HARDWARE REVIEW

Dell XPS 27 Inch 7760 All In One Review

by Luke Walsh, May 22nd, 2018

The Dell XPS 27 is the latest All in One from Dell but with a newer processor, AMD’s latest graphics card and a whole host of other features including decent audio and a 4K touch panel display.

The design of the XPS 27 is the same as the previous generation made from CNC milled aluminum metal that encases a 27 inch wide 4K display. The chassis is a gunmetal grey with a black face and a row of 6 big speaks on the front, something I was not a massive fan of design wise.

It measures 24.6 x 17 x 3.16 inches and weighs a massive 17kg which is nearly twice as heavy as the Microsoft Surface Studio which weights just 9.5kg. Most of the weight seemily is in the base to offer a solid stand. It has two points of adjustment both in the height and the angle of the display, allowing you to lower it at a very shallow angle for more comfortable when using the touch screen.

Something hidden away is most of the ports, all located on the back of the device baring one USB port which is on the right side along with the power button, and a headphone jack and SD card reader on the left side. It’s nice to have the USB port and headphone jack on the side but the ones on the back are pretty hard to get to. Located right at the back in a sunken panel is the HDMI port, four USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt 3 ports using USB Type-C, displayport and a Gigabit Ethernet port.

The issue is having to turn the whole PC around and considering it weight a tonne, it’s not always easy to do on your desk. As the stand is in the way, most of the connectors are hard to see which means feeling around for the right connector is usually how you need to add devices to the All in One, not exactly user friendly but hopefully you won’t need to do it too often.

There’s a 27 inch, 4K 10-point touch screen on the Dell XPS 27 which means a 2840 x 2160 resolution. As nice as the big clear display is for the price range there are more detailed displays out there on the market for the price. For example, the Surface Studio has a 28-inch display with a 5120 x 2880 resolution.

Considering how big the display is, the overall brightness is decent above 330 nits but not as bright as the Surface Studio. Colour is very impressive on the XPS 27 is very accurate in colour performance.

There’s also a webcam on the display, which is below the logo and in between the speakers. It has a 720p quality which is acceptable enough if you want to Skype but the location is less than ideal. Anyone who takes a decent selfie will tell you never to take a photo from an upward angle and this is exactly what the webcam does all the time. Unflattering angles are the result of the location when it really should be at the top of the screen.

Although I am not a fan of the design of the speakers there’s nothing bad I can say about their performance or sound. The XPS 27 has some stellar speaks packed into the front of the unit with some deafening but clear audio making is perfect for gaming or watching movies on the massive screen.

There are 10 speakers in the chassis, two tweeters for the high notes, four drivers for the mid-range sound and two passive ones for the bass with a pair of downward speakers all at 50 watts. Testing them with a range of music, the bass was really impressive while not drowning out the sound of the tweeters and other drivers. From rock, pop and everything in-between was clear and without distortion at levels that can drown a room and wake the street.

Playing video games such as Battlefield, the sounds of the grenades and explosives were able to shake the desk and bullets were clear as anything. It was quite nice to play games on the Dell XPS 27 with the help from the AMD graphics card but will talk about that more in a bit.

It would not be a complete all in one if it did not come with a keyboard and mouse. Dell has included the Premier Wireless Keyboard and Mouse KM717 set up which normally costs $89.99 (£66 approx) if you were to purchase it separately. You’ll even get the batteries included for both the keyboard and mouse which is good considering the amount it costs to purchase the XPS 27.

The keyboard is the chiclet style low profile keys and comes as a full sized unit with a numpad with some additional media keys to control the volume. The keyboard can be paired either using the wireless USB dongle or via Bluetooth. The low profile keys were quite nice to type on and has a little bit of cushioning on the rebound. Using type test I was able to score a respectable 84 words per minute which are not too bad.

The mouse is the curved style you usually see with Microsoft computers and features two buttons on either side of the mouse. This type of mouse I am not a huge fan of as I think they are more for so than comfort, it is usable but as a gamer, I’d be plugging in my other mice anyway. For general use it would be fine, it can also be paired up via wireless or Bluetooth with the option of connecting to other devices like the keyboard.

