Design
The XPS 17 is undoubtedly one of the best looking and designed 17” laptops out there. Its sleek aluminum exterior paired with its minimalist design look great.
It measures 14.74 x 9.76 x 0.77 inches and weighs 4.65 to 5.53 pounds (depending on configuration). So, you will need more room in your bag for the XPS 17 versus smaller screened laptops. But, it is so well designed, that it feels much smaller than it actually is. It comes in just a hair larger than the new 16” MacBook Pro.
Although the XPS 13 and XPS 15 are excellent, the XPS 17 offers more real estate for photographers, which is no doubt a benefit. The most important consideration – size & weight or larger screen?
The ergonomics of the keyboard and trackpad are maybe the best in any laptop, it’s subjective, but I can say it seems like the XPS 17 keyboard is the best of any XPS laptop. And, the XPS series has been lauded for its keyboard design and usability.
Display
All new XPS models, including this one, received an updated 4-sided display from Dell that makes for a nearly bezel-less screen. It’s amazing, I think the display is one of the high points for the XPS line and it’s no different with the XPS 17, except this time, we get MORE screen. I don’t think you can go wrong with the 4K or HD options. Some photographers prefer working on lower resolution displays and I’m one of those. With that said, the 4K is absolutely beautiful for everything, not just photo work. The contrast is spot on, with deep blacks that reverberate through media and text. At an average of 500 nits of brightness, it is one of the brightness laptop displays out there.
The XPS 17 has some of the best color accuracy you can find on a laptop, too. The 4K display has 100% coverage of the wide-gamut AdobeRGB while the HD display measure over 100% coverage for sRGB. Display and color benchmarks for the XPS 17 scored higher than the new MacBook Pro.