Dell XPS 17 (2023) Review: Luxurious but OLED-Less

Price When Reviewed

From $2,449 | Model reviewed $3,099

Best Prices Today: Dell XPS 17 9730

The big-screen laptop trend of recent has been moving from a 17.3in display with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio to a 16in 16:10 panel that results in a more compact and portable package with nearly the same screen real estate.

Despite numerous refreshes over the past few years, the Dell XPS 17 (9730) still resides between these two popular panel sizes, with a 17in 16:10 display that’s roomier than the 16in equivalent but not quite as wide as a 17.3in 16:9 panel. The result is an absolutely massive display for media editing, multitasking, and perhaps some light gaming.

Inside, the XPS 17 serves up the latest Intel and Nvidia silicon. Our test system pairs a 13th-gen Core i7 CPU with RTX 4070 graphics, but Dell has opted for a low-wattage version of the latter. That means it can’t match the frame rates of gaming laptops with full-wattage RTX 40-series GPUs.

While the display’s sheer size is certainly impressive, its 60Hz refresh rate is underwhelming. Further, it’s merely an IPS panel and not an OLED, which graphics pros and enthusiasts can rightly expect at this price. As a result, content creators may be better off elsewhere. Here’s our full review.

Design, build & keyboard

• Premium, two-tone design
• Solid full-size keyboard
• Large, responsive trackpad

The XPS 17 9730 shares the same enclosure as the preceding XPS 17 9720. It’s an enormous expanse of a laptop that stretches nearly 15 inches wide and almost 10 inches deep. There’s very little wasted space; with thin bezels on all four sides, the 17in display dominates the scene.

You might have trouble fitting the XPS 17 9730 into your backpack because of its width and depth, but it’s not a bulky laptop. It measures a trim 19.6mm thick and weighs a reasonable 2.45kg.

The silver lid has the standard brushed aluminum look, but open the laptop and you’re greeted with a black keyboard deck, complete with a carbon fibre finish running along the wrist rest and the narrow strip above the keyboard.

This two-tone colour scheme means the XPS 9730 stands out from the many all-silver or all-grey laptops out there. And the carbon fibre keyboard deck has a rubberised finish, making it effective at repelling fingerprints and very comfortable to use.

Despite the aluminium and carbon fibre build, the XPS 17 9730 feels firm and rigid with little to no flex in the lid or keyboard deck. Given its immense dimensions, that’s an impressive feat.

Many large laptops tend to sag or flex toward the middle, while thin laptops often have flimsy lids with worrisome lack of protection for the display. But with the XPS 17 9730, Dell has managed to build a thin, large-screen laptop that still feels solid.

Dell has managed to build a thin, large-screen laptop that still feels solid

Without a notch or lip on the front edge, opening the lid is a two-handed operation. I struggled to lift the lid with my fingertip and had to lift with from the side with both hands.

Once opened, however, I found the keyboard to be quite comfortable. The keys don’t have the plush feeling you get with Lenovo’s ThinkPad devices, opting for light, snappy feedback and shallow travel instead. This won’t be for everyone, but I felt fast typing on it.

Despite having the room for it, Dell has opted not to include a number pad on the XPS 17 9730. And I didn’t miss it. I like having the keyboard centred below the display and above the giant touchpad. 

The touchpad has a matte finish that allows for smooth, nearly friction-free movements. It has a firm, quiet click response and the perfect amount of travel.

Display & webcam

• Optional 4K touchscreen
• No OLED or high refresh rate
• Underwhelming 720p webcam

Our test system features the display upgrade that bumps you from a 17in, 1,920 x 1,200 IPS non-touch display to a 3840×2400 IPS touchscreen. Brightness (500-nit rating) and refresh rate (60Hz) remain constant across the two display options. I found the display at 550 nits to be even brighter than its official rating, while text and images look razor sharp.

Despite this, I’m only mildly impressed with the 4K touch panel. Why? Because at this price point, it’s reasonable to expect an OLED panel.

The XPS 17 9730’s contrast ratio is fine, but it can’t match the bright white and true black levels of an OLED. For a high-end, large-screen laptop geared toward creative pros (a group that benefits more than most from the added colour fidelity and contrast), it’s surprising and disappointing that an OLED panel isn’t offered.

It’s surprising and disappointing that an OLED panel isn’t offered

Likewise, the display’s pedestrian 60Hz refresh rate will not be appreciated by many would-be buyers, especially if they want to use the RTX graphics for some high-end gaming. Even video editors seek a faster 90Hz or 120Hz panel for smoother movement. 

The webcam is another disappointment. It’s a grainy 720p sensor, rather than the high resolution 1080p camera that most premium laptops offer these days. Frankly, it’s shocking that a laptop at this price doesn’t have an upgraded webcam.

The XPS 17’s enclosure may not be in need of an overhaul, but its webcam certainly is.

Speakers & ports

• Quad stereo speakers
• Impressive sound quality
• No USB-A or HDMI without adapter

Dell packs four speakers into the XPS 17 9730, in the form of a pair of 1.5-watt tweeters and pair of 2.5 woofers. The sound you get is louder, fuller and more dynamic than you’ll find on most laptops.

Dialogue sounds clear and crisp, while sound effects in movies and TV shows are realistically recreated. I even enjoyed music playback, where a nice hit of bass makes songs sound fuller and more well-rounded.