Dell XPS 27 All in One Gaming Benchmarks and FPS Rate

Inside the XPS 27 is some pretty decent hardware which is more than suitable for some extreme photoshop work or video games. The Dell unit we reviewed had an Intel i7-7700 3.60 GHz CPU with 16GB of ram and a 512GB SSD drive. The XPS also had an AMD RX570 GPU with 8GB of memory, to get the full extent of the spec, Fallout 4, Dishonored and BioShock Infinite we played. It was also put through the paces using 3DMark.

Inside 3DMark it did well under the normal Firestrike testing scoring 9433 and doing a score of 2442 for the Ultra test which is not bad considering it is a complete seal unit which means it will have a life expectancy shorter than other PCs you can play with inside.

In Fallout 4, the PC did pretty well on high and ultra settings after taking the FPS lock away on the game with a couple tweaks. The same can be said for the other titles, they played perfectly fine on medium to high settings with some tweaks but only when playing with a resolution of 1080p. Cranking it up to 4K that is when games like Dishonoured dropped below the 30fps mark starting to show signs of lag.

Here are the full specs from the different games we tested:

Bioshock Infinite

Very High 4K – Min – 39, Max – 68, Avg – 48

Medium 4K – Min – 45, Max – 54, Avg – 49

Ultra 1920 x 1080 – Min 110, Max 189, 158 Avg

Very High 1920 x 1080 – Min 128, Max 200, Avg 173

High 1920 x 1080 – Min 131, Max 226, Avg 179

Medium 1920 x 1080 – Min – 153, Max – 253, Avg – 188

Dishonoured 2

Ultra 4K* – Min 13, Max 25, Avg 18

Very High 4K*– Min 15, Max 24, Avg 19

High 4K* – Min 15, Max 25, Avg 19

Medium 4K* – Min 17,Max 27, Avg 21

*Due to issues with the way the Dell XPS works and dishonoured only 4K resolution could be done for testing.

Fallout 4

Ultra 1920 x 1080 – Min 29, Max 63, Avg 43

High 1920 x 1080 – Min 58, Max 62, Avg 60

Medium 1920 x 1080 – Min 99, Max 122, Avg 113

Dell XPS 27 All in One Price and Configuration Costs

Like with all of Dell’s devices there is a range of different options you can choose from which affects the price. The cheapest one in the UK costs 1598.99 and comes with an i7-7400 processor, 8GB of DDR4 ram and a 1TB hard drive. It also does not come with a touchscreen and only has an Intel HD graphics.

The next configuration is an extra £500 for £2098.99 on top and comes with an i7-7700, 16GB of ram and a 512GB SSD. The last option is the same and the previous but instead of 16GB of ram, it comes pre-installed with 32GB of DDR4 2133Mhz of ram and a 1TB SSD. Both also come with an AMD RX 570 8GB AMD Radeon card.

Our review unit was the mid-range priced but still not that far off the higher-end for the additional RAM and disk space. If you are to consider spending 1.5k upwards on an all in one device then I would suggest only going for the one with a proper graphics card. The Intel HD might seem like a decent price but the trade-off is not being able to play pretty much any games and struggle with Photoshop and other programs open that require decent GPU performance.

In the end

Overall the Dell XPS 27 All in One PC is a great device and something which I could happily use on a daily basis as it’s got a decent array of specs for gaming and graphic design or web development. It might not be the most beautiful in my opinion as the speaker position and design could have been sleeker matching the overall thin but sharp design with the Infinity Edge display.

In the end, though it was able to produce some of the best visual and colour performance I’ve seen for a touch-screen device that is 4K. Talking of the touchscreen it was reactive and useful for the general day to day activities but it would be cool if you could add in a pen like the Surface Studio. For sound through an Apple Mac or Surface Studio comes nowhere near the audio performance, the Dell XPS is able to offer.

If you are looking for a complete device with great audio and a decent display the Dell XPS 27 is a valid consideration. Do some shopping around though as depending on your needs there is also the Apple iMac and Surface Studio to consider each come with pros and cons.