Leaked official image of the Dell XPS 15 9500, XPS 17 9700, and 2020 Precision confirms expected design changes

We have seen the upcoming Dell XPS 15 9500 and XPS 17 9700 show-up on benchmark sites in the past few days. The benchmark listings indicated a new 16:10 3840 x 2400 display; thus, hinting at a possible redesign that was long awaited. Now, we get to see what could officially be the new design of the XPS and Precision laptops straight from Dell itself.

The above image was spotted by u/WesolyKubeczek on Reddit on the Dell Precision laptops product page. It appears that the image has now been removed, but we can confirm that it is an official image from Dell and not a mockup. In the image, the top two laptops look to be the XPS 15 9500 and XPS 17 9700 while the bottom ones seem to be the 2020 Precision mobile workstations. 

Looking at the XPS part of the image, we see that the new redesign indeed has a 16:10 display. The bottom chin seems to have been significantly reduced to facilitate the new aspect ratio allowing for a nearly all-round bezel-less design. We also see a much bigger trackpad and upward-firing speakers. The presence of upward-firing speakers seems to have created a discontinuity in the carbon fiber design, which now looks to be confined largely to the area surrounding the trackpad. The left and right arrow keys seem to be larger than usual as well. 

The new XPS 15 9500 and XPS 17 9700 seem to have emulated the XPS 13 7390 and the MacBook Pro by completely foregoing USB Type-A ports. We expect all four ports shown to be Thunderbolt 3 ports — a move that is likely to elicit differing opinions. Apparently, there does not seem to be a distinct power port so it is likely that charging will be exclusively via USB power delivery.

Given that the upcoming XPS lineup will use at least a GeForce GTX 1650 Ti, it remains to be seen if the supplied adaptor can deliver more than 100 W of power to prevent power limit throttling during intense workloads such as gaming. That being said, Dell does supply USB-C adaptors that can go up to 130 W, so this shouldn't be much of a issue. Apart from the Thunderbolt 3 ports, we also get to see an SD card reader, headphone jack, and a lock slot. 

Below the new XPS laptops lie the 2020 Precision mobile workstations. It is difficult to guess the exact SKUs these laptops belong to, but we do get to see a few design changes from the Precision 7540/7740. The new Precisions seem to have kept the ventilation grills to just the left side. There also seems to be only one Thunderbolt 3 port on the left.

We do not have a shot of the rear of the Precision laptops, so we cannot confirm the ports on that side. However, this being a Precision laptop, we do expect it to feature HDMI, mini DisplayPort, and Ethernet ports at the rear. 

The XPS 15 launch would have normally happened around the time of the Intel Comet Lake-H unveil give or take a few weeks. Nevertheless, with Dell itself now posting the official images, we could be very near to an official announcement in the coming weeks. We will keep you posted, so stay tuned.

Corrigendum: It was earlier incorrectly stated that the GPU could be a GTX 1660 Ti. It should actually be a GTX 1650 Ti based on leaked benchmarks. Article has been corrected.