Dell XPS 12 review (hands on): Hybrid tops Dell’s new range

Leaked pictures of Dell’s Surface Pro rival, the XPS 12, have been around for some time now, but Dell has only just officially confirmed the existence of the new device. In an announcement that also encompassed the unveiling of two new XPS laptops, we had the chance to go hands-on with the device.

The XPS 12 will be available from January 2016 and, to be honest, it’s a bit of a weird one. It takes the detachable hybrid recipe that has proved so successful in the firm’s Venue range of tablets and, by the looks of things, actually makes it worse.

That starts with the appearance: for an XPS device, it’s surprisingly ugly. It’s mostly clad in matte-black plastic, squared-off unstylised edges, and only the kicked-up hinge at the back of the device serves to deliver any kind of visual interest.

This is a detachable hybrid, so the idea is that it’s usable as a laptop but, when you want to kick back and relax, you can pull the two apart and use the screen as a tablet. The problem with the XPS 12 is that the part that joins the two together hasn’t been well thought out.

First, there’s no hinge to speak of. Just a slot with a magnet holds the two halves together, and contacts provide power to the Bluetooth keyboard. There’s no adjustment available at all.

The base has no extra battery to boost stamina, and the magnet – at least in the “pre-production” versions I was shown – proved to be worryingly weak. So weak, in fact, that the tablet came loose from its moorings and fell to the floor during the demo session I attended.

The tablet survived the drop, which proves it’s reasonably tough, and the rest of the specification looks impressive. The XPS 12 will come equipped with:

• Intel Skylake processors across the board

• A 4K, “Infinity Edge”, IPS touchscreen

• Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C connections on the tablet

• Some models will have Intel RealSense cameras (but only on the rear)

I really liked typing on the keyboard. The keys felt cushioned in all the right places, while remaining positive in action, and the long travel just added to the comfort.

That “Infinity Edge” IPS display looked simply gorgeously, bursting with deep saturated colours and sharp as a tack. Best of all, Dell’s engineers appear to have ironed out the problems I experienced when I reviewed the Dell XPS 13 earlier this year, namely the backlight bleed and over-aggressive dynamic contrast.

As for core components, the Dell XPS 12 I was using (the “Signature Edition”) was equipped with an Intel Core m5-6Y54 running at a nominal clock speed of 1.1GHz bursting up to 1.5GHz, had 8GB of RAM, and was running Windows 10 64-bit.

Aside from this, details of the various options that will eventually be available in January were thin on the ground, and prices aren’t yet available either.

However, given the oddly stilted design, I’m not sure it’s going to provide anything more than a passing challenge to the Microsoft Surface Pro 4, Google Pixel C and Apple iPad Pro.

Dell XPS 13 review (hands-on): More of the same, just better

Alongside the XPS 12 hybrid, Dell also unveiled a new model of the XPS 13 and larger 15in version of the XPS range. Despite sporting a completely unchanged design, it still looks great – clad in sheets of aluminium above and below, and a soft carbon fibre-effect plastic surrounding the chiclet-style keyboard.

I say the design of the new XPS 13 is identical, but there is one small, critical difference between this machine and the one I reviewed earlier in the year. Look hard at the laptop’s left-hand edge, and you’ll see one extra port alongside the full-size HDMI and USB 3 socket: USB Type-C. There’s also the option to add Thunderbolt 3 to the laptop, which Dell plans on using principally as a docking connector.

The XPS 15 is tricky to tell apart from the XPS with the lid closed, and sports the same key design motifs, but open it up and there’s no doubt which is the larger laptop. With much wider expanses of carbon fibre to the left and right of the keyboard, it looks like the MacBook Pro 15’s long-lost cousin.

The other barely noticeable difference concerns the XPS’ “Infinity” edge-to-edge 3,200 x 1,800 display, which, when I tested it earlier this year, exhibited signs of backlight bleed and was afflicted with an irritatingly aggressive dynamic contrast algorithm. Both problems seem to have been fixed here, but I’ll need to get my hands on a proper review sample before I can properly confirm this.

Dell XPS 13 and 15: Specifications

As with the XPS 12, the XPS 13 and 15 laptops are both going over wholesale to Intel’s new Skylake processors, and will be available with immediate effect. Those new processors, along with a slightly larger battery, will deliver a claimed battery life of up to 18 hours, which sounds mighty impressive, and could go some way to pulling the XPS level with Apple’s MacBook Pro range for sheer stamina.

As for memory, you’ll be able to specify up to 16GB of RAM at first, ramping up to 32GB at a later date when the DDR5 RAM modules become available, and up to a 1TB SSD for storage. Importantly, Dell is also moving from the M.2 interface of old to the faster PCI-E in the new laptops, so storage performance should receive a bump.

Dell XPS 13 and 15: Prices and early verdict

These are both laptops aimed at the mobile power user, so prices aren’t going to be cheap. The 13in XPS starts at £849 inc VAT for the most basic specification, while the XPS 15 starts at £1,099. However, be aware that these prices are for the laptop without the InfinityEdge display.

Adding that, the larger storage options and more RAM will likely shunt prices up close to the £2,000 mark, which is a lot money. No matter how good the screen is now (and that remains to be seen), and how long the battery life, it’s still going to take a lot of persuading to get customers to choose one of these over a MacBook Pro.

• See also: The best laptops of 2015