Exclusive | Dell will bring back the matte display option in the XPS 13 9380, HDR panel a possibility as well

The Dell XPS 13 9370's screen is highly reflective.

Lack of a matte display option was one of the pain points of the Dell XPS 13 9370, making it a tad difficult to use under direct light or outdoors. We had a chance to speak to some panel manufacturers during Computex 2018 and luckily, they tell us that the upcoming XPS 13 9380 will feature a matte display option. Also, based on the information thus far, we get to speculate that HDR panels are a likely possibility in the upcoming XPS lineup.

by Vaidyanathan Subramaniam, 2018/07/02

	Dell XPS 13 9370 FHD i5 SHP1484, IPS, 13.3, 1920x1080	Dell XPS 13 9370 i7 UHD ID: Sharp SHP148B, Name: LQ133D1, Dell P/N: 8XDHY, IPS, 13.3, 3840x2160	Dell XPS 13 9360 FHD i5 Sharp SHP1449 LQ133M1, IPS, 13.3, 1920x1080	Dell XPS 13 9360 QHD+ i7 Sharp SHP144A, IPS, 13.3, 3200x1800
Response Times
Response Time Grey 50% / Grey 80% *	62.4 (32.4, 30)	69.6 (32.4, 37.2)	32.8 (16, 16.8)	43.6 (13.6, 30)
Response Time Black / White *	45.6 (24.4, 21.2)	44 (24.4, 19.6)	33.2 (10.8, 22.4)	29.2 (9.2, 20)
PWM Frequency	1008 (20)	3759 (20)
Screen
Brightness middle	428	478.5	351.2	396.2
Brightness	405	466	325	357
Brightness Distribution	87	86	89	84
Black Level *	0.26	0.43	0.195	0.266
Contrast	1646	1113	1801	1489
Colorchecker DeltaE2000 *	3.8	3.09	7.4	3.9
Colorchecker DeltaE2000 max. *	7.2	5.94	9.08	7.58
Greyscale DeltaE2000 *	4.4	2.4	6.71	4.16
Gamma	2.21 ^100%	2.063 ^107%	2.74 ^80%	2.31 ^95%
CCT	7067 ^92%	6883 ^94%	7222 ^90%	6514 ^100%
Color Space (Percent of AdobeRGB 1998)	62.8	69.47	50.48	57.5
Color Space (Percent of sRGB)	96.4	98.36	73.31	88.7
Colorchecker DeltaE2000 calibrated *		2.06
Total Average (Program / Settings)

* ... smaller is better

As you can see from the display comparison above, the increased brightness and color gamut in the current generation comes at a cost of high response times. Also, as noted in our reviews of the XPS 13 9370, the reduced display lid thickness makes the whole display fragile and needs a glass cover to ensure rigidity. This could be the reason why there are no proper matte displays in this generation.

HDR displays not too far off

Our conversations with panel manufacturers during Computex 2018 also lead us to speculate that we might start seeing HDR panels in the next generation XPS series. Back during CES 2018, we saw Lenovo introduce the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and the ThinkPad X1 Yoga with support for Dolby Vision HDR displays. Generally, most laptop displays are LCD panels with LED backlighting, which does not bode well for very high contrast or high luminance dynamic range. Although OLED panels are inherently capable of HDR, very few laptops such as the Alienware 13 R3 have actually adopted it. We, however, did not get any hints of OEMs switching en masse to OLED or HDR-enabled displays just yet.

VESA has recently come out with a revised specification called DisplayHDR v1.0 that specifically addresses the needs of PCs and laptops incorporating LCD displays. Aside from mid-range (DisplayHDR 600) and high-end (DisplayHDR 1000) specs, the baseline DisplayHDR 400 comes with a minimum luminance requirement of 400 nits on a true 8-bit display, which is feasible in a laptop. On the software side, Windows 10 has gained better support for HDR with the April 2018 Update making it highly plausible that HDR on laptops is actually not too far off.

We hope Dell does incorporate a matte display option and better response times in whatever panel it chooses for the next generation XPS 13. Although the HDR capability is still anyone's guess at this point, having the option will surely gratify the senses of potential buyers.

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