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00:00The very first laptop I ever did a review on, on this channel, was the 2015 XPS 13.
00:09It was the first thin-bezeled laptop, I think it was actually one of the very first thin-bezeled devices.
00:13And over the years, four years later, we now have what I would consider basically the most perfect XPS 13 that Dell could make.
00:21This is now on its fourth iteration, and it is a device that a lot of companies have learned from,
00:27and at this point in time, there are so many thin-bezeled Ultrabooks on the market.
00:31But I still think that the 2019 XPS 13 is one of the best options that you can get for just overall 13-inch Ultrabooks.
00:38So, they've done two major changes this year.
00:41The first one is this camera up at the top of the screen, it used to be on the bottom, like this is last year's version.
00:46For many years, they've been running these webcams that were always on the bottom of the screen,
00:50and they're just, I don't know, they're just really bad camera angle, looked up your nose, and a lot of people complained about it.
00:55I would say for some people, it was like a deal-breaker for this machine.
00:59They finally fixed it, it's now at the top of the screen, and it's a pretty good-looking image.
01:03The second change that they've done on this device is actually an aesthetic change.
01:06So, this device finally comes in a white-on-white finish.
01:10It's kind of like a silvery-white on the surface of the device, instead of the rose gold that they had last year.
01:15And also, the texture is slightly different.
01:17So, this material is, it's like slightly rougher, not that it's like, rougher sounds like it's just poorer quality,
01:23it's just a more textured material. It's actually more pleasing to hold than any of the XPS 13 that I've held in the past.
01:28It's hard to kind of convey this message over video, but when you hold it, it's slightly grippier,
01:33and it's got a more matte look to the finish.
01:35The interior is still running the woven glass fiber in this white color, which I personally really like.
01:40And one of the issues that I was concerned about last year was just durability.
01:43I knew that they had mentioned that it was kind of stain-resistant and stuff, but this device is a year old.
01:48This is the older one here, and it's been used every day by someone.
01:52Not me, but it's been used every day, and there's literally no change, there's no wear on the surface material.
01:57Like, it still feels and looks exactly the same.
02:00However, I do notice a slight difference in color.
02:03I'm not sure if there's just a difference in manufacturing from last year's white to this year's white,
02:09or if that's just how the material ages.
02:11Like, this has a slightly warmer, like, yellowish hue to the white.
02:16This looks more like pure white.
02:18I still think the old one looks perfectly good, it's just that there is a difference in color.
02:22The performance on the 2019 XPS 13 is a little bit better than last year's model,
02:27so this new one's running the 8565U Whiskey Lake quad-core CPU,
02:31and it's pretty good for multi-core applications, but it also has an improvement in thermals.
02:36But not through hardware, because internally the thermal solution is the same as last year,
02:40but they have software this year that gives you full fan control.
02:43And this is one of the complaints I had about last year.
02:45Despite it having a pretty good thermal system, the fans ran a little too conservatively,
02:49but the new software allows you to push the device if you want to,
02:52and even when you do, the fans don't get super loud or anything.
02:54Now, on the inside, not much has changed, you just have to remove a bunch of screws,
02:58and you have access to the removable SSD, but the RAM and the Wi-Fi card are baked on.
03:03The battery remains unchanged on this unit with a 4K panel,
03:06I'm getting around 8.5-9 hours of battery life.
03:09On the 1080p screen, you're probably going to push 11 hours,
03:12but it just is very similar to last year's model, which is honestly a good thing.
03:16The ports on this device are okay.
03:18For people looking for something that's light and very portable, it kind of makes sense.
03:22There's three USB-Cs and one microSD slot,
03:25but for people that are just looking for just a more robust port selection,
03:28there is no USB-A, which is, eh, some people are going to miss that.
03:32They do include a dongle, but it's still a dongle, and dongles are never as convenient.
03:36It charges via USB-C, and it's also got the button to tell you how much battery life is on there.
03:40This is a feature that I feel like so many companies, like, I just wish they would do it.
03:44It's so cool, you press the button, it shows you how much battery is in there,
03:47and I feel like it's a feature that is so convenient and useful,
03:50but just no one seems to do it anymore, so it's nice to see that the XPS devices still have it.
03:54The USB-C on the left side supports Thunderbolt 3,
03:57and I connected this up to the Gigabyte gaming box with the RTX 2070,
04:01and the performance is really good.
04:03Both gaming and video editing is awesome off of that gaming box,
04:07but if you're running that stuff on the internal GPU, it's a huge D620,
04:11and quite frankly, it's trash.
04:13It's an internal GPU, it's what you would expect.
04:16The keyboard and trackpad, these remain unchanged.
04:19I've always liked both of these on the XPS devices.
04:22It's not, like, the world's best keyboard.
04:24I also wouldn't call this the world's best trackpad either,
04:26but they're very solid, and I think anybody can get used to these and enjoy them.
04:30The only gripe I have with this keyboard are the page up and page down buttons.
04:34They are located right above the left and right keys,
04:37so it's pretty easy to accidentally hit them,
04:39and if you're just kind of navigating through a spreadsheet or something,
04:42you accidentally hit page up, it's a pain in the butt.
04:44There's also a fingerprint sensor on the power button,
04:47so you can log in with Windows Hello via fingerprint.
04:50The trackpad, glass surface, Winners Precision Drivers, it's a great trackpad.
04:54It's a little on the small side, especially nowadays,
04:57like, a lot of companies are going with huge trackpads,
04:59but this one's kind of the old style in terms of its size,
05:02but it's a great all-around trackpad.
05:04The speakers are unchanged.
05:06They're located on the side.
05:08They sound good, good enough for what this is as an Ultrabook,
05:11but you're not going to get killer sound out of these.
05:13Alright, I want to talk about the screens for a little bit.
05:15The unit that I have this year is a 4K panel.
05:18The unit that I had last year was the 1080p panel.
05:21Now, they're both glossy screens, and they're both very good screens.
05:23This one's a little bit brighter than the 1080p panel,
05:26but if you're on the market and you're interested in this device,
05:29and you're kind of deciding between the screens,
05:31my vote for, like, 95% of the people out there is to go for the 1080p screen.
05:36The 4K screen does look a little bit better.
05:38It's a little bit sharper, but on a 13-inch screen size,
05:41you are not able to discern the difference in pixel density very easily.
05:45A 13-inch 1080p panel looks very sharp.
05:48A 13-inch 4K panel looks even sharper,
05:51but it's really hard to tell the difference at that screen size.
05:55The 1080p screen isn't as color accurate as the 4K screen,
05:58but I feel like because it's more energy efficient and it's a little bit cheaper,
06:01more people should be choosing that 1080p screen instead of a 4K screen.
06:05But regardless of which one you choose, it's a solid product.
06:08XPS 13 2019, they've done such a good job.
06:11I feel like Dell improves this thing every year just a little bit,
06:14and they finally fixed the webcam issue that they've had since the beginning,
06:17and it's finally, like, this is as good as it's going to get.
06:20I don't see Dell making this that much better, if at all.
06:23The one last year was running a dbrand marble skin.
06:26I'm going to pick up another one this year, skin it,
06:28just to kind of keep it looking super fly.
06:31Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
06:32Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it.
06:34See you guys next time.