Dell is upgrading part of its flagship laptop line today, moving the Dell XPS 15 and XPS 17 up to 13th Gen Intel Core processors and Nvidia's GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards.
Unlike the Dell XPS 13, which got a makeover last year along with a spec bump, the XPS 15 and XPS 17 look the same as they have for the last few years.
Both the XPS 15 (9530) and XPS 17 (9730) will start at a Core i5-13500H and go up to an Intel Core i9-13900H and go up to 64GB of DDR5-4800 RAM. Additionally, they each can be configured with between 512GB and 4TB of SSD storage, though Dell notes that the computers actually support up to 8TB.
The big difference, beyond the displays and size, are in graphics. The XPS 15 will range from Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4050 up to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, and will also offer an entry-level Intel graphics option in the Arc A370M, while the XPS 17 will start at the RTX 4050 and go up to the RTX 4080. But the XPS 15 is only launching with its most powerful graphics option and the XPS 17 will have the top two. All of the lower-level GPUs are coming "post launch."
Both laptops will continue to use Dell's InfinityEdge, nearly-bezel-free displays. Both the 15 and 17 will have high-res OLED variants (3840 x 2400 on the XPS 17, and an almost-4K 3456 x 2160 on the XPS 15), or more standard-definition screens without OLED. Every display option supports Dolby Vision.
Perhaps Dell isn't updating the design because it still, to some degree, serves creative types. The Dell XPS 13 went a bit overboard and removed the headphone jack and went for an all-glass capacitive touchpad. Video or sound editors may want the headphone jack for high-end headphones as well as the full-sized SD card slot. Perhaps the biggest thing I'd wish for in a redesign is an HDMI port, which Apple went thicker to accommodate in its MacBook Pros.
The XPS 15 will start at $2,949 for the Intel Core i9, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, 32GB of DDR5, 1TB SSD and OLED panel, while the XPS 17 will begin at $3,399 with the same specs and its highest-end panel. Those lower-level screens, CPUs and GPUs will be available later on, hopefully making what have been historically solid machines available to more people.
