Dell XPS 15 9570 review – a notebook for everything

Dell’s XPS 15 series has an intriguing approach. The notebooks from this series are thin and light with a premium build – a precedent for a business laptop. But unlike most business notebooks, the Dell XPS 15 packs some serious horsepower under the hood.

This year the representative for the XPS 15 series is the Dell XPS 15 9570. Packed with an Intel 8th generation H processor and an optional GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q inside a 0.45-0.66″ (11-17mm) chassis, the XPS 15 9570 sounds quite tempting. This notebook seems to be for those who want something from both worlds – high performance and elegance.

Dell XPS 15 9560, the direct predecessor of today’s review unit, had some issues like GPU thermal throttling and subpar battery life. Let’s see if the new generation XPS 15 fixes these problems.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-xps-15-9570/

Contents


Specs Sheet

Dell XPS 15 (9570) Tabella delle specifiche tecniche

Acer
Not available
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15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Slot M.2
1x 2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe M.2 slot Vedi foto
RAM
8GB DDR4, 2667 MHz
Dimensioni
357 x 235 x 11-17 mm (14.06" x 9.25" x 0.43")
Peso
1.80 kg (4 lbs)
Materiale del corpo
Aluminum, Carbon
Porte e connettività
  • 2x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Thunderbolt 3, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort, HDMI
  • HDMI 2.0
  • VGA
  • Lettore di schede SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Ethernet LAN
  • Wi-Fi Killer 802.11ac (2x2)
  • Bluetooth 4.1
  • Jack audio combo audio / microphone jack
Caratteristiche
  • Telecamera web 720p HD
  • Tastiera retroilluminata
  • Microfono Dual-Array Microphone
  • Altoparlanti 2x 2W
  • Fessura del blocco di sicurezzaNoble lock

What’s in the box?

Inside the box, you will find another box (hooray for the unboxing experience). The second smaller box is where the notebook is. Inside it, you will also find a few brochures. The first box also contains the 130W charger.


Design and construction

It’s hard not to notice the Dell XPS 15 9570. The notebook has a very clean design giving it a dose of elegance. It’s mainly built out of carbon fiber, however, there is a metal plate on the bottom and the lid which makes the construction feel very sturdy and exceptionally premium.

The aluminum lid is solid. There is minimal flex when you apply pressure to it and it doesn’t cause ripples to appear on the screen. The backplate is even sturdier. It has two rubber stripes which lift the notebook a bit to keep it in one place and allow air to flow through the vent. The two stereo speakers are also located at the bottom. Overall, the design and construction haven’t changed much since the last generation.

When you open the lid, you see the 15.6-inch display with its ultra-narrow bezels which Dell advertises as “InfinityEdge” display. There is a larger chin on the bottom part of the display where the camera sits. The keyboard kind of resembles the design of the MacBook Pro 15. The layout is basically the same and the large bezels on both sides reminisce about the Apple notebook. The palm rest area, however, is nothing like the MacBook – it’s made of soft carbon fiber composite with a decorative pattern.

The keyboard has a two-level white backlight. Although a good keyboard, we have definitely had better typing experiences. The touchpad is accurate and precise but we feel that it could have been larger. We also mind the fact that there is no Fn key to turn the touchpad off when typing to avoid accidental movements of the cursor.

The combination of materials makes the Dell XPS 15 9570 very light. It weighs just 4 lbs (1.8 kg) with the smaller battery configuration. It’s impressive how thin the notebook is considering that it does not boast a ULV chip. The dimensions have stayed pretty much the same as the XPS 15 9560.

WidthLengthHeightWeight
Dell XPS 15 957014.06″ (357mm)9.27″ (235mm)0.45-0.66″ (11-17mm)4 lbs (1.8 kg)
Dell XPS 15 956014.06″ (357mm)9.27″ (235mm)0.45-0.66″ (11-17mm)4 lbs (1.8 kg)

Ports

Most ports of the Dell XPS 15 9570 are located on the left side which is more comfortable for the majority of right-handed users.

On the left-hand side, you will find the DC power connector, a USB 3.1 port with PowerShare which lets you charge other devices when the notebook is turned off, an HDMI port, a USB Type-C port with Thunderbolt 3 support, and a 3.5 mm audio jack.

On the right-hand side, there is a security lock slot, a battery gauge button – when pressed up to five LEDs light up to show the current battery status (one LED equals approximately 20% charge), another USB 3.1 with PowerShare, and an SD card slot.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

To open up the Dell XPS 15 9570 you need to remove 12 screws. Two of them are Philips M2x8 and are located under the system badge. The other 10 are M2x3 but you will need a Torx screwdriver for them. Afterward, prying up the lid is easy – there is a button for you to press and it pops up.

There are two DDR4 RAM slots each supporting up to 16GB for a total of 32GB. The CM246 chipset is on the right side of the RAM slots. Storage options include a 2.5-inch SATA slot (the drive must be connected to the motherboard via an adapter) which supports hard drives up to 2TB and an M.2 slot which supports PCIe NVMe Gen 3.0 x4 SSD with a capacity of up to 2TB.

