XPS 15 9560 or wait for the 9570?

Thanks for the very informative post, appreciate it.

My bad I didn't make my post clear, its the 1TB SSD 32GB RAM Model I'm looking at (best spec one available I believe)

I'm not really a gamer so the graphics side of things aren't much of an issue, at least with the XPS 15 its decent enough to play any game at reasonable settings if desired.

I was looking at the XPS 13 originally as it works out to about £300 cheaper, that's still on the table but I would rather have the new refresh, but then the issue is the 14% off expires tomorrow.

The gap in performance for the most part be in terms of graphics power between the new xps 13 and the xps 15.

I'm not much of a gamer either, and while I do enjoy the additional real estate of a 15" display when I'm on the road, that's not very often.  My laptop spends probably 95% of its life sitting on my desk with the lid closed.  Consequently, had the XPS 13 been available with a quad-core processor when I bought mine, I might well have gotten the XPS 13 instead because it's less expensive, smaller on my desk, and perhaps I'd even have come to value the extra portability over the display real estate on the few occasions where I traveled.

The XPS 13 with the new CPU is also available right now (at least in the US) although it's confusingly still called the 9360 and listed right among other specs that still use the 7th gen CPU.  Just look for the spec that has a CPU model beginning with an "8" if you want to explore that option, although I don't know if it's yet available with the storage and memory spec you want.

If you can't get the XPS 13 the way you want it, if I were in your position I'd probably take the 14% off, especially given that you're buying the top-end model, where that 14% will mean more savings.  I just don't see any meaningful potential for buyer's remorse with the XPS 15 refresh, especially for non-gamers.

Yeah to be honest I'm currently using my HTPC connected to my TV, likely to do the same when I'm at home, Gaming isn't anything I'd be doing to be honest, and I have a PS4 for that if I'm that tempted or have the time.

I'm not sure if I've made the right move here, but I've just ordered the following:

outlet.euro.dell.com/.../SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx

XPS 13 - 9360

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-7500U (2 Core, 4MB Cache, up to 3.5 GHz,15W)

Windows 10 Home (64bit)

16 GB Memory

512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive

Intel HD Graphics

Software

Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

Power Cord : 250V

Primary 4-cell 60W/HR Battery

13.3 inch QHD+ (3200 x 1800) InfinityEdge Touch Display

Internal Qwerty Backlit Keyboard

It was very hard to say no at £980, I know the CPU is no where near as powerful but it is £1000 cheaper and that's very hard to ignore, its spec'd pretty well and should do the job.

I don't do anything very cpu taxing so I hope the 7500 is enough, but at least I have the option to test and if its not satisfactory return it and bite the bullet on a new XPS 13.

I just helped a friend order a very similar spec to that, except he wanted Win10 Pro for BitLocker and to defer new Win10 releases until they were designated "business-ready" and he also wanted the FHD display for its anti-glare surface and longer battery life.  My wife also has an XPS 13 9350, and both my friend and wife really like their systems. If you're not doing anything that requires much CPU or GPU and don't need the real estate of a 15-inch display, then it is an absolutely fantastic alternative to the XPS 15 at a better price. Enjoy!

Yeah I did have a quick look under Work, but they don't seem to list XPS laptops there for some reason.

Decisions decisions, when looking at spending this kind of cash its always a problem lol, don't want to make the wrong choice.

Yeah I wanted WIn 10 pro for Bitlocker but then I'd lose out on other options due to availability. (I'd probably end up upgrading it which would add £100 on top, I believe that's the cost to do it through the microsoft store)

I am however still in two minds, I got a quote for the 512GB SSD 16GB RAM 4K display, with 3 year warranty including accidental cover,  if I add 3 year coverage to the XPS 13 (no accidental cover available) then the price difference between the two is £600, this makes me think although its still a bit of money its certainly getting me a lot more, much faster in every regard, plus it has win 10 pro, finger print reader and 3 year accidental coverage.

