Dell XPS 13 Touch Screen Eats This Much Battery Life

Which version of the Dell's refreshed XPS 13 with Kaby Lake CPU should you go for? That depends on how much you value your display and battery life.

On the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi, a model with a a 3200 x 1800 touchscreen display lasted 9 hours and 11 minutes. That's nothing to shake a stick at, as the ultraportable category average is a little over 8 hours.

However, the nontouch version of the XPS 13, which has a lower-res 1080p screen lasted a whopping 13:49. That's one of the longest runtimes of any laptop we've tested this year.

It should be noted that the touchscreen model featured a Core i7 CPU, as opposed to the nontouch XPS 13's Core i5 processor, but the high resolution and touch options are more likely culprits to be battery suckers during average use.

The displays are noticeably different. The 1080p version is great; It covers 94 percent of the sRGB color gamut and reaches 302 nits of brightness, all with great viewing angles.

But the QHD+ version, at 105.7 percent of the gamut and 305 nits of brightness, has a higher resolution that looks far more detailed. When I watched the latest trailer for "Wonder Woman," the sky, trees and oceans of Themyscira were more vivid than on the non-touch screen.