The three cells of the 56Wh H5H20 battery are well distinguished. Its parameters are as follows: 4649mAh and 13.2V.

The Wi-Fi card is an M.2 Killer1535.


Display quality

Dell XPS 15 9570’s display has a Full HD IPS panel manufactured by Sharp model number SHP149A (LQ156M1). Its size is 15.6-inches (39.62 cm) and the resolution is 1920 x 1080 which results in a pixel density of 142 PPI. The screen ratio is 16:9 and the pixel pitch is 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The display becomes Retina when viewed from at least 60 cm (23.6 inches) (from this distance the human eye can’t see individual pixels).

The Dell XPS 15 9570 has comfortable viewing angles. We offer images at 45° to evaluate the quality.

The maximum screen brightness that we have measured is high – 369 nits (cd/m2) in the center of the screen and 358 nits (cd/m2) average across the whole surface with a maximum deviation of 8%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6940K (average) – a bit colder than the optimal 6504K temperature for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 7090K (corrected by our profiles).

In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. In other words the leakage of light from the light source. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 38% Brightness (White level = 141 nits, Black level = 0.105 nits).

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is really good – 1340:1 (1240:1 after profiling).

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Dell XPS 15 9570’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 97% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores Dell XPS 15 9570 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time =  29 ms. Not really a fast panel.


PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

Dell XPS 15 9570’s display does not use PWM when the brightness is above 90 nits which is roughly equivalent to 25% on the brightness slider. Most of the time you won’t be dropping the brightness below 25% which virtually makes the display PWM-free and suitable for long work sessions without harming you.

Blue light emissions

Installing of our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

You can see the levels of emitted blue light on the spectral power distribution (SPD) graph.

Conclusion

Dell XPS 15 9570’s display has a Full HD IPS panel with comfortable viewing angles, high contrast ratio, and high maximum brightness. The color gamut coverage is excellent and PWM is absent above 90 nits.

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 15 9570 configurations with 15.6″ Sharp SHP149A (LQ156M1) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.

*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.

Oltre a ricevere profili efficienti e rispettosi della salute, comprando i prodotti di LaptopMedia sostenete anche lo sviluppo dei nostri laboratori, dove testiamo i dispositivi per produrre le recensioni più obiettive possibili.

Lavoro in ufficio

Lavoro in ufficio dovrebbe essere usato soprattutto dagli utenti che passano la maggior parte del tempo a guardare pezzi di testo, tabelle o semplicemente a navigare. Questo profilo mira a fornire una migliore distinzione e chiarezza mantenendo una curva gamma piatta (2.20), una temperatura di colore nativa e colori percettivamente accurati.

Design e gioco

Questo profilo è rivolto ai designer che lavorano professionalmente con i colori, e anche per giochi e film. Design and Gaming porta i pannelli di visualizzazione ai loro limiti, rendendoli il più accurati possibile nello standard sRGB IEC61966-2-1 per Web e HDTV, al punto di bianco D65.

Salute-Guardia

Salute-Guardia elimina la nociva Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) e riduce la luce blu negativa che colpisce i nostri occhi e il nostro corpo. Essendo personalizzato per ogni pannello, riesce a mantenere i colori percettivamente accurati. Salute-Guardia simula la carta, quindi la pressione sugli occhi è notevolmente ridotta.

Ottenete tutti e 3 i profili con il 33% di sconto


Sound

Dell XPS 15 9570’s sound goes loud without distortion. Tones across the whole range are clear. The notebook has two 2W speakers tuned with Waves MaxxAudio Pro.


Drivers

You can get all the necessary drivers and manuals from Dell’s support page: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/xps-15-9570-laptop/diagnose

Battery

Our configuration is equipped with a 3-cell 56Wh battery, however, there is an optional larger 6-cell 97Wh unit which makes the notebook 0.5 lbs (200 grams) heavier.

The XPS 15 9570 has great battery life. Even with the powerful Core i7-8750H and a dedicated GPU, it managed to deliver 7-8 hours of surfing and browsing – something which most notebooks with similar hardware can’t do. Don’t forget that there is an option for a larger battery too.


Storage performance

Our configuration of the XPS 15 9570 comes with a single 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 SSD by SK Hynix with a model number PC401. You can check out its performance in the chart below.

SSD model (240-256GB variants)Max.Seq.Read (GB/s)Max.Seq.Write (GB/s)IOPS 4K ReadIOPS 4K WriteLatency Read (ms)Latency Write (ms)
SK Hynix PC401 ( NVMe)2.470.829349225610.0470.051
Intel SSD 760p / PEKKW256G8L (NVMe)2.351.0313340246710.0470.048
Samsung SM951 (NVMe)2.241.2911320284500.0570.034
Samsung PM951 MZVLV2560 (NVMe)1.580.310.1210.035
SK Hynix SC300 (NVMe)3.190.9111000261800.0600.053

CrystalDiskMark – Max.Seq.Read/Write; AS SSD – IOPS 4K Read/Write, Latency Read/Write

CPU options

Most thin notebooks come with 15W ULV chips but this bad boy sports a 45W chip. The Dell XPS 15 9570 has three CPU options – the Core i5-8300H, Core i7-8750H or even the Core i9-8950HK. Our configuration packs the middle tier Core i7-8750H.


