Dell XPS 13 9300 (2020) Review | Still one of the best ultraportable laptops

Dell XPS 13 9300 (2020) Review | Still one of the best ultraportable laptops

Review of the Dell XPS 13 2020, an updated version of one of the best ultraportable laptops boasting slick performance and a 4K display. As well as benchmark testing, here’s my verdict on the XPS 13 9300 after a week of full-time use on battery life, usability, gaming and more.

This model boasted the best specs you can get in Dell’s compact notebook. Namely, the Core i7 chipset, an Ultra HD screen and 1TB of storage space. If you’ve got a spare £1800 and want portability without sacrificing performance, I’d highly recommend this laptop alongside the Huawei Matebook X Pro. You’ve got enough power for anything you need – as long as you aren’t editing video or fancy playing the latest games. There’s no dedicated GPU on board.

However, for the likes of photo editing, the Dell XPS 13 2020 is an absolute superstar. That 4K screen is among the best I’ve reviewed, pumping out crisp, poppy, bright visuals. Battery life is perfectly respectable also, giving you around five to six hours of use if you’re working in Chrome with other apps running too.

So have you been using the XPS 13? Let me know your own mini review below!

50 Comments

  1. Adam Deane on March 28, 2021 at 1:13 am

    How is the screen in Low light? Like for watching a film in a dark room, is it too bright?



  2. Zachary Baker on March 28, 2021 at 1:13 am

    I’d love to see a review in 24 months time. We have been through heaps of Dell XPS laptops over the years, they get 10/10 reviews every single year, but <2 years later they’re on my desk with blown up batteries or other faults. In our relatively small company they have a near 100% failure rate. The following year, a new XPS release, new reviews giving it the "best laptop of the year" treatment 🙁



  3. Richard's World Traveler on March 28, 2021 at 1:15 am

    You should have got the new one with the 11th gen CPU. The built in GPU appears to be 4 times faster.



  4. Mr Walkan on March 28, 2021 at 1:16 am

    Waiting for AOT Season 4.



  5. CS Horizon on March 28, 2021 at 1:16 am

    Sweet, a review of a laptop that’s being refreshed in a month or two with Tiger Lake.



  6. Zymphad on March 28, 2021 at 1:16 am

    Too bad it has soldered ram. Lack of HDMI and USB A is a shame, using dongles is asinine for basic ports. And also think it’s rubbish that one of the USB C is occupied for charging. This laptop missed out being near perfection with such basic things. Upgradeable ram and basic IO ports, why skimp on those? Does ram go bad? Sure do, having to replace the entire MB rather than pay $50 on Newegg/Amazon, must be frustrating.



  7. maans le roux on March 28, 2021 at 1:16 am

    Still wish it was running Ryzen 4800U



  8. Domo on March 28, 2021 at 1:17 am

    Bought this laptop for £1,300 fully specked, loving it so far



  9. HungarianManbeast on March 28, 2021 at 1:18 am

    Seriously? I expected 11th gen Tiger Lake review.



  10. ?? on March 28, 2021 at 1:19 am

    Looks like he’s holding 15 inch laptop. Never realized how small he is.



  11. Thomas on March 28, 2021 at 1:20 am

    they charge 500 dollars for 4k upgrade.. no thanks.. Is there a review on the standard FHD version with i5 processor?



  12. darklit on March 28, 2021 at 1:20 am

    You could have mentioned that you can add an external graphics card to it cuz of the thunderbolt



  13. Srinivasa Pavan on March 28, 2021 at 1:21 am

    Youjo senki
    Man of culture



  14. 이준희 on March 28, 2021 at 1:22 am

    Yo man, new xps 13 with tigerlake(11th gen) is out. Quite late.



  15. DUMB ASS on March 28, 2021 at 1:23 am

    this guy sure do love his anime wallpapers



  16. Alistair Lumb on March 28, 2021 at 1:28 am

    Any recommendations for a laptop capable of video editing size not really a concern?



  17. Mohammad zubair on March 28, 2021 at 1:30 am

    Battery life ?



  18. Arrad on March 28, 2021 at 1:31 am

    The 9310 is supposed to release soon, any plan for that review?



  19. Xedyir on March 28, 2021 at 1:31 am

    I am loving the Tanya Von Degurechaff wallpaper on the device.



  20. SoNiKBooM on March 28, 2021 at 1:33 am

    This is an amazing laptop. USB-C connectivity is limiting in SysAdmin environment but the weight and 16GB Ram make up for it with all the adaptors available now.



  21. E R on March 28, 2021 at 1:35 am

    Is this laptop reliable?



  22. Papertin999 on March 28, 2021 at 1:36 am

    Just bought one today and it seems like a top of the range laptop – the surface pro 7 arrived today too but I returned it as I basically purchased a screen with no keyboard (sold separately) for £1494.00 – whaaaaattttt so I’m sticking to this instead



  23. Karl Keyte on March 28, 2021 at 1:39 am

    Only big issue with the new devices and the latest version of Windows 10 is that sleep mode is completely broken. Put it to sleep and pop it in your laptop bag and the fan stays on or comes on and the battery runs flat. It’s called "modern standby" now and Microsoft have broken it. It can’t be switched off, back to the proper sleep mode. And Dell should be shouting merry hell at Microsoft, but they’re not. Dell cannot seem to resolve this major flaw with the response "use hibernation instead of sleep" being the best they offer… Very, very poor.



