Dell XPS 15 Touch Screen Laptop Review
Battery Life
Since the XPS 15 Touch sports such a high resolution display and discrete GPU, we didn't hold out hope of being impressed by its battery life. However, the results did surprise us.
In an attempt to quantitatively measure the XPS 15 Touch's battery life in a controlled benchmark environment, we ran Battery Eater Pro. This test is designed to tax a laptop’s resources to give a feel for how long the laptop’s battery will last under heavy use. For the test, we set the XPS 15 Touch's' display to 50% brightness.
Only a couple of minutes of run time separate the XPS 15 Touch from finishing towards the upper end of the middle where it sits, which is a bit lower on the totem pole. Nevertheless, it managed to beat out a handful of Ultrabooks -- not too shabby when you factor in the hardware.
What really surprised us is how long the XPS 15 Touch stayed on during our web browsing test, which is a bit more indicative of real-world use. It managed to stay running for 7 hours and 10 minutes. Some might consider that all-day battery life -- we consider it close, though not quite all-day. Still, it's a credit to the laptop's 6-cell (91Whr) battery and power efficient components. We should also note the XPS 15 Touch has NVIDIA Optimus graphics switching technology on board in this configuration, which allows the discrete GPU to kick in when needed for gaming etc., or power down when not required for light duty apps like web browsing.
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In an attempt to quantitatively measure the XPS 15 Touch's battery life in a controlled benchmark environment, we ran Battery Eater Pro. This test is designed to tax a laptop’s resources to give a feel for how long the laptop’s battery will last under heavy use. For the test, we set the XPS 15 Touch's' display to 50% brightness.
Only a couple of minutes of run time separate the XPS 15 Touch from finishing towards the upper end of the middle where it sits, which is a bit lower on the totem pole. Nevertheless, it managed to beat out a handful of Ultrabooks -- not too shabby when you factor in the hardware.
What really surprised us is how long the XPS 15 Touch stayed on during our web browsing test, which is a bit more indicative of real-world use. It managed to stay running for 7 hours and 10 minutes. Some might consider that all-day battery life -- we consider it close, though not quite all-day. Still, it's a credit to the laptop's 6-cell (91Whr) battery and power efficient components. We should also note the XPS 15 Touch has NVIDIA Optimus graphics switching technology on board in this configuration, which allows the discrete GPU to kick in when needed for gaming etc., or power down when not required for light duty apps like web browsing.
