Dell XPS 17 Review: Heavy-duty laptop that can do everything, but has a huge price tag!

In today’s fast-paced world, laptops have become a must-have. If you don’t have one, you’re lagging behind in every facet of life – professional and private. Rarely does anyone now sit behind a PC for any purpose, be it content creation, browsing the web, binge-watching shows or even gaming. Why must you sit tethered to one spot all day when you can do everything mentioned above wherever you like? Laptops offer that flexibility where you can do whatever you like, whenever you like, and wherever way you like. Purchasing a laptop today depends on its use, and there are varied offerings for students, content creators, graphic designers, professionals, and gamers. But what if you need to do a bit of everything from creating PDFs, and editing photos to playing your favourite video games?

This is where the Dell XPS 17 excels. With supercharged specs, a massive display and an extremely high price, is it worth buying, especially now that Apple has introduced its M3-powered MacBook Pro? At the outset, after spending a few weeks with the Dell XPS 17, I certainly think so. Here’s why.

Gorgeous Display

One of the most striking features of the Dell XPS 17 is its gorgeous, and massive display. It sports a 17-inch 4K UHD+ InfinityEdge display that is absolutely stunning to look at. While Apple is often credited with making the best displays, the Dell XPS 17 has even the top-spec’d MacBooks beat. Equipped with HDR, the Dell XPS 17 has stunning viewing angles, anti-reflective coating, and excellent colour reproduction. If you’re a graphic designer or a video editor, the laptop has your back with multiple colour profiles and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The Dell XPS 17 offers 500 nits brightness which is more than enough for most situations. It is durable too with Gorilla Glass 6.

It is nearly perfect, except for one thing – the refresh rate. Considering the supercharged specs powering the Dell XPS 17, it is common to think it might also feature an ultra-high refresh rate, except it doesn’t. Despite featuring a gorgeous 17-inch 4K display, the display supports only a 60Hz refresh rate, which is a bummer for gamers. Having said that, the display is perfect in most scenarios.

Sturdy Design

The laptop features exceptional build quality. It is made of CNC-machined aluminium and comes in a platinum silver finish which looks and feels premium, matching or perhaps even surpassing the build quality of even the highest-priced MacBook Pros. It gets a black carbon fiber composite around the keyboard which is a soft touch material. While it does not attract any fingerprints at all, the surface can get a bit stained if you have oily skin, but it is not a deal-breaker.

The Dell XPS 17 features a full-size backlit, chiclet keyboard. While I’ve always considered mechanical keyboards to be superior, the laptop’s keys have a good amount of travel, which enhances the experience in this case. The laptop features a large trackpad which can come in handy while designing stuff.

What might actually be a deal-breaker for some are the laptop’s edges. Typing while resting my hands on the laptop for long periods becomes uncomfortable since its edges are a bit sharp. So, watch out for that. Another shortcoming of the Dell XPS 17 is its weight. Spec’d to the max, the laptop is quite heavy and at 2.44 kg, it certainly isn’t one for those with an ‘on-the-go’ lifestyle. Of course, you could always say that it helps you burn quite a few calories!

Supercharged Performance

The Dell XPS 17 is tricked out to the maximum, with specs that fulfill all your requirements and then some. It is powered by the 13th Generation Intel Core i9 processor which is paired with 32GB DDR5 dual channel RAM and 1TB PCIe 4 x4 SSD. Both the RAM and storage can be expanded further using 2x SO-DIMM sticks and 2x 4TB SSDs. In terms of graphics, it gets the top-of-the-line NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU with 8GB DDR6 memory.

But what does it mean for the user? The Dell XPS 17 can do a bit of everything. From graphic designing, and creating documents to gaming, I tried my hand at all the tasks and the laptops responded with outstanding execution in every single one.

Seeing games like EA FC 24, and Starfield run at their max settings on a laptop was a surprising but pleasant experience. It even managed to run Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty DLC at above-average settings with consistent framerates, without any visual stuttering. It features dual fans and a vapour chamber that helps keep temperatures down, although it can get really hot during long sessions, especially during Indian summers.

Equipped with two top-firing speakers and two tweeters at the base which make up the quad-speaker system, the Dell XPS 17 excelled in terms of audio as well. Meetings are a pleasure to attend with crystal-clear audio courtesy of dual mics, and a good quality HD camera.

As is the case with most premium laptops nowadays, the Dell XPS 17 does not feature any USB-A ports. Instead, it gets 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports which fulfill multiple purposes. However, it does come with an SD card reader as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. If you still wish to plugin your USB-A-equipped device to the laptop, you can make use of the USB-Type-C to USB-A v3.0 and HDMI v2.0 adapter that is shipped along with the laptop.

In terms of battery life, the Dell XPS 17 delivers an outstanding performance, lasting almost 11 hours on a single charge in balanced mode. Turning that up to performance hampers the battery life a bit but it also results in increased performance. It comes with a 130W charger that juices up the 97Whr battery fairly quickly.

Dell XPS 17: Verdict

Should you go for Dell XPS 17? Definitely, if you have an unlimited budget. Priced at a hefty Rs. 364,289, it certainly isn’t a bang-for-your-buck device, but then do you really expect a laptop priced at more than Rs. 3.5 lakh to be? For that price, you get a top-of-the-line 13th Gen i9 chip, 32GB RAM, 1TB storage and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, which will fulfill all your tasks and then some. It also sports a 17-inch 4K display that is gorgeous to look at but it is stuck at 60Hz. While the laptop gets all the top-of-the-line specs, it is quite massive and even bulky, which can be a deal-breaker for some.