In addition to the unconventional design, the main attraction for potential buyers is the powerful and at the same time very economical Snapdragon X Elite processor and the brilliant OLED display with full HD+ resolution. I tested the platinum color variant, which in this case means white-silver. Thanks to the very thin frames around the display, the tested notebook has relatively compact dimensions despite the large 16.3″ display. The metal body not only guarantees strength, but also effectively helps heat dissipation. The touchscreen is protected by durable Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
The futuristic design in practice means that when you open the laptop, before you turn it on, you will be surprised to find that the Dell XPS 13 9345 does not seem to have a touchpad or a top row of function keys. Once you turn it on, you’ll get the point. The function keys, on which there are alternating functions for setting brightness, sound volume or multimedia playback, are tactile with backlit symbols. And if you make a gesture where you expect the touchpad, it will work. The laptop has a touchpad, but its surface is in no way different from the palm rest, so you have neither visual nor tactile information where it starts and ends. Recessed keys also contribute to the purity of the design, the upper edge of which is flush with the area around the keyboard and there are no gaps between the keys. Getting used to such a keyboard was no problem for me. The backlit keys have a precise operation and a pleasant stroke of about 1.3 mm. At some point during the press, the elastic resistance of the key suddenly relaxes, so you can type quickly and accurately on the keyboard. Pressing the touchpad does not have a mechanical, but pleasant haptic response. It’s a pity that the touch surfaces above the keyboard do not have such tactile feedback.
I got used to the upper touch strip with backlit symbols immediately, it was a bit brave of the designers that the ESC key is also replaced by the touch pad, but I got used to this quite quickly as well. The unmarked power/sleep button in the top right corner is physical and has an integrated fingerprint reader. The tested notebook had an OLED display with a full HD+ resolution (1920 × 1200 pixels), a variable refresh rate of 30 to 120 Hz and a slightly matte anti-reflective surface. Brightness in normal mode slightly exceeds 450 nits.
The heart of the notebook is the Snapdragon X Elite chipset, built on the principle of the Oryon architecture, intended primarily for powerful supercomputers. Cores that are not currently needed are simply shut down. The Qualcomm Hexagon NPU unit achieves a performance of 45 TOPS (Tera Operations per Second). It enables local AI models to run, so there is no need to process everything in cloud services like ChatGPT. It is used by AI tools in Windows, and third-party applications capable of benefiting from NPU capabilities will rapidly increase. It is interesting to watch the load of individual cores in the Task Manager. The Snapdragon X Elite processor has 12 cores grouped into four segments that are activated according to load. Microsoft requires Copilot+ computers to have an NPU with at least 40 TOPS, 16GB of memory, and 256GB of storage. The Dell XPS 13 9345 meets these requirements. I was wondering how Windows on a Snapdragon processor would handle applications for the x86 architecture. Sometimes the app takes longer to launch, but the app has never crashed or run unstable.
Of course, the real sustained performance depends on the cooling efficiency, to which the all-metal body contributes significantly. Emphasis on design purity was also reflected in the absence of suction holes in the lower part, so there is no danger of clogging them if you place the notebook on something soft. The processor also has an NPU (Neural Processing Unit), designed for hardware acceleration of calculations related to AI, machine learning and neural networks.
The webcam with 1080p resolution provides a good image even in poor lighting conditions. It supports Windows Hello technology, so you can choose to authenticate with either facial biometrics or a fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button.
Reproduction is stereophonic, with each channel having one treble and one mid-bass acoustic transducer. The sound quality is far above average considering the size of the notebook. It is certainly enough for intimate watching videos or listening to music.
The connector equipment includes two USB-C ports, two with Thunderbolt 4 support with the Power Delivery function. You can use any of the Thunderbolt ports for power and charging. The included compact power adapter has an input of 60 W.
The package includes a practical adapter from USB-C to HDMI and USB-A. The Killer Wi-Fi module supports the Wi-Fi 7 standard. The module automatically detects, classifies and sets priorities for video streaming, communication and data transfer during games. I was pleasantly surprised by the battery life for 18 hours of normal work. With greater computing and graphics load, the endurance will, of course, be adequately shortened.
PROS, CONS:
+ Clean, elegant design, performance, long battery life
– The keyboard and touchpad will take some time to get used to
PARAMETERS:
Processor: 12-core Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 3.4 GHz, boost 4 GHz, memory: 16 GB DDR5, 512 GB SSD PCIe NMVe, Qualcomm Adreno graphics, 13.4″ OLED display, FHD+ resolution (1920 × 1200 px, 500 nits; connectivity: Windows 11 Home; 2x USB4, Power Delivery; dimensions 295 × 15.3 mm , weight 1.30 kg
Cena: 2172 EUR
Source: www.nextech.sk
