Every major player in the Windows PC business has a 2-in-1 laptop these days. Lenovo's Yoga line has been very successful, the HP Spectre x360 I recently reviewed is an excellent product, and now Dell has hopped on the train with the XPS xiii 2-in-1. Appear at CES 2022, the XPS 13 2-in-1 has a clunky proper name, but information technology brings a 360-degree swivel to Dell's most popular ultraportable for the outset time.

Many of the features we've come to love about the XPS 13 are carried over to the XPS thirteen 2-in-ane. The bezels around three sides of the 13.3-inch display are very slim, leading to a fantastic viewing experience. The carbon fiber keyboard environs, equally well as the keyboard and trackpad itself, are essentially identical to the XPS thirteen. It'southward a like weight (1.24kg) and thickness (13.7mm) likewise, if slightly slimmer and more portable than its fixed-laptop brother.

Where the XPS thirteen 2-in-1 differs significantly is in the hardware. Dell has replaced the 15W Kaby Lake U-series processors with iv.5W Y-series parts, leading to lower performance than the XPS xiii. In that location's also no USB-A ports on this device; y'all get a single Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C port, and an additional USB-C port.

While USB-C is the hereafter, it'due south still useful to have the more widely used USB-A port on current-gen laptops.

The HP Spectre x360 is a similar thickness to the XPS thirteen 2-in-one, but it manages to pack a USB-A port alongside two Thunderbolt iii ports. For people that rely on older USB peripherals, yous'll need to get used to dongle life with the XPS 13 two-in-1. It's as well interesting to encounter Dell opt for a microSD carte slot on this laptop, which isn't nigh as useful as the total-sized SD slot on the regular XPS 13.

Connectivity isn't the principal talking point about this laptop, though.

The cardinal feature is, of grade, the 360-degree swivel that allows the XPS 13 to exist used as both a laptop and a tablet.

Like many similar convertibles, information technology's clear that the XPS thirteen 2-in-1 is a laptop first. You'll likely spend the well-nigh time using this device as a laptop, so Dell has spent virtually of its time perfecting this utilise case. The keyboard is very good, with a fantastic layout (bated from the cramped arrow keys), fantabulous travel distance, and cracking tactile feedback. You lot get useful functions fastened to the F-keys, and serviceable backlighting.

The trackpad is another highlight of the XPS thirteen ii-in-1's laptop experience. This is the best Windows laptop trackpad I've used. It's extremely responsive and accurate with tracking and gestures, and it's besides made of a smooth textile that helps your finger glide beyond the surface.

Flipping the laptop around into its tablet mode revealed several issues with this use instance.

With large gaps around the edges due to the XPS 13 2-in-1's tapered edges, the device doesn't experience like a tablet to concord. It feels more like a display and keyboard base awkwardly sandwiched together, an issue compounded by how yous can touch the keys on the rear of the 'tablet' during utilize. Nonetheless, the just convertible Ive used that doesn't take this outcome is the Lenovo Yoga Volume, and I wouldn't recommend it for other reasons.

Ane of the more glaring issues with the XPS 13 2-in-1 is a consummate lack of machine-rotation. I honestly have no idea how a device designed to exist used as a tablet could be built without an accelerometer. This ways that if you want to concord the tablet in a portrait orientation, or use it in tent mode – both usage modes are advertised by Dell – yous have to manually modify the screen rotation using Windows settings. This is a massive oversight for a convertible.

On a more positive note, despite extremely sparse bezels, Dell's touchscreen palm rejection engineering science is very good. I had no problem holding and operating the XPS 13 2-in-1 as a tablet, fifty-fifty though in most situations my easily were partially on the display. Slightly bigger bezels would deliver a amend tablet feel, although you'll realistically be using the laptop style more frequently, where bigger bezels wouldn't be equally nice.

And then similar many other hybrid laptops on the market place, the XPS 13 2-in-ane's non-laptop usage modes are largely a secondary, sometimes-handy addition. Showing people documents in the tablet mode, or viewing videos in the stand up manner, are neat infrequent use cases, but ultimately you lot'll be using it as a laptop most of the time. If you wanted something that'south tablet first, you're ameliorate off buying just that: a thin, extremely portable tablet; rather than fiddling around with this 2-in-ane's less than ideal tablet form cistron.

When using the XPS 13 2-in-ane equally a laptop, there are several other aspects that I liked. The fingerprint sensor, located beneath the arrow keys, is very responsive and works perfectly with Windows Hello. More than laptops should have this feature.

The build quality is also fantastic. The soft-touch carbon fiber palm rest is a bit of a fingerprint magnet, but information technology feels crawly while typing.

The rest of the chassis is congenital using premium aluminum that looks classy, while the aluminum-wrapped steel hinges are tough and exhibit footling wobble. The design in general is very similar to the touchscreen XPS xiii, which already looks attractive with its industrial metal design and glossy Gorilla Glass display.

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Included with the XPS thirteen two-in-1 is either a 13.3-inch 1920 x 1080 or 3200 x 1800 "InfinityEdge" IPS LCD. These are basically the aforementioned displays equally included with XPS 13. My review unit came with the elevation-spec 3200 10 1800 QHD+ display, which packs excellent clarity thanks to a pixel density of 276 PPI, and fantastic viewing angles.

It was a fiddling hard to properly benchmark the XPS 13 two-in-1's display due to dynamic contrast adjustments that can't be disabled in the device's software. Some of the above figures aren't every bit accurate as I'd similar for the XPS 13 2-in-i, only information technology does requite you some idea of how the laptop'due south display compares to like laptops on the market.

We're seeing excellent levels of effulgence, at nearly 400 nits, although this does decrease (thanks, dynamic dissimilarity) when y'all're not viewing a mostly-white display. Dissimilarity levels at this peak brightness are roughly 1100:i, with surprisingly good (though non perfect) color temperature. Colour performance is somewhat meliorate than the HP Spectre x360, and while it's not as suited to creative professionals equally the Surface Book, it does a good enough job for casual content creators.