The sound you get is louder, fuller and more dynamic than you’ll find on most laptops

All four USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 4 and support DisplayPort and Power Delivery for fast charging. You also get a 3.5mm audio jack and SD card slot, but an adapter or dongle is required for anything else. Dell includes one in the box with USB-A and HDMI options.

Specs & performance

• Intel Core i7-13970HX CPU
• Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU across all models
• Performance could be better

Our XPS 17 9730 test system is based on the Intel’s Core i7-13970HX CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics. It also supplies a generous 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.

The Core i7-13970HX uses Intel’s hybrid architecture of both performance and efficiency cores; it has six performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and a total of 20 processing threads. The RTX 4070 is a midrange GPU in Nvidia’s latest GeForce 40 series behind the RTX 4080 and 4090 graphics processors.

In our test system, the latter set to run at only 60 watts, in large part to keep thermals in check inside the XPS 17’s thin enclosure. By comparison, some laptops can reach up to 140 watts.

First up in labs testing is PCMark 10. It measures performance on everyday computing work including office productivity tasks, web browsing, and video chats. The XPS 17 9730 scored above 7,000, which indicates elite application performance, but it still trailed last year’s XPS 17 9720.

Our HandBrake benchmark tests how a laptop is able to handle high CPU loads over a lengthy period. In this case, transcoding a 30GB MKV file to a format suitable for Android tablets using HandBrake, the free video encoding utility.

The XPS 17 9730 again finished behind last year’s XPS 17 model and actually finished last among a group of similarly configured and priced systems. This includes both mid-range gaming machines and other content creation laptops.

Next up is Cinebench, another CPU-intensive test which renders a complex 2D scene over a short period of time. Again, the XPS 17 9730 finished near the end of the pack. The device is a capable content creation laptop, but certainly not the fastest.

Although the XPS 17 9730 isn’t a gaming laptop, we still wanted to put its RTX 4070 graphics to the test. On 3DMark’s Time Spy and Port Royal tests, it finished towards the back of the pack. The top-performing devices here all feature higher-wattage GPUs than our test system’s 60-watt RTX 4070.

In real-world game benchmarks, the XPS 17 9730 produced playable framerates on our Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark at 1920×1080 resolution, even at the highest quality preset. But it still trailed gaming laptops with GPUs operating at or near full throttle.

You’ll need to dial back the quality settings or resolution to get close to a smooth framerate of 60 fps

We saw similar results on our Metro Exodus test, where the XPS 17 9730 averaged 39 fps. You’ll need to dial back the quality settings or resolution to get close to a smooth framerate of 60 fps.

Wireless connectivity, is also a step behind the times. The XPS 17 9730 supports Wi-Fi 6 and not the newer Wi-Fi 6E standard.

Battery life

• 95Wh battery
• Impressive battery life
• Still beaten by last year’s model

To test a laptop’s battery life, we loop a 4K video using Windows 11’s Movies & TV app, with the laptop set to Airplane mode and earbuds plugged in. The screen brightness is set to between 250-260 nits, a good brightness for watching a movie in an office with the lights on.

The XPS 17 excelled in the battery test, running rings around its higher-powered gaming competition

The XPS 17 excelled in the battery test, running rings around its higher-powered gaming competition and lasting nearly 11 hours. Still, it fell a few minutes short of the runtime of last year’s XPS 17 model.

Price & availability

The Dell XPS 17 9730 starts at $2,449/£2,698.99 for a configuration with a Core i7-13700H CPU, RTX 4050 graphics, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD. This baseline model features a 17in, non-touch display with a 1920×1080-pixel resolution.

Our test system upgrades the graphics to an RTX 4070 GPU while doubling the RAM to 32GB and the solid-state storage to 1TB. The display also gets an upgrade to a 3840×2400 resolution and adds touch support, but this will cost you $3,099/£3,579.

It was not included on our test system, but there is a CPU upgrade that moves you from the Core i7-13700H to a Core i9-13900H. In addition to the baseline RTX 4050 graphics and the RTX 4070 GPU on our test system, you also can configure the XPS 17 9730 with RTX 4060 or RTX 4080 graphics.

There are also additional RAM (up to 64GB) and SSD (up to 8TB) options. As you’ll soon realise, the XPS 9730 can get very expensive. Even cheaper models costs more than almost all entries in our best laptop and best business laptop charts.

Verdict

There’s lots to like about the Dell XPS 9730, from its 16:10 display and thin yet sturdy chassis to comfortable keyboard, roomy touchpad and outstanding battery life.

However, the lack of an OLED display option, is a negative that will outweigh those positives for many content creators. With absolute black levels and stunning contrast ratio, an OLED display is far to IPS in most situations, and high on the priority list for any creative professional in the market for a laptop.

Despite plenty of strengths, the omission of an OLED option is the main reason not to recommend the XPS 17 9730 to more people.

Specs

The specs for the model reviewed are as follows:

• CPU: Quad-core Intel Core i7-13700H
• Memory: 32GB
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070
• Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
• Display: 17-inch UHD+ (3840 x 2400) 60Hz touch display
• Webcam: 720p
• Connectivity: 4 x Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C, combo audio jack, SD card slot
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3
• Biometrics: IR camera and fingerprint reader
• Battery capacity: 95 Wh
• Dimensions: 14.7 x 9.8 x 0.77 inches
• Measured weight: 5.4 pounds (2.45kg)