I don't know if the Razer has a coil whine (or the Dell for that matter), but I can safely say that Razer's quality control and their after sales support is pretty awful. That's coming from a Blade 15 and Kiyo owner and brief Stealth 13 owner. Their mice are pretty good though.
Speaking as a new XPS15 owner, Dell's quality control also sucks, but their after-sales support is adequate, and the 2nd replacement-under-warranty included a free processor/GPU upgrade.
I have the XPS13 2-in-1 from last year and it has no coil whine. I know that is an issue with some but not all. Also, best laptop I've owned in a long time. And has a 32GB option which I won't buy without.
Looks a lot like it should be in the Surface line. Which isn't a bad thing. But isn't really a good thing either to me. That said, there are some very nice aspects about this--though not the price.
4K is a waste of pixels on a 13 inch screen. QHD is already well above retina level. Why not just go with what Apple (and more recently Lenovo) have done - 13.3" 16:10 2560x1600, 227 ppi. Battery life would be far better and the panels are clearly already available.
The "retina level" is a myth. While you personally might not be able to see an individual pixel past that level, other people can. But the bigger issue is that things like textures that spread over wide areas that almost everyone can see get lost when you try to design for the "retina level".
Plus they didn't read the article which pointed out that Asian scripts significantly improve at higher resolutions.
I run my XPS13 at full resolution then use scaling to 200X and it looks fantastic. Very smooth. Strongly reccomend this approach over running it at 1080p and letting the panel do the scaling, Windows does it noticibly better.
I am also in the camp of preferring a high dpi display. If someone thinks it's worthless they have dozens of other options available at lower resolution. Once you've enjoyed a high res display going to anything lower is not preferred. Does the XPS also offer touch input on the XPS 13 high DPI screen? That's another "must have" because once you've gotten used to touchscreens, particularly on notebooks, going without just stinks.
The "retina level" is based on the angular resolution of a human eye. Yes, there is some variation, but unless you have superhuman eyes you will not be able to resolve the difference between 230 ppi and 330 ppi at a normal viewing distance for a laptop.
You'll change your answer when you see the results. Textures have terrible banding and other artifacts when seen at different PPI values, even values well above 330 PPI.
That's more of a problem with rasterization technology. You don't really need a high-res screen to beat that type of artifacting, you need to either totally ray-trace the image (not possible with current hardware) OR Super-sample the image. The physical number of pixels isn't actually the problem.
Agree.. absolutely pointless waste of resources.. only thing this gives is battery drain and slow graphics performance.. NOT a single advantage. when will these manufactures learn.
I would do unconscionable things for a 30”/32” 16:10 4K display. The dearth of desktop monitors with greater than 4K resolution is killer for macOS users if you want to stick with 2x scaling (4K = 1080p usable). The only options right now are the LG 5K and the Apple XDR.
LG's 4K ultrawide is their 5K2K HDR600 Thunderbolt monitor. I hope next year they succeed it with a 6K ultrawide or a 4K ultrawide w/ HDR1000+ (ideally switch it to TrueBlack 500 OLED)
I'm looking forward to the 40" 5120x2160 panels, for 32" dpi levels but more screen area to work with. But yes good quality high dpi displays on full size monitors, like MS promised us they'd build a monitor like the Surface Workstation, are what many of us truly want to see more of in the marketplace.
Thirded. How can Intel call a quad-core an i7 in 2020? AMD's mobile Ryzen 7 processors are octo-cores - including the ones that can be configured for a 10W TDP.
Actually looks great and that battery life, if it delivers that much at that resolution, will be fantastic. Ian, how does the screen compare to the Surface Book? This laptop does look a lot like the Surface Book.
I've never been hands on with a Razer notebook but it seems odd to me that the same company that makes a high quality, clean looking quality PC also brings us gamery peripherals of random quality and 'chewing gum for gamers'.
Don't forget buggy bloatware drivers that require cloud logins. I always enjoyed razer hardware, but their software was absolutely atrocious, and a complete deal breaker for me. Bummer, because the hardware once again looks solid.
