Got it.
It comes in a very small amount of packaging, which is refreshing. So many things come in huge boxes with oceans of packing peanuts and miles of cellophane. This comes in an outer shipping box about the size of a small attache case, in which is a smaller black box and a separate compartment for the power brick and cord.
And what a lovely thing it is. If it didn't have "Dell" written on it, you wouldn't guess. Fit and finish is genuinely first-class. The hinge is solid yet smooth, there's a handy little button with 4 LEDs on the side for remaining battery (so you don't have to open the thing, or flip it over, to find out), the upper and lower clamshells are metal. Magnesium. Aluminium. Somethingorotherium. I dunno. Looks and feels nice, anyhoo. The soft "snick" noise when you close the lid is just another manifestation of the fact that someone's sat down and actually thought about this.
There's a single solitary "Intel Core i7 inside" sticker on the wrist rest (the carbon fucking fibre wrist rest), which, although muted in tone, will be going. All the usual dreary compliance stickers and service tag malarkey is hidden under a flap on the bottom of the machine, which is also where the XPS branding is, so even the bottom looks neat and tidy.
The screen is truly glorious - vivid and tack-sharp and so bright. The keyboard is fine; the keys have a satisfying resistance and the backlight has a couple of levels. The way it goes within 5mm of the edge of the lid is just delightful.
The surprise for me is in the touch - firstly, I'm already poking the screen to do stuff and secondly, dat touchpad. Apparently tired of a cavalcade of one shitty OEM touchpad after another, MS have taken charge of the situation. Result? A touchpad experience that's not dissimilar to that which you get on a Mac laptop. Two finger this, one finger that, pinch the other.
Performance? Hard to tell. It's got an SSD, 8GB and an i7, so it's no slouch, but until I get LR and PS CC onto it, all I can say is "it's plenty quick for regular desktop stuff".
Speaking of software, the only two items of preinstalled software I felt moved to remove were McAfee and DropBox. No PowerDVD, no trials of creative this or that. There's an Office trial installed, but that just saved me a massive download when I activated my Office 365 subscription.
Protip: set the display scaling to 100% at least once, just for shitzngigz.
Also, the webcam is in a stupid place. Don't care. Never use it.
And what a lovely thing it is. If it didn't have "Dell" written on it, you wouldn't guess. Fit and finish is genuinely first-class. The hinge is solid yet smooth, there's a handy little button with 4 LEDs on the side for remaining battery (so you don't have to open the thing, or flip it over, to find out), the upper and lower clamshells are metal. Magnesium. Aluminium. Somethingorotherium. I dunno. Looks and feels nice, anyhoo. The soft "snick" noise when you close the lid is just another manifestation of the fact that someone's sat down and actually thought about this.
There's a single solitary "Intel Core i7 inside" sticker on the wrist rest (the carbon fucking fibre wrist rest), which, although muted in tone, will be going. All the usual dreary compliance stickers and service tag malarkey is hidden under a flap on the bottom of the machine, which is also where the XPS branding is, so even the bottom looks neat and tidy.
The screen is truly glorious - vivid and tack-sharp and so bright. The keyboard is fine; the keys have a satisfying resistance and the backlight has a couple of levels. The way it goes within 5mm of the edge of the lid is just delightful.
The surprise for me is in the touch - firstly, I'm already poking the screen to do stuff and secondly, dat touchpad. Apparently tired of a cavalcade of one shitty OEM touchpad after another, MS have taken charge of the situation. Result? A touchpad experience that's not dissimilar to that which you get on a Mac laptop. Two finger this, one finger that, pinch the other.
Performance? Hard to tell. It's got an SSD, 8GB and an i7, so it's no slouch, but until I get LR and PS CC onto it, all I can say is "it's plenty quick for regular desktop stuff".
Speaking of software, the only two items of preinstalled software I felt moved to remove were McAfee and DropBox. No PowerDVD, no trials of creative this or that. There's an Office trial installed, but that just saved me a massive download when I activated my Office 365 subscription.
Protip: set the display scaling to 100% at least once, just for shitzngigz.
Also, the webcam is in a stupid place. Don't care. Never use it.
