Dell XPS 17 (9730) Review

Right behind our review of the updated Dell XPS 15, its larger sibling arrives with the latest components inside, too. The Dell XPS 17 (model 9730, which starts at $2,449; $2,949 as tested) is Dell's big-screen option in the XPS family, equipped with Intel 13th Generation and Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 Series silicon alongside a brilliant 17-inch edge-to-edge display. Our particular review model packs a Core i7 chip, an RTX 4070 GPU, and a 4K touch panel. It's a combo that costs quite a lot, and even the still-capable base model has a higher price barrier of entry than before. Regardless, the Dell XPS 17's sheer quality earns it our Editors' Choice pick among big-screen desktop replacements for its top-end performance and productive large display.

A Welcome and Familiar Face

Like the XPS 15, this new model is focused on internal updates. Sometimes, that means minor design changes too, but in both cases, these editions are mainly component switcheroos. That means the chassis design is the same as the last XPS 17 we reviewed, the Dell XPS 17 (9720).

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Just like the design of competing Apple MacBooks like the 16-inch MacBook Pro, though, this is neither surprising nor a negative. You know what to expect—a premium build in terms of materials, style, and cost—but I also don't see much reason to make a major change. Every few years, a meaningful design iteration comes along, but this XPS 17 feels as quality-built and high-end as ever.

The aluminum exterior and signature carbon-fiber keyboard deck deliver an experience reflective of the cost. Our 4K display unit here measures 0.77 by 14.7 by 9.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.4 pounds, thin and relatively portable for a 17-inch system. Worth noting, the “FHD+” (1,920-by-1,200-pixel) version of the laptop weighs less than our model, at 5.1 pounds. These weights are actually different from last year’s, despite the same dimensions, since the internal components changed. The 4K model measured 5.3 pounds, and the non-4K version slightly less, at 4.9 pounds.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

And man, that screen: Most laptops have shifted to thinner bezels, but the XPS line has long taken that to the limit with its nearly borderless edge-to-edge displays. The design makes the screen pop, and also helps the panel look even bigger than its size, particularly on the spacious 17-inch model. The quality helps, too: Our review unit is outfitted with the upgraded 4K (technically dubbed “UHD+”) touch panel. That specifically makes this, due to the 16:10 aspect ratio, a 17-inch 3,840-by-2,400 resolution touch screen.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Naturally, the base version has the non-touch FHD+ panel, which is perfectly fine for most users and saves you $300 more than the UHD+ version. However, the higher resolution does have its benefits for power users. The picture quality looks fantastic, and at 500 nits of rated brightness, your work will appear clear and bright. Unfortunately, Dell still does not sell an OLED screen option, which is certainly a miss. Not all XPS users are the type to benefit from OLED for creative purposes, but many are. This is on top of the fact that OLED simply looks fantastic, and should be sold on most high-end machines in 2023 as a higher-quality experience.

Inputs and Connectivity: Bringing the Thunder(bolt)…and an Adapter

I don't have too much to say about the rest of the build, both because it’s unchanged and because it’s the least exciting part of the design. As excellent as the screen, exterior, and carbon-fiber deck are, the keyboard, touchpad, and even connectivity aren’t worthy of too much praise. The touchpad is larger than average, which is welcome, but it doesn’t stand out otherwise in terms of feel or design.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

The keyboard, similarly, is just serviceable. I feel minimal key travel, which makes sense since the laptop is thin, but it still feels a bit insubstantial for the size. Some of the keys, particularly the spacebar, feel shallow as well. It’s nothing that should prevent you from using or buying this machine—it’s just a bit underwhelming. The power button does double work as a fingerprint reader for secure Windows Hello sign-in, which is an added bonus (but also easy to miss).