Ticks all the boxes for me - high pixel density, 16:10 aspect ratio, lightweight, sleak, powerful. And most importantly, one of the few laptops thathave a good anti-reflective coating (or so I am led to believe). But how's the colour accuracy? We'll never know until Anandtech or TFTCentral tests this laptop.
Now, Razer needs to come up with similar specs (w full sized SD Card reader) on their 15" model and I am good to get it. (Increased Key travel would be icing on the cake)
A 13" at 3840X2400?? That'd be WAY too tiny to read! I had a laptop for work once that had a 2560X1440 14" screen, and I was unable to actually use it because the resolution was too tiny. This is worse. No way I'd buy it.
I agree. My current laptop is a 13.3" OLED 1440p display and some programs I use for work cannot be changed from native resolution, so every time I run those I have to change the resolution of the screen because it's otherwise too small to read. My next laptop will be at least 15" with a 1440p display if at all possible. But most importantly it must be OLED. Once you've tried an OLED laptop, you're never going to go back to inferior display technologies.
Your inability to use Windows shouldn't prevent others from enjoying high resolution screens. My current laptop is 13.3" 4K and i would NEVER go back to 1080p on that size screen.
Oh, and you can configure application scaling in compatibility options for those useless apps that haven't been updated to use modern APIs.
That's a shame. You should get on to the company to sort that out, because it sounds like the sort of thing that would actually benefit from a higher clarity of display.
You'd use display scaling; e.g. a x2 scaling, at which point for many people it'll be readable just fine. For those with diminished eyesight, I'm sure even more scaling is possible, although all that extra resolution isn't really worth it then, so they might as well buy a more conventional resolution and save the money (I suspect, no expert on the matter).
At 338DPI, I suspect 2.5 or 3x scaling will be more common than 2x.
On a non-power constrained system I'd love to have 300DPI; but on a laptop would rather have ~220 DPI (2560x1440/1600) or even 280 (3200x1800/2000) for somewhat lower load on the battery. But AFAIK the mass market PC industry completely dropped those intermediate resolutions after a year or two to be able to slap 4k stickers on things. That leaves Apple and Microsoft; but Apple's leaving x86 behind, and MS's love of 3:2 is fine for some things; but has issues with games where designers assume you've got wider view ports.
Maybe. I run my 13" 1080p work laptop at 100% scaling, so a 4K display at 200% would provide the same desktop area but with greater clarity. That would be neat. I know plenty of people who'd go down the 250%/300% route, though.
The base model should have 16GB and the i7 models should have 32GB. The storage is also way too low - the base model should have 512GB and the others at least 1TB. Way overpriced - aimed at posers rather than those people who do real work. (The RGB keylighting is a real give away that it is aimed at posers.) Touchscreens always get greasy fingerprints which detracts from the display (look at any phone or tablet to see the amount of grease marks). For a better work design - double the memory and storage, remove the per-key backlighting and make the battery user replaceable. Non-touch screens should be an option on the i7 models.
I've been using touchscreen for biz the last 5 years. I would not have it any other way. I am officially spoiled by touchscreen at work. As to fingerprints, etc yeah sure its there but I rarely notice it. The convenience of touchscreen far outweigh that.
Your opinions on touchscreens and user-replaceable batteries are a little out-of-date now. If you want a replaceable battery, you're going to lose 2-3 hours of battery life, gain ~6mm in thickness and add a few hundred grams in weight. Not popular moves, overall.
It looks like a better choice than the Mac Book Pro (Intel), despite the inferior CPU. User-upgradeable storage and a better selection of ports are both commendable, and being one of the few PCs with a non-16:9 screen is worth writing home about. I appreciate that the non-4K version is also 16:10.
But I'm disappointed that its keyboard appears to be very similar to Apple's, which I've used and detest. I'd rather have a 16:9 screen than half-height arrow keys and almost no key travel, and this is coming from someone who didn't own any 16:9 non-TV devices until 2018.
