When comparing Surface Book vs Dell XPS 13, the Slant community recommends Surface Book for most people. In the question“What are the best laptops for business?” Surface Book is ranked 6th while Dell XPS 13 is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Surface Book is:
Surface Book has a detachable, 13.5”, 3000x2000, 10 point multi-touch PixelSense display. It has good viewing angles, color reproduction and strong, 1700:1 contrast ratio.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great touch display
Surface Book has a detachable, 13.5”, 3000x2000, 10 point multi-touch PixelSense display. It has good viewing angles, color reproduction and strong, 1700:1 contrast ratio.
Pro Versatile design
It can be used as a standard touch laptop, the hinge allows it to be used in a tent configuration and the screen can be detached from the rest of the body to be used as a standard tablet.
Pro Good trackpad
The Surface book has a large, accurate 5-point multitouch trackpad.
Pro Zero bloatware
Pro Comes bundled with a great stylus
The stylus can be magnetically attached to the side of the screen.
Pro Great key spacing
Microsoft's years of experience creating keyboards are noticeable in the keyboard's layout as keys are spaced in a way that will be intuitive to most users.
Pro Great laptop battery life
Laptop battery life lasts for an excellent 12 hours on a single charge.
Pro Magnetically sealed lid
The lid of the Surface Book is, when closed, magnetically sealed.
Pro Great performance
Can be equipped with the latest specs in terms of processors, graphics cards, etc.
Pro Durable design
Magnesium casing.
Pro Stunning display
Before buying you can choose between the 4K UHD- or full HD-resolution touch displays or a full HD non-touch one. However, Linux compatibility for super high resolution displays can be spotty at times, so you might be better off sticking with the full HD if you plan on running Linux.
Display quality is very good as far as viewing angles, brightness and color reproduction go. It also has a very small bevel so the screen goes more or less edge-to-edge.
It also has an output of 400 nit, putting it in the "really bright" category as far as displays go. As for color reproduction, XPS 13's display produces an impressive 107.2 percent of the sRGB color gamut.
Pro Great Linux support
You can configure the XPS 13 to come with Linux out of the box. Even if you pick the Windows version, the XPS 13 has Linux drivers for all of its features and most users have reported that the whole process of installing a Linux distribution on a Dell XPS 13 is very simple.
Pro Lightweight and portable
It's weight is only 2.7 lbs, making it very portable.
Pro Latest generation hardware
The XPS 13 was recently updated with all the latest generation hardware which means that it won't become outdated any time soon.
Pro Great build quality
The body has a slick and elegant design. It's a mix of aluminum, carbon fiber and magnesium which hardly ever flexes even when held with one hand.
Pro One of the best Windows trackpads available
The Dell's trackpad is one of the best Windows trackpads available. It has smooth and precise tracking and even supports three-finger gestures similar to the Macbook's.
Pro Great keyboard
The keyboard is high quality, feels great to type on and isn't too mushy or too shallow. Even though there's nothing very special about the keyboard, it's as good of a keyboard as you could want.
Pro Toggleable and customizable keyboard backlighting
Users can turn on or off the backlighting of the keyboard as well as adjust the brightness.
Pro Uses an SSD for faster operations on disk
Using an SSD greatly increases performance for every I/O operation, especially compared to laptops that use an HDD. The laptop will boot faster, programs that need to read and write to disk will run faster and scripts will compile much faster than on an HDD.
Pro Plenty of RAM for all programming needs
Building software typically takes more resources than running the final product. Having a lot of RAM helps building big complex applications faster.
Pro Decent speakers
The Dell XPS 13 has above average speakers for a laptop, they get very loud but at max volume tend to distort the music a little too much.
Pro Non-glossy
The build is non-glossy, so no fingerprint markings all over the thing.
Pro Great online customer service
Dell's customer service is one of the best in the industry. Especially the online customer service website. There you will find frequently asked questions which usually solve 90% of issues, if that's not enough, there's a live chat with a customer service representative, who are usually very helpful and very understanding about every issue that may arise.
Cons
Con Comes with Windows that lacks developer tooling
Developer tools under Windows are lacking compared to OSX and Linux. And while it's possible to replace the OS, dual-boot or run a VM environment for development, it's extra hassle that you have to deal with.
Con No USB-C port
USB-C will be the prominent new port used, as it can manage much more than previous USB ports. While it isn't widely adapted yet for accessories, some computers being sold today only have USB-C, which will really help push for more USB-C devices down the road. For now it isn't a big issue, but in a few years the lack of a USB-C port could limit the accessories you use to older options (unless you want to carry adapters around).
Con Far too expensive for specs
Con The screen and keyboard isn't protected from dirt when laptop is closed
The laptop leaves a gap on the side when it's closed allowing for dust and dirt get to the screen and keyboard.
Con No Kaby Lake CPU options
Kaby Lake is Intel's 7th generation processors, which weren't available when the Surface Book was first released. As such, it isn't possible to get the current Surface Book with these newly optimized processors.
Con Keybord might not be for everyone
Surface Book has a keyboard with a uncommonly low travel that might require some getting used to.
Con Screen's aspect ratio might require some getting used to
Surface Book uses a 3:2 aspect ratio compared to the more traditional 16:9 or 16:10 used in most other laptops. The aspect ratio also means that most videos will be letterboxed.
Con The hinge is not as resistive as a typical hinge of common laptops
The hinge can slightly wobble when the Surface Book is used in a lap. This is especially important on this computer as it has a touchscreen you'll want to use and also a pressure sensitive pen which won't work great in laptop mode without support.
Con Hinge scratches any surface it touches.
The hinge when the screen is open will scratch the surface that the Surface Book is sitting on. That nice glass table you're working on? Ruined. Your antique table? Worthless.
Con 3K, not 4K display
Most laptops in this price range have 4K laptops.
Con 3h of battery in tablet mode
According to a TechCrunch video, 3/4 of the battery is stored in the base and 1/4 in the tablet. That 1/4 of the battery will last you about 3h.
Con Spongy keyboard
The keyboard feels a bit spongy and does not have a lot of travel to the keys. When bottoming out there is no feel of completion.
Con Webcam located in an odd place
Due to the narrow bezel of the infinity display, Dell moved the webcam to the bottom left corner. This results in an odd viewing angle and the webcam getting blocked while typing.
Con 13" is too small for many kinds of development
At these sizes, it is inches which start to matter, not only pixels.
Con The battery wears out quickly
After some use, the battery continues to fall at an alarming rate, to only 5-6 hours after a couple of months.
Con No upgrades
Ram is soldered on the board.
Con The touchscreen reflects light making it hard to see unless the lighting on the display is properly set
The screen for the touch-screen model is glossy instead of matte (non-touch screen). For what is a Linux notebook this does not make a lot of sense since most Linux users are the more tech savy who program. A glossy screen is more for multimedia, something Linux is not really known for excelling in.
Con Trackpad hardware (touch/feel/operation) is noticeably worse if coming from MacBook/MBP
Part of this is the hardware, and part seems to be the drivers. It's very unforgiving when accidentally brushing the trackpad with a different finger. Certain actions like double-clicks (tapping with two fingers) and scrolling (with two fingers) doesn't work reliably. This is true with other windows based laptops too. Not an issue if you spend a lot of time in a terminal/shell.
Con The battery does not last as long as advertised
The laptop never performs to the promised 11-15 hours, average usage is around 7-8 hours.
Con Phone support is very slow
Customers have reported waiting for up to 15 minutes to get connected to someone who will be able to help solve their issue.