The Dell XPS 13 (9300) features the first-ever InfinityEdge display with Gorilla Glass 6 protection.
Find out why we think it’s an incredible ultra-light laptop worthy of our Reviewer’s Choice Award!
Dell XPS 13 (9300) : Featuring The InfinityEdge Display
The Dell XPS 13 (9300) continues the evolution of the XPS 13 line, with an ultra-light chassis built from machined aluminium and woven glass fibre, with Gorilla Glass 6 protection.
With the first-ever InfinityEdge display, the XPS 13 (9300) offers a 13.4-inch display in an 11-inch form factor, that fits neatly on an airplane’s seat tray.
Dell XPS 13 (9300) : Colour Options
Our unit comes in the Frost White colour with an Arctic White woven glass fibre palm rest.
Dell also offers the Platinum Silver colour option, with a Black carbon fiber palm rest.
Dell XPS 13 (9300) : Specifications + Options
| Specifications | XPS 13 9300 |
| Display Size | 13.4-inch |
| Display Options | 4K touch screen (3840 x 2400) Full HD touch screen (1920 x 1200) Full HD non-touch (1920 x 1200) |
| Display Features | WLED backlight 60 Hz refresh rate 500 nits max. brightness 35 ms response time 1200:1 contrast ratio |
| Colour Gamut | 4K : 90% DCI-P3 Full HD : 100% sRGB |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 10 Home |
| CPU + GPU Options | Intel Core i7-1065G7 + Iris Plus Graphics Intel Core i5-1035G1 + UHD Graphics Intel Core i3-1005G1 + UHD Graphics |
| Memory Options | LPDDR4X-3733 (8 / 16 / 32 GB) LPDDR4-3733 (4 GB) |
| Storage Options | PCIe NVMe SSD (512 GB / 1 TB / 2 TB) |
| Audio | Realtek ALC3281-CG audio chip 2 x 2.5 watt speakers Dual microphone array 3.5 mm audio jack |
| Wireless | Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 (2×2) Bluetooth 5.1 |
| External Ports | 2 x Thunderbolt 3 (USB Type C) ports – with Power Delivery and DisplayPort 1 x 3.5 mm audio port 1 x microSD card slot |
| Camera | HD webcam |
| Fingerprint Sensor | Yes, capacitive 500 dpi sensor |
| Keyboard | Backlit keyboard 19.05 x 18.05 mm key pitch |
| Touchpad | 1300 x 722 pixel resolution |
| Battery | 4-cell 52 Whr lithium-ion battery |
| Charger | 45 watt USB Type C charger |
| Dimensions | 296 mm wide 199 mm deep 14.8 mm thick |
| Weight | 1.27 kg (touch screen) 1.20 kg (non-touch) |
Unboxing The Dell XPS 13 (9300) Laptop
The Dell XPS 13 (9300) comes in a premium white cardboard box. Once you fully unbox it, you will find these items :
- Dell XPS 13 (9300) laptop
- Dell USB Type C to USB Type A dongle
- 45 watt charger with integrated USB Type C cable
- Power cord with localised plug
- XPS 13 9300 Quick Start Guide + Safety and Regulatory Information
Dell XPS 13 (9300) : Hands-On Experience!
This Dell XPS 13 (9300) is an eminently thin and light laptop. It offers a 13.4-inch display in an 11-inch form factor that weighs only 1.27 kg, and is less than 15 mm thick.
It easily fits into the smallest laptop bag, and even a large handbag. And when you can fly again, you will love how it fits onto the airplane’s seat tray!
Once you try it out, you will find it hard to go back to regular laptops – you will find them heavy and unwieldy!
Next Page > Dell XPS 13 (9300) : A Closer Look!
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Dell XPS 13 (9300) : A Closer Look!
13.4-inch Display In 11-Inch Form Factor
This Dell XPS 13 (9300) model comes with a 4K UHD+ touch display, with a resolution of 3840 x 2400 pixel, a colour gamut of 90% DCI-P3 and DisplayHDR 400 certification.
The incredibly high resolution and wide colour gamut allow your high resolution photos and HDR content to really pop.
Dell also offers a Full HD+ display, with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels and 100% sRGB colour gamut; in both touch and non-touch options.
All three display options are 25% brighter at 500 nits, and are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 6 against scratches and impact.
