Dell XPS 27 (Kaby Lake, 2022) - Review 2022

Program to replace your hard drive or add together memory in a few years? Want to add a better video carte? You're probably eyeing a conventional desktop tower over an all-in-i (AIO), many of which don't have user-serviceable components. The Dell XPS 27 All-in-One ($1,399, $2,599 as tested) begs you lot to reconsider, though. Not only are its components upgradeable, but it besides has one killer, rare characteristic that would be exceedingly difficult and expensive to add to a desktop: This 27-inch AIO sports a whopping 10 speakers—some downwards-facing and others front-facing—that result in one of the all-time-sounding computers you can buy. Information technology's fast, too: a processor upgrade makes the latest XPS 27 even better than the otherwise identical and already fantabulous i we reviewed back in Jan. That ways it's our new Editors' Choice for all-time high-end all-in-one.

Enough Audio for a Abode Theater

The XPS 27 has six front-firing speakers mounted in its bezel beneath the screen, lending the PC a mildly aggressive look that suggests it'southward more at abode in a garage recording studio or man cave than a kitchen nook. A black bezel, blackness stand, and very nighttime gray aluminum on the residue of the chassis underlines this aggressiveness. It's by no means an ugly design, but neither is it as graceful as the Apple iMac 27-Inch With 5K Retina Display. It's also non as unique as the ultra-wide HP Green-eyed 34 Curved All-in-One, which shared our previous Editors' Choice for high-cease all-in-ones with the Microsoft Surface Studio.

In addition to the front-firing speakers, there are four more than downward-facing ones that hide out of view behind the screen. All told, at that place are two tweeters, vi full-range drivers, and ii passive radiators that ensure robust bass. Dynamic amplifiers ensure fifty watts of power for each aqueduct, and the internet consequence is that we recorded an ear-shattering 107dB at total volume when we tested the speakers in PC Labs earlier this yr, enough to exist heard more than 200 feet away through walls, glass, and office furniture.

At 17 by 25 by 3 inches (HWD), the XPS 27 is a adequately standard-sized 27-inch AIO, though all of those speakers weigh it down significantly. Our review unit of measurement comes in at just more than than 38 pounds, nearly xviii pounds heavier than the 27-inch iMac. In addition to the speakers, you tin too accredit part of the weight difference to the stand that Dell devised for the touch-screen version of the XPS 27. Among Microsoft's many requirements for affect-enabled Windows desktop displays is that they offer a variety of viewing angles, so the stand up articulates to enable the XPS 27 to move completely parallel or perpendicular with your desk, and pretty much whatever bending in between. The horizontal orientation would be especially useful as a digital canvas for kids to pigment pictures without messy finger paint, and the stand is certainly sturdy enough to withstand their antics. If you opt for the non-touch XPS 27, y'all'll shave 10 pounds from the weight, but you'll end upwards with a non-articulating stand.

Dell XPS 27 (7760)

The touch on screen itself is extremely capable, boasting a 4K resolution and crisp, vivid text and images. Touch gestures feel very natural, with excellent accuracy and very trivial latency when dragging application windows with the tip of a finger. Below the screen is an array of four microphones and a 720p photographic camera that's compatible with Windows Hello facial recognition. That's specially handy if you're using the XPS 27 in the kitchen to display recipes and need to wake it upwards without getting cookie dough all over the keyboard or screen. The keyboard and mouse that come included in the box are both wireless and use a single USB receiver to connect, though they're as well Bluetooth-compatible. I find the lightweight keyboard to exist very comfortable for short typing sessions, but the boomerang-style mouse is more awkward, offering nowhere to remainder thumbs and pinky fingers.

The XPS 27 comes with a robust port complement for an AIO, including an hands-attainable USB 3.0 port on the correct edge and a headphone jack and SDXC bill of fare reader on the left. The rest of the ports are woefully hard to reach, however, since they're located underneath the stand arm on the back of the chassis. They include a 2d audio-out port, four more USB iii.0 jacks, a prepare of two USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt 3, an Ethernet jack, and HDMI and DisplayPort connectors.

The downwards-firing speakers eliminate the possibility of a more accessible placement similar you find at the lesser-right of the rear of the iMac, which is a shame for anyone who oft needs to plug in and unplug a Thunderbolt hard drive. Subconscious beneath a encompass near the rear ports are two screws that hold the back panel in place. Remove it and you lot've got full admission to the system'southward components, including the difficult drive and memory, which makes the XPS 27 a skilful selection for tinkerers who are planning upgrades later on.

Our review unit comes with 16GB of memory and a 512GB PCIe solid-state drive. You lot can opt for a hybrid drive configuration with a 2TB 5,400rpm hard disk drive and a 32GB M.ii SATA SSD enshroud instead. On the non-touch model, which starts at $1,549, the base bulldoze configuration is a hybrid with a 1TB disk and a 32GB enshroud. Both touch- and not-bear upon XPS 27 models as well come up with built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.two, as well as a one-year hardware warranty with onsite service. Service add-ons include up to 4 boosted years of warranty coverage and accidental damage service, for upcharges that range as high every bit $299.

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Meliorate Components, Impressive Results

A graphics upgrade and a switch to Intel'due south seventh-generation "Kaby Lake" processors means that the XPS 27 performed exceptionally well on our graphics and productivity performance tests. With a Core i7-7700 CPU running at 3.6Ghz, it outperformed most of its high-end AIO competition, with the exception of the gaming-focused Digital Tempest Aura. Its performance on the Handbrake video-encoding exam (0:52), the Cinebench 3D benchmark (860), and the Photoshop image-manipulation tasks (2:34) were slightly improved compared with its predecessor, and markedly better than the 27-inch iMac and a pair of HP Envy all-in-ones. The HP Green-eyed 34 Curved All-in-One scored higher on the PCMark viii criterion, nevertheless, which measures typical productivity and multimedia tasks.

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Dell XPS 27 (Kaby Lake, 2022) Performance Charts

The XPS 27 demonstrated similar improvements when it comes to gaming performance. It now boasts an AMD Radeon RX 570, instead of the Radeon R9 M470X in the older model. That GPU upgrade allows information technology to evangelize impressive frame rates on our Heaven and Valley tests. At medium quality settings, information technology recorded an average of 154fps on the Heaven exam and 137fps on Valley. With the exception of the Aura, which has a superior Nvidia GTX 1080 card, all of the other all-in-ones had scores between 58fps and 98fps on these tests. When I turned the quality settings up to ultra at 1080p resolution, the XPS 27 also delivered performance that blew away most of the competition. On the 3DMark graphics benchmarks, the XPS 27 also fared better than the rest of the lineup, again with the exception of the gaming-specific Aura.

Dell XPS 27 (Kaby Lake, 2022) Graphics Performance Charts

An All-in-One's All-in-One, But at a Price

Copious graphics and computing power along with a 4K touch screen and a speaker complement worthy of a home theater setup suggests that Dell hopes the XPS 27 will fulfill pretty much whatever computing need a modernistic household could have, and its enough to brand this high-end AIO our new Editors' Choice. All of that performance will take a toll on your wallet, yet: Our review unit has a listing price of $2,599. If you just want a pretty all-in-1 that sounds practiced, yous tin can buy the base model for $one,549, which comes with a slower processor, less memory, and an inferior graphics card, but still includes a 4K display and 10 speakers. Meanwhile, gamers who care about eking out every terminal frame will want to consider the Digital Storm Aura, which boasts a superior Nvidia GPU, and video editors will want to consider the 5K resolution on the 27-inch iMac.