Dell XPS 13 (9345) review: Is the Copilot+ variant a winner?

Dell XPS 13 (9345)

MSRP $1,300.00

“The Snapdragon X chip inside makes the Dell XPS 13 even higher.”

Execs

• Glorious construct high quality
• Skinny and lightweight
• Quick productiveness efficiency
• Superb battery life
• High quality IPS show

Cons

• Some controversial design components
• Costlier than Intel mannequin
• No headphone jack

The latest Home windows on Arm platform based mostly round Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chipset is off and working. A lot of the main laptop computer producers have launched Microsoft Copilot+ PCs, with notable machines just like the HP OmniBook X and Microsoft Floor Laptop computer 7 providing sturdy efficiency and superb battery life.

Dell has additionally joined within the fray, with the XPS 13 9345 utilizing the Snapdragon X Elite and sporting just about precisely the identical design because the Intel model. I discovered it to have the identical strengths and weaknesses, with some further velocity and longevity thrown into the combo.

Specs and configurations

The XPS 13 9345 begins at $1,300 for a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 chipset, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 13.4-inch FHD+ IPS show. The laptop computer will be configured with as much as 64GB of RAM, with a soar to 32GB being a further $200 and a bump as much as 64GB costing $600. It’s $100 to improve to a 1TB SSD, and $300 to improve to 2TB of storage. A QHD+ IPS panel prices $300, whereas upgrading to a 3K OLED show prices $500. The costliest XPS 13 will run you $2,500.

That makes the XPS 13 a really costly Home windows on Arm laptop computer, with the HP OmniBook X and Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x each costing round $1,100, albeit with much less RAM and storage and with the Lenovo together with an OLED show. The Microsoft Floor Laptop computer 7 is as costly because the XPS 13, whereas the Apple MacBook Air M3 begins off at $1,099 and maxes out at $2,299 with 24GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD.

It needs to be famous that the present Intel model of the XPS 13 (9340) is $150 cheaper when equally configured and is even provided at a less expensive beginning configuration that prices $1,099.

Design

I might copy the a superb portion of the textual content from our final two XPS 13 evaluations into this one and save myself a bunch of time. I gained’t try this, however the truth is that this: Nothing has modified within the XPS 13’s design because the XPS 13 Plus launched Dell’s new ultramodern XPS design paradigm. Dell doesn’t actually change the underlying XPS design a lot from era to era till main overhauls, and within the case of the XPS 13, the corporate has doubled down on that method.

I simply completed reviewing the 2024 Intel model of the XPS 13, and it was sitting subsequent to this one as I used to be working by means of my benchmarks. I additionally had an XPS 13 Plus readily available (which I simply shipped again), and it’s a superb factor I acquired the black model of the Snapdragon mannequin as a result of I might need gotten confused and put the unsuitable one within the field. I imply, it’s unattainable to inform the 2 silver machines aside with out utilizing a magnifying glass on the label or firing them up and in search of the chipset in Settings.

The all-aluminum chassis has the identical modern, angular aesthetic that goals for a minimalist look, and while you open up the lid, you’ll discover the identical zero-lattice keyboard, LED contact perform keys, and all-glass palm relaxation with hidden haptic touchpad. It’s unusual to assume these options have been round for a few years, as a result of they nonetheless appear extremely new and recent. No less than, visibly. The extremely skinny bezels full the trendy look. The XPS 13 seems to be much more up to date than every other 13-inch laptop computer, together with the MacBook Air M3 and the Microsoft Floor Laptop computer 7.

And the XPS 13 is simply as inflexible as all the time. Of all these laptops, Dell managed to make the one which simply feels essentially the most stable. Even the MacBook Air M3, whereas as dense and splendid as ordinary because of Apple’s fastidious manufacturing, has a barely versatile lid. The XPS 13 doesn’t. Nothing bends or twists. Effectively accomplished, Dell.

Keyboard and touchpad

Nonetheless, whereas the XPS 13’s design is definitely forward-looking, does it really achieve being higher? In my view, it doesn’t. Let’s begin with the worst offender, the row of LED contact perform keys. On the 13-inch mannequin (and never a lot the 14- and 16-inch fashions that share the identical digital keys), Dell has the excuse {that a} bodily row of perform keys would have taken up an excessive amount of area. I suppose that makes some sense. However, virtually no person goes to truly like the selection, as a result of there’s no haptic suggestions to let you recognize that you just’ve really activated a key. And you need to bodily have a look at the keyboard when it’s worthwhile to select a perform key. It’s not a superb answer.

