Dell XPS 16 (2024): A Platinum Beast

November 26, 2024

Summary

Dell XPS 16 (2024): A Platinum Beast

$3398.25

The latest iteration of Dell’s XPS 16 is a sleek beast with an OLED screen and ample power writes PAT PILCHER whose only grumble is a keyboard that stumped his fat fingers.

Dell XPS 16 laptop 2024 reviewWhile small laptops are great if you’re on the move, nothing quite beats decent-sized devices with a big screen and a super roomy keyboard. Enter stage left, Dell’s XPS 16. As its name suggests, it’s a beast of a machine, offering an optional 4K OLED display, an Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, and an RTX 4070 GPU for gamers.

Naturally, this spec doesn’t come cheap, but for your more than $3K you get a hell of a lot of laptop and one that can pretty much do it all.

Being an XXL-sized notebook, the XPS 16 (2024 version) is no featherweight. Weighing in at nearly 2.3kg, it isn’t a notebook you’ll want to casually throw in your laptop bag and carry to the office every morning (unless you happen to own shares in a chiropractic clinic).

Dell XPS 16 laptop 2024 reviewYou can get lighter 16โ€“inch notebooks, but these weight savings often come at the expense of construction quality, which is something that this Dell has in spades. Its overall design feels super solid. Opening its display offers little to no flex and handling it didn’t result in any of the creaking you’d associate with more affordable Tupperware-encased gear.ย  It’s finished in a light semi-gloss metallic silver (platinum in Dell speak). It reeks of quality and, best of all, it isn’t a fingerprint magnet.

Opening the 16-unch display reveals a roomy keyboard with speakers on both sides. There’s also a generous amount of space to rest your wrists/palms and a large, Gorilla Glass trackpad. Above the top row of keys are capacitive touch keys. Personally, I don’t like this approach. There was already plenty of room, and switching from mechanical keys to capacitive touch keys was jarring and often disrupted my typing. That said, this is no deal breaker, and if I’d had more time with it, I’m fairly sure I’d have become used to using the touch keys. Unfortunately, Dell lost points with their keyboard, which, despite the 16-inch sized deck, had a relatively tiny amount of space between keys and felt a tad cramped.

But while the keyboard felt cramped the 16.3-inch display was anything but. Surrounded by super slim 3mm bezels and a 1080p camera on top, the optional OLED screen is gorgeous. It offers a variable refresh rate of 48-90Hz, which is bizarrely a step down from the 48Hz to 120Hz on offer with the XPS 14. Being OLED, colours popped and contrast levels were gorgeous which, along with support for Dolby Vision HDR, delivered a tonne of on-screen detail. Brightness can be an issue with OLED, but to Dell’s credit, they’ve managed to squeeze in an impressive 400 nits (in testing, I recorded 410 nits) of brightness, making the display usable outdoors under sunlight.

Dell XPS 16 laptop 2024 reviewOn the connectivity front, you’re well-catered for. There are three USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 3.5mm audio socket and a microSD slot, so connecting peripherals is a cinch. If you have more than a printer/mouse/monitor, you’ll probably want to spring for a dedicated Thunderbolt 4 hub, however.

While not audiophile grade, the speakers delivered surprisingly decent sound at low to medium volumes, only distorting when cranked up to maximum. They proved to be a bit of a treat for media consumption, and when combined with the large 16-inch display, they made for a great Netflix and chill-watching experience. The Dell Bumf says that the speakers are Dolby Atmos-enabled. While they delivered a satisfactory stereo soundstage, I noticed no additional height or depth.

The overall performance wasn’t half bad, either. Given its impressive spec sheet, this wasn’t a huge surprise. Packing Intel’s latest Core Ultra 7 155H silicon, clocked at 4.8GHz, saw the XPS 16 barely breaking a sweat when I threw Cyberpunk 2077 at it, which is a testament to the chops of the rather excellent Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU (8 GB GDDR6, 60W) and I managed to wring out a fairly decent 33 fps out of it. Scanning images, editing and saving them showcased theย  its SSD performance. Delivering just shy of 6988MB/s read speed and 5225 write speed, loading/saving and editing large images felt almost effortless.

Dell XPS 16 laptop 2024 reviewThis performance translated well into productivity apps, which snapped to attention in the blink of an eye. The dedicated Microsoft Copilot key will prove a godsend for anyone researching or fact-checking. That said, it isn’t integrated into productivity apps. By default, you have to pay Microsoft an extra fee in addition to the already sizeable amount of cash youโ€™re already handing Microsoft every month to use Office 365.

Running a looped video test with default energy settings, the XPS 16 ran for almost 10 hours, which is impressive given its energy-hungry specs. Charging time from 0 to 100% also took just over two hours using the bundled 60W charger.

The XPS 16 is a veritable portable powerhouse of a beast wrapped up in a sleek and slick design. If you want movies, gaming, and productivity, the XPS 16 can do it all. The only thing holding the XPS 16 back from Witchdoctor’s Gold award is its quirky mechanical/touch keyboard design. Try it for size if you’re in for an impressively powerful laptop.

https://www.dell.com/en-nz/shop/laptop-notebook-computers/xps-16-laptop/spd/xps-16-9640-laptop

Pat has been talking about tech on TV, radio and print for over 20 years, having served time as a TV tech guy and currently penning reviews for Witchdoctor. He loves nothing more than rolling his sleeves up and playing with shiny gadgets.

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