Customer Ratings & Reviews

My first laptop 20 years ago was a Dell and I've appreciated the consistency of experience with Dell for the most part. There have been times when some questionable engineering decisions were made placing the DC jack near a heat exhaust port that caused premature failure of the jacks, but the for the most part Dell has been a durable workhouse machine. I also most preface that my most recent experience in the last decade has been mostly ASUS oriented because they delivered the most bang for my humble dollars, I do recognize stand out quality when I feel it, and here is a unit that has the feel and appearance of every dollar you'll spend on this XPS 17. APPEARANCE Stunning. The lid opening experience tells it all - while some laptops have what seems limp resistance to cover opening, this deal is like opening a bank vault in its assembly quality. You'll feel like the lid is heavier than it is and the quality edge work on the lid and the rest of the chassis continues to invoke a premium feel to the laptop. The lid and the bottom case are aluminum (it appears to be stamped and then machined); the monitor border is enough to make an Apple laptop look so 1999. There is virtually no border on this screen. And the plamrest and keyboard surface has an almost rubberized feel - textured and firm without looking like cheap plastic. The black surface looks wonderful in constrasting with the aluminum bits and the machined edges gives the computer a very premium look and feel. MONITOR APPEARANCE Stunning. Vivid. And touch sensitive. Once again you could buy a much lower priced touch screen laptop, but you would be hard pressed to find a unit that combines touch with 3840x2400 ability. I did notice my particular unit had the brightness turned down which made the initial impression as less than stellar; however, I corrected that issue and turned the brightness up and the results were amazing. PERFORMANCE This computer is no joke. It comes with the latest Intel 11th generation i7 chip (11800H). I was going to produce a video prior to releasing this review but my work schedule has been hectic so I ran out of time. Needless to say that just opening the video producing software, Corel VideoStudio 2021 (Ultimate) was a remarkably fast experience - it took less than 10 seconds from the time the splash screen appears until the actual program opened. In prior versions of this software it was nearly a 30 second experience on older machines. I did run CINEBENCH R23 on this machine and another similarly configured 11th gen Intel i7 machine (same 16 gb of ram and same actual processor and core counts). The Dell XPS 17 turned in multi-core results at 9499 and single core at 802; the comparative tester (Acer Triton Predator gaming laptop) came in at multi-core of 7892 and oddly showed a better single core result at 927. OVERALL IMPRESSIONS The Dell XPS 17 is a delight to use with my first experience of Windows Hello being remarkable in its ability to tell when I have my glasses on and when I don't. I, however, find the backlighting on the keys to be subpar compared to a much less expense HP Envy 13 or a better overall execution by the ACER Predator (superb). Typing with the keys is not bad but I would not call it memorable. Typing is okay but I would expect a far better keyboard at the price point of this machine. The trackpad is horrific - it is far too sensitive. Perhaps because I am older, it is set up for younger fingers which can adjust better to the trackpad's sensitivity better than my fingers. I will be getting a mouse because I just can't work with something that is perceiving I've input something or moved across the pad when I had no such intention. SPEAKERS Why do they sound so tinny? I know laptop speakers sometimes sound like they are the last thing installed when it comes to putting in the cost figures for a product, but these are just mediocre at best. Compared to my HP Envy 13, these speakers in the XPS 17 were begging for me to have a set of headphones on. I can't believe something like this was allowed to be installed on a computer costing well over $2k. These aren't bad overall, but I wouldn't listen to music on them whereas the HP ENVY 13's are surprisingly good for the money. Again, a value proposition. Had Dell even gone with the HP's speakers, it would have been an upgrade over the tepid sound reproduction of the Dell speakers. So inferior was the sound reproduction that I thought a setting might be off - just like the initial experience with the screen brightness. Alas, I could not find anything to make these speakers sound decent. What is surprising is that Dell put the speakers on the top so they should sound decent, but the HP's were put toward the back of the keyboard and still managed to sound better that far away from my ears. And even though I'm nearly 60, I do want some bass in the sound reproduction and none was to be found here. I've honestly had AM radios back in the day that sounded as good. OVERALL CONCLUSION If you want a great looking and well built laptop that simply is stunning in its visual performance, you'd be hard pressed to find a better computer in the Windows world. Two of the shortcomings of this unit can be solved easily with a wireless keyboard and mouse; the sound issue can be solved with headphones (I usually use those any way when making videos) and at least there is a jack to resolve that shortcoming. Aside from those shortcomings outlined, this Dell XPS 17 is a stunner. It brings the entire football team to the field with all-pro players. I will be curious to see how that Acer does in video production compared to this unit. Value is always appreciated more in my family than just bragging rights on amount of money spent. But the XPS 17 has its stunning display to bring to the fight. That will be hard to beat.