Cameras + Security
The thin bezel at the top conceals two cameras – a regular 720p webcam, and an infra-red camera for facial recognition.
So you can either unlock the XPS 13 using the IR camera and Windows Hello, or the fingerprint sensor, which integrated into the power button.
While its 720p webcam may be rather low in resolution, it uses a new 4-element lens for sharper image quality. It also supports temporal noise reduction to improve video quality in low-light conditions.
We hope that Dell would look at upgrading it to a 1080p camera, with a physical or electronics privacy shutter.
Performance
Our Dell XPS 13 (9300) is powered by the Intel Core i7-1065G7 – a 4-core, 8-thread processor with 8 MB of cache and built-in Iris Plus Graphics.
You can opt for a Core i5-1035G1 or the Core i3-1005G1, both of which come with integrated UHD Graphics.
A redesigned cooler keeps things cool, using a single heat pipe and evaporator design with dual condensers and GORE thermal insulation. The hot air is exhausted through the hinge at the back.
It can get a little toasty from the hot exhaust when you use it on your lap, especially if you’re doing compute-intensive tasks like rendering videos.
It also comes with 16 GB of dual-channel LPDDR4X memory running at 3733 MHz. The memory is soldered onto the motherboard and cannot be upgraded.
Our unit came with a 1 TB SK hynix PC611 PCIe NVMe SSD, but you can opt for a smaller 512 GB SSD, or a larger 2 TB SSD.
Ports
Due to its ultra-slim profile – 14.8 mm at its thickest point, the XPS 13 has very limited ports.
On the left side, you will find a microSD card reader; as well as a single Thunderbolt 3 (USB Type C) port, which supports Power Delivery and DisplayPort output
On the right side, you will find a 3.5 mm microphone and headphone combo port, with a second Thunderbolt 3 (USB Type C) port, which also supports Power Delivery and DisplayPort output.
You can plug the USB Type C charging cable into either Thunderbolt 3 port. But unless you are using it on-the-go, you really only have one free port to use.
The good news is Dell actually bundles the XPS 13 (9300) with a free USB Type C to USB Type A dongle, so you can use your USB Type A drives and devices (including cables) with it.
Keyboard + Touchpad
The Dell XPS (9300) comes an edge-to-edge keyboard, and a 17% larger touchpad for maximum working comfort. The keyboard is backlit, and comes with larger key caps!
It definitely offers a far superior typing experience to the horrible butterfly switch keyboard used in Apple MacBook Pro laptops.
[twenty20 img1=”43631″ img2=”43632″ offset=”0.5″]Connectivity
Our XPS 13 (9300) comes with the Killer AX1650 module, which offers Wi-Fi 6 connectivity with 2×2 antennas, and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity.
It is much too thin to support a LAN port, but you can add LAN connectivity using a USB-C dongle.
[twenty20 img1=”43626″ img2=”43627″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Top” after=”Bottom”]Audio
The two long stripes on both sides of the XPS 13 are not cooling vents, but ports for its 2.5 watt stereo speakers, which are tuned with Waves MaxxAudio Pro.
Its 3.5 mm microphone / headphone combo jack is also optimised with the 360-degree Waves NX 3D virtual surround sound with head tracking.
Finally, its dual microphone array is powered by Waves MaxxVoice Pro, which supports VOIP and is Cortana Farfield-capable.
Next Page > XPS 13 (9300) Performance, Verdict + Award
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Dell XPS 13 (9300) : Performance
Our Dell XPS 13 (9300) is powered by the 15-watt Intel Core i7-1065G7 (Ice Lake) with 4 cores and 8 threads, and Iris Plus Graphics with 64 Execution Units.
It comes with 8 MB of cache, and has a 1.3 GHz base frequency that ramps up to 3.5 GHz during intensive tasks.
Our review sample came with 16 GB LPDDR4X-3733 dual-channel memory, and a 1 TB SK hynix PC611 PCIe NVMe SSD.
Work Performance : PCMark 10
The Intel Core i7-1065G7 is a 25 watt processor that can be configured to run at a lower TDP of 15 watt – to improve battery life and reduce thermal output.
At the full 25 watt TDP, it should deliver PCMark 10 scores in excess of 4700. It is obvious now that Dell configured it for the cooler 15 watt TDP. This is why benchmarks are important.
