Dell has been trying to get the ultra-thin laptop right for several years. But each time it fell short of something, sometimes turning out to be underpowered and sometimes with a dismal battery life. However, with the  XPS 15z , Dell seems to have hit the nail at the right spot.

Dell XPS 15z is less than an inch thick and weighs only about 5.6 pounds despite packing in the Intel Core i7 processor.

The XPS 15z packs in an array of features and yet manages to keep its price under $1000. Now, that can be the real talking point. Let us take a closer look at XPS 15z-the latest notebook from Dell.

Design Features Of Dell XPS 15Z

Dell XPS 15z could easily be taken for the MacBookPro had it not been for the raised Dell logo on the lid. There is no hint of plastic anywhere on the 15z. All parts are made of aluminum. The lid has a slightly light metallic coating while the deck is darker in color.  There are two speaker grilles one on each side of the keyboard.

The ribbed barrel hinge is one feature that looks a little out of place. The dimensions of the device are 15.2 x 10.3 inches and it is 0.97 inches thick, which makes Dell 15z the slimmest notebook ever made.

Keyboard & Touchpad

The XPS 15z comes with an island style backlit keyboard. When the back light is turned off it becomes a little difficult to read the numbers and letters on the keyboard.

An eject button is also present for the DVD drive. The 15z comes with a highly responsive and large touchpad with dimensions 3.9 x 2.3-inch. Multi-touch functions like pinch and zoom, rotate and scroll with ease can easily be executed.

Display

The XPS 15z comes with a 15.6inches screen. It provides two separate screen alternatives for its XPS 15z. The first one is the WLED screen which has a resolution of 1366×768 pixels. But the WLED full high-definition display has a higher resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. The display is quite bright and crisp.

Audio

The two large speakers found on either side of the keyboard produced very high quality sound. However, the subwoofer is absent.

Ports

You will find two USB ports on the left hand side of the XPS 15z. The USB eSATA with Powershare, the MiniDisplayPort, HDMI 1.4 plus a 9-in-1 card reader. On the right hand side you will find a slot for loading DVD drive, mic jacks and headphone. The back side has Ethernet ports.

Webcam

The XPS 15z comes with a 1.3MP webcam which despite not being Skype HD certified renders fine details of our face and clothes. Also the dual embedded microphone did a good job of picking up our voices clearly.

Graphics

The XPS 15z packs in two graphics chips-the Intel HD-GPU and Nvidia’s GeForce GT525M.

Wi-Fi

The 15z comes with an Intel Centrino Advanced 6230Wi-Fi card. It offers a decent throughput of 31.7Mbps at about 15feet from the access point. However, this figure is 5Mbps slower than the average. At a distance of 50feet from the router the throughput drops to 14.5Mbps which is about 7Mbps slower than the average. The XPs 15z also comes equipped with Bluetooth 3.0.

Battery Life

 After being fully charged the Dell XPS 15z lasts for about 6 hours and 8minutes. That is significantly better than the average which is usually 4.23.

Dell Xps 15z Performance 

Dell’s  XPS 15z is promoted as a notebook meant for heavy business use and light entertainment. Thus the users would expect this notebook to offer a good application performance and keep some reserves for multimedia usage. In this respect XPS 15z offers the right kind of configuration. Two processors namely Intel’s Core i5-2410M CPU and Core i7-2620M have been listed by Dell.

Both these processors have the Turbo Boost Technology which enhances the processor speed to 2.9. In addition to this, Hyper Threading facilitates two more threads to be simulated. That gives the device an edge by way of a significant speed advantage in multi-core applications.

The choice of CPU would depend on two things-one the performance requirement and two, the amount of money you are willing to spend. For the average user the Core i5-2410M would be sufficient. However, if you have certain discreet needs, you might benefit from the slightly faster Core i7-2620M.

The graphic chip namely the GeForce GT 525M from Nvidia ensures the light entertainment that Dell promises. This mid-range graphics card supports several features including CUDA or PreVideo HD and it can also expand the functions of the notebook. This graphics card comes with enough power so that the latest games can run properly even if in a low resolution and least graphic detailing.

The GT 252M can be found in two alternatives-one is with video memory of 1GB and the other is with 2GB. However, it can’t be said whether the difference affects performance in a significant way. Graphics memory of 1GB is sufficient for most games.

The Nvidia’s Optimus allows Dell to automatically switch between the active graphics cards. This means that it disables GT 525M and then displays the picture through the HD 3000 graphic solution. As a result energy is saved, battery life is extended and emissions are reduced. The graphics unit is available whenever needed.

Dell Xps 15z Verdict

Dell XPS 15z has managed to address the complaints that users had about the XPS 15. Bulk and endurance were the two problems with the Dell XPS 15. But the 15z has managed to slim down the notebook and this streamlined design looks great and elegant. What’s more at 6 hours, the battery life is also decent.

Although, the backlit keyboard is a plus point, the keyboard itself feels a little uncomfortable. Moreover, when the backlight is turned off it is difficult to see the letters on the keys. Nevertheless, that’s just a small shortcoming. Dell XPS 15z has several features that would draw you towards it. In a nutshell, it can be said that when buying a Windows notebook, the Dell XPS 15z is a good choice.