The Dell XPS 15 9550 Review: Infinity Edge Lineup Expands
by Brett Howse on March 4, 2016 8:00 AM ESTBattery Life and Charge Time
The XPS 15 is available with two battery sizes. If you opt for the base model, it comes with a 2.5” SATA drive and a 56 Wh battery. If you opt for a device with the M.2 SSD, the extra space taken up by the 2.5” drive is replaced with more battery cells, giving you 84 Wh of capacity. It also adds about 0.5 lbs of weight to the device, but if you are going to be working away from an outlet, the SSD model should give much better battery life.
But, with the high resolution display, and wider color gamut, battery life is going to take a hit compared to something with a more traditional display. Since Dell sent us the UHD model, that’s the one we have to test.
To test battery life we have two tests. The light test involves light web browsing, with the display set to 200 nits brightness. The heavy test increases the pages loaded by the browser, adds a 1 MB/s file download, and includes movie playback. All testing is done with Edge as the browser.
Light Battery
The XPS 15, with its quad-core CPU and high resolution display, can’t keep up with the best devices for battery life, even on light usage. At just under 7.5 hours, it is well under the XPS 13 and Surface Book results, despite the larger battery. It is also below the XPS 15 9530 results, and that device has a 91 Wh battery and 3200x1800 display.
Heavy Battery
With the extra CPU workload, as well as constant network use, the battery life falls to just 4:23. This is exactly the same as the XPS 15 9530 score, so there is certainly some more efficiency because the display is higher resolution and the battery is slightly smaller on the new 9550 model. It’s still not a great result though.
Normalized Battery
By removing the battery size from the equation, we can get an overall feel for platform efficiency. The XPS 15, despite the higher resolution display, does outperform the XPS 15 9530 on the heavy results, but the UHD display certainly hurts it compared to other devices. The Surface Book with discrete GPU is over double the efficiency, but with a dual-core processor. The Lenovo Y700 has the same processor and GPU, but a much lower resolution display, and it comes out quite a bit ahead of the XPS 15. For those that are normally plugged in, the UHD display is fantastic, but be warned, it’s a big hit on battery life.
Charge Time
The other side of battery life is how long it takes to charge. With an 84 Wh battery, this is a significant amount of capacity to top up. Luckily Dell ships the XPS 15 with a 130-Watt power adapter.
At 148 minutes, the XPS 15 charges very quickly. At least with the less than stellar battery life, once you do plug it in, it gets back on its feet pretty quickly.
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close - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
What I'm telling you is that if that is your honest opinion then you weren't reading Anandtech 5 years ago and that you lost the gamble when you assumed nobody will catch on to your BS.And because when I say something I like to make sure I have a sure way of showing it (not just BS) here it is: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridg...
I would let you draw the conclusion all by yourself but I am confident now that you will be unable to. That is a review for a motherboard with the infamous P67 chipset that was recalled (!) just 4 weeks after the review was written. And yes, this article is 5 years old. And yes, it was written by Anand himself.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers...
Nightwolf1 - Monday, March 14, 2016 - link
Couldn’t be more true!Look here "Issues":
http://www.ultrabookreview.com/10234-dell-xps-15-9...
HurleyBird - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
Try selecting high performance power mode in Nvidia's drivers. That's how I eventually was able to fix the frequent crashes I was experiencing with the GTX 960m.milli - Monday, March 7, 2016 - link
Yeah, the Dell driver and performance mode in nV-cp are the only way to get it running for more than 5 minutes. I also installed the beta Intel 4380 video drivers but I haven't yet tested Optimus again.euskalzabe - Friday, March 4, 2016 - link
Guys, seriously. Shoot RAW pictures and process them. The distortion in many of the pictures you posted gives Anandtech an embarrassingly low-level image. This is not a blog ran on grandma's basement. Shoot RAW, process with PhotoShop or similar, get rid of those distortions. Many people would be so put off by the low quality of the image that they won't consider the product. It's just so unprofessional.rpg1966 - Friday, March 4, 2016 - link
Which pictures are you referring to? But regardless, anyone who is put off a machinelike this based on a bit of distortion in a review image is probably in the wrong market.euskalzabe - Friday, March 4, 2016 - link
For instance:http://images.anandtech.com/doci/10116/SizeCompari...
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/10116/KeyboardB.j...
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/10116/Bottom.JPG
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/10116/Open_678x45...
Don't give me that "wrong market" excuse. Correcting distortion takes 1 click, 2 seconds on Photoshop. Many cameras by now just do it automatically if you are shooting JPEG, all it takes is activating it. It takes minimal to zero effort. I don't know what field you work in, but any respected company that has any sort of visual (printed, digital, etc) presence would never accept the IQ I've been seeing in Anandtech since Anand left (which occurred occasionally before that too). It's such an easy fix. Not doing it is incredibly unprofessional.
nathanddrews - Friday, March 4, 2016 - link
I would argue that anyone that buys a product based upon how good it looks in pictures is the exact opposite of a professional. Also, it's not AT's responsibility to sell the products.I have noticed a marked increase in "straight from the hip" photography on AT as well, but I can't imagine a professional - to use your words - not buying a laptop based upon a review website's photos. If you were to order this laptop from Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, or Dell, they would have plenty of stock, photoshopped photos or renders to make it look all pretty and shiny. If you go into a store to buy it, you can see it on the shelf.
euskalzabe - Friday, March 4, 2016 - link
Clearly you guys don't work with media materials. Most editors would not accept these standards. At the end of the day, that's what it's about: quality standards. Sure, we don't have to correct distortion, but what does it say to the world when you choose not to do something that takes 1 second of your life to improve your visual standards? Whatever your opinion, there is proof - just look online for articles on the matter - that these little details make a difference in people's perception.Frankly, I've long believed there's a reason The Verge has become so popular so fast and it mainly has to do with public image. Check, for example, how they showcase this XPS15 in their review:
https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-x0jfGXnaZuQRTbXG...
Feel that difference. Accurate representation of the product. Not distorted. The editors interest in their visual presence has an impact not just on how readers view the product, but also how they view the website. You're careless in one glaringly obvious aspect, who knows what else you're being serious about? It's about professionalism. I respect your opinion that focusing on properly processed (not just good looking, there's more to this than subjective evaluation) pictures is not professional, but I can tell you, the market very clearly has decided otherwise.
Don't forget AT is not just read by professionals that look for HW specs VS value. There are many consumers that give life to these ads. Consumers that are as influenced by visual presence as anybody else. It's not about convincing people, it's about aspiring to quality standards. When you can't be bothered to implement a dead-easy fix... that says very little of your interest/effort in other areas of your professional venue. In my professional experience, visual presence has proven to be very important and judged both consciously and unconsciously.
shadarlo - Friday, March 4, 2016 - link
If you think the link you just posted makes this laptop dramatically more appealing then you sir live in some alternate universe than the majority of the population. You might be insanely good in your field, but you have lost the forest for the trees.I honestly don't even like the picture you just linked to. As a non-designer I think the shot looks cheap and bland.