Dell XPS 13 9365 2-in-1 Convertible Review

Webcam placement is a slight improvement over the peculiar corner location as found on the XPS 13. Nonetheless, the angle continues to be suboptimal unless if you don't mind the other person getting a good look at your chin and nostrils. Dell has somewhat gotten around this issue with the 360-degree hinges as the user can simply use the camera with the convertible in "Tent" mode instead of the standard notebook mode. Of course, this will also prevent keyboard use and is still an unfortunate drawback to the InfinityEdge design that competitors like HP and Lenovo have been duly pointing out.

The standard one-year limited warranty applies with options to extend to up to four years plus accidental damage protection. Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Keyboard

The backlit keyboard has undergone a few minor changes from a visual standpoint. The PgUp and PgDn keys are now adjacent to the Arrow keys and the vertical spacing between each key has been reduced to make room for slightly wider keys overall. Unfortunately, key travel remains very shallow and the feedback when pressed feels spongier compared to the original XPS 13. The smaller keys surrounding the main QWERTY keys are even softer and feel uneven. In comparison, the ThinkPad AccuType keyboard provides deeper travel with stronger and more consistent feedback between each key.

Touchpad

The wide clickpad (10.5 x 6 cm) is again virtually identical to the one of the XPS 13. Its surface is smooth and responsiveness is equally consistent around the corners and edges. Moving the cursor slowly will not result in any jumping or odd onscreen behavior. The main drawback are its integrated mouse keys as feedback is rather light and with a very shallow travel. The firm auditory click is otherwise satisfactory and easy to press on the bottom half of the surface.

Further display measurements reveal generally inaccurate grayscale and colors out of the box. A calibration improves both noticeably and is recommended if possible. Colors become increasingly more inaccurate the higher the saturation level due to the panel's imperfect sRGB coverage.

The new Kaby Lake Y-series is very similar to the outgoing Skylake Y-series in both lithography and performance. Instead, the Kaby Lake i7-7Y75 differentiates itself from the outgoing Skylake m7-6Y75 largely with its faster raw clock rates. CineBench R15 shows the i7-7Y75 in our Dell outperforming the m7-6Y75 in the EliteBook 1030 G1 by about 14 percent in single-threaded workloads. The processor even matches the single-threaded performance of the i5-7200U commonly found in the latest Ultrabooks including on the XPS 13 9360, which is impressive for a passively-cooled CPU. Dell has explicitly stated that the XPS 2-in-1 can run its processor at well over the 4.5 W TDP limit for faster performance, though the CPU can only sustain a clock rate in the 2.8 - 3.0 GHz range for single-threaded workloads according to our own observations.

Multi-threaded performance from the i7-7Y75 is a little more disappointing as even the older m7-6Y75 is able to outperform our XPS 2-in-1 configuration by about 10 percent according to CineBench R15. This may be due to the Dell sustaining slower core clock rates than the HP when under extended stress conditions. In fact, running CineBench R15 benchmarks consecutively one after another shows progressively lower scores each time with results as shown below. The XPS 13 9360 and its i7-7200U is measurably faster than the XPS 13 2-in-1 by 23 percent in the same benchmark.

See our dedicated CPU page on the Core i7-7Y75 for more technical information and benchmark comparisons.

PCMark 8 ranks the XPS 2-in-1 in the same ballpark as competing notebooks with ULV U-class processors including the Spectre x360 13 and Zenbook UX310UQ despite the weaker Core i7-7Y75 in the Dell.

Subjectively, system responsiveness is very fast when navigating and launching applications as expected from a SSD-based PC. Heavier programs like Photoshop or games take noticeably longer to launch compared to a proper Ultrabook. While we experienced no notable hardware or software issues, the wake and boot up times for our XPS 2-in-1 are longer than usual as the initial Dell splash screen will strangely take several seconds to appear after pressing the Power button.

Raw graphics power according to 3DMark benchmarks is above even the HD Graphics 520 in the Skylake i5-6200U but still well below both the HD Graphics 620 in the Kaby Lake i7-7500U and the low-end GeForce 940MX discrete GPU. Overall performance is very low when dealing with integrated GPUs especially on a passively cooled processor.

See our dedicated GPU page on the HD Graphics 615 for more technical information and benchmark comparisons.

We stress the convertible with extreme benchmark workloads to identify for any potential throttling or stability issues. When under Prime95 stress, the CPU can be observed running at the 3.0 - 3.1 GHz range for the first few seconds before steadily dropping to a stable 2.0 - 2.1 GHz over the next several minutes to maintain a core temperature of 78 C. This is rather impressive for a passively cooled processor considering that the base clock of the Core i7-7Y75 is much slower at 1.3 GHz. Running FurMark to stress the integrated graphics unit will see a stable GPU clock of around 650 MHz.

Running both Prime95 and FurMark simultaneously will throttle both the CPU and GPU down to a steady 800 MHz and 500 MHz, respectively, in order to maintain a core temperature of about 75 C. It appears that the system will initially run at higher Boost clock rates until core temperature reaches 87 C where performance will then automatically throttle as appropriate.

Running Unigine Valley to better represent gaming loads reveals a similar CPU behavior as the Prime95 stress test above. Processor clock rates start high in the 3 GHz range before gradually falling to a steady and even slower 0.8 to 1.1 GHz range. Meanwhile, GPU clock is steady at 700 MHz throughout the entire run. It's possible that system resources and power are favoring the integrated GPU rather than the CPU when both processors are under stress.

Running on battery power will reduce both CPU and GPU performance. A 3DMark 11 run on batteries returns Physics and Graphics scores of 2934 and 1116 points, respectively, compared to 3710 and 1370 points when on mains.

Surface temperatures when idling are relatively warm on both sides of the notebook. Areas closest to the processor, for example, can be up to 26 C when the system is idling against a room temperature of 20 C.

The notebook can be as warm as 50 C on surfaces nearest the processor when under extreme processing loads. The frontal areas including the palm rests and most of the keyboard remain comfortable for typing and never become too warm to use. The exception is the top row of F keys since this area is directly above the copper heat spreader, but these keys are pressed infrequently enough that we were never bothered by the warmth. The Spectre x360 13 can become almost as warm as the XPS 2-in-1 around this same area, but its keyboard is positioned lower to better avoid the hot spots.

The 2 W (1 W x 2) stereo speakers are about as loud as the ones on the XPS 13. Sound quality is not as good on the XPS 2-in-1 as shown by our microphone measurements below. Bass reproduction is poorer and treble is more uneven as well. Higher volume settings will not introduce static or reverberations, though sound balance suffers due to the weak bass.