So I'll keep buying Taiwanese laptops that know how to include proper keyboards, and hope one of them adds a 16:10 screen in the not-too-distant future.
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quiksilvr - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Last I checked the XPS 13 was also 16:10 and offered 3840x2400 too and their base spec with i5 is $100 less than Razer.ignoramus_post-truth - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
The last I checked, Dell hasn't fixed the coil whine issues with the XPS series. Does Razer have this problem?playtech1 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I don't know if the Razer has a coil whine (or the Dell for that matter), but I can safely say that Razer's quality control and their after sales support is pretty awful. That's coming from a Blade 15 and Kiyo owner and brief Stealth 13 owner. Their mice are pretty good though.grant3 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Speaking as a new XPS15 owner, Dell's quality control also sucks, but their after-sales support is adequate, and the 2nd replacement-under-warranty included a free processor/GPU upgrade.And there's no coil whine on my model.
Reflex - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I have the XPS13 2-in-1 from last year and it has no coil whine. I know that is an issue with some but not all. Also, best laptop I've owned in a long time. And has a 32GB option which I won't buy without.quiksilvr - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
According to reviewers from 2019 when the XPS 13 went 16:10 and 3840x2400 the coil whine issue has been resolved.aamir147 - Friday, November 13, 2020 - link
Xps13 only had 2usb c ports. This is way better in that regard.ingwe - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Looks a lot like it should be in the Surface line. Which isn't a bad thing. But isn't really a good thing either to me. That said, there are some very nice aspects about this--though not the price.tornado99 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
4K is a waste of pixels on a 13 inch screen. QHD is already well above retina level. Why not just go with what Apple (and more recently Lenovo) have done - 13.3" 16:10 2560x1600, 227 ppi. Battery life would be far better and the panels are clearly already available.dullard - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
The "retina level" is a myth. While you personally might not be able to see an individual pixel past that level, other people can. But the bigger issue is that things like textures that spread over wide areas that almost everyone can see get lost when you try to design for the "retina level".Reflex - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Plus they didn't read the article which pointed out that Asian scripts significantly improve at higher resolutions.I run my XPS13 at full resolution then use scaling to 200X and it looks fantastic. Very smooth. Strongly reccomend this approach over running it at 1080p and letting the panel do the scaling, Windows does it noticibly better.
FXi - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I am also in the camp of preferring a high dpi display. If someone thinks it's worthless they have dozens of other options available at lower resolution. Once you've enjoyed a high res display going to anything lower is not preferred.Does the XPS also offer touch input on the XPS 13 high DPI screen? That's another "must have" because once you've gotten used to touchscreens, particularly on notebooks, going without just stinks.
tornado99 - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
The "retina level" is based on the angular resolution of a human eye. Yes, there is some variation, but unless you have superhuman eyes you will not be able to resolve the difference between 230 ppi and 330 ppi at a normal viewing distance for a laptop.dullard - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
Go to a store with a bunch of laptops of various PPI. Then go to this page: https://in.pinterest.com/pin/331225747571470723/You'll change your answer when you see the results. Textures have terrible banding and other artifacts when seen at different PPI values, even values well above 330 PPI.
Flunk - Wednesday, November 18, 2020 - link
That's more of a problem with rasterization technology. You don't really need a high-res screen to beat that type of artifacting, you need to either totally ray-trace the image (not possible with current hardware) OR Super-sample the image. The physical number of pixels isn't actually the problem.Spunjji - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
My eyes beg to differ, and I don't even have 20/20 vision.sharath.naik - Monday, November 16, 2020 - link
Agree.. absolutely pointless waste of resources.. only thing this gives is battery drain and slow graphics performance.. NOT a single advantage. when will these manufactures learn.mastercheif91 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I would do unconscionable things for a 30”/32” 16:10 4K display. The dearth of desktop monitors with greater than 4K resolution is killer for macOS users if you want to stick with 2x scaling (4K = 1080p usable). The only options right now are the LG 5K and the Apple XDR.lilkwarrior - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
You don't go back form a 4K ultrawide or an Apple Pro Display XDR on MacOS, IMO.I use a Pro Display XDR for productivity & then switch to PC to use an 48" LG CX for gaming & entertainment though my XDR is great for cinema as well.
