Dell XPS 13 (9345) Review: eXtreme Performance System?

Dell’s XPS lineup is known for its premium design, high-end hardware, and being at the top of most ‘best ultrabooks to buy’ lists. The company has updated its popular XPS 13 with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor. While the new laptop has the same design and build as last year’s model, it is now claimed to be much faster and more efficient thanks to the ARM chipset.

The Dell XPS 13 (9345) starts at Rs. 1,39,990 in India, and you can also deck it up with a tandem OLED display, which I think is a first on a laptop. I used the laptop for over a week and tested all the claims made by the manufacturer regarding performance and battery life. Is this the best ultrabook that you can currently buy? Find out below.

Dell XPS 13 (9345) Design: Gorgeous

• Dimensions – 295.3mm (width) x 199.1mm (depth) x 14.8mm (height)
• Weight – 1.18kg
• Colours – Graphite

If I were asked to describe the design of the Dell XPS 13 (9345) in one word, it would be ‘gorgeous’. Thanks to the matte black colour, the build quality, the slim and compact form factor, and minimal styling, the laptop looks like a thousand bucks. Yes, it looks exactly like last year’s Intel Core Ultra model (9340), but why fix something that’s not broken (at least on the outside)?

The only downside of the gorgeous design is the lack of ports and a cramped keyboard

 

There is no flex anywhere on the laptop, thanks to the CNC-machined aluminium construction. The hinges are solid and require a bit of pressure to open and close, which is good. However, the lid would stay open with the laptop shut and held facing up. The XPS 13 9345 weighs just 1.18 kg and is 14.6mm thin. It’s one of the lightest and smallest 13-inch laptops in its price segment. The only downside of it being so thin and compact is that this laptop only gets two USB Type-C ports. There’s one on each side, and that’s it. The sides of the laptop also house the speaker slits and intake vents.

The laptop is smaller than an Apple MacBook Air 13

 

You also get minimal branding on the laptop, with the lid carrying the Dell logo, an XPS logo at the bottom, and a Snapdragon CPU sticker on the bottom right side of the keyboard. The Graphite colour option has a matte finish all over, which keeps fingerprints to a minimum.

Dell XPS 13 (9345) Display: Stunning

• Display type- 13.4-inch full-HD+ IPS or Tandem OLED touch
• Resolution – Up to 3K
• Refresh rate – Up to 120Hz

The XPS 13 9345 features a fantastic display. Our review unit came with a 3K Tandem OLED touch display with 400 nits of brightness, up to 60Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision certification, HDR support, and touch support. The panel also gets Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection.

The display bezels are slim on all four sides, and there is no branding anywhere on the display. The anti-reflective coating also does a good job when using the laptop in well-lit rooms. The brightness is nothing out of this world, but it’s plenty for indoor use. I never used a laptop with more than 50 percent brightness when working or watching content, especially with the lights turned off.

This is one of the first laptops to feature a Tandem OLED touch display

 

Dell has used the Tandem OLED technology, which offers higher brightness while using less battery. There’s also a variant with a full-HD+ IPS panel that offers up to 120Hz refresh rate. Watching movies and shows on Netflix and YouTube was an excellent experience on the XPS 13. The colours are punchy, the blacks are deep, and the HDR mode enables brighter visuals.

The display’s touch response is also quite good, but I didn’t find myself using it as much as I thought I would.

Dell XPS 13 (9345) Keyboard, Touchpad, speakers, and webcam

• Keyboard – Backlit with touch function row
• Touchpad – Glass touchpad with Gorilla Glass 3
• Speakers – 2 x Woofers and 2 x Tweeters
• Webcam – 2-megapixel with Infrared sensors

The keyboard on the Dell XPS 13 looks slick, is compact, offers a touch function row, and has a fingerprint scanner, and you get keys with decent travel. However, the keys are also crammed because the laptop is compact. While it’s an excellent keyboard to type on, I hit the nearby key more often than I’d have liked. The backlight is enough at night, but it’s not super bright. The touch function row looks cool and switches between F functions and other action keys. However, there’s no feedback when you press the capacitive touch keys, and they don’t work when the laptop is in sleep mode, which is a bit disappointing. Luckily, it does function when watching anything on fullscreen.

Where’s the touchpad?

 

When you first open the lid of the XPS 13, you might be taken aback by the touchpad because, visually, there isn’t one. The entire section below the keyboard is protected with Gorilla Glass 3, and the touchpad is merged seamlessly with the glass. It looks beautiful, but using it is a guessing game of sorts. You don’t know where it begins and ends, which can be frustrating when you’re trying to drag and drop files. Everything else about the invisible touchpad is fine. You get decent haptic feedback support for multitouch gestures, and it’s super smooth.

The sound on the Dell XPS 13 is quite good. The laptop gets quad speakers placed under the keyboard, which include dual 2W woofers and dual 2W tweeters, bringing the total output to 8W. These are some of the better-sounding speakers I’ve heard on a 13-inch laptop. There’s some bass, the dialogue is clear, you get Dolby Atmos support, and I didn’t notice any crackling even at high volume.

