As expected, this year's IFA trade show in Berlin is proving busy for notebook manufacturers. Hot on the heels of Intel's announcement of 15W 8th Generation quad-core processors in the Kaby-Lake refresh family earlier in the month, we are starting to see some announcements of actual products utilizing these new processors.
Not to be left behind, Dell has officially announced the refreshed version of their well-received XPS 13 notebook.
It appears that there has been little physical change to the XPS 13 centered around these new processor options. Customers will still find 2 USB-A Ports upgraded to USB 3.1 Gen 2, a Thundebolt 3 Port, full-size SD card slot, a standard headphone jack, and a power connector (although charging over Thunderbolt 3 is supported). There's no indication yet as to the Thunderbolt 3 implementation, but we hope Dell has gone with the full PCIe x4 bandwidth instead of x2 as found on the current XPS 13.
Same as the current XPS 13, customers will be able to choose from a 1080p non-touch display or a 3200×1800 touchscreen, up to 16GB of RAM, and SSD options including SATA and NVMe.
Battery size remains at 60Wh, which Dell claims has a MobileMark battery life score of 22 hours on the 1080p display model and 12 hours with the 3200×1800 QHD+ Touchscreen option.
Expect a longer rollout than usual with these new 8th generation parts from Dell, with the highest end i7-8550U to be available starting September 12th, and the i5 parts coming later in October. We have no current indications of pricing, but I would expect it to fall along the current XPS 13 models, in which the i7 model starts at $1349 along with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB NVMe SSD, and the 1080p display.
any of the PCPer crew going
any of the PCPer crew going to IFA this year?
Intel’s still obsessed with
Intel’s still obsessed with the Ultrabook and not any regular form factor laptop SOC SKUs so this quad-core is going to be very constrained. And Intel’s 6 core mobile SKUs will also be constrained if Intel can not at least offer some 35 Watts+ laptop SOC variants for the power users out there that need a desktop replacment laptop for on the road usage.
I hope that AMD will at least field one Zen/Raven Ridge line that offers a 35 Watts+ option for the road warrior laptop users that need a pro variant with horsepower. There used to be some nice affordable Business class Laptops in regular form factors with 35 Watts+ rated SOCs/APUs in them that where not as expensive as a gaming laptop but where miles above any Ultrabook/Thin And Light in performance with plenty of laptop cooling to not be throttled when donig some heavy compute.
i have 1st gen XPS 13. Man i
i have 1st gen XPS 13. Man i love it