In what happens to be one of the most unexpected announcements amongst other product announcements this CES 2018, Dell will be making its own line of jewellery. Let’s keep the suspense for a bit longer with more on that later. The company unveiled a slew of products across the board including new laptops, monitors, and a new line of portable SSDS.
Contents
The XPS 13 and XPS 15 Laptops
The award winning XPS range got a design refresh this year at CES 2018, with 2 new products.
XPS 13
The XPS 13 is slimmer(11.6 mm) and smaller than its predecessor resulting in an even more immersive display; going up from a 1,920x1080p base model to the top model with a 4k touch enabled display with Gorilla Glass for added protection against scrapes and scratches.
The body is encased in an outer shell made of aluminum with a glass fiber woven palm rest that lends an interesting fabric like appearance. The extra slim body comes with a compromise on the ports selection with only a microSD slot, a headphone jack and a few Thunderbolt enabled USB C ports gracing the sides of the ultrabook. The laptop is powered by an 8th gen core i5 on the base model up to an i7 on the higher variants.
The spec sheet for this does not disappoint us with the inclusion of .Similarly, the entry level is equipped with a 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD which goes up to 16GB RAM and 500GB of SSD storage. Dell introduced a new cooling solution for the XPS 13 by using a Gore’s thermal insulator which uses silicon aerogel to disssipate heat and keep the laptop cool and breezy under prolonged and heavy usage.The laptop is already available in the US at a price of $999 for the entry level variant, while the top of the range model with the 4K screen will set you back by $2049.
XPS 15
The XPS 15 is a new convertible from Dell, marketed with the moniker “most powerful 2-in-1 ever produced” thanks to a new chip under the hood, co-created by AMD and Intel. The highlight of the product is the new G series chips powering the device which combine a 8th gen i5 or i7 core processor with AMD’s Radeon RX Vega Mobile graphics and 4GB of 2 gen High-BAndwidth Memory (HBM2) in one package.
This allows remarkable performance on par with the Mobile versions of the 10 series graphics cards from Nvidia in a single piece of silicon with a much smaller form factor as opposed to a seperate discrete graphics chipset, and hence the main contributor behind the slim 16 millimetres form factor. This is paired with a choice of 8GB or 16GB Dual channel DDR4 RAM and 128GB SATA, 256 PCIe, 512 PCIe or 1TB PCIe SSD as storage options with GORE thermal insulation similar to the XPS 13 for improved thermal performance.
Apart from the processor the XPS 15 is kitted out with a 3,200×1,800 15.6-inch UltraSharp 4K Ultra HD InfinityEdge touch display, edge-to-edge Corning Glass 4; a couple of thunderbolt and USB 3.1 ports along with a headphone jack. A 75Wh battery is fitted to provide the necessary juice for up to a quoted 15 hours of battery life. The laptop is priced at $1299.99 for the base model and will be available for purchase in the spring this year.
Dell Premium Active Pen
The laptop is also compatible with the new Dell Premium Active pen which was announced alongside it at CES 2018. The pen, which is sold separately for $99.99 comes with 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity for granular control over strokes with varying degrees of lightness and darkness along with low latency for a much natural writing experience.
It also includes “tilt support for a much more detailed shading in drawings; the top button instantly launches OneNote, captures a screenshot or activates Cortana. The two barrel buttons on the side efficiently erases or launch the context menu and the Quick Launch button allows you to quickly and conveniently take notes by writing on the locked screen” Dell explained. It goes on sale globally on the 12 of June this year.
Thunderbolt 3 Storage Devices
Dell also announced a new range of Thunderbolt 3 storage devices in 500GB and 1TB variants in a small and slim form factor with the former retailing for $439 while the later will be setting you back by $799. Thunderbolt 3 supports a bandwidth of 40Gbps with Dell citing read-write data speeds of 2096MBps. it will be available in stores on February 28.
Gold Jewellery – Bayou with Love limited jewellery collection
In what arguably is the most shocking and jaw dropping of all the items released ever in the history of the CES is Dell’s announcement to sell gold jewelry! And before you put on your thinking caps figuring out how is this even a relevant addition to the CES which is, well, you know, all about electronics, let me tell you that all the gold used to make the jewellery, launched in association with Nikki Reed, is actually recycled from tons of e-waste and this recycled gold is much more eco-friendly than traditional mined gold.
Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Gaming
Dell made some interesting announcements in the VR domain featuring its child company – Alienware’s collaboration with NVIDIA and Oculus. The focus was highly on how dell enabled VR compatibility with all of itsReady for VR gaming PCs and Alienware products and how they plan to become to first PC company to offer the HTC Vive on their website and support for it as well. Dell reaffirmed its commitment to offer VR at cheap prices with the announcement of the Dell Inspiron Gaming PC at $799.
Dell Cinema
Dell Cinema – consisting of CinemaSound for sound enhancements, CinemaColor for spectacular display bringing HDR colors to PCs for the first time and CinemaStream which promises a buffer free availability of content by optimizing streaming process in association with Netflix.
Dell Mobile Connect
Dell claims this as the world’s first integration between PC and Phone done wirelessly which claims to harmonize the experience between both the phone and the PC. You’ll be able to make calls and texts when you connect your iOs based phones via this piece of software but the prospects are far more enticing with an android phone where you’ll be able to use all apps from your phone on the PC for instance – booking an Uber ride!
S-Series Monitors – 24-inch and 27-inch
These stunning looking ultra-thin monitors released by Dell are touted as the world’s brightest ultra-thin monitors in their class. The two monitors support HDR colors. The super slim monitors are just 5.5 mm thin at their thinnest edges and have an ultra-thin bezel with an infinity thin display.
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Final Words
Dell this year had a really interesting session at the CES with announcements on their already successful line of products like the XPS. We, however feel that it wasn’t as innovative for them this year like how Intel mesmerized with their lineup and how Sony too stole a lot of the limelight with the Aibo.
Dell seems to be heavily betting on VR and AR with high focus on reducing their prices however it’d have been more interesting to see a product launch in that segment although the technology is still taking baby steps and Dell deserves credit for betting for the future. Their gold jewelry lineup was however something that stole our hearts and we hope more and more tech companies come together and join hands in such initiatives for a more eco friendly environment.
