Dell XPS 13 and Black Friday

weringo · 10 Nov 2020 at 20:14

My current laptop (Dell XPS 13 9333) is on its last legs and my second charger seems to have died, so I've decided to buy a new laptop.

The new XPS 13 (9310) appears to have good reviews so I'm inclined to just buy the same laptop again as I was very happy with the original model.

It seems in the UK that the only place to get it at the moment is from Dell directly. Presumably it'll be rolled out to other retailers in good time.

I'm wondering whether I should buy now or wait a few weeks until Black Friday where there may be some deals. With it being a brand new laptop only available from one place I will inevitably be paying top dollar if I buy it now but I need to balance that with not having a laptop at all.

Are there any other laptops I should be considering with the same size and similar "ultrabook" form factor?

benparker · 11 Nov 2020 at 00:31

I'd wait for Black Friday

Webzta · 11 Nov 2020 at 12:37

I have just changed from the XPS 13 to the Huawei Matebook X Pro, the i5/512GB model, we paid £874.99 + VAT and it came with a leather sleeve, bluetooth mouse, and some freebuds 3.

It performs better due to the seperate graphics card and the screen looks fantastic, only thing that isn't great is the webcam placement.

My XPS 13 was unrepairable by Dell and they refunded, this was much cheaper so we took a punt and I'm really happy with it, worth a look.

nam · 11 Nov 2020 at 17:29

If your looking at the 11th Gen Dell XPS 13 with Tiger lake then it is a big step up in terms of performance from the previous model GPU/CPU price wise it is £1,700 at present for the 16gb i7-1165G7 with 512GB , i would expect some discount on Black friday but don't expect over £100 off. The Best deals too look out for are on HDUK where there are codes for Dell and Lenovo. Currently around £90 off Lenovo models using codes and registration.

If your looking for a 13-14" XPS size machine , Lenovo have some good offers on 11th Gen and 10th gen atm https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/yoga/products , i have gone for one of the 11th gen - 2-in-1 models which i mentioned here https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/threads/which-2-in-1-laptop.18904262/ , expect around 5 weeks for it too arrive though .

weringo said:
My current laptop (Dell XPS 13 9333) is on its last legs and my second charger seems to have died, so I've decided to buy a new laptop.

The new XPS 13 (9310) appears to have good reviews so I'm inclined to just buy the same laptop again as I was very happy with the original model.

It seems in the UK that the only place to get it at the moment is from Dell directly. Presumably it'll be rolled out to other retailers in good time.

I'm wondering whether I should buy now or wait a few weeks until Black Friday where there may be some deals. With it being a brand new laptop only available from one place I will inevitably be paying top dollar if I buy it now but I need to balance that with not having a laptop at all.

Are there any other laptops I should be considering with the same size and similar "ultrabook" form factor?

weringo · 23 Nov 2020 at 08:36

Held out and got £250 off the model I wanted with a black Friday code plus £100 credit via an Amex offer currently running on Dell purchases. 6% Quidco as well although that probably won't come in given the use of a code. Good result!

The downside is that I have a 2-3 week wait for i7 1185G7 model now. The i7 1165G7 model was in stock but for some reason is the same price :confused:

TheHitMan-1973 · 23 Nov 2020 at 10:30

I am so tempted to buy the Dell XPS 17 (9700) with 4K screen seen for £400 off price

nam · 23 Nov 2020 at 22:34

what HD and Memory did you go for ? is it the non touch screen model ?

weringo said:
Held out and got £250 off the model I wanted with a black Friday code plus £100 credit via an Amex offer currently running on Dell purchases. 6% Quidco as well although that probably won't come in given the use of a code. Good result!

The downside is that I have a 2-3 week wait for i7 1185G7 model now. The i7 1165G7 model was in stock but for some reason is the same price

weringo · 24 Nov 2020 at 08:15

nam said:
what HD and Memory did you go for ? is it the non touch screen model ?