  24. fiereke on March 28, 2021 at 1:41 am

    Clock speeds are too low for the Ice Lake chips. The Tiger lake chips will be better, they will also have the improved Iris graphics.



  25. WEZZY BABY on March 28, 2021 at 1:45 am

    Can it play league of legends and dota 2 ?



  26. fiereke on March 28, 2021 at 1:47 am

    My 2014 Haswell XPS 13 still works mighty fine. 512 GB SATA SSD is still working fine. Dual core I7 4510u still has enough beef for most portable task while travelling. Only had to swap the fan, cost me €30 for a new generic one online.



  27. 9snaga on March 28, 2021 at 1:48 am

    Xps 15 review next please



  28. S H on March 28, 2021 at 1:48 am

    isn’t the 9310 coming out in a few days?



  29. cinIALVEspO w on March 28, 2021 at 1:49 am

    Already outdated



  30. Bilal Waleed on March 28, 2021 at 1:50 am

    What laptop would you recommend to get. I am an accounting student and require something which will last up to 4 years. What would be my best options? Please help (start university next week and still haven’t bought a laptop). Max budget is up to £1200.



  31. Roman Shocker on March 28, 2021 at 1:50 am

    How is food 2 more expensive than this? Fold 2 with its cheap plastic display and android os lol



  32. Tuco Salamanca on March 28, 2021 at 1:51 am

    next please XPS 17 with RTX 2060 Max-Q and FHD display



  33. Doug Lee on March 28, 2021 at 1:53 am

    I’ve not had any problems with mine after 5 months. I love the 4K display. On silent mode the fans rarely spin up. I agree battery life isn’t great but this was not a surprise given the 4K display. No driver issues but there have been a lot of driver updates. I did make some Windows 10 configuration changes to better match the hardware of this laptop (but can’t remember them all now). I bought the alpine white option. Finger prints have not been an issue. The trade off for such a slim, gorgeous laptop like this one is that there is simply no room left inside for a dedicated graphic card or additional ports. So yea, when I need to, which isn’t often, I use a dongle. For HDMI make sure you buy a dongle that will do 4K at 60Hz not 30Hz. When a new model comes out I suggest you wait 3-4 months and buy directly from Dell, not a third party to lower you chance of getting a defective unit. I read one review where a guy bought his from overstock.com and had nothing but trouble. I heard Dell has been pretty good about accepting returns if done during the first month.



  34. Vikingdescendent on March 28, 2021 at 1:53 am

    O:45 mark. I do my YouTube channel edits on an Asus Flip 4, 8 GB of RAM, Win 10 Pro and Davinci Resolve. It has yet to crash on me and it gets the job done. I limit my videos to 2 to 3 minutes, and use straight out of camera FUJI X T3 footage. So I imagine with the right software, the XPS 13 9300 would get the job done for me. Looking at the new XPS 15 as an upgrade for more complex projects.



  35. NEKIRO on March 28, 2021 at 1:53 am

    as impressive as its price, what’s the reason for it being so expensive?



  36. Raafat Ismael on March 28, 2021 at 1:54 am

    The fan noise so bad



  37. Miss Mobile Tech on March 28, 2021 at 1:55 am

    Awesome, would love to try it out! 🙂



  38. Chidozie not Henry on March 28, 2021 at 1:55 am

    your laptop doesnt overheat and use heavy fan under duress?



  39. Madeleine Wilson Photography & Design on March 28, 2021 at 1:55 am

    Do you plan on doing a review of the Dell XPS 15 2020? Trying to decide between that and the HP Spectre 360 15



  40. Bass Chaser on March 28, 2021 at 1:56 am

    Wtf, the web cam sucks so bad! It’s got a 1990’s camera.



  41. Souvik Mondal on March 28, 2021 at 1:59 am

    Liked just after seeing AOT intro🔥🔥🔥❤️❤️



  42. mT on March 28, 2021 at 1:59 am

    Figured I’d read some comments after watching the review and immediately noticed I was thoughtfully reading -but with an Irish accent 😅



  43. 3b3ziz H on March 28, 2021 at 2:01 am

    3:42 The camera you’re using to shoot is it a lumix? What kind, please



  44. Holdmyleash on March 28, 2021 at 2:02 am

    I wanted this but the lack of a dedicated gpu for that price is not something I look for in the long run.



  45. SuperChiko 2.3 on March 28, 2021 at 2:03 am

    It looks really amazing



  46. whiskey kun on March 28, 2021 at 2:04 am

    Hell yeah!!! Reping my waifu on that wallpaper! You go dude!



  47. Sujal Bharti on March 28, 2021 at 2:04 am

    How do you get your hands upon such impressive anime wallpapers ??? Please reveal the secret .



  48. Sebastian David Bech Jacobsen on March 28, 2021 at 2:05 am

    I personally would like a better webcam, cache functionally on the fingerprint reader, touchscreen on low resolution option, replacing the micro sd with an usb-c port more. And maybe 8 mm more of bezels. the fingerwrist is too small.



  49. yaseen khaliq on March 28, 2021 at 2:08 am

    Hi is there a cheaper alternative you can recommend ?

    Also how does this compare to the Lenevo x1 Carbon ?



  50. ArthropodSpidey on March 28, 2021 at 2:12 am

    “Doesn’t skimp on performance”

    Laughs in thermal throttling