Dell XPS 15z: Sincerely Flattering
by Jarred Walton on September 2, 2011 1:30 AM ESTDell XPS 15z Battery Life: Up to 7.5 Hours
It’s interesting to look at battery life for what should otherwise be similar laptops, as the results aren’t always what you’d expect. Consider NVIDIA’s Optimus Technology, which allows the discrete GPU to complete shut off when it’s not in use. Given that the dGPU isn’t using any power in such laptops, in theory we should see consistent relative battery life across all Sandy Bridge (or Second-Generation Core i-series if you prefer the official name) laptops—with dual-core offerings doing somewhat better than quad-core laptops. A look at the results in Mobile Bench however proves that this doesn’t always happen.
ASUS’ K53E uses an i5-2520M and manages 6.43 min/Wh in the Internet test, but the Toshiba M645 only gets 5.23 min/Wh. On the quad-core side of things, the initial Sandy Bridge test laptop got 5.86 min/Wh—a mark yet to be equaled by any shipping SNB quad-core laptops! Alienware’s M14x gets 5.02 min/Wh in the same test while the Dell XPS 15 L502x only scores 4.73 min/Wh (or 4.8 min/Wh with a larger 90Wh battery). There’s certainly variance among the laptops, more than we’d attribute to LCD size or other factors. The question then is where the XPS 15z places, and thankfully it does much better than the XPS 15.
Dell’s XPS 15z not only beats the XPS 15, but it also leads most other Optimus enabled SNB laptops that we’ve tested. The ASUS K53E still wins out for dual-core SNB laptops (it’s not shown in the above charts, but you can see the comparison in Bench), but the only other SNB system to match/exceed the 15z is the Alienware M11x R3—a smaller laptop with a ULV processor. Idle battery life is over 7.5 hours, and if you want to drop the LCD below 100 nits (we tested at 33% brightness), you could probably hit eight hours. For more reasonable use cases, Internet browsing battery life is still an impressive 6+ hours, and H.264 playback from the HDD lasts over four hours.
In terms of modern laptops (e.g. excluding Atom netbooks and older CULV offerings), the only laptops that get better relative battery life than the XPS 15z are equipped with Brazos or Llano, or the already mentioned ASUS K53E and Alienware M11x R3. That puts the 15z in good company as far as operating off the mains is concerned. Of course, if we want to bring OS X into the picture, you’ll still have a hard time matching the 9+ hours the MBP13/15 can reach, but run Windows 7 on a MacBook and you’ll get substantially worse battery life. Unless you want/need more than six hours unplugged time, the XPS 15z should have you covered—at least until your battery starts wearing out and you have to pry open the chassis.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
76 Comments
View All Comments
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.