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00:00This video is partly sponsored by Avera free security for Windows. Hey guys
00:05I'm some tech chap and what's better than a Dell XPS 15?
00:09Well, I think you can probably guess where this is going. How about a Dell XPS 17?
00:15this is the brand spanking new on the
00:189710 so it's the
00:202021 refresh as is this which you may have seen my review for a couple of days ago
00:24You can see the size difference between them
00:26Visually identical other than the fact that we don't have a white version of the 17 and also well
00:32It's got a bigger screen
00:33But between the two this is basically just a bit bigger a bit more powerful and also more expensive
00:38So what's new? Well like the 15-inch we're also getting the latest Intel 11th gen h45 series of CPUs
00:46We're also getting Nvidia's brand new RTX 3000 series of cards
00:50We get the option between the 3050 and
00:533060 as well as integrated graphics if you want to go for the entry-level model faster RAM now up to
00:593200 megahertz Thunderbolt 4 ports up from Thunderbolt 3 and it's about a hundred grams lighter
01:04Although you'd be hard-pressed to really tell
01:07But it's the exact same
01:09Aluminium chassis that we're pretty used to on these Dells now as well as the carbon fiber trackpad, which looks quite snazzy
01:16As I say, unfortunately, there is no Arctic Frost white version of this only on the 15 and also bizarrely
01:22There's no OLED screen option on here again only on the 15
01:26So you either go for a full HD plus non touch 17 inch or a 4k plus touch
01:31Which as you can see is what I have here and surprisingly that makes quite a difference to the weight
01:36It adds about 200 grams
01:38So we're topping out at 2.42 kilograms for the 4k down to 2.2 kilograms for the full HD Plus
01:45So you really are getting a big screen experience on this laptop and as Dell's marketing suggests
01:51This is kind of like a 17 inch screen in a 15 inch form factor because of those razor-thin bezels and just how compact it
01:58is overall
02:03Ports are nice and simple
02:04There's just four Thunderbolt 4s along with a three and a half mil headphone jack a v6 SD card reader
02:10That's a full-size reader same lovely chiclet style keyboard. No numpad on this 17 inch or anything
02:16They just use the extra space for slightly wider speaker grills. This is probably one of the better
02:21Speakers I've heard on a laptop
02:23we get Windows Hello supported face unlocking in the webcam and also a fingerprint reader built into the power button and
02:29Also this gargantuan precision touchpad, which is just lovely to use
02:34Although it's a very small niggle, but I've noticed on this particular XPS 17
02:39It's a bit kind of like clacky the left side of the touchpad
02:43It sort of makes a noise when you tap it
02:45Whereas on the right side, it doesn't again one of those famous Dell quality control issues
02:50Now before we get to the performance tests because really that is what this is all about
02:54It's pretty much a spec bump this year with those new graphics cards new processors faster RAM
03:00But the big question is how much is this gonna cost and I'm sure you can guess it's not cheap
03:06So the 17 starts at about
03:09$1,550 or
03:101850 pounds, but it's about 250 more than the new XPS 15 now having just reviewed the 15
03:17We are getting a few extra options here in the UK store
03:21At least it doesn't seem to the case for the US, but we have this i9 11 980 HK option
03:26Which is actually the fastest Tiger Lake CPU can buy and it's also the only chip that's unlocked
03:31So you can go into Intel's XTU and modify the clock multiplier and some other stuff
03:36But I'm not convinced. This is really worthwhile in a laptop form factor like this
03:41I would probably just stick to the regular i7 or i9 and save a bit of money
03:45But really the biggest upgrade are these new GPU options
03:48And so you can either have Intel's integrated graphics if you just want a 17-inch laptop to do some basic work or watch Netflix
03:55but really you're gonna want either the 3050 or the
03:593060 which I have in here and is a 70 watt TGP variant of the card
04:04And so not only are we getting an extra 2 gigs of VRAM over the 3050 Ti that we get in the 15-inch model
04:10But it's also that higher TGP 70 versus 45
04:14So this should be on paper at least one a bit more powerful than the 15-inch and also a good step up from last year's
04:21RTX 2060 Max-Q, which was a 65 watt TGP variant
04:27I've also specced this with 64 gigs of RAM and 1 terabyte of storage
04:31Although importantly you can upgrade these yourself
04:34If we open it up, you'll see that we have the two RAM slots and also two M.2 SSDs
04:40So there's quite a lot of room for expandability here. And you can also see we have this big vapor chamber cooler
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05:31The thing is though
05:33I don't think the 17-inch is as big of an upgrade this year as the 15-inch is
05:38Which I'm using for some notes here because the difference is with the 15
05:43We went from the GTX 1650 Ti last year to the RTX 3050 Ti
05:48Which means we have all those extra RTX features like ray tracing which is a bit pointless really on these kind of laptops
05:54But importantly DLSS which makes a big difference to frame rates in games to support it and also a video broadcast and reflex all those
06:01Kind of extra things on top of the raw performance increase
06:04However with the 17 we already had the RTX 2060 Max Q last year with those RTX features
06:11No doubt this will be faster and we'll test this now
06:13But I don't think it's gonna be quite the same jump as we've seen with the 15
06:19Okay, let's get to the good bit. Let's talk about performance and in terms of the processor
06:23we're looking at an average of about 20% optic between single core and multi-core and I haven't made any attempt to
06:30Overclock this further and then in terms of graphics coming from the 2060 to the 3060
06:35We're looking at about 25% average boost
06:39So, how does this translate to real-world use?
