Dell XPS 15 (9500) vs Microsoft Surface Book 3

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In this comparison, we’ll see which one has more upgrades and which one is up-to-date. We also compare by the price because people need some changes and improvements as they pay more for something. In this comparison, both the XPS 9500 and Surface Book 3 is great in design, performance, and battery life but you will see which one is the better one for you.

BUY NOW	BUY NOW
DELL XPS 15 9500	MICROSOFT SURFACE BOOK 3 15-INCH
PROS	PROS
Overall fast performance. Gorgeous display. Good-quality speakers.	Comfortable keyboard. Great screen. Port selection is really good.
CONS	CONS
Moderate battery life with UHD+ screen. Poor web camera.	Weak U-series processor. Gaming performance is not great. Speaker is so uninspiring.

SPECIFICATIONS

DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION:

The XPS design is much sleeker than it was last year. Dell updated this with the XPS 13 a year ago, the XPS 13 2-in-1 in particular with this new design language, then they brought it over at the beginning of 2020 to the XPS 13. Now we finally see it in the XPS 15 and the new XPS 17.

However, the Surface Book 3’s detachable display and the whole 2-in-1 magic that’s going on the amazing hinge and shows how much effort Microsoft put into that design and it looks absolutely fantastic in my opinion.

The Surface Book 3 has pretty much the same design as the past two models, the surface book and the surface book 2 but it has some new different ports that have changed over the years, but there’s still nothing in the industry that really comes close to the Surface Book 3, or there are some special key features that other manufacturers are offering that Microsoft does not, but it’s beneficial for artists.

You can detach the display and work on it but it is a huge 15-inch screen, I think a 13-inch form factor is better for the Surface Book 3’s design language. The winner of the design between these laptops will the Surface Book 3 because of its amazing detachable display, the amazing hinge technology that Microsoft has offered.

DISPLAY:

As for the display, the XPS 15 has two different options; the 1080p version and a 4K option. Avoid the 1080p version, it’s really bad and I don’t even like it for the 13-inch model since it’s not that great and in the 15-inch model like all the competitors have much better displays than this one, the Surface Book 3 has a 3K display, so it’s really close to 4K. The XPS 15 has a 4K display option but it looks much better than the Surface Book 3 for one main reason and that’s because of the bezels. It looks like you’re staring at complete screens.

The XPS 15 display looks like you’re just staring into the screen whereas as the Surface Book 3 is like staring into a bunch of bezels, I really don’t like it Microsoft has kept these really thick bezels. The Surface Laptop 3 has decently thinner bezels and it’s better to work with but the Surface Book 3 in general in like specific has a really big bezel.

The XPS 15 has a better display than the Surface Book 3. It’s got a stunning 4K display, it’s got infinity-edge bezels and overall it’s a great display. Dell has been working on that’s kind of the staple of an XPS at this point and it looks great.

FEATURES:

The pricing on the configurations are like 16 GB of RAM, 256 to 512 gigabytes of storage, six-core processor, the highest-end graphics, and 4K display are pretty similar but where the XPS 15 shines is that below that two thousand dollar mark, you have no options on the Surface Book 3 but on the XPS 15, there’s a really good amount of options and some customization you could do below that 2000 dollar mark and a lot of people don’t want to pass this price point as well.

Some people don’t need that 8 core processor or the amazing graphics but they do need that extra screen real estate of a 15-inch laptop like something like coding is really good for that extra screen real estate.

At 1750 dollars, there’s a good configuration that Dell sells, it’s got eight gigabytes of RAM, 256 gigabytes of SSD, a six-core i7 processor, a GTX 1650 graphics card. So, it’s like a blend of good performance. Here, the Dell XPS 15 wins for its more options and the cheaper price tag.

Both keyboards and trackpads are pretty good. The keyboards on both are really tactile, they have the right amount of key travel and I really like them, they’re not too shallow like the butterfly but they’re also not too deep, they don’t have too much travel. The trackpads also run Windows precision drivers, they’re not the best like the Macbook trackpads which are just huge and are so nice glass trackpads. If you compare them both together, they’re both pretty fairly similar.

The fan noise and the thermal heating are under control on both the laptops. You don’t need to get tension about these all in both the laptops. It only gets hot when you use the laptop for very hard-core works like editing video, gaming for a long period of time.

PERFORMANCE:

The Surface Book 3 has a slight edge over the XPS 15 since it has the GTX 1660 with 6 gigabytes of DDR6 VRAM whereas the XPS 15 has a GTX 1650 with 4 gigabytes of DDR6 VRAM. However, you can get this GTX 1650 in a cheaper model in the XPS 15 9500 but the Surface Book 3 starts from $2000. The CPU side is where it gets interesting. The good spec model of Surface Book 3 is around 2500 to 3 000 dollars and it comes with a 4 core i7 processor that you can find on like a 1200 Macbook Air which is pathetic.

The XPS 15 has a 6 core processor standard and this like much cheaper than the Surface Book 3 as well and you can buy an eight-core processor as well. It has an amazing 8 core i7 H series processor whereas the Surface Book 3 is running a quad-core processor which is not much for this generation.

So, Microsoft has really got to step up that CPU game if they want to even be relevant because all of these other companies charge around the same price for their laptops but at least they have good performance. Without a doubt the GPU is fairly close, Microsoft prioritizes GPU though more than the CPU but the CPU side on the Surface Book 3 is should be better at least in future days.

BATTERY:

Thankfully, the XPS 15 4K version does not suffer from too bad of battery life as the XPS 13 did. I get around eight to nine hours, I think that’s a good estimate of what you will get out of this machine which is solid.

It’s not like the 5 to 6 hours from the 4K XPS 13 but the Surface Book 3 has all almost 12 hours of battery life which is really good and if you’re on the go a lot which these machines aren’t really meant for, the battery life is really good.

12 hours is a lot it’ll get through the good and if you’re video editing, photo editing, gaming, coding, those take up more battery life for sure.

So, the Surface Book 3 is probably the better bet if you really prioritize battery life and it’s quite a few hours over the XPS 15 as well.

WHICH TO BUY?

The XPS 15 blows the Surface Book 3 out of the water. The chunky bezels on the Surface Book 3 are really bad, the design hasn’t been updated in a while. Surface Book 3 is bulkier and it is just a big machine and not everybody needs that.

The XPS 15 in general has a small form factor which is really nice for portability. The performance on the Surface Book 3 is good in- the graphics department but graphics isn’t everything, the CPU is a huge part of everyday tasks which the Surface Book 3 really is lagging behind on. The well-rounded option and the well updated is the XPS 15.

Arya

Hello! I'm Surendar Arya, a passionate tech writer from Uttar Pradesh, India. I'm a freelance contributor to the tech blog - The World's Best And Worst. My enthusiasm for technology drives me to explore the latest trends and innovations in the field. I take immense pleasure in guiding individuals on how to leverage technology for their benefit, making their lives easier and more efficient.