Dell XPS 15 (2019) Review: OLED Display Beauty, 8-Core Beast
Dell XPS 15 (2019): Software And User Experience
Our test setup arrived with Windows 10 Home 64-bit. For around $82 more, Dell offers an upgrade to the Windows 10 Pro 64-bit for people who need want features like BitLocker, Windows Information Protection (WIP), Activity Directory support, mobile device management, and so forth.
Is there anything more beautiful than a clean desktop? Well sure there is, but an uncluttered desktop is still a welcome sight, especially when for years it was common practice to load up OEM systems with a bunch of junk. Dell has historically avoided going that route with its XPS line, and the desktop that greets us on the 2019 XPS 15 continues the welcome trend with just two icons on the screen—Recycle Bin and Microsoft Edge.
Astute observers will also notice a darkened Cortana field in the screenshot above. Microsoft recently rolled out a system-wide dark mode option to Windows 10, and Dell enabled it on our XPS 15. For anyone who prefers the traditional light theme, the setting can be found (and changed) by navigating to System Settings > Personalization > Colors and scrolling down.
Dell includes a few utilities on the XPS 15. One of them is Dell Update, which is exactly what it sounds like. This makes it quick and easy to search for, download, and install various updates specific to your system configuration, essentially taking the guesswork out of the equation.
The Dell Power Manager is another handy utility for checking your XPS 15's battery health, among other things. You can also use this to configure charging times to optimize battery life, set a schedule for battery and AC use, customize thermal management settings, and make other tweaks related to the battery.
With a Killer AX1650 Wi-Fi adapter on board, the XPS 15 comes with the Killer Command Center application preinstalled. For those who want to a bit more control over their Wi-Fi, this application provides it by way of a bandwidth limiter, prioritized traffic settings, and a Wi-Fi analyzer showing how congested a network or channel might be.
Enough about the software, let's jump into the performance benchmarks...