Connectivity and extras are pretty simple here. Dell included four Thunderbolt 4 ports, way more than you see on smaller laptops. These support DisplayPort and power delivery as well as countless accessories. You'll also find one full-size SD card reader and a headphone jack.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

That covers the essentials, but the mix may be insufficient for some power users and creatives; more discrete video out and USB-A connections could be useful and are often seen on laptops this size. The focus on thinness here has its downsides, though the versatility of Thunderbolt 4 should still cover most needs. To alleviate this further, Dell includes a USB-C adapter in the box with connections for USB-A and HDMI.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

The webcam is another miss: As with the previous XPS 17 model, it’s merely 720p. That feels insufficient for a premium laptop, especially at this price, and it shows in the video quality. The picture quality is mediocre, and I've seen how much better 1080p webcams look in other systems. The giant panel exacerbates that—the camera image here has a sort of fuzzy quality, and it doesn’t deal with low light too well. I’d expect better from a high-end system meant for professional use.

Testing the Dell XPS 17 (9720): A Generational Power Jump

Dell's design may be all too familiar, but the internal components are all fresh. Last year’s XPS 17 brought us Intel’s mobile 12th Gen “Alder Lake” processors, and the 2023 edition brings new CPU and GPU silicon. This new XPS features Intel’s 13th Gen “Raptor Lake” CPUs and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 40 Series mobile GPUs, the latter a major lift from the GeForce RTX 30 Series used in the last two XPS 17 laptops.

Now for the specifics: The base model is priced at $2,449, for which you get an Intel Core i7-13700H processor, 16GB of memory, a 512GB SSD, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, and the FHD+ display. A “base” model though that may be, it’s a mighty powerful one. With a starting model that is expensive and potent, every form of this laptop is simply meant for high-powered tasks, not run-of-the-mill computing. Looking back, the XPS 17 (9720) started at $1,849, which is still relatively high, but far more approachable—$600 more approachable, to be exact. While the parts are updated, the gap is larger than that accounts for, taking some of the value shine off this iteration.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

For the pro users who need to ramp things up further, you have options. Our review unit runs the same processor, but upgrades to 32GB of memory, a 1TB SSD, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 mobile GPU, and the UHD+ display for $2,949. More expensive, certainly, though not unreasonably so considering those across-the-board upgrades over the base model. This isn’t as far as you can go, either: You can buy a superior Core i9 chip option, an RTX 4080 GPU option, up to 64GB of memory, and up to 8TB of storage.

The Intel Core i7-13700H, though, is clearly capable. It’s a 14-core chip, which in the current Intel architecture, is made up of six Performance cores and eight Efficient cores. We’ve tested this chip in some high-end systems already, and it’s a sprinter, so only those who need the highest level of performance (animators, modelers, data scientists, gamers simultaneously streaming) really need to consider the Core i9 option. The same goes for the GPU: You cannot buy a version without a discrete GPU, and the base RTX 4050 is fast enough for modest graphics acceleration, multimedia editing, and light gaming. If you are set on using this as a gaming device or do heavy-duty 3D work, consider the RTX 4070 and RTX 4080 options.

To gauge the effectiveness of our review configuration, I ran the Dell XPS 17 through our usual suite of benchmark tests, outlined below. First, here are the names and specs of the competitors I put it up against…

Here, we have the previous-generation XPS 17 as an obvious generational point of comparison, alongside the rival HP Envy 16 also featuring last-generation parts. The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Ultra is a modern rival with the same 13th Gen CPU as the Dell and an RTX 40 Series GPU, albeit a less powerful one. These components are still relatively new, so not all competing lines have been updated yet, leaving a smaller field of comparable options that have a similar class CPU and discrete graphics. On that note, the standout inclusion is the MSI Stealth 14 Studio—a much, much smaller notebook, but one that runs similar parts, letting us see how much is gained in a larger chassis versus the increased portability tradeoff.

Productivity Tests

The main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage.

Three further benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro by Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Normally, our final productivity test is PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, an automated extension to the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor that assesses a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia apps. However, we've run into compatibility issues with the software version we use and the latest hardware, so we do not have those results for this laptop.

As expected, the Intel Core i7-13700H acquitted itself well here and showed a clear upgrade over the last-generation equivalent overall. Some results showed a tighter spread, but if you look at the previous XPS 17’s HandBrake time, for example, it was markedly slower than the new model. Improvements in these types of workloads are exactly what potential buyers of this category of laptop will want to see.

