Dell XPS 13 9305 – Top 5 Pros and Cons

This is clearly one of the slimmest laptops on the market. It reeks of elegance and expansiveness. The laptops have used the same design language for some years now, which reinforces the premium image among consumers. The designs are also timeless and modern even after a couple of years have passed.

The most recent XPS 13 9305 uses Tiger Lake processors and integrated graphics, which are enough for a laptop of this size. We also have two fantastic displays which come with great color reproduction, allowing for Creator work to be done on the go.

Today we are presenting you with LaptopMedia’s top 5 picks about the Dell XPS 13 9305.

Dell XPS 13 9305: Full Specs / In-depth Review


3 reasons to BUY the Dell XPS 13 9305

1. Design and build quality

Built from the ground up using aluminum and carbon fiber, this is a durable device that takes the best out of the materials that it is using. The Aluminum is visible on the outside, making the laptop appear luxurious and be smooth to hold when closed. The carbon fiber provides interesting contrast visually, while also offering a grippy surface for your hands to rest on. In terms of dimensions, the laptop weighs only 1.29 kg and has a profile of just 7.8 mm. With such a low weight and thin profile, the durability of the device is fantastic.

The lid opens easily with one hand, revealing a keyboard with decent key travel for the profile of the laptop, but the feedback was softer than we would have hoped. The touchpad has a decent size along with a clicking mechanism that is super loud, but very comfortable to use.


2. Display quality

There are two display choices, with two 13.3-inch displays that come with either Full HD or 4K UHD resolution. We tested the former option, which has comfortable viewing angles, a max brightness of 465 nits in the middle of the screen, 426 nits average across the surface, a maximum deviation of 16% with poor uniformity in the bottom right corner. The contrast ratio is decent – 1320:1. In terms of color reproduction, the panel covers 99% of the sRGB color gamut. However, the panel is still not perfect, using high-frequency PWM up to 115 nits of brightness.

The stock color accuracy (left) is nowhere near being ready for professional work, but our Design and Gaming profile quickly fixes it, giving us a dE value of 0.9 (right).


Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Dell XPS 13 9305 configurations with 13.3″ Sharp 4V0HY-LQ133M1 (SHP14AE) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


3. Battery life

With the power-efficient Tiger Lake U-series processors and a decently large 52Wh battery pack, the device manages to last for 13 hours of either Web browsing or video playback. Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with.


2 reasons NOT to buy the Dell XPS 13 9305

1. I/O

The I/O features a total of five ports, with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a single USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port, a 3.5 mm audio jack, and a MicroSD card reader.


2. Upgradeability

The laptop comes with 8 or 16 GB of soldered LPDDR4 RAM, which works in quad-channel mode, which will be quite good for the iGPU, which performs especially well with faster RAM. Storage-wise, we have a single M.2 PCIe x4 slot for an 80mm drive.

Here is our teardown video, which shows how to access the single SSD slot.


All Dell XPS 13 9305 configurations:

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