $1,599;
for that, you get an Intel Core i5-4200H processor; 8GB of RAM; a 1TB, 5400-rpm hard
drive; a 32GB SSD; and a 1080p touch-screen display with Intel HD 4600 graphics.

The cheapest model with a 4K display -- if you can call it "cheap" -- will run you $2,149.
You also get an Intel Core i7-4712HQ processor, 16GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce
750M GPU with 2GB of memory.

Ours was the splurge config. At $2,549, this model includes a 512GB SSD and a 91-Wh
battery that's larger than the 61-Wh batteries in the other configurations. This makes the
notebook slightly heavier, but the design is unaffected.

By comparison, the MacBook Pro costs $2,499, and has a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7
processor, 512GB PCIe-based flash storage, 16GB of RAM and Nvidia GeForce GT
750M graphics with 2GB of vRAM.

Bottom Line
Dell's consumer notebooks have really impressed us over the last year, and the XPS 15
is further proof. It has a gorgeous design, an impressive 4K display, and more than
enough performance for photo and video editors. My only concern is the amount of heat
it kicks out, so you'll want to keep it on a desk, rather than on your lap. Although the
XPS 15 costs $50 more than a similarly configured MacBook Pro with Retina display,
the premium is worth it for the higher-resolution touch screen.