lilkwarrior - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
LG's 4K ultrawide is their 5K2K HDR600 Thunderbolt monitor. I hope next year they succeed it with a 6K ultrawide or a 4K ultrawide w/ HDR1000+ (ideally switch it to TrueBlack 500 OLED)FXi - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I'm looking forward to the 40" 5120x2160 panels, for 32" dpi levels but more screen area to work with. But yes good quality high dpi displays on full size monitors, like MS promised us they'd build a monitor like the Surface Workstation, are what many of us truly want to see more of in the marketplace.psychobriggsy - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Request: On these laptop articles, can you put basic CPU specs under the CPU name?Turns out this is £2000 for a quad-core laptop [with the 4K screen].
It looks great, it has a nice looking keyboard, the screen is great. But four cores :-(
The UK price in the middle column looks wrong.
HyperText - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Seconded.IBM760XL - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Thirded. How can Intel call a quad-core an i7 in 2020? AMD's mobile Ryzen 7 processors are octo-cores - including the ones that can be configured for a 10W TDP.SSTANIC - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
Yeah, how should I proceed now. Add one more?Teckk - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Actually looks great and that battery life, if it delivers that much at that resolution, will be fantastic.Ian, how does the screen compare to the Surface Book? This laptop does look a lot like the Surface Book.
Operandi - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I've never been hands on with a Razer notebook but it seems odd to me that the same company that makes a high quality, clean looking quality PC also brings us gamery peripherals of random quality and 'chewing gum for gamers'.MarcusMo - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Don't forget buggy bloatware drivers that require cloud logins. I always enjoyed razer hardware, but their software was absolutely atrocious, and a complete deal breaker for me. Bummer, because the hardware once again looks solid.ignoramus_post-truth - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Ticks all the boxes for me - high pixel density, 16:10 aspect ratio, lightweight, sleak, powerful. And most importantly, one of the few laptops thathave a good anti-reflective coating (or so I am led to believe). But how's the colour accuracy? We'll never know until Anandtech or TFTCentral tests this laptop.brucethemoose - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Notebookcheck usually does accuracy tests too. I imagine they'll grab one of these.akmittal - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
When are zen 3 laptop chips coming?JfromImaginstuff - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
Probably somewhere around q1 or q2 next year maybeSrikzquest - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Now, Razer needs to come up with similar specs (w full sized SD Card reader) on their 15" model and I am good to get it. (Increased Key travel would be icing on the cake)dgingeri - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
A 13" at 3840X2400?? That'd be WAY too tiny to read! I had a laptop for work once that had a 2560X1440 14" screen, and I was unable to actually use it because the resolution was too tiny. This is worse. No way I'd buy it.SaturnusDK - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I agree. My current laptop is a 13.3" OLED 1440p display and some programs I use for work cannot be changed from native resolution, so every time I run those I have to change the resolution of the screen because it's otherwise too small to read. My next laptop will be at least 15" with a 1440p display if at all possible. But most importantly it must be OLED. Once you've tried an OLED laptop, you're never going to go back to inferior display technologies.timecop1818 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Your inability to use Windows shouldn't prevent others from enjoying high resolution screens. My current laptop is 13.3" 4K and i would NEVER go back to 1080p on that size screen.Oh, and you can configure application scaling in compatibility options for those useless apps that haven't been updated to use modern APIs.
SaturnusDK - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
It's electronics engineering software. And no, they can't use application scaling.Nice try at trolling though.
