Impressions: Dell XPS 13 (2020)

Recently I got to mess around with one of these laptops, and got a taste of the latest and greatest DELL power.

The Dell XPS 13 2020, apparently the top-spec model too. No AMD YES, obviously, but it does have Intel’s latest integrated graphics.

It’s not my laptop — I just set up the system and installed some software on it — but I figure I got enough hands-on time to give some basic impressions.

• First, the screen is genuinely great and the bezels are genuinely tiny. One look and you immediately understand that 16:9 is bullshit and always has been.
• Performance is OK. Can’t touch AMD YES, but it should be a big step up from older Intel chips.
• The keyboard still sucks. Feel is terrible, nowhere near a ThinkPad.
• There’s a fingerprint reader/power button in the top right corner, and that placement is genuinely stupid. I keep hitting it by accident thinking it’s DEL.
• And last, the most important point… QC is terrible. After one day of use this thing refused to boot, flashing 4 white 2 orange. Looked it up: the RAM isn’t seated properly. Except the RAM is soldered on…
• Eventually I got a replacement unit, and this one seems normal so far.

All in all the thing looks great everywhere except the keyboard, but I still wouldn’t recommend buying one. QC is just too bad — it dies at the drop of a hat.