The XPS 13 has quad-down-firing speakers

 

Finally, the web camera is supposedly better than previous generation XPS 13 laptops, and I found it good enough for video calling. It’s a 2-megapixel sensor supports 1080p video recording and Windows Studio effects. Daylight performance is good, but things get noisy in lowlight conditions. You also get infrared sensors for Windows Hello face recognition, which works extremely well even with all surrounding lights off. There’s no camera shutter or a quick disable key, though, which would’ve been nice.

Dell XPS 13 (9345) Software: Sprinkled with AI goodies

• OS – Windows 11 Home
• AI features – Copilot+, Cocreate, Windows Studio effects
• Other software – MyDell

The Dell XPS 13 runs Windows 11 Home out of the box and has several AI features. Since it has been labelled a Copilot+ laptop, you can access the Copilot+ chatbot, which can be summoned via the Copilot key.

You also get the useful Cocreator feature in Microsoft Paint and built-in Copilot in Microsoft 365 Office tools. I tried the Cocreator feature, and it worked quite well in helping me bring my imagination to life. The Windows Studio effects also let you blur the background, cut out background noise, and improve lighting in video calls. There’s also a Live caption feature that gives you instant English subtitles on any video service or app. Microsoft will also roll out its controversial Recall feature on the laptop once it has sorted out all the privacy concerns.

The MyDell app lets you toggle between the four available performance modes

 

The laptop also comes with the MyDell app, which lets you change power modes and adjust display colour settings with ease.

Dell XPS 13 (9345) Performance: Pretty good, but not there yet

• CPU – 12-core Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100
• RAM – Up to 32GB LPDDR5x
• Storage – Up to 1TB PCIe 4
• Graphics – Qualcomm Adreno GPU

The Dell XPS 13 is one of the first laptops to be equipped with the new ARM-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset. The 12-core CPU is paired with a Qualcomm Adreno GPU and also features the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU that supports up to 45 TOPS. Meanwhile, the CPU is claimed to offer sustained performance at up to 25.5W max power. During my time with the laptop, I found that it offers excellent performance for day-to-day tasks and work. I could run multiple tabs with ease on Chrome alongside other apps. However, the browser would hang every time I woke the laptop from sleep. Apart from that, I did not face lag when using any other software.

The laptop does heat up, especially on the top underside

 

I ran a couple of synthetic benchmarks on the laptop and found that it mostly did better than other non-ARM 13-inch laptops and even the M3 MacBook Air.

There are a couple of power modes available in the MyDell app, and I noticed that the fans mostly kicked in only with the Ultra Performance mode enabled. The fans aren’t super loud, though. The bottom front of the laptop and the touch function row area did get hot when running some benchmarks and resource-intensive tasks, but when using the laptop normally, it never got warm. Normal use would mean running multiple tabs on Chrome, watching YouTube or Netflix, listening to music, and using a bunch of apps.

I haven’t tried to test any games on the laptop, as that’s not what the XPS 13 is meant for, but looking at the benchmark numbers, I’m sure it can run basic games and get playable frame rates.

In terms of connectivity, the laptop comes with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and both of these worked flawlessly during the review.

Dell XPS 13 (9345) Battery: All-day champion

• Capacity – 55Whr
• Charging – 60W adapter included

According to Dell, the battery life on the new XPS 13 has seen a significant boost thanks to the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. It claims the laptop can deliver up to 35 hours of video playback on the full-HD+ display variant. However, our review unit came with the 3K Tandem OLED display. During my review, the laptop would easily last an entire day of work and about an hour or so of YouTube streaming. I binge-watched a season of Rick and Morty on Netflix without charging the laptop. All this was done with the Balanced performance mode and about 50 percent screen brightness.

The display can be plenty bright indoors

 

Charging the laptop’s 55Whr battery from 10 to 100 percent takes about 1 hour 30 mins, and you can also get about 50 percent charge with just 30 mins of charging. The XPS 13 is bundled with a 60W compact charging adapter.

Dell XPS 13 (9345) Verdict

The XPS in Dell stands for Extreme Performance System, and for a long time, most XPS machines have stood by that. The latest XPS 13 9345 with the Snapdragon X Elite chipset continues to do that but now does things better. The battery life is much better than Intel CPU options, and you get an excellent form factor. Although the AI features aren’t there yet, the XPS 13 is a good machine for anyone looking to buy an ultrabook that offers style, good performance, excellent battery life, bright and colourful display (OLED), and is sleek and compact.

As for alternatives, you can look at the Asus Zenbook S13 OLED, which costs less, offers good performance, has more ports, and has a keyboard that’s not as cramped. Then there’s the Apple MacBook Air 13 M3, which is similarly priced but once again offers a better keyboard experience, extra ports, and better app support.