Dell XPS 13 9380: The best little laptop fixes its biggest problem
When the news surrounding the latest version of the Dell XPS 13 is its camera position, that’s both good and bad. It’s good because the camera’s one “feature” that some customers (and competitors) have used to batter what has otherwise been the most trend-setting laptop of recent memory.
If you recall, the original Dell XPS 13 9343 from 2014 crammed a 13.3-inch laptop into the space an 11-inch laptop would normally occupy. Dell relied on “InfinityEdge” bezels to shrink the foot print of the XPS 13 to unbelievable levels. Just about every laptop maker now offers their own narrow bezel designs.
But Dell’s implementation compromised convenience for slimness, moving the camera around the bottom bezel. No more. After years of mocking, Dell’s thrown in the towel and moved the camera above the screen, though in doing so the XPS 13 9380 lost the ability to use your face to sign into Windows Hello.
The bad news? The camera’s movement overshadows other upgrades in the Dell XPS 13 9380. You’d hardly know the XPS 13 packs Intel’s newest ultra-low power consumption Core i7-8565U, for instance—the first laptop we’ve tested with this “Whiskey Lake U” chip. Beyond a fair performance bump,
