XPS 17 9700 Thunderbolt 3 Charging

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Typically, a 15A Leviton USBA/C duplex receptacle is capable of 30W output at 5V. You can charge a phone with it, you cannot power/charge a laptop with it. You’ll have to charge the laptop using the supplied power supply or another power source capable of at least 20V @ 3A.

@Doug Chase 301  To answer your question about why USB-C is any better than circular power adapters of the past, typically the benefit is that USB-C and the USB PD spec are industry-wide standards, which means you could use non-Dell chargers with your Dell laptop, or you could use Dell USB-C chargers with non-Dell USB-C devices.  And of course if you didn't need to charge multiple devices at the same time, you could potentially carry a single USB-C charger that could be used to charge multiple devices rather than needing to have separate proprietary chargers for everything.  I for example have a few USB-C chargers and cables in various places around my home and dedicated to travel.  It's quite handy to standardize on chargers and cables to cover all of my laptops and a variety of other devices rather than having to carry various proprietary chargers around the house with the devices I want to charge.  There are benefits to standardizing connectors and chargers even if you still need a "brick" rather than being able to plug straight into a wall outlet.

But again, the XPS 17 9700 is a bit of a special case since it's designed for a power level that exceeds the normal 100W max of the USB PD spec.  Although even there, you still have the option of using somewhat lower wattage power sources, which may be workable in a pinch. 

Also be aware that if you're using third-party cables, most are only rated for up to 60W of power, and if you use that type of cable, that's all you'll get, even if both the power source and the device being charged would otherwise run more power.  The next step up on USB-C cable ratings is 100W.

@Doug Chase 301  The XPS 17 9700 is designed for a 130W power source, which is actually greater than the current 100W max of the USB PD spec.  Dell did something proprietary on some of their systems, docks, and one USB-C power adapter to stretch the spec to support 130W, but you won't find that implemented on third-party products.  Even Dell's USB-C displays currently don't support that.  You can use lower wattage power sources, but you will likely experience slower battery charging and performance throttling, especially given that the XPS 17 9700 is actually designed to draw auxiliary power from the battery even while connected to power when it is running under heavy load, because sometimes it can require even more than 130W.  Dell calls this "Hybrid Power".  I call it "shipping a system with an undersized power adapter and expecting users to put up with avoidable battery wear and tear."  But in any case, there's a limit to how far undersized you can go.  I would be surprised if you could use anything less than 60W, and even 60W would probably not be a great experience given that it's less than half of the 130W the system is designed for, which again isn't even its max power draw.

So how much power are the USB-C outlets in your Leviton outlets rated for?  I would be surprised if they were designed to handle anything beyond smartphones or maybe tablets.  The "brick" portion of your Dell power adapter converts the AC power from your wall circuitry to DC as carried via USB-C and needed by your laptop.  Your Leviton outlets would need to have the same type of AC/DC converter for their built-in USB-C ports, but I'm guessing they don't have an AC/DC converter brick of approximately the same size as your Dell power adapter hiding behind them, so chances are that the max power level on their USB-C ports is quite a bit lower.

@ibmarc  The USB PD spec would not allow 30W at 5V.  All voltage levels below 20V are limited to 3A, so when running at 5V, the most you could get would be 5V/3A = 15W.  To get 30W, you'd need to run at least 15V.  Only 20V output is allowed to run above 3A, up to 5A.

@ibmarc  My only guess there is that the 6A figure they're quoting may be the max total output across both USB-C ports, even though I see they also mention 30W in the title and do specifically say that 30W can be achieved through a single port.  But you can look up the USB PD spec yourself to verify that 3A is the max allowed for all voltage levels below 20V, and even at 20V the max amperage is currently 5A.  So 6A out of a single port wouldn't make any sense.  3Ax2 on the other hand would make perfect sense.

@jphughan   That is not what Leviton says. I’ll acknowledge that I mistakenly said the USBA/USBC device while only looking at the dual port USB-C device which says the following:

The T5635 30W (6A) Dual Type-C USB with Power Delivery (PD) is the most advanced USB In-Wall Charger on the market offering up to 30 Watts of charging power on a single port.

• POWERFUL – 30W charge on a single port. Up to 2x the charging power with PD-enabled devices

Your guess doesn’t take into account the business of sales and marketing, Leviton wrote it that way to sell more of them.