 Some things are made for one task and one task only. Like this 10 gigabit network card. It only does networking, and my car for example, is only good for making other people jealous. Conversely, this XPS laptop is excellent at... Well... Nothing really. But it is okay at many things. So, is it like a Swiss Army knife, useful in almost any situation? Or is it like a Swiss Army knife, when all you really wanted was a real knife? Oh, what are you doing? No! Speaking of useful, today's video is brought to you by Madrinas. Madrinas Coffee blends specialty cold brew coffees into 16 ounce grab-and-go cans for everyone's convenience. Check them out and use offer code LINUS to save 40% at the link below. Whether you go for the Core i5 or the Core i7 model, you will immediately notice the snappy performance of the 4-core low-power processor. But what really separates this puppy from other non-gaming laptops is the integrated Vega GPU. To be clear, this is not explicitly a gaming laptop. You would need a discrete GPU and a fatter, heavier form factor for that. So don't expect to be playing any AAA titles at 1080p, ultra details. But, it ain't no scrub either. Gaming on this machine is a night and day difference compared to Intel's own integrated graphics, and lighter, competitive like eSports games can break 60fps on it. But it'll work up a sweat when it does. The CPU can redline at 100 degrees, and you will always notice the keyboard getting uncomfortably hot over 50 degrees by our measurements while gaming. Even though the clock speed gets significantly reduced when the CPU and GPU are both being stressed at the same time. Because due to the way they're designed, they actually have to share their power. Okay, so it performs better than a thin and light, but it's not that thin and light, and worse than a gaming laptop, but it's not that thick. So all of this makes sense, and you gotta think about this. In a 2-in-1 machine, gaming performance is purely just a bonus. And the XPS 2-in-1 is really intended as a day-to-day laptop. So sure, it's a little on the heavy side. And if I'm being honest, the design is anything but edgy. But I'm willing to forgive boring design when you open up a machine and you get to feel some of the best build quality available today. The screen and the chassis are both exceptionally rigid, and like what Apple did in 2016, Dell has completely removed the USB Type-A ports. But I'm not mad, because unlike Apple, they included four Type-C ports, two of which are Thunderbolt 3. That's something that's hard to complain about in the 2018 dongle era. As for the screen, it's excellent. Fantastic colors, really high brightness, and touch functionality. I'd actually recommend, though, going with the 1080p version instead of the 4K one, because at this size, even side-by-side, it's not that easy to tell the difference with my eyes. But with my wallet. With my wallet, I can tell. Moving down, Dell has created a completely new type of keyboard for the XPS 2-in-1. And that's dangerous, because I already liked Dell's keyboards a lot. So they're calling this Maglev, and it's meant to give you a lot of tactile feel despite a very short throw distance. And actually, okay, the risk was worth it. It took a little bit longer to get used to than normal. I was having a bit of trouble feeling the different keys, given how close they are to the keybed. But once I got rolling, I was able to type extremely quickly, and hopefully these Maglev keys don't stop working at the first sign of dust. Going further down the line, we get to the touchpad, which is one of the many things about this laptop that is good, but not excellent. It's sizable, but it has poor palm rejection by default, though that can be fixed by tweaking the settings. And unfortunately, the settings won't help you solve some annoying acceleration issues. It's something that you'll probably get used to, but for us, where we're using a lot of laptops side by side, it does stand out. Next in the pile of things that are kind of meh is the extra $100 for the Dell Pen. It provides a fairly good writing experience, but it just doesn't feel as natural as the Surface Pen, which has a softer tip with a bit of give and a tiny bit more friction, which makes writing notes and drawing feel a lot more natural. So if you were getting a 2-in-1 primarily for drawing, you might still want to consider the Surface lineup. And to Dell's credit, short of inserting it inside the chassis, this is far and away the best attachment mechanism that we've seen. Bringing us to yet another complaint, the speakers sound pretty good at lower volume, but they do start distorting at around 50%, and at full volume sound just plain bad. And it has one of those abominable chin bar webcams, which is fine if you flip the screen around and use a webcam like this. But if I was on a conference call and I was trying to take notes with my keyboard, all the other participants would see is my fingers. And speaking of fingers, it's a good thing that it has a fingerprint reader built into the power button, because if I wanted to unlock using the Windows Hello IR camera that it actually has, I would end up adjusting my screen basically every time. Future-proofness isn't a strong point of this thing either. Besides the storage, basically nothing in here can be upgraded or replaced. So make sure that you get the specs you want, including RAM, up front. And by the way, this massive 75 watt-hour battery only got us five hours in our work battery life test. A fairly average result. So then, I've complained about quite a bit over the last six minutes or so, but these are the sacrifices that come with a laptop that is able to do everything. And don't get me wrong, overall, I actually quite like the XPS 15 2-in-1. What other device gives you excellent touch support, lots of performance, a beautiful screen, super high build quality, and pretty good battery life all in one? Okay, the Surface Book 2, which also has a better keyboard and a discrete GPU. And on a level playing field, yeah, come to think of it, I would choose the Surface. But the pricing of the XPS saves it. With what we'd call our recommended loadout coming in at $1,500, it's not really a budget option, but it is a full $500 cheaper than the cheapest Surface Book that we think is even worth looking at. So for someone that needs a do-it-all device and can live without full dedicated graphics, the XPS 15 2-in-1 looks like a solid all-rounder option. Speaking of a solid option, Ting does mobile phone service differently. There's no contracts, no overage fees, and no other carrier tricks. You just pay a fair price for the talk, text, and data that you end up using each month. 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