Dell XPS 17" 9700 with Windows 10 Pro

 

So, I've had the Dell XPS 17" 9700 Windows 10 Pro laptop for a couple of weeks now.  The only upgrade I've done to this machine is add a second 2TB NVMe solid state drive.  I ordered the laptop with 64GB of memory which may be overkill for now but I wanted to be future proofed.

The computer runs on an Intel i7-10750H processor.  At the time of ordering, Dell did not have the i9 variant of processors available.  Also, I could have gotten the i7-10875H variant but it cost about $500 more with that processor and the upgraded video card.  I'm thinking I'll be getting a new laptop in 4-5 years.  At that point I'll max out the CPU, RAM and video card options.  Another reason why I love the Dell