GPU options

As for the GPU, you can either stick to the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 or opt for up to the NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q. Be aware that sometimes you can find the notebook listed without saying that the GPU is a Max-Q design version.


Gaming tests

As we mentioned a few times already, our configuration of the Dell XPS 15 9570 is equipped with the GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q design. This version of the 1050 Ti has a lower clock speed but performance in games is not far from this of the regular version, sometimes even on par. The driver used was GeForce 389.1.

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5)Full HD, Normal (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS 144 fps75 fps40 fps

Far Cry PrimalFull HD, Normal (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS59 fps52 fps44 fps

Far Cry 5Full HD, Normal (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Ultra (Check settings)
Average FPS48 fps44 fps40 fps

rise-of-the-tomb-raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016)Full HD, Lowest (Check settings)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS83 fps59 fps28 fps

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon WildlandsFull HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS43 fps39 fps35 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Whenever a thin notebook is equipped with powerful hardware, there is a chance to overheat. We are always left pleased when this doesn’t happen and without giving ourselves away too much we will say that with the XPS 15 9570 we are pleased.

We have a new way of torturing laptops, and for gaming machines, it comprises of 100% CPU load plus real gameplay test (Rise of the Tomb Raider).

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core temperature (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Core i7-8750H (45W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Dell XPS 15 9570 3.16 GHz (B+44%)@ 89°C3.07 GHz (B+39.5%)@ 97°C2.62 GHz (B+19%)@ 87°C
Lenovo Legion Y530 [Sample]3.24 GHz (B+47%) @ 94°C3.20 GHz (B+45%)@ 94°C2.97 GHz (B+35%)@ 94°C
Dell G3 15 35792.88 GHz (B+31%)@ 86°C2.81 GHz (B+28%)@ 87°C2.53 GHz (B+15%)@ 76°C

The Dell XPS 15 9570 manages to pull out surprisingly high frequencies for the first 30 seconds of 100% CPU load. Most other notebooks don’t top 3.00 GHz. However, this comes at an expense – the temperature of the processor becomes dangerously high around 97°C after about 15 seconds. Fortunately, the notebook was stable and the afterward the temperature dropped to an average of 87°C and the clock was more modest – 2.6GHz.

Real gameplay

GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
Dell XPS 15 95701348 MHz @ 77°C 1502 MHz @ 77°C

Kudos to the cooling system. Not only did the GPU temperature remain just about average after 30 minutes of gaming but it also kept high frequencies. The GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q has a lower core clock than the normal version. Its base clock is up to 1290 MHz and its boost clock up to 1417 MHz. Nevertheless, you can see that the GPU inside the XPS 15 9570 exceeds these values.

Gaming comfort

After more than 30 minutes of gaming, the surface temperatures remain lower than most gaming notebooks. The hottest point is at the top keyboard row and reaches around 55°C. The palm rest area is significantly cooler.


Verdict

The Dell XPS 15 9570 is one premium all-rounder. It is light, thin and has a great appearance, as well as an outstanding build quality. This is what you should expect with one of Dell’s best notebooks.

Although its thin body, the XPS 15 9570 gives you the option to choose from the Core i5-8300H all the way up to the Core i9-8950HK. You can also get a dedicated GPU – up to a GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q (4GB GDDR5) – so the notebook can double as a basic gaming device. One thing that we can’t stress enough about is the fact that the cooling system handles high frequencies at average temperature. There are some temperature spikes here and there but overall the notebook was stable.

Another thing to mention is the exceptionally good battery life which can rival some notebooks with a ULV chip. Of course, if you opt for a UHD panel the battery life will drop but there is an option for a larger battery too. Speaking of panels, the Full HD one has great gamut coverage (97%), color accuracy (an average dE=1.0 when using our custom-tailored “Design and Gaming” profile), and contrast so you can use the XPS 15 for color-sensitive work too.

A good alternative to the Dell XPS 15 9570 could be the HP ZBook Studio G5 which can even be configured with a Xeon processor and Quadro P1000 graphics.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/dell-xps-15-9570/

Pros

  • Premium build quality
  • Great battery life, even with the smaller 56Wh unit
  • 97% sRGB coverage (1080p SHP149A)
  • Thin and light
  • Lack of PWM above 90 nits (1080p SHP149A)
  • Up to Core i9-8950HK
  • Easy upgrade and maintenance


Cons

  • The keyboard could have been better for the price

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Anonimo
Anonimo
5 anni fa

where can i find this adapter to install the hard drive?