Dell XPS 13 9305 Core i5 Full HD laptop in review: Less display, better colors

The 9305 is a few millimeters wider than the 9310 as well as one millimeter thicker. This makes its footprint most similar to the HP Spectre x360 13, and its weight is very similar too.

The 9305 has one additional port, namely a USB Type-C one with DisplayPort. As a result, there are three Type-C ports, and the TB4 variants are both on the left side (without DisplayPort). The 9310 has one TB4 port on the right side and one on the left, both with DisplayPort. 

The SD performance is very good; only the fastest card readers in our tests reach 180 MB/s. They probably use USB 3.1 speeds internally. Moreover, inserted microSD cards protrude just under 2 mm beyond the case. We used a 128 GB Angelbird SD card AV PRO UHS-II V60 for our tests.

The XPS can establish wireless connections over Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1. While WLAN speeds reach an average of 1,492 Mb/s for receiving data with our Netgear Nighthawk AX12 reference router, the average of 940 Mb/s for sending data is only sufficient for the middle place in our test field.

Like many manufacturers, Dell continues to use a low-resolution webcam with a resolution of 0.9 MP (720p). Image quality is correspondingly mediocre, and details look blurry even in good ambient light. There are many artifacts in the photos, and color reproduction falls short with a poor Delta E value of 16 to 30. However, the competition doesn't tackle the subject in a more professional way, and it also lacks detail sharpness and color accuracy.

The package doesn't include a USB-C to USB-A adapter, which was still included with the 9310. A 65-watt power adapter provides energy to a Type-C port (Power Delivery), regardless of which of the three you choose.

Since there haven't been any changes in terms of internal components, we decided against opening the case.

The trackpad has a short travel between the bottom and almost up to the center. Nevertheless, we experience a good feedback because the pressure point is clear and distinctly audible as well.

With the Tiger Lake Core i5-1135G7 and Core i7-1165G7, the 9305 has two brand-new chips at its disposal. Both are equipped with Intel Iris Xe iGPUs, the 80EUs version in the i5 and 96EUs in the i7. Both quad-core processors have a TDP of 28 watts. The storage and RAM configuration also varies depending on the chosen hardware.

The Intel Core i5-1135G7 used here is a quad-core processor from Intel's Tiger Lake generation. Its clock rates are between 2.4 and 4.2 GHz, although it's ultimately the configured TDP and the cooling system what will determine the performance provided. Dell configures the 9305 with a PL2 of 60 watts and a PL1 of 15 watts, meaning that the maximum performance of the i5-1135G7 can be reached, at least theoretically.

In our Cinebench R15 endurance test, the CPU displays increasing initial values that always reset and start to ramp up again after reaching a peak. The 9310 i7 behaves similarly, but it starts with a high rate that is never reached again later. The 9305 is evidently more conservative at the beginning of a load phase and consequently allows some performance to remain unused. The ThinkPad L13 Yoga shows that the Intel Core i5-1135G7 can also behave differently. It starts with a higher score, but afterwards, it lags behind on average (605 instead of 650). This is nothing special anymore, since the Ryzen chips eclipse the Tiger Lake ones. Take the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7-14ARE for example.

In the PCMark 10 benchmark for evaluating system performance, the XPS 13 9305 can only claim fourth place in our test field. This isn't relevant because the absolute difference is only 1-2%. The differences are much higher in the subcategories, where the Tiger Lake Core i7 and the Ryzen 7 4800U have the upper hand in Digital Content Creation and Productivity.

The performance achieved by other laptops in our tests can be found in our CPU Benchmarks article.

Our test device is equipped with a Samsung PM9A1, and 512 GB is now the minimum configuration option. However, the M.2 NVMe SSD could also come from SK Hynix, Intel, or Toshiba as other XPS samples recently showed.

The Samsung model isn't a high-end NVMe drive. The sequential read and write speeds of 2,000 MB/s and 1,100 MB/s, respectively, are moderate and don't manage to come too close to the popular Samsung PM981 series. However, the Samsung drive catches up to its big sibling when it comes to reading and writing small blocks of data (Write 4K). In the end, the PM981 seems to be 45% faster if we stick to the total score of AS SSD.

More storage benchmarks can be found in our HDD/SSD Benchmarks article.

The Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 internal GPU with its 80 EUs is responsible for displaying image content in the XPS 13 9305. It shares memory with the CPU and benefits from a multi-channel configuration like the one found here. The benchmarks also prove to be correspondingly good, and the Xe Graphics G7 80EUs in the 9305 outperforms the Xe Graphics G7 96EUs (9310 i7) - but not in 3DMark 11. Dell's maximum performance mode was enabled.

You can compare the performance provided by other graphics units in our GPU Benchmarks article.

The 3DMark results are impressive for an integrated GPU, delivering scores that are 5% to 25% higher than those of the discrete GeForce MX450 or 60% higher than those of the Iris Plus G7 found in the XPS 13 9300. However, as it turns out, these synthetic results don't translate well to real-world gaming performance, so users shouldn't expect frame rates that are 5% to 25% faster than those of a GeForce MX350/MX450 laptop.

Final Fantasy 15 and The Witcher 3, for example, are by no means faster on our XPS 13 9305 than on a laptop powered by the MX450.