06:41Well, let's start with a few games because while you could argue this isn't a proper gaming laptop
06:46It's certainly got the specs on paper and actually coming from last year
06:51We're looking at anything between a 3 and a 52% performance boost
06:55which is pretty insane considering both cards in both laptops have those RTX features like DLSS and
07:03Considering we're getting triple digits in three of the five games on test and even in cyberpunk at ultra settings
07:09Although without ray tracing running at full HD plus we're getting over 60 FPS
07:18For me though, I spend about half my life in Premiere Pro editing videos
07:23so really that was the main reason I bought this and impressively the new 9710 knocked off about two and a half minutes or
07:3026% of my 10-minute 4k h.264 export which is actually double the improvement
07:36I saw with the XPS 15 coming from last year's one to the new one. So quite a big improvement there
07:42So across the board, we're looking at about a 25 to 30% boost over last year's XPS 17, which is pretty nice
07:49Although not really enough reason to chuck your old one in the bin and buy this
07:53But certainly if you're coming from a two or three year or older laptop
07:56Then this is gonna be a big upgrade for you
07:59However, when it comes to cooling there's good and bad news on the outside. It gets very toasty
08:06I recorded a peak of 60 degrees Celsius above the keyboard
08:09Which is about 10 degrees hotter than the new XPS 15 with the keyboard and touchpad in the palm sweating mid-40s
08:16so hot on the outside, but the vapor chamber does a good job of keeping throttling to a minimum on the inside a
08:2320-minute time spy stress test showed no appreciable drop in performance with peak GPU temps hitting about 85
08:30And while I wouldn't necessarily recommend that top spec i9
08:34the 11980HK in here the fact that you can get that the fastest Intel Tiger Lake CPU along with a
08:423060 with a decent 70 watt TGP in here with 64 gigs of RAM and 2 terabytes of storage
08:48Which you can then further expand yourself
08:49The 17 really can be a proper desktop replacement and a little sort of portable powerhouse and obviously a two and a half kilograms
08:57You will notice it in your backpack, but it is still
09:00Sub 20 mil and not you know a proper thick ugly heavy gaming laptop and also the battery life is decent
09:07Which is not something you get for most laptops. Obviously, it will vary based on what screen you go for
09:13However, the 17 does have an advantage over the 15 because all models come with the 97 watt hour battery
09:20Which is a bit bigger than the 86 watt hour in the 15, although bigger screen
09:24but that's the same regardless of whether you go for full HD or
09:284k because on the 15 if you go for the full HD then you get the much smaller 56 watt hour battery and that was one
09:34Of my criticisms. Why can't I have full HD with the bigger battery? So, you know last forever
09:39So with this while I don't have the full HD version
09:42I would imagine that with this huge battery will give you probably a good 10 hours of life depending on how you use it
09:49Although with this 4k plus touch version I have I'm getting about six hours of use
09:55An hour of YouTube uses about 15% of the battery which is actually a little bit better than last year the same test used
10:0119% but I'm sure you'll agree that as impressive as the specs are and what's going on under the hood
10:06The highlight for this really is that big beautiful 17 inch screen
10:10So I measured a peak brightness of about five hundred and twenty nits in HDR or about four hundred and thirty
10:17Also in SDRs, so it's plenty bright enough, but perhaps that's an area in the future that could be improved
10:23however color accuracy, which of course is important for creators and if you're doing any kind of photo or video editing is
10:30Insanely good. We've got 100% sRGB
10:33100% Adobe RGB and
10:3696% DCI p3. This is one of the most color accurate screens. I've ever tested on a consumer laptop
10:45And then there's this webcam, which is just terrible considering the price and the quality of everything else
10:52It's definitely one of the biggest issues I have with a laptop
10:56It's serviceable and obviously they had to squeeze it into the top bezel there, but the quality is pretty poor
11:02So that is the new XPS 17 same on the outside
11:06Faster on the inside the latest ports still a terrible webcam, which is probably my biggest criticism of this
11:14Especially in this day and age also standby battery life isn't great way too often
11:19I come back to this a day or two later and it's completely out of charge
11:22Plus there's still the odd quality control issue
11:24And also I think the same criticisms or comments on my 15 inch video
11:29Apply here and I would like to have seen maybe an AMD
11:325000 series version of this and also a quad HD screen would have been perfect
11:36I just think full HD is probably not gonna be sharp enough on this 17 inch screen
11:41So you have to go for 4k, which is great
11:43But then obviously that impacts your performance and your battery so quad HD would have been perfect on this between the 15 and the 17
11:51Well really comes down to how you're gonna use it and also how deep your pockets are
11:55They are both very expensive laptops, but 17 does take it to the next level
12:00Really? This is proper desktop replacement level performance
12:03The 15s a bit more of a travel companion because of course it's lighter and smaller for similar money
12:08You could get the new razor blade 17 also with 11th gen and up to an RTX 3080
12:14Yes, it's a touch heavier and more gaming oriented, but the extra performance would be ideal for productivity as well
12:21But I think the most interesting competition to this would be the upcoming MacBook Pro 16 refresh
12:27Rumored to come out probably in late September with Apple's new M1X or M2 chip
12:32That is gonna be an interesting battle between the best laptops from Windows and Macs
12:37So stay tuned for that. And yeah, what do you think of it?
12:40Would you be tempted to buy one or maybe get the 15 or none of the above? Let me know in the comments below
12:45Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat
12:51You