This makes the Dell XPS 13 (9300) about 7.6% slower than the HUAWEI MateBook X Pro, which uses the Intel Core i7-10510U processor.
Gaming Performance : 3DMark Time Spy
The integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics sounds powerful on paper – with 64 Execution Units – but it is only about as fast as the NVIDIA GeForce MX130 / GeForce 940MX.
So this is most definitely NOT a gaming laptop, although you should have no problem playing older games and games that are not 3D graphics-intensive like DOTA 2.
Battery Life : YouTube + Modern Office
The Dell XPS 13 (9300) comes with a 4-cell smart lithium-ion battery that is rated for 52 Whr.
Dell claims a battery life of up to 18 hours and 49 minutes with the Full HD+ display, and up to 12 hours and 13 minutes with the 4K UHD+ display.
In our general use, we have no problem working a full day on it without recharging, which makes it really convenient when travelling.
That said, we locked the brightness at 50% – higher than the average of 40% – to see how it performs in these worst-case scenarios :
YouTube Streaming
The Dell XPS 13 (9300) lasted 8 hours 15 minutes streaming YouTube videos in theatre mode using WiFi, before its battery dropped to 10%.
PCMark 10 : Modern Office
The Dell XPS 13 (9300) lasted 6 hours 36 minutes before it powered off while running the Modern Office benchmark.
Battery : Recharging Speed
Its 65 watt fast charger took about 52.5 minutes to hit the mid-point (55%), but 2 hours 23.5 minutes to fully recharge its battery from 10%.
Here are the times it takes to recharge from 10% :
- 15% – 5 minutes 57 seconds
- 20% – 11 minutes 53 seconds
- 25% – 17 minutes 45 seconds
- 30% – 23 minutes 22 seconds
- 35% – 29 minutes 25 seconds
- 40% – 35 minutes 8 seconds
- 45% – 41 minutes 22 seconds
- 50% – 46 minutes 56 seconds
- 55% – 52 minutes 39 seconds
- 60% – 58 minutes 27 seconds
- 65% – 64 minutes 13 seconds
- 70% – 70 minutes 15 seconds
- 75% – 76 minutes
- 80% – 81 minutes 58 seconds
- 85% – 89 minutes 41 seconds
- 90% – 100 minutes 50 seconds
- 95% – 118 minutes 45 seconds
- 100% – 143 minutes 20 seconds
This gives it a battery life : recharging time ratio of 3.45 : 1 for video streaming, and 2.76 : 1 for office work.
As a rule of thumb, you will need to recharge its battery about 22 minutes for every hour of battery life.
Dell XPS 13 (9300) : Verdict + Award
The Dell XPS 13 (9300) is a really great ultra-light laptop for people who are always on-the-go.
It packs serious processing power, memory and a huge SSD with the latest wireless connectivity built-in, in a very thin and light package.
It is less than 15 mm at its thickest point, and weighs less than 1.3 kg. But this is something you have to hold in your hand to actually get a feel of how much engineering went into the XPS 13.
Even the latest 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro, powered by the new Apple M1 SoC, is larger, thicker at 15.6 mm and weighs more at 1.4 kg!
The extremely thin profile offers some challenges to first time users – limited physical ports. Yet the XPS 13 (9300) managed to squeeze in an extra microSD card reader over the new 13-inch MacBook Pro (M1).
Even so, you will have to live with just two USB Type C ports – one of which is not available when you recharge its battery. Fortunately, the XPS 13 (9300) comes with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 wireless connectivity.
Thankfully, Dell threw in a free USB-C to USB-A dongle, so at least you have ready access to your USB Type A drives and devices out-of-the-box.
Security-conscious users will love the fingerprint sensor and IR camera, which allows for easy and secure logins. However, the webcam lacks a physical shutter, and the lid clearance is too tight to safely use a third-party shutter.
As far as battery life is concerned, the XPS 13 (9300) will last more than full day’s work without recharging. After a while, you will get used to leaving the office without the charger!
All-in-all, the Dell XPS 13 (9300) is an engineering marvel that must be experienced to truly understand. If you want the very best Windows 10 ultra-light laptop money can buy, this should be right at the top of the list.
That is why we wholeheartedly award it our Reviewer’s Choice Award!
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Dell for sending us this review unit, and making us part of the #DellInsideCircle
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