Dell XPS 15z: Sincerely Flattering
by Jarred Walton on September 2, 2011 1:30 AM ESTDell XPS 15z General Performance
Given the components, there aren’t many surprises in the performance metrics. The combination of i7-2620M CPU and GT 525M GPU delivers a solid showing. Here’s how things break down, for those that like charts. We’ve highlighted the 15z in bright green, the XPS 15 in black, an AMD A8-3500M in red, and the Toshiba L775D A6-3400M in orange. We’ve also included some results with the XPS 15z running alternate modes in dark green (e.g. using the IGP for PCMark 7 or testing at 1080p at medium details in the games).
Starting with PCMark 7, the 15z places about where you’d expect, though it’s interesting to note once again how Intel’s HD 3000—and more importantly Quick Sync—boost performance in several areas to result in a 15% increase in overall performance. NVIDIA’s latest drivers appear to better recognize when to defer to the HD 3000, but we forced all of the tests to run on the GT 525M or the HD 3000 for the above results. As expected, the dual-core CPU generally finishes behind quad-core offerings, and anything with an SSD walks away with the performance crown. We’ll see the SSD factor once more in PCMark Vantage below, while the other benchmarks are CPU-centric.
Interestingly enough, PCMark Vantage actually puts the 15z ahead of several other systems with quad-core CPUs. Either the test doesn’t scale with more threads as well as the latest iteration, or some driver updates are helping the 15z to surpass the competition—or perhaps a little of both. The single-threaded Cinebench result also confirms that the 2620M is a very fast CPU for lightly threaded workloads, while the remaining multi-threaded tests let the quad-core Sandy Bridge laptops spread their wings.
Wrapping up with some synthetic graphics tests, the GT 525M generally comes in just slightly behind the GT 540M but ahead of Llano’s HD 6620G and HD 6520G. AMD’s Radeon HD 6630M, incidentally, tends to offer slightly better performance than the GT 540M, at least when there’s enough CPU performance backing it. We’ll have a closer look at an Intel CPU with the HD 6630M in an upcoming review. So far, there aren’t any surprises—unless you consider the fact that the GT 540M is barely any faster than the GT 525M to be a revelation?
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FlyBri - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
I'm looking for a new 15.6" laptop with a 1080p screen, and this fits the bill better than any other. Too bad the company is horrible -- every department -- support, customer service, executive customer service, etc. I won't bore everyone with my whole ordeal, but lets say that they refused to do the right thing numerous times, even with the BBB involved, and I had to take them to small claims court. I was a loyal Dell customer for years before that too. So be warned people -- the laptop might be pretty good, but if you run into any issues...watch out.tipoo - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
Honestly I think the horror reports about Dell's customer service are mostly just repeated by people who have never experienced it in the last three-ish years. Their support has been fine to me. I had a Studio 15 with a flickering screen, and not only did they fix it in three days and ship it back in that time, they upgraded me to the 1080p screen two models up from mine for free, under standard support.jabber - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
Yeah its been good to me too. I had a bit of the A key on my Dell laptop flake off after 10 months hard use.I just called up to chance my arm in getting a new keyboard.
Less than 24 hours later I had an engineer sitting at my desk and 5 mins later a new keyboard fitted.
Nice one!
seapeople - Saturday, September 3, 2011 - link
I think people expect too much of Dell support.If your Dell breaks or malfunctions in any way within warranty, you simply call Dell and tell them the problem without screaming bloody murder and they fix it for you.
If your Dell breaks one week out of warranty then you're out of luck.
If you call Dell to figure out which one of their 50 computer configurations will come with four RAM slots versus two RAM slots without you having to actually pay for an amount of RAM that requires four slots... then they'll probably tell you something like none of their computers have four RAM slots and their 12GB RAM offering comes with two 6GB sticks of RAM.
You just have to have the right expectations.
robinthakur - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
What is it with people simply lifting the design work of Jonathan Ives for Apple? First Samsung with its imitation products, then Asus in its Ultra thin MBA ripoffs, and now Dell. Does a company as big as Dell think it can get away with selling what might as well be a chinese MBP clone? Absolutely disgusting behaviour, they and their 'designers' should be ashamed. Whatever happened to originality?robinthakur - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
Oh and having read to the end of the review, major shame on Anandtech for actually rewarding this artisitic fraud with an Editors Choice award. When I saw the photo on the homepage, I did a double take because I thought it was a MBP. If Apple don't sue over this they are crazy, it is far more similar to a MBP than a Galaxy S2 is to an iP4. Theft is theft however you slice it an yes all Laptops have screens keyboards etc. but the MBA and MBP did not end up looking the way they did by accident and neither did this sorry excuse for an original product.Uritziel - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
LOL, that's hilarious. Someone doesn't know how design patents work or what theft is. If the world worked that way, Apple (and so many other companies) wouldn't be around today.TEAMSWITCHER - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
Apple was the first company to put the pointing device in front of the keyboard on a laptop, and today all laptops are made that way. The problem with obvious patents are that there is a very thin line bewteen an obvious idea and a patentable one. According to Forbes magazine Apple is the fifth most innovative company on the Planet. Microsoft is like 80 something. Fan boys like to hate, but the real world knows that Apple is at the forefront of techno-industrial design. People who say otherwise are simply wrong. I don't like design patents, but every company needs them to protect their design works. In the grand scheme, they are at least shorter that copyrights and trademarks....Dustin Sklavos - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
A good idea is a good idea, period, end of discussion. Ignoring the BS that Apple pulled on Samsung in European courts, some of the decisions these big companies make take cues from the smart design choices of Jonathan Ive (no "S"). Why reinvent the wheel when someone else already made a great wheel? You might as well accuse Intel of ripping Ive off with their ultrabook initiative.I think some of the differences designers make feel arbitrary instead of just authentically better for the end product. But if someone makes a good call, why shouldn't the industry follow suit?
HMTK - Friday, September 2, 2011 - link
Bla, bla and more bla. Sorry, you're the typical Apple apologist. Guess why Apple is among the first with very thin laptops or a given design. Not because they're particularly good but because they can price their products high enough to make it worth their while. Others follow when technology and materials get cheaper so that the average Joe can buy it. For my needs I haven't seen a single Apple product with an acceptable price/performance/features/quality ratio. I'd choose affordable "imitation" over overpriced design any given day.Perhaps think the world should be held back because an overvalued company like Apple has designed something a certain way. I don't think so.