Spunjji - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
That's a shame. You should get on to the company to sort that out, because it sounds like the sort of thing that would actually benefit from a higher clarity of display.Reflex - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Windows has a scaling feature. It's for situations like this and it works well for all reasonably modern apps.emn13 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
You'd use display scaling; e.g. a x2 scaling, at which point for many people it'll be readable just fine. For those with diminished eyesight, I'm sure even more scaling is possible, although all that extra resolution isn't really worth it then, so they might as well buy a more conventional resolution and save the money (I suspect, no expert on the matter).DanNeely - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
At 338DPI, I suspect 2.5 or 3x scaling will be more common than 2x.On a non-power constrained system I'd love to have 300DPI; but on a laptop would rather have ~220 DPI (2560x1440/1600) or even 280 (3200x1800/2000) for somewhat lower load on the battery. But AFAIK the mass market PC industry completely dropped those intermediate resolutions after a year or two to be able to slap 4k stickers on things. That leaves Apple and Microsoft; but Apple's leaving x86 behind, and MS's love of 3:2 is fine for some things; but has issues with games where designers assume you've got wider view ports.
tornado99 - Tuesday, November 10, 2020 - link
Lenovo sell a few 220 DPI 13.3 inch laptops.Spunjji - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
Maybe. I run my 13" 1080p work laptop at 100% scaling, so a 4K display at 200% would provide the same desktop area but with greater clarity. That would be neat. I know plenty of people who'd go down the 250%/300% route, though.Spunjji - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
Don't run it at 100%. Simples.Koenig168 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
For the price Razer is asking for the Book 13, Razer should throw in the Razer Toaster. :)satai - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Could I get a higher memory SKU? I suppose it's not replaceable.damianrobertjones - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
" Razer Book like "Is that its name?
Duncan Macdonald - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
The base model should have 16GB and the i7 models should have 32GB. The storage is also way too low - the base model should have 512GB and the others at least 1TB.Way overpriced - aimed at posers rather than those people who do real work. (The RGB keylighting is a real give away that it is aimed at posers.)
Touchscreens always get greasy fingerprints which detracts from the display (look at any phone or tablet to see the amount of grease marks).
For a better work design - double the memory and storage, remove the per-key backlighting and make the battery user replaceable. Non-touch screens should be an option on the i7 models.
DigitalFreak - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
"aimed at posers rather than those people who do real work"Must by why Linus loves them so much.
Holliday75 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I've been using touchscreen for biz the last 5 years. I would not have it any other way. I am officially spoiled by touchscreen at work. As to fingerprints, etc yeah sure its there but I rarely notice it. The convenience of touchscreen far outweigh that.Spunjji - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
Your opinions on touchscreens and user-replaceable batteries are a little out-of-date now. If you want a replaceable battery, you're going to lose 2-3 hours of battery life, gain ~6mm in thickness and add a few hundred grams in weight. Not popular moves, overall.jb14 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
I like the type A USB port which is missing on the XPS. Handy if you don't have an adaptor immediately to hand and need to pop in a USB stick etcgrant3 - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Dr. Cutress is "mind-blown" by a 16x10 screen resolution, even though Dell has offered it on their flagship XPS line for a year?He should stick to chips, and leave the laptop reviews to someone who has at least a glancing knowledge of the laptop industry.
fazalmajid - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
Or try the 3:2 Huawei Mate 14 2020 AMD with a 4800H. Same vertical space as a 15"IBM760XL - Monday, November 9, 2020 - link
It looks like a better choice than the Mac Book Pro (Intel), despite the inferior CPU. User-upgradeable storage and a better selection of ports are both commendable, and being one of the few PCs with a non-16:9 screen is worth writing home about. I appreciate that the non-4K version is also 16:10.But I'm disappointed that its keyboard appears to be very similar to Apple's, which I've used and detest. I'd rather have a 16:9 screen than half-height arrow keys and almost no key travel, and this is coming from someone who didn't own any 16:9 non-TV devices until 2018.
So I'll keep buying Taiwanese laptops that know how to include proper keyboards, and hope one of them adds a 16:10 screen in the not-too-distant future.
wanderer000 - Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - link
Bummer that it only has a micro-SD slot...