The zero-lattice keyboard has massive keycaps, however completely no key spacing. The switches are gentle and crisp, with simply sufficient journey, however I nonetheless discovered myself checking my finger placement as a result of I couldn’t run my fingers over any edges to orient myself. I’d say the keyboard is a little bit of a wash total, and I a lot desire Apple’s Magic Keyboard and even Lenovo’s barely refreshed keyboard on the Yoga Slim 7x.

The haptic touchpad works nice, so far as haptic touchpads go. It’s fast and responsive, and it does a superb job of offering suggestions that’s quiet and exact. There’s only one drawback: you’ll be able to’t see the sting, and also you’ll most likely end up making an attempt to swipe and press on the palm relaxation at one level or one other. I’ve used the XPS 13 for a while now and I nonetheless get tripped up. Dell wanted to incorporate some LED outlines or one thing, as a result of whereas the XPS 14 and XPS 16 have touchpads which can be massive sufficient that this drawback doesn’t typically current itself, it nonetheless occurs to me on the XPS 13.

These are actually superior fashionable options. The issue is, they simply don’t work all that properly in follow.

Connectivity and webcam

The XPS 13 has simply two ports. On the Intel fashions, they’re two USB-C with Thunderbolt 4. On the Snapdragon mannequin, they’re each USB4. Finally, USB4 gives many of the identical efficiency and performance of Thunderbolt 4, however they’re appropriate with Thunderbolt 3. That’s a distinction to bear in mind.

In fact, two ports aren’t a whole lot of connectivity, even for a 13-inch laptop computer. Whereas the MacBook Air M3 additionally has simply two (Thunderbolt 4) ports, it additionally has the MagSafe 3 connection for energy. Plug within the XPS 13 energy adapter and also you’re left with only one port free. And there’s no 3.5mm audio jack, one thing that actually makes little sense. Preserve some dongles and hubs helpful. No less than wi-fi connectivity is totally updated, with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

The webcam is a 1080p model, and it’s effective. The infrared digital camera works properly with Home windows 11 Whats up’s facial recognition. And the Snapdragon X Elite’s Neural Processing Unit (NPU) runs at greater than the 40 tera operations per second (TOPS) required by Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC specification. Proper now, the AI options are restricted to enhanced Microsoft Studio Results, Dwell Captions, and Cocreator. The first Copilot+ function, Recall, is on maintain.

Efficiency

The XPS 13 (9345) makes use of Qualcomm’s third-fastest Snapdragon X Elite chipset, the X1E-80-100, with 12 cores (eight efficiency and 4 environment friendly) working at 3.4GHz and a dual-core increase to 4.0GHz. These specs are decrease than these of the Snapdragon X1E-84-100 within the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 16, which runs at 3.8GHz and has a 4.2GHz dual-core increase.

At this level, we’re restricted within the benchmarks we are able to run given restricted Home windows on Arm compatibility. Within the benchmarks we are able to run natively, the XPS 13 9345 was surprisingly fast. It’s quite a bit sooner than the Floor Laptop computer 7 with the identical chipset, and even sooner than the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 16 in Cinebench 2024. It was quite a bit sooner than the Intel mannequin — 26% sooner in Cinebench 2024 in single-core and 44% sooner in multi-core. It was additionally sooner than the MacBook Air M3 in multi-core (57%), however slower in single-core (17%), with the MacBook held again in sustained efficiency by its lack of energetic cooling and really skinny chassis.

Its Adreno GPU efficiency was consistent with the chipset, and the M3 GPU cores within the MacBook Air M3 have been the quickest within the 3DMark Wild Life Excessive benchmark amongst our comparability group. None of those laptops are bona fide gaming machines. Observe that the Apple M3 chipset has CPU optimizations for numerous creativity processes like video encoding and decoding, which together with the sooner GPU, makes the MacBook Air M3 a significantly sooner laptop computer for creators.

However for demanding productiveness customers, the XPS 13 9345 is a really quick laptop computer — to be honest, that’s true for all of the laptops on this comparability group. Given the Qualcomm chipset’s further effectivity, the XPS 13 9345 ought to run cooler than the Intel mannequin, which might get fairly sizzling even with lighter workloads. That’s an added bonus.

Battery life

Because the introduction of the Snapdragon X Elite, Microsoft and its companions have printed some spectacular battery life guarantees for the brand new chipset. Apparently, the outcomes I’ve seen in advertising supplies have all been based mostly on looping video, which is the least demanding of frequent battery assessments. It’s additionally the take a look at seemingly most impacted by the show’s energy draw relative to different parts.

