Dell XPS 17 Review

Just the other day, we mentioned in our XPS 14z review how the standard XPS 15 offers more value and flexibility, in terms of configuring the notebook. Well, today we’ll be taking a closer look at its elder brother, the XPS 17 or the XPS L702X to be precise. Modelled along the same lines as the other XPS 15 notebooks, the 17-incher offers more screen real estate and is better equipped, all for a price tag that’s slightly higher than the XPS 14z.

On video: Dell XPS 17

Superb build quality

The connectivity ports are spread across the sides and rear of the notebook. On the sides, we have dual headphone jacks, microphone jack, ESATA/USB 2.0 combo, Blu-ray combo drive, USB 2.0 and a multi-card reader. The exhaust vents are placed on the side, away from your lap. Not that you’ll be using this on your lap often as it weighs around 3.5kg. Rest of the connectors are placed at the back, which includes a Gigabit Ethernet jack, HDMI, DisplayPort (which we don’t often see) and finally two USB 3.0 ports.

Great design

This being a large desktop replacement, you get plenty of room for your palms to comfortably rest as well as a giant multi-touch trackpad, which works well. You get a full-sized backlit keyboard as standard, which is extremely comfortable to use even for long durations. The speakers are done by JBL and you get two satellites on the palm rest, while a ‘subwoofer’ is placed underneath. Don’t expect thunderous bass from this, but the sound quality is a lot better than most notebooks in the market. Built right into the hinge is Nvidia’s 3DVision transceiver. This a similar setup to what Asus use in their gaming series notebooks. Users can easily swap out the RAM or hard drive by just unscrewing a single screw from the bottom.

Features
This being the flagship of the XPS series, you get plenty of kit as part of the standard configuration. For starters, we have an Intel Core i7-2670QM, a quad-core multi-threaded CPU running at 2.2GHz and Turbo speed up to 3.1GHz. We would like to point out that our review unit actually had an i7-2630QM, but the current models have the former CPU as standard, which is slightly better. Complementing this is 4GB of RAM running at 1333MHz, 500GB hard drive and an Nvidia GT 555M with 3GB of dedicated memory. This is a higher end mainstream card, which should be able to handle games in 3D decently.

Great for work or play

The 17-inch screen sports a full HD resolution, which makes everything appear crisp and sharp. The panel also has a very good colour reproduction and high brightness level, which is needed for 3DVision. Dell also bundles some programs by default like Dell DataSafe and Roxio Creator Starter edition. Overall, the XPS 17 is packed to the brim with features and as far as desktop replacements go, definitely one of the best we’ve come across.