Review Dell XPS 15z Notebook

Facts about the Dell XPS z series was kept rather secretive for a long time. After all, it is the successor of the famous Adamo, or rather Adamo XPS. However, what we could judge with the first representative, the 15 inch XPS 15z, remains below the fueled expectations.
Without doubt, Dell delivers a good performance in terms of design and material appearance. In particular, innovative approaches that made the Adamo to what it was have been left out (for now). So, we'll have to wait and see how the XPS z series develops, especially the smaller models that will hopefully follow.

Dell has almost done a good job with the given interfaces and the stylish keyboard. However, the display's presentation is rather more average. The Full HD display, available for a surcharge, is bright and has a good contrast, but the reproducible color gamut is on an entry level standard. This may not be problematic for the average consumer. However, it could be a make-or-break criterion for professional users in the photo and graphics field, who are very well a potential target group among the "rising stars" in our opinion.
The available performance reserves pacify the potential customer. In the end, the Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs, together with Nvidia's Geforce GT 525M graphics card, supply enough power for application scenarios. The graphics card will quickly prove to be a bottleneck merely in serious gaming use. The 7200 rpm hard disk installed in every case supplies good benchmark scores, but can't convince in terms of emissions. A hybrid drive or even a solid state drive would definitely have been the better choice in this case, and it would have also matched better to the device's clean-cut image.

The high temperatures, as well as the high noise during load, did surprise us in view of the installed hardware. The slim base unit (about 20 millimeters) likely takes its toll here. Nevertheless, possible opponents from the Apple corner do a much better job with this. Only the used mass memory puts a wrench in the works in office mode and deters an otherwise pleasantly tempered, and at the same time quiet, notebook.

You'll only be able to enjoy the irremovable battery as long as it does its job without problems. It worked quite well in the test. Thus, the Dell XPS 15z can also be used well on the move with battery runtimes of 5-6 hours.