We additionally run a web-browsing take a look at, which is barely extra demanding and extra indicative of typical real-world utilization. The assessments we normally run that finest duplicate productiveness workloads, such because the PCMark 10 Full battery benchmark, don’t run but on Home windows on Arm. In an effort to take a look at every laptop computer’s effectivity when working demanding workflows, we use the Cinebench 2024 multi-core benchmark. Every of the laptops in our comparability group runs at roughly 100% efficiency on this benchmark when unplugged.

Unsurprisingly, the XPS 13 9345 and different Snapdragon X Elite laptops had spectacular battery life when looping our take a look at video, even higher than the very environment friendly MacBook Air M3. All the comparability machines have been working IPS panels apart from the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7, Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 16, and Asus Zenbook 14 Q425 that had OLED shows — they usually confirmed much less battery life on this take a look at. The Zenbook and XPS 13 shows have been Full HD+ whereas the others have been all higher-res, one other essential issue. What was stunning was that the XPS 13 9340 Intel mannequin additionally obtained superb battery life on this take a look at, as did the Zenbook. All of those outcomes are a lot better than most different Intel Meteor Lake laptops, which are available at 14 hours or much less.

Nonetheless, within the web-browsing take a look at, the Snapdragon laptops fell off significantly. They’re higher than the eight hours or so of most Intel laptops, however properly behind the MacBook Air M3’s 19.5 hours. And once more, the XPS 13 9345 wasn’t considerably longer-lasting than the XPS 13 (9340) and Zenbook 14 Q425. Within the Cinebench 2024 take a look at, the Snapdragon machines weren’t considerably extra environment friendly than Intel laptops. The MacBook Air M3, in the meantime, lasted significantly longer.

The underside line is that the Snapdragon X Elite chipset doesn’t appear to be as a lot of a battery life standout as we’d have hoped, at the very least in these laptops. We’ll must do extra testing, and the XPS 13 9345 nonetheless had superb battery life. However the MacBook Air M3, the XPS 13’s most essential competitor, stays manner forward — at the very least, when it’s doing actual work.

Show and audio

I reviewed the XPS 13 9345 with a 13.4-inch 16:10 Full HD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS show. There are additionally QHD+ (2560 x 1600) IPS and 3K (2880 x 1800) OLED choices. I discovered the show to be adequate for productiveness work, with greater than sufficient brightness and colours, however with much less textual content sharpness than I like. The benefit of the show is best battery life, at the very least throughout the constraints mentioned above.

My colorimeter favored this show fairly a bit. Brightness was wonderful at 536 nits and distinction was among the many finest I’ve seen for a laptop computer IPS show at 1,940:1. Our baselines for good shows have been 300 nits and 1,000:1, and we have to modify each as a result of most IPS shows at present exceed these measurements. Colours have been nearer to the IPS common, although, at 99% of sRGB, 77% of AdobeRGB, and 77% of DCI-P3, whereas accuracy was superb at a DeltaE of 1.08 (lower than 1.0 is taken into account wonderful).

Actually, it is a nice show for productiveness workflows. Creators and media shoppers gained’t be too impressed with the colours, although.

Dell constructed a pleasant little sound system into the XPS 13 9345, with 4 audio system, together with two tweeters and two woofers. Issues get a lot loud and there’s solely somewhat distortion at most quantity. Flip issues right down to round 85% and also you’ll get pleasure from clear mids and highs. It’s arduous to get a small laptop computer like this to supply a whole lot of bass, so that you’ll need some headphones for music and motion motion pictures.

There’s quite a bit to love right here, however not as a lot as you may anticipate

The change to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite was supposed to offer a critical uptick in efficiency and effectivity over Intel’s Meteor Lake chipset. Surprisingly, whereas the efficiency is definitely there, battery life remained nearer than I might have imagined. It’s honest to say that you just gained’t get higher battery life than the Intel model of the XPS 13, and the MacBook Air M3 stays fairly far forward.

On the identical time, the XPS 13 9345 ran quite a bit cooler, which is a serious profit. That alone is sufficient to warrant critical consideration. Then once more, there’ll all the time be some extent of some uncertainty over compatibility with Home windows on Arm, and it does price an additional $150. I believe that’s definitely worth the improve, nevertheless it will not be a simple selection.

Both manner, I can say that if you would like a small, gentle, and quick laptop computer, the XPS 13 (9345) is a stable selection.