When Dell brought united states of america the offset Kaby Lake-G laptop to marketplace we were very excited to run into how the combo processor would perform, that is, a combination of a quad-core Kaby Lake CPU with an AMD Radeon RX Vega M GPU and 4GB of HBM2 on a single package. We've already gone through all the performance, at present let's discuss whether it's actually worth buying the first Kaby Lake-G laptop: the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1.

We're looking at a convertible laptop with a 360-degree hinge. Y'all can use it equally a giant 15.6-inch tablet, or in more than useful stand and tent modes. At this size, I don't find the 2-in-1 attribute of this laptop all that useful; well-nigh convertibles I stick to using every bit a laptop anyway, but when we're talking about a 15-inch system, the size makes some of those other usage modes less practical.

The hinge is sturdy and easy to operate, and there are no noticeable compromises that touch the laptop experience. This is nevertheless a laptop commencement and other usage modes second, which is the right arroyo to take with this sort of device.

In terms of build quality, we're looking at the same excellent build every bit Dell'due south entire XPS line: beautiful matte metallic on the lid and base, along with a soft-impact carbon fiber styled keyboard surround. It's a sturdy laptop that has a squeamish premium touch on that you should be getting at this price point.

It wouldn't exist an XPS laptop without a slim bezel display so you're getting that as well. I nevertheless recollect Dell does the best slim-bezel laptops out there and it's awesome to become it in not just the xiii-inch course factors, but 15-inch as well. Unfortunately the merchandise-off for such slim bezels is the nostril-vision camera positioned beneath the display, which isn't great for frequent webcam users, but the slimmer bezels do allow the laptop to take upwards a smaller footprint.

And while not a modest or particularly portable laptop purely due to its big 15-inch screen, it'due south one of the smallest devices yous can get in its class. The thickest parts are but 16mm thick and that tapers downward nicely, and overall it weighs but 2 kg (4.iv lbs). Ideally I'd like to see that weight come down a tad, merely you are getting a 75 Wh battery inside along with the premium aluminum structure and both of those things add together to the weight.

The port option is pretty defective on the XPS 15 2-in-1, especially compared to the non-convertible XPS 15. At that place isn't a single USB-A port on this device; Dell has instead opted for 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports on the left and two USB-C 3.1 ports on the right. The USB-C 3.one ports double equally DisplayPort outputs but there is no commonly-used display connector on this device, and while dual Thunderbolt iii is nice, the lack of USB-A is annoying if you want to apply many common peripherals without a dongle. Equally the market transitions to USB-C, it'southward still crucial to include at least one USB-A port and while the sides are quite thin, I call up a slight blueprint revision would have allowed full-size USB here.

Yous besides get a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD bill of fare slot, over again it would make more sense to have a full SD slot here particularly as the laptop is designed for artistic professionals. Both a total SD slot and USB-A ports are included with the regular Dell XPS xv.

The keyboard uses Dell'southward shallower XPS cardinal design, used beyond their 2-in-1 laptops, which provides slightly less feedback than the deeper keys with a longer travel on the non-convertible XPSes. The keyboard is fine, merely information technology's not particularly satisfying to type on and I definitely prefer the standard XPS keyboard over this 1. It's also a bit disappointing this xv-inch laptop does not include a numpad but that does let the main keyboard to take middle stage.

The trackpad is good, on par with Dell'due south other XPS laptops, and I like the inclusion of a fingerprint reader in the ability button. The camera array also supports Windows Hello facial recognition if yous'd prefer that for authentication.

The display is bachelor in either 1080p or 4K resolutions; both are 15.half dozen-inch IPS LCD panels, and both include touchscreens. I received the 4K model to review, and information technology packs 100% Adobe RGB gamut coverage and then it's perfect for content creators that need the actress color space.

In typical Dell mode, this is a professional person grade brandish that includes features designed for creators. Their PremierColor utility allows you lot to choose between several brandish modes, including a 'vibrant' mode with proper color management that allows you to get the most out of your display, forth with additional modes that can clamp the screen to DCI-P3, sRGB or Adobe RGB depending on your needs. This is super handy if you're using an app that doesn't handle colour management well, yet y'all require those larger gamuts.

The 4K display performs well, with brightness above 400 nits, a strong contrast ratio of 1660:one, and average deltaEs effectually the iii.0 mark in the default mode when measuring against sRGB. That can be tightened further by selecting a specific style, and both the DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB modes provide near-full coverage of those respective gamuts.

Performance is something we've covered in detail in another commodity, and then I'd highly recommend checking out my review of Kaby Lake Grand for a total breakdown of how this verbal model performs. But I volition summarize my findings hither briefly for those that just want a quick overview.

The latest Dell XPS 15 ii-in-1 9575 comes with an Intel Cadre i7-8705G in the upper end models, or an i5-8305G in the lower models, both of which are 65W Kaby Lake Chiliad parts with a quad-cadre CPU and a 20 compute unit Vega GPU. My review unit as configured came with 16GB of DDR4-2400 retention, although 8GB appears to be the standard across nigh models. That said, like with a lot of Dell systems you have the selection to configure both storage and retention through their website.

CPU performance is good, slightly outperforming the last-gen Core i7-7700HQ though falling short of the newer six-core Coffee Lake laptop CPUs like the Cadre i7-8750H. The 8705G is too a fair fleck faster than 15W U-series processors like the i7-8550U despite both being quad cores, and so if you lot're tossing up between this and something like a Dell XPS 13, the 15-inch 2-in-one is a decent corporeality faster.

Equally far as graphics performance is concerned, the Vega M GPU with 20 compute units sits around the same level as a GeForce GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti, and then information technology's great for accelerating compute workloads like Adobe Premiere, while also being capable of gaming at 1080p with medium-ish settings in the latest titles. Fortnite is a slap-up instance of a game that runs extremely well on this laptop despite its thinness.

All up Kaby Lake G is a pretty impressive scrap though information technology can't match the performance offered past the Dell XPS 15 with its combination of a half-dozen-core i7-8750H and GTX 1050 Ti graphics, then if yous'd rather ditch the 2-in-i design and 360-degree hinge for faster internals, the XPS 15 might be more up your alley.