512gb HD, 16gb memory and the 1980 x 1200 non touch screen

nam · 1 Dec 2020 at 01:27

managed to also find some discounts, have also gone for the 1185g7, 16gb, 512GB total at £1,385 won't be available though until end of December

weringo · 11 Dec 2020 at 20:16

Finally arrived today. It's got a great screen and is very snappy. As was the case with the previous model, the trackpad and keyboard are excellent and leagues ahead of most other laptops.

Still getting used to the size of the thing though. It's tiny compared to the previous model I had due to the smaller bezels. Thinking I perhaps should have gone for the XPS15!

nam · 11 Dec 2020 at 22:35

got mine today too , really amazed how quiet, fast and small it is the FHD+ is very sharp don't miss not having 4k on this size screen, very happy with it compared to the lenovo yoga 7i ordered which I am sending back. First personal dell XPS for me. Not having a touch screen is a shame but that is on all the XPS unless you go for 4k and pay extra. Need to clean and remove some of the apps such as mcafee.

Just to add the 15" version of the XPS still is the 10th gen sometime next year I expect this will be released with the 11th gen processor

weringo said:
Finally arrived today. It's got a great screen and is very snappy. As was the case with the previous model, the trackpad and keyboard are excellent and leagues ahead of most other laptops.

Still getting used to the size of the thing though. It's tiny compared to the previous model I had due to the smaller bezels. Thinking I perhaps should have gone for the XPS15!

Scramz · 16 Dec 2020 at 20:38

nam said:
managed to also find some discounts, have also gone for the 1185g7, 16gb, 512GB total at £1,385 won't be available though until end of December

Do you mimd sharing where you obtained such codes please.

nam · 16 Dec 2020 at 20:58

these were on hotdeals but I have a student in the family who used totum card which was offering a very good discounts

Scramz said:
Do you mimd sharing where you obtained such codes please.

Scramz · 17 Dec 2020 at 13:10

nam said:
these were on hotdeals but I have a student in the family who used totum card which was offering a very good discounts

Ok cheers.

Scramz · 17 Dec 2020 at 14:43

nam said:
these were on hotdeals but I have a student in the family who used totum card which was offering a very good discounts

Found a code and paid £1450 for the same spec but with the 1165G7 as its ready for next day and I wont see the difference is performance. I am going to see how it compares to my m1 Macbook, which is love, but not sure if I can leave Windows. I might even do the return dance with Dell for more discount!

superleeds27 · 19 Dec 2020 at 10:22

Scramz said:
Found a code and paid £1450 for the same spec but with the 1165G7 as its ready for next day and I wont see the difference is performance. I am going to see how it compares to my m1 Macbook, which is love, but not sure if I can leave Windows. I might even do the return dance with Dell for more discount!

Return dance?

Kohaashi · 20 Dec 2020 at 09:05

superleeds27 said:
Return dance?

Ask to return within the return period and they tend to offer a further discount if you agree to keep it.

Scramz · 20 Dec 2020 at 22:16

superleeds27 said:
Return dance?

Kohaashi said:
Ask to return within the return period and they tend to offer a further discount if you agree to keep it.

So I used the machine for an hour and I’m sending it back. It’s a very pretty small machine but it just can’t compete with my M1 MacBook Pro in every front save for aesthetics sadly.

If there was a bezel-less, compact design of the XPS with the MBP M1 guts, trackpads, mic, speakers etc of the MBP, it would be the ultimate W10 machine.

Kohaashi · 20 Dec 2020 at 23:43

@Scramz
What are you looking for from a windows machine that you feel you can’t achieve with the M1 MBP?

Scramz · 21 Dec 2020 at 10:03

Kohaashi said:
@Scramz
What are you looking for from a windows machine that you feel you can’t achieve with the M1 MBP?

I prefer windows for plugins in applications like outlook. But I installed parallels tech preview and now have windows running fine on it.

And overall I prefer W10 to macOS, old habits I guess. But now I put W10 on the M1 working, albeit still pre beta, I’m happy.

The main difference for me is how the MBPM1 doesnt get hot, nor do fans turn on. Once you have that experience, its so hard to go back to heat and fan noise. And when opening up applications etc the MBPM1 is just that much faster, snappier. So sadly I will be returning the Dell.