2023 Dell XPS 15 Review (9530)

The 2023 Dell XPS 15 (9530) has significant internal upgrades this year with NVIDIA RTX 4050/4060/4070 dedicated graphics and Intel 13th gen H series 45 watt CPUs. There are two 16:10 display options, including the lovely 3.5K OLED panel, a relatively compact USB-C charger, Windows Hello facial and fingerprint recognition and upgradable internals. As ever, this is a multimedia and mobile workstation laptop that can handle some gaming too.

[Vincent_Vrsn]

I'm actually writing from my 2019 Dell XPS 15, still works like a charm and never had any trouble with it, i'm doing photo editing mostly so I may not be pushing it that hard but I'm sure my next laptop is going to be an XPS. I'm keeping an eye on these (great) reviews to see what is coming next!

[盾神京矢]

The cooling solution was actually a big design mistake in the first place. It can be solved by shifting the keyboard down a bit.
In its current form, the fin stack sits directly under the top row of keyboard. This limits the height and thus surface area of the heat exchanger.
No other laptops of this class has the keyboard right up to the hinge, because of an obvious reason, cooling.
By shifting the keyboard down, the cooling can be much improved, even though the trackpad will be smaller. I choose more cooling over a larger trackpad every day of the week.

[mrkoemantekpeh]

Content so relevant, I caught it in a search. under 6mins lol

[thirtyable]

I passed on a XPS 15 last year and bought a Lenovo Legion 5, a gaming laptop I thought I could use for recording music. Well I've had trouble with getting my /Sample Tank legacy instruments loaded into Sample Tank 3 and the onboard sound is terrible so I think I am going to buy an XPS 15 this year in spite of the fact that it does not have enough ports . I have a 2010 XPS 15 with wonderful onboard sound and it still works . She indicates that the sound on the new XPS is great also, so I hope I can get a new laptop I will like this year,

[jayrollo]

It's a great laptop. But the lack of ports, quality control, and battery life for that price just make me want to just pay the extra bit for a macbook pro. And I hate MacOS so much, but I have to admit that it's the best laptop I've ever used.

[azmedz]

Another banger from Lisa from mobile tech review ❤🎉

[billbrimmer]

As always, a great review. You let us know what’s important.

[zrt]

These are pretty great laptops - I was given an older one initially for work (9th gen Intel) and to be honest, I hated that one, the fans ran at full speed 24/7, the thing was never not blasting heat, and of course this came with some lagging. Then they upgraded me to a 2022 with the i7-12700h and this chassis and it is a night and day difference. Battery life is excellent and 95% of the time it is cool and dead silent. I only hear the fans when I am running dual monitors and lots of software, but even then it's pretty quiet and manages to cool itself back down to silence here and there.

I recommended this series to a relative going to college and they were able to get the 2023 XPS 15 (i7-13700h/16GB RAM/512GB SSD/FHD+ display) as an open-box from Best Buy for under $900.

[Millsiac]

Appreciate you talking about the port deficit. Seems like a strange decision to force the dongle and not have a USB A at the very least for this type of laptop.

Also appreciate the comparisons to the Razer Blade 15. Would love to see reviews for those machines (if you don't already have them).

[cnoyes]

This looks like a decent refresh for 2023. I have an XPS 15 from 2021 (rocking the i9 and RTX3050ti), still plenty fast, though I may look into upgrading in a couple of years. Thanks for the great review!

[bryanpwo]

🤣🤣 "Make sure you're not accidentally donating blood." THat line and the deadpan delivery killed me!

[DaneReidVoiceOver]

I've owned 2 of these in this chassis. Cooling is an issue at times. The 9520 solved that to an extent with software but when you really push it, it does howl. The trackpad needs to be replaced with the XPS 13 plus style of TP. The cooking needs the cooling of the XPS 17. And there needs to be more vents.

[abucketofelves]

I have one of these I bought in 2016, I wonder if they can make that design last a decade! The rubber/plastic does go sticky after about 5 years.

[DJAYPAZ]

Nice to see some upward facing speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Bluetooth audio is not as good as a wired connection. The Bluetooth standard defines the audio compression and other processing that takes away some the sound quality.

[jayjayasuriyainfo]

Been following you for a while and love your content! Just ordered one for my wife and she will be doing photo editing. Are you hearing about any overheating issues?

[mda]

I appreciate the larger speakers and improved sound quality from these new XPS laptops but why no full size keyboard (with number keypad) even on the larger 17" screen models?

[Nate-zyce]

As always, solid review. Thank you. A question. I keep going round and round, whether to get the FHD+ or 4k UHD+ display if I go the 17" 9730 route instead of this 15" 9530 route. I know FHD+ will save battery life, but will it also help keep the laptop cooler with heavy use, other things being equal? And similar question of course with the 3.5k Oled screen on this 15"? Also, will the picture quality drop off noticeably jumping from the 15" up to the 17" FHD+? Oh, and generally speaking, since I don't game, just heavy use normal productivity and streaming multi-tasking, will the 4050 instead of 4060 GPU be good, and maybe also save on battery life and help with cooling too? Thanks.

[charleswatson]

where do you find those great t-shirts?

[Cccoast]

I spent a little more and bought the razor blade 16… it’s so great.

[mikayelify]

In a lot of counties you also have an option with with intel Arc A370m gpu