One of the XPS 13’s biggest assets is its display. Of the three configurations Dell offers, our tester features a Full HD IPS display. We appreciate its 16:10 aspect ratio (1,920 x 1,200 pixels), which is ideal for office automation, and its matte glass finish that reduces reflections from external lights. By default, the display’s refresh rate is set to 60Hz, but it can be bumped up to 120Hz.
Colorimetry still leaves something to be desired: with an average Delta E of 3, the panel leans towards red, which may be a no-go for photo professionals. However, several color profiles are offered, but the benchmarks shown were performed on the default profile 1593. Gamma, although far from maintaining the expected ideal average of 2.2, remains very stable. As for color temperature, we observe an average of 6886 K, which is far from perfect, but it does not tend to be “cold” in any way.
Fans of large outdoor spreadsheet sessions will appreciate the maximum brightness of 516 cd/m2, especially since the panel's matte finish reflects only 24% of the light. There's also nothing to complain about in terms of the contrast ratio (2043:1) which, however, is not equal to an OLED display, showing a particularly honorable result for an IPS panel.
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