A great piece of hardware with a lot to love and very little to complain about. THE GOOD ~ Large Screen ~ 1TB SSD ~ RTX 3060 Graphix card ~ 16GB RAM ~ Beautiful display ~ Fast (boot and program loads) ~ Touch screen ~ Large track pad ~ Backlit keyboard ~ Bright display ~ Sleek design ~ Very small bezel ~ Quiet ~ USB-C Charging ~ 4 USB-C ports ~ SD Card reader ~ Plenty of space to rest hands while typing ~ Light ~ Selfie cam THE BAD ~ Sound quality THE MEH (Could go either way) ~ Sound quality ~ Heat ~ No optical drives OVERALL I love this computer. It is beautifully designed. Some laptops have a tendency to look clunky or thrown together. That cannot be said of this. Taking it out of the box, I was impressed with the sleek build. Although it weighs just under 6 pounds, it feels very solid. No, I wouldn't want to drop it, but it feels like it will withstand those incidental bumps when you're toting it in a bag or walking to show someone something and knock a door frame with it. (Yeah, that happens to me sometimes). There is a lot of real estate on this screen. These 17-inches feel bigger than that due to the very thin bezel. Watching a movie or doing photoshop on it is very easy. The colors and display are bright and beautiful. This machine boots very quickly. More than that, programs also load quickly. Photoshop and Illustrator both load nice and fast. Those are probably two of the slowest-loading programs I use on a consistent basis, so they are my benchmark. They load a tad slower than on my desktop which has an NVMe drive in it and 32GB RAM, but that's to be expected. Timing it, the difference is about 2 seconds. Nothing worth complaining about. It's probably about 5 -8 seconds faster than my older i7 laptop. I like that it has a built-in card reader. I do a lot of photography and this makes downloading my shots very simple. Although I generally don't like to use touch-screen because of the nasty fingerprints, I always like having the option. Sometimes, it comes in handy as it has already on this computer. I do video calls from time to time, so having the selfie cam is nice too. It's only 720 instead of 1080, To be honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the sound. Yes, it's loud enough. It plays high and mid tones well, but lacks bass. At times, it almost feels like I am listening to two non-stereo radios at the same time in an attempt to create that stereophonic sound. This isn't a deal-breaker for me, because I am not using it to mix beats. I'm an audiophile, but I generally don't rely on laptop speakers for the best sounds. I do think these could be improved a little. Ordinarily, this computer runs very cool. I had no problems writing or using photoshop with it on my lap. HOWEVER, when I loaded World of Tanks and played, it got pretty hot. I honestly didn't attempt to play without it on my lap, so the air circulation is probably better with it on a table than a squishy lap. If you are looking for something portable or smaller to replace your old desktop, this would be a great solution. It has plenty of computing power, drive space, etc to make sure it will not be obsolete within 6 months or a year. Based on stats and my current computer usage (which is a lot), I expect this will continue to serve me well and remain relevant for at least the next few years, if not longer. The only thing is, if you're like me, you have a lot of burnt CDs and DVDs from over the years. You'll have to get a portable optical drive since there is one on this. I would definitely recommend this to anyone with the budget who is looking to replace their desktop and/or do graphics work on the go.

To start, this Dell XPS laptop comes in professional packing which mimics the elegant, sleek, yet simple design of this laptop. Included is a separate accessory that has an A and an HDMI port. The laptop is heavier than other portable devices but the amazing display and performance of this machine are well worth it! The thin bezel on the 17" screen makes it seem much larger than it is. And with a 4K RGB high resolution, touch screen, 16:10 aspect ratio display - the visuals, whether watching a movie or creating graphics, are some of the best I've seen. The performance and capacity of this laptop are stellar with 16GB of Ram and a large 1TB solid-state drive. Combined with the Intel Core i7 processor - this laptop functions with amazing speed and is a true workhorse without getting overly hot after all-day use. One of the best features by far is the extra-large touchpad which works smoothly without being overly sensitive. That, along with a smaller yet still very functional keyboard, makes this a perfect laptop for navigating creative software. This laptop is extremely quiet. It has two quality speakers, located on each side of the keyboard, with microphones by the camera on the top of the display. Overall, for both performance and display quality, this is the best creative laptop I've used.

What is not to love about this stunningly designed laptop that looks like a Macbook but runs Windows. The screen is gorgeous, the graphics card is fast and powerful and the full size keyboard is a joy to type on. The speakers sound amazing and THANK YOU DELL for including four Thunderbolt 4 ports and including a SD card reader for all us digital camera users. This laptop is a joy to use! I highly recommend it.

Setup was a breeze! Lovely large 17" screen with a great clear picture. Sound is excellent. I can hear the voices/words on videos, even older ones. That doesn't happen with the TV! I expect to use this laptop for many years.