Also noteworthy: The Stealth 14 Studio is small but mighty. MSI's creator laptop fell behind on some tests, but scored higher than the XPS 17 on a couple as well. Either of these systems is a smart fit for media editors, content creators, and any other processor-intensive tasks. (If you're seeking an entirely higher tier of performance, check out our guide to the best mobile workstations.)

Graphics Tests

We test Windows PC graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We also try two OpenGL benchmarks from the cross-platform GFXBench, which are run offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions. The XPS 17 isn't a gaming laptop, so I didn't run our real-world game benchmarks, but we know the GeForce RTX 4070 is a more-than-capable gaming GPU, which should come in handy for mainstream gamers and should do a great job for games dialed down to 1080p.

To little surprise, just like the CPU, the next-gen GPU leapfrogged its predecessors. The RTX 4070 is also higher up the stack than the alternatives, compounding the effect, in fairness. All implementations are not created equal, either: You'll see variance even among the RTX 40 Series GPUs by wattage, and this is a 60-watt RTX 4070. (The max for this GPU is 115 watts.) The super-slim Galaxy Book, notably, doesn’t have the muscle needed to compete in this group and falls behind some of the RTX 30 Series system scores.

Looking at the new XPS 17 in isolation, it’s a powerful graphical performer, even if the RTX 4070 name doesn’t quite live up to lofty expectations. This is not unique to this system and, as illustrated in our laptop vs. desktop RTX 4090 GPU testing, it's a feature—not a bug. You can use this laptop for light-to-midrange graphical workloads comfortably. Anything beyond that may warrant more power. (These most-demanding users likely know who they are.)

One aspect here that is surprising is that, again the Stealth 14 punched above its weight, beating out the XPS 17 on every graphical test with its 90-watt-configured RTX 4060 GPU compared to the Dell's just 60-watt chip. MSI proves here that you don’t need to go big for power, though you can’t escape the more cramped 14-inch screen for getting work done without a monitor. However, when a 14-incher out-muscles a 17-incher, it begs the question: How thin is too thin for a laptop of this size, and when does it start to defeat the purpose as performance falls behind?

Battery and Display Tests

We test laptop battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To rate notebook displays, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The new XPS 17 improved the battery life by a modest amount over its predecessor, though this still left it only in the “roughly average” range. The components and UHD+ screen are more demanding than most, so the result was still decent. This laptop will last you through the day, but you can find machines with much more endurance out there. If your workflow values working off the charger frequently, perhaps a longer-lasting system is a better pick, but this won’t hamstring you. That is one area the punchy Stealth 14 fell short—it may be physically easier to carry, but it won’t last too long away from an outlet.

The display tests were positive, as well, proving that the Dell XPS 17 produces a wide range of color coverage and, confirming the eye test, plenty of brightness. Dell rates the display at 500 nits, and it exceeded expectations, passing with flying colors. With a screen like this, you're ready for any kind of visual production or development work that the laptop's internals can handle.

Verdict: Steady as She Goes on the Upgrades

The refreshed Dell XPS 17 delivers what is expected of a performance-focused update. Maintaining the same build as last year won’t turn any heads, but we see little wrong with the design save for some minor quibbles. The so-so keyboard and moderate array of ports are acceptable concessions, while the just-720p webcam is the biggest miss. Processor-based speed gains are noticeable and welcome, while the new GPU brings superior performance—professional users and creatives will appreciate the added power.

If you bought the previous XPS 17 (and arguably even the model before that), this model does not demand an upgrade. The iterative improvement is useful, but not groundbreaking, while those seeking markedly more power should look beyond this system.

But if you’re upgrading from an older laptop and are in the market for a big-screen system, it’s easy to recommend this model. You'll get a big, beautiful display waiting for you, along with more-than-capable performance for pro-grade workflows and light gaming—all wrapped in a premium package. It’s costly to get in the door, more so than before, but everything considered, the Dell XPS 17 remains undefeated in its category, and so we give it our Editors' Choice award for big-screen desktop replacements.