Dell XPS 14z: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Jarred Walton on October 24, 2011 9:00 AM ESTPerformance Rundown
Given the lack of discrete graphics in our test sample, we’re going to skip any gaming benchmarks for now. We hope to have the 14z with GeForce GT 520M in for testing in the near future, and we’ll revisit the topic of graphics performance then, but for now we’ll simply refer to the ASUS K53E review as a look at how HD 3000 handles gaming. The i5-2430M GPU is clocked slightly lower than the i5-2520M, but either way you’re going to want to stick with low detail settings for most titles. Application performance is also pretty much known; the i5-2430M should outperform the i5-2410M by a small margin, but without an SSD general performance won’t be as snappy as something like the ASUS UX21.
There’s not much to point out here that we haven’t covered numerous times already. The XPS 14z performs right where you’d expect, given the components. An SSD in place of the HDD would certainly boost the PCMark scores, but otherwise general performance is fine. 3DMark gives us a quick look at what we can expect from the HD 3000 graphics, and the scores are slightly lower than the higher clocked IGP in the K53E.
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Anonymous Blowhard - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
"We hope to have the 14z with GeForce GT 520M in for testing in the near future, and we’ll revisit the topic of graphics performance then"Spoiler alert: It's probably not worth the upgrade cost Dell is asking.
Expect it to perform a little faster than a 320M or HD 3000. It has a little more shader muscle, but it will fall flat on its face in texture/render bound scenarios, or when that poor 64-bit memory bus chokes. Clock-bumped 410M, really.
320M = 48:16:8 @ 450MHz, 128bit (shared) DDR3
GT520M = 48:8:4 @ 740MHz, 64-bit DDR3
GT525M would have been a better choice but they might have ran into thermal constraints. See the 3830TG for an example.
dagamer34 - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
What's with PC manufacturers skimping on screen resolutions? 1366x768 on a 14" display should NOT be acceptable in this day and age. Heck, the MacBook Pro cramps that many pixels into a 11.6" display!Master_Sigma - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
$1,000+ for a laptop with a 1366x768 screen? Is this some kind of sick joke, or are there missing options in the Display category?ananduser - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
Apple gives you a 1280x800 one for a higher price and with lower specs.name99 - Tuesday, October 25, 2011 - link
"with lower specs"Uhh --- so your take-away from Anand's long review of the display and comparing it to a MacBook Pro was "the MacBook Pro display has worse specs"?
My god --- that's some seriously broken reading comprehension.
TegiriNenashi - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
What is this magic "p" letter. AFIR computer displays have "p" since 1980s. It is sad that diisplay resolution degraded to the point when TV screen quality is seen as benchmark.tipoo - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
Technically any LCD running at non-native res will revert to i/interlaced mode, but I see your point.popej - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
On the picture on front page notebook looks like it had matte screen. Is it retouched? What's the reason to show false pictures in a review?JarredWalton - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
The gallery images are the actual laptop; the front image is a Dell provided image, which may have been pre-rendered or at least retouched. I used it because I think it looks nice in the text of the article; if anyone buys the laptop because of that image and doesn't read the text, I'm not going to worry too much about it. :-)popej - Monday, October 24, 2011 - link
I have read your article and I appreciate it :)OK, since you have used pictures provided by Dell I can forward my question: why is Dell using false picture to advertise its product?
This is not a first time, when I notice similar trickery.