I'll have to sleep on it I think,  I'd settle with the 512GB version over the 1TB as I know if I need to I can just upgrade that along with the RAM if I ever need it, with the 13 the only concern I have is the CPU and it possibly not being quite as snappy as I'd like, it seems to be on par if not below the I3 6300 which is what I had in my htpc before getting a 6700k

This may not be an option in the UK, but at least in the US, Dell has separate Home and Business stores.  I can for example to go dell.com/home or dell.com/work.  The laptops in the work store all default to Win10 Pro, so you might find a spec that you're happy with there assuming you haven't already looked and this is even available in the UK.  You might also find accidental damage coverage can be added that way.  However, some coupons are also specific to purchasing from a particular store.  Otherwise yes I believe that's the correct price for an in-place upgrade to Pro from the Microsoft Store.

Good luck with the decision!

Just had a quick look, does indeed seem to be far more customization but *** the price is rather insane, quite a bit more expensive than the XPS 15 :(

I found one in the outlet store for about £1700 with very good spec, but its only a 1080p display, 4k or QHD+ is a must for me, at that price I'd be tempted with a brand new XPS 15 1TB model as that would be £400 more with 3 year warranty and accidental cover. But I suppose its a trade off.

Got a headache thinking about this lol, decision time tomorrow I think.

So my options are:

XPS 13 - £980 1 year warranty - Refurb - Ordered earlier spec above - 3 Year warranty pushes this to £1165

XPS 15 - £1771 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Win 10 pro, Recovery USB, Finger print reader, 3 year warranty with accidental cover

XPS 15 - £2169 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Win 10 pro, Recovery USB, Finger print reader, 3 year warranty with accidental cover

One other difference between the 5520 and XPS 15: The former is available with Dell Wireless and Intel Wireless WiFi cards, whereas the latter is only available with Killer Wireless.  In my experience, I've found Intel to be best, followed by Dell (Broadcom), followed by Killer. That said, WiFi cards are $25-30, so that would not be an expensive or difficult swap on an XPS 15 if you felt the need.

Yeah sorry they do, I didn't select it as I thought I can just purchase that later in a few months rather than now, where'as with the newer system I believe I then can't get accidental cover if not purchased there and then - could be wrong.

The price for 3 year warranty on the 13 is £185 more. so £1165

If you're ordering the refurb unit through Dell, I'm surprised they don't offer other warranty options, since over here the Dell Outlet allows you to add any warranty to refurb units that would be available on brand new units.  I would honestly run perfmon for a day on your current system and have it record two counters: Processor\% Processor Time, and Memory\Available MBytes.  See how much CPU and memory you actually use to get a sense of whether that faster CPU and/or 32GB will matter to you.  Just remember when reading the results that you're looking at AVAILABLE memory, not allocated memory -- and don't count CPU utilization when watching video, since 7th gen CPUs have a lot of acceleration built in for that.  If you don't need those, then I agree the XPS 13's price is highly tempting and I'd probably go for it myself.

I don't really see the value of the higher-end XPS 15 spec unless you actually do need the memory and/or storage.  Otherwise, as you say, both of those can be upgraded later if needed, and although may still have spent more overall, the SSD you'd buy when you needed the extra capacity would at least very likely be faster than the SSD you'd buy today.

Lol, I know the feeling!  Well if you decide to stick with the XPS 15, you might also want to look at its sister system the Precision 5520.  It's identical in specs except that it offers a Quadro GPU rather than a GeForce GPU, but the main appeal is that you can often customize it more to your liking.  So for example if you want a huge SSD and lots of memory but don't want the higher-resolution, glossy display and don't need the dedicated GPU, chances are you can order that configuration on the Precision, whereas with the XPS systems, you sometimes can't do that.  I've also found that sometimes a given Precision 5520 spec is less expensive than the equivalent XPS 15 configuration -- no idea why. Finally, the Precisions can be optioned with faster "Class 50" SSDs, whereas XPS systems max out at "Class 40".  That's an internal designation for Dell, but basically a Class 50 SSD would be on par with the Samsung 960 Evo, one of the top models on the market today, whereas a Class 40 would still be an NVMe/PCIe SSD, but not an absolute top-end model.

Well I slept on it and, I've gone for the top spec XPS 15, should keep me going for a few years lol