Dell XPS 13 (9300) Vs XPS 13 (7390): Which is Better?

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BUY NOW	BUY NOW
Dell XPS 13 7390	Dell XPS 13 9300
PROS	PROS
6 cores in a 2.7 lightweight laptop. Excellent 4K display. Long battery life.	Impressive and premium chassis. Great quality 4k UHD touchscreen. really solid performance.
CONS	CONS
Unimpressive Intel UHD graphics. More noticeable uneven backlight bleeding on the keyboard.	Little bit short battery life. Pricey.

SPECIFICATIONS

DESIGN

Dell XPS 13 7390

In terms of design, you wouldn’t be able to tell this from the previous generation, it’s really the same. You have three colors; silver outside and the black carbon fiber interior or there’s rose gold with the white weave interior and that’s a glass fiber interior that’s made of some kind of silicon crystal material is pretty durable, and then there’s also the Alpine white. They say the white interiors are even whiter, they added more titanium dioxide.

Otherwise, it’s the same and pretty durable, it doesn’t tend to yellow. It’s still a unibody aluminum construction, very sturdy and dense, never a complaint.

This is very light coming at 2.7 pounds which is 1.23 kilograms and 11.6 millimeters thin. The keyboard of this also unchanged and still backlit in white. There is 1.3 millimeters of key travel, a little harsh and abrupt on the finger joints but you get used to it, Dell has been doing this forever and a lot of other manufacturers. We have a Microsoft precision trackpad.

Dell XPS 13 9300

Even though the last XPS 13 was super thin, light, and compact, Dell managed to make it even thinner and lighter. Build quality is better than its ever been since they are using more metal which results in a really rigid chassis that feels premium and you can tell that it’s solid aluminum by looking at the sides of the laptop around the ports, whereas it used to be plastic with thin aluminum covers. On the bottom, Dell has added extra vents on the sides, with two of them being used for the speakers, and they’ve also redesigned some of the air vents so they aren’t as easily blocked anymore.

One of our complaints last year was the hinge being too stiff but Dell fixed it and it’s now a one-handed open. On the inside, Dell chose to cover it with their high-quality carbon fiber composite finish, which protects from fingerprints, and it actually feels really nice on your palm.

The keyboard is no longer recessed into the casing and basically covers the full-width of the laptop, and it now looks incredibly clean. The keys themselves are now wider with less space between them, so they’re easier to accurately type on, and they’re now clickier as well but with less key travel.

Overall, the keyboard is well above average and most people will be happy with them. The trackpad is also an improvement over last year’s model, being slightly larger and easier to click making this one of the better trackpads available in Windows laptops.

DISPLAY

Dell XPS 13 7390

For display, just like last gen, you have your full HD IPS option and that’s a matte non-touch display and then there is the 4K glossy touchscreen. Gorilla Glass 4 on top and they say, there’s a 0.65% anti-reflective coating, it still looks classy but it helps a little bit with the ambient reflections and Gorilla Glass tends to be highly reflective in a bright environment. Happily, Though the 4K display, we measured it 470 nits which are exceptionally bright, so that can combat a lot of glare.

This is one of those full sRGB and around 76% of Adobe RGB displays. It’s not a wide gamut display but it’s nice, it’s pretty well color calibrated from the factory. So, they did a good job and typically their Full HD display is quite nice too with a similar gamut.

You have the infinity-edge nearly no bezels on the edge and a smaller than ever webcam. Fingerprint scanners optionally you can get that embedded in the power button, it works pretty decently.

Dell XPS 13 9300

In terms of the display, you can see why this laptop is so compact. Not only are the bezels incredibly thin all-around, but the display is using a 16:10 aspect ratio just like the 2-in-1 which adds more vertical space which is really helpful on a 13-inch display. You may remember older XPS 13’s had a webcam by the keyboard which made conferencing look awkward. Moving the webcam to the top in 2019 fixed the angle but at the same time, we lost the Windows Hello that made logging in so quick.

Display quality itself is exceptional, the model having higher than 4K resolution and great color accuracy, and now 500 nits of brightness which is really helpful in bright environments and set this laptop apart from many others.

BATTERY

Dell XPS 13 7390

Battery life will depend on whether you get the 4K display or the full HD 4K
more pixels to push around, so there will be a shorter battery life, and even if you set the resolution lower that’s still the case because there are still that many physical pixels to drive on the display. There is the same 52-watt hour battery that we’ve seen and the same 45-watt charger.

We have the 4K with the Core i7, so this is the worst case for battery life and with the display set to 200 nits of brightness, we’ve averaged about 7.5 hours of light to moderate productivity work. It’s gonna be shorter if you’re pushing it harder doing something more challenging and if you get the full HD display, Dell says to expect around 2 to 2.5 hours more battery life.

It’s pretty easy if you go out that core i5 instead of a Core i7 and the full HD display, expect to get something up to 10 to 11 hours if you’re minding your battery and using the Dell performance power profiles to optimize for battery life versus performance. So, it’s decent, it’s not bad.

Dell XPS 13 9300

for battery life, expect 9-10 hours of real-world mixed-use if you get the 1080P model but if you have the 4K screen, it’s more like 5-6 hours which can be a bummer. The 4K screen is gorgeous though, which makes it a tough choice. Personally, I wish Dell went the way of Microsoft and Apple and stopped making us choose and gave us a resolution somewhere in between which can offer both good battery life and a nice viewing experience.

WHICH TO BUY?

People really love the XPS 13 7390 laptops for reason. This is super well built, nearly no bezels on this, good performance, 4K display option, Full HD if you don’t want to push all those pixels around, it all there for you. In the new XPS 9300, the performance is excellent, the build quality is top-notch, the keyboard and trackpad are good, speakers are now above average, we have Windows Hello, and an easily swappable SSD and battery for futureproofing. Honestly, even if it costs a bit more if you need a top-notch Windows ultrabook, the XPS 9300 is almost perfect.

There is not a huge price difference between the XPS 7390 and XPS 9300 laptops but you will get a better performance in all works and even in gaming with the XPS 9300, but you just have to pay a little bit extra money for it. 

Jaskaran Singh

Jaskaran, a tech enthusiast from childhood, inspired by his father, began his tech journey by rooting Android phones. He now writes on various tech topics, aiming to simplify complex ideas for a broad audience. His writing is direct, concise, and flows effortlessly, making tech topics accessible and engaging.