Hands-on: Dell XPS 15 (9500) is every bit as gorgeous as you thought

Here are some photos and quick thoughts on the new XPS 15, Dell’s flagship laptop for 2020.

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Dell’s refresh of its flagshipXPS 15for 2020 is not a surprise. While it’s the first major design change in five years (you read that right), Dell has been modernizing its XPS line starting with theXPS 13 2-in-1 (7390)andXPS 13 (9300), both of which won critical rave reviews from us.

We just got our review sample in from Dell, which is configured with the new Core i7-10750H (six-cores), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650Ti, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and 512GB of storage, which is$2,156.

Of course, the real draw is the new 16:10 Sharp IGZO touch display with a UHD+ (3840 x 2400) resolution and anti-reflective layer.

First impressions matter, and out of the box, the new XPS 15 certainly wows. The keyboard is updated, and we can already say it is much better than the previous generation with larger keys.

And speaking of bigger things, that trackpad is comically large akin to what Apple does in its MacBook Pro line. It’s actually 62 percent bigger than the last-gen. That trackpad though, could be controversial, as unlike Apple’s, it’s a massive physical one that clicks. It’s a lot of surface that moves, and while it is exceptionally smooth and accurate, it will be interesting to see how it holds up.

Audio is also massively boosted. Now with quad speakers, including two that are top-firing, and Waves NX 3D Audio for Speakers, it quickly moves to the top of the best audio in a PC laptop. It’sverygood.

Toss in some excellent software like Dell Mobile Connect, which works with iOS and Android, and the new XPS 15 (9500) already looks like one of the best laptops of the year.

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By the way, expect ourSurface Book 3 (15)review for Friday, June 5, and this new XPS 15 for later next week. Fire off any questions about the XPS 15 in the comments that you want to be answered in our review.

Refining Dell’s premium lineup

The XPS 15 brings a larger display, trackpad, keycaps, and improved internals to Dell’s 15-inch premium laptop.

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer,podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.