Company Updates

Meet the New XPS 13: Stylish, Powerful and Better by Every Measure

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Technology has become an expression of style for those who use it – though fashion can be fickle. One thing we do know is elegance never goes out of style.

Dell XPS 13 laptop white

First unveiled at CES 2012, the XPS 13 immediately enhanced the legacy of XPS as the world’s most celebrated laptop and winner of more product awards than any other line in Dell’s history, most recently named a CES 2018 Innovation Award Honoree.

And how did it garner this latest honor? Vision and a lot of hard work.

In reimagining the XPS 13, Dell took inspiration from the realm of fashion, where rose gold remains a trending color and white accents have been growing in popularity, seen everywhere from watch bands to sneakers. However, when turning our XPS white, we strived to achieve elegance and invested more than a dozen people, 11,520 hours and 50 trials to create a new system that was as stunning inside and out. The Dell design team didn’t want to simply paint a system white – they wanted to use authentic materials and make sure the system looked as beautiful on day 1,000 as it does on day 1.

Dell XPS 13 laptops silver black rose gold white

With the desire to give its white palm rest a weaved appearance, the team considered different materials beyond the color limits of traditional carbon fiber. The solution? An innovative new crystalline silica material with the white color literally woven in, like a fabric, in nine composite layers.  Dell is the first to use this woven glass fiber in a laptop.

An innovative new crystalline silica material with the white color literally woven in, like a fabric, in nine composite layers.

Complementing the new rose gold aluminum shell of the XPS 13, the alpine white glass fiber weave is elegant to the eye and silky to the touch. Durable as it is beautiful, atop its soft-textured lattice is titanium oxide for a pearlescent sheen and UV and stain-resistant coatings to prevent yellowing or staining over time. In fact, if you get a pen mark or other stain on the white interior you can just wipe it off. And with a heat resistance superior to metal, woven glass fiber also stays cooler to facilitate longer performance.

Interesting fact: The glass fibers in one palm rest, if laid end to end, would extend for 117,500 miles, nearly enough to stretch halfway from Earth to the moon. Now that’s one giant leap.

We not only worked to create the most beautiful laptop on the market, but extended that design ethos to its matching white power cords and USB-A/USB-C adapter. And moving from style, to lifestyle, we invested in sustainable recycled ocean plastics and bamboo packaging so you can purchase with confidence knowing that Dell is doing its part to help the planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XChLUIP8kDw&feature=youtu.be

Besides its head-turning exterior, the all-new XPS 13 is better by every measure. Now, even more portable as the smallest 13-inch laptop on the planet, its stunning InfinityEdge display fits this 13-inch laptop in an 11-inch frame. It’s a full 30 percent (3.4mm) thinner as well as lighter, starting at just 2.7 pounds, making the XPS 13 the ultimate in mobility and durability.

Running Windows 10 and powered by the latest Intel 8th Generation Quad Core processor, XPS 13 delivers superior mobile performance with fast booting SSDs up to 1TB. You can also expect the longest battery life of any 13-inch laptop, with almost 20 hours on FHD, up to 11 on UHD (Mobile Mark 14).

While we made the system smaller and lighter, we were able to increase the performance by 2x, over the previous XPS 13 launched in 2015, and maintain the world’s most powerful 13-inch laptop in its class. So how did we do that? We have the most innovative performance and thermal engineering at Dell.

…we were able to increase the performance by 2x, over the previous XPS 13 launched in 2015, and maintain the world’s most powerful 13-inch laptop in its class.

We developed Dell Power Manager to let you customize your balance of battery life, charging, thermals and acoustics and Dynamic Power Mode that intuitively delivers maximum power as needed, for such tasks as video rendering applications and advanced spreadsheets, while intelligently monitoring and managing system temperatures. This means the XPS 13 has sustained high performance while competitors performance declines with continued use, making the XPS 13 the most powerful 13-inch in its class (Tested by Principled Technologies in December 2017 using the Cinebench CPU (multi-core test)).

As for thermal engineering, XPS 13 is the world’s first laptop built with GORE™ Thermal Insulation, the same silica aerogels that have been used in high-tech science and extreme engineering environments to diffuse and dissipate heat, such as insulation on the Mars Rovers and Hyper Velocity Particle capture in the Stardust Probe. This material directs heat out of the device, keeping your system cool while it works hard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIHVfZX9tXA

Now with a higher resolution display, incorporating 2.5 million more pixels with 4K Ultra HD compared to the previous QHD+, the 100 percent sRGB display on the XPS 13 gives you great, saturated and accurate color, whether for graphic professionals or watching your favorite Netflix show. In fact, Dell knows people today use their PCs to stream content, so the XPS 13 also delivers an unparalleled immersive cinematic experience with richer colors and details, crisper and stronger audio, and reduced buffering, so you really can watch Netflix and chill.

Activated by voice, touch or facial recognition, access to the new XPS 13 comes through a triad of biometric doorways. Log in with a look or a touch with the infrared camera and optional fingerprint reader in the power button for Windows Hello, or talk to your device from across the room, with four integrated digital microphones and Microsoft’s Cortana voice recognition capabilities.

The new XPS 13 is available globally beginning today on Dell.com, Microsoft.com and at your local Microsoft Store, starting at $999.99. Dell is also offering an Ubuntu-based developer edition with Linux preloaded starting at $949.99 beginning today on Dell.com in the US, Canada and Europe as well.

I can confidently say the new XPS 13 is the most stunning system we have ever created with the perfect blend of elegance and performance. If you are attending CES, please come check it out at the #DellExperience at the Yardbird in the Venetian or give me your feedback at @AzorFrank.

The XPS 13 is just the first of many exciting announcements we will be making at CES 2018. Stay up to date on the latest Dell news by visiting our CES press site here throughout the duration of the show.

About the Author: Frank Azor

Frank Azor, an Alienware co-founder, now oversees XPS, Dell’s premium consumer brand and Dell gaming, which includes Alienware and Inspiron Gaming. Celebrating 20 years as the leader in PC gaming systems, Alienware sets the standard for premium gaming PCs and innovation, and Inspiron Gaming provides high performance gaming systems at an affordable cost that give gamers a competitive advantage at every level of play. Under his leadership, Dell’s XPS brand has risen to the top in innovation, design and performance, while becoming the most-award winning product-line in Dell history. Frank joined Alienware as a quality engineer and later held executive roles in sales and marketing before creating the Alienware Product Group organization in 2003-after helping to pioneer the industry’s first high-performance gaming notebook, the Area-51M. Later that year, he was credited with the successful launch of Alienware’s first self-designed desktop case (Predator) which immediately made industry headlines and has defined the look of Alienware’s products ever since. Prior to Dell’s acquisition of Alienware in 2006, Frank held the positions of Senior Vice-President of Product Group and Marketing and Executive Vice-President managing the global executive leadership team and reporting directly to the President and CEO. Shortly after helping lead Alienware’s successful integration into Dell, Frank assumed the role of worldwide general manager for the Alienware business unit. Under Frank’s leadership, Alienware’s brand has become the worldwide leader in its industry and has earned hundreds of awards for its products including multiple best of CES product awards. As of 2017, Frank holds 16 patents granted under his name and has been named a milestone inventor by Dell. In 2014, Frank’s role was expanded to include global responsibility for Dell’s XPS business unit, one of the company’s most innovative and valued brands. Since assuming responsibility for the XPS business unit for Dell, Frank instituted a new product and business strategy that led to the successful introduction of the highly acclaimed XPS 13 notebook which has won more than 300 awards since its introduction at CES 2015 and has been deemed the best notebook on the market from numerous outlets including Forbes, Wall Street Journal and CNET. On top of the product accomplishments, Frank’s leadership has reinstated rapid growth for Dell’s XPS business. In 2017, Frank assumed responsibility for launching and managing Dell’s Inspiron Gaming line of powerful yet budget friendly gaming PCs. Inspiron Gaming systems have quickly become a favorite among players and reviewers desiring top graphics performance under $1000 USD. The systems have received many awards including a Computex d&i Gold winner and several Best Gaming PCs of CES awards. Frank sits on the advisory board for Miami Dade College’s MAGIC program where he has led the creation of a Dell-backed scholarship fund to help both high school and college students learn skills and earn degrees in computer graphics design, animation and game development. Frank has also served as a volunteer judge for the FIRST robotics south Florida regional competition since 2013 (www.usfirst.org) an organization founded by Dean Kamen that has provided students with more than $50 million in college scholarships in 2017 alone. Frank lives in Palmetto Bay, FL USA near Alienware’s headquarters with his wife, their 2 sons and their pet dachshund. Frank is currently playing Overwatch with his oldest son who is also an avid Minecraft player. Frank’s most anticipated games for 2017 exist in Virtual Reality where Frank has been immersed for years – and of course – powered by award-winning VR-ready PCs from Alienware and XPS.