Almost entirely in aluminum, the design of the Dell XPS 17 is particularly sober. An XPS logo under the PC with only a small fancy, glass effect.
The opening number of the 17-inch screen reveals a black keyboard on a black background without a keyboard, which is something very surprising in this design of the laptop. Dell wants to integrate two large perforated grilles for the speakers on each side of the keyboard, a total of four, including the other two already under the chassis. The edge of the keyboard is made of carbon imitation plastic.
Carbon rendering is particularly successful. © Digital
The typing on the backlight keyboard is excellent and is not affected by any specific glitches. In the upper right corner we see the power button that acts as a fingerprint reader compatible with Windows Hello.
The large touchpad requires some adaptation time to make full use of its entire surface. With the chassis centered, it will extend beyond the width of the space bar. The slip is fluid and the gestures are well taken into account. However, despite the audible feedback we noticed that the pressure at the end of the left and right clicks is not taken into account. To execute the clicks properly, you need to be slightly closer to the center.
The connection makes no compromises and offers four Thunderbolt 4 ports, an SD card reader and a classic mini-jack socket. However, we would like to find a USB-A port to ensure compatibility with some devices without going through the USB hub. Especially since the charger is in USB-C format it occupies one of these four ports.
Thunderbolt 4 card reader and ports. © Les Numériques
The wireless connection is provided by the Intel Killer AX1650 chip, which is nothing more than the AX200 sprayed with marketing. It allows you to take advantage of Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 at 2400 Mb / s. The small 720p webcam sits on the very thin top edge of the screen and delivers particularly no detail image, even in excellent lighting conditions.
Cooling is provided by two very large fans arranged on either side of the keyboard. Hot air is expelled under the hinge of the screen by two large outlets.
So, after our regular encryption session, we measured a temperature of 49 C between the two air stations at the bottom of the screen. The hot spot on the keyboard is logically located between two fans and reaches 43 C.
During the same encryption, we specified a sound level of 42.9 dB. Noise harassment is perceived as a heavy breath, which is obviously heard by your office neighbors while processing or rendering; However, the system is completely quiet outside of high loads.
The 8 torque screws had to be removed for disassembly, which was very painful to disassemble despite having the appropriate tools. Mainly due to a stick located at the level of the XPS logo, a particularly well-retained shell needs to be unwrapped once again.
Too bad the opening is too complicated. © Digital
The un clipped shell provides access to two memory modules, two M.2 slots (only one of which is occupied) and a battery. Unfortunately, the WiFi card is attached to the right side of the motherboard, for example, it cannot be switched to support the Wi-Fi 6E card. The massive 97 Wh battery is also perfectly removable.
The Dell XPS 17-9710 we tested had an Intel Core i7-11800H processor (8 cores / 16 threads, 4.6 GHz), 16 GB RAM and 1 TB NVMe SSD. The graphics area is dedicated to the Nvidia GeForce 60X 60. Equipped with 70 W TGP. It is not for its video game shows, but to speed up the processing time of creative software.
Processor performance code. © Digital
The performance of the Core i7-11800H is excellent. The code of the Ryzen 7 5800H embedded in the VivoBook 14X Oled is measured at 123. The Core i7 benefits from the coolness allowed by the size of the Dell XPS 17 chassis.
Performance code by enabling processing via GPU. © Digital
By enabling acceleration via RTX 3060, the XPS 17 closely follows the Lenovo Legion 7S, which has the RTX 3060, but TGP 100 W. To calculate this code, we use Blender 2.9.3. , Premiere and Photoshop. At the moment, Apple’s M1s do not benefit from GPU acceleration under Blender, so they are at a disadvantage.
Since the Dell XPS 17 is for content creators, we do not include it in our full gaming battery. However, its effectiveness MSI GF75 with 75 W RTX 3060 And has the same screen diagonal.
A word about the onboard SST offered by Dell: it can reach 3.1GB / V in read and 2.6GB / V in writing. We do not notice any sluggishness when converting large files, for example video rushes used for encoding testing in Premiere.
Our test Dell XPS 17-9710 comes with an IPS panel of at least 3840 x 2400 px. It is fitted with a tactile overlay with a brilliant rendering. Dell also offers a non-touch version of this model, but is limited to 1920 x 1200 px.
Thin borders allow to achieve 90% screen occupancy rate. © Digital
Dell offers the perfect copy with its Infinity Edge UHD + panel, which it wants to call it. The variation on this IPS panel (1984: 1) is particularly high, while the average for this type of panel is 1200: 1.
The maximum brightness (474 cd / m²) is not far from the promised 500 cd / m², but the low reflection of the panel (25.7% of the reflected light) makes it possible to be satisfied.
Color measurement was also accurately passed, as evidenced by 3 (measured 1.5) delta E, which is a guarantee of invisible colorful slides. Finally, the temperature is a bit high (6869 K), but enough to set the video standard at 6500 K.
From left to right, gamma curve, color temperature and delta E. © Les Numériques
As we mentioned above, the Dell XPS 17 has four speakers (two under the chassis and two on each side of the keyboard). When listening, the maximum volume is high, making it easy to watch the series at a distance of 2 or 3 m from the screen. The rendering is slightly metallic, with piercing max and no depressions. To take full advantage of it, we’d love to hear a slightly warmer rendering.
The Dell XPS17 has four speakers, two of which are similar. © Digital
Focus, by default Dell enables its MaxxAudio software to follow the face to change the sound to suit your movements. This mode is completely annoying rendering, so we strongly advise you to disable it.
Headphone output provides better performance. However, its low output level does not make it possible to use high impedance headphones.
Apparently, with the 17-inch panel, which is tactile, the XPS 17 is oversized. Our version weighs 2.42 kg (2.21 kg for the untouched version). It is 37 cm wide and 24 cm deep; The thickness is however 1.9 cm. The 135W charger adds 488g to the set, totaling almost 3kg. With the modified bag, the Dell XPS17 is ideal for everyday even transportation.
In terms of autonomy, with its 97 Wh battery, the Dell XPS 17 lasted 7 hours and 30 minutes under our standard protocol (200 cd / m² under Netflix’s Chrome). If Dell had offered the option of disabling the GeForce RTX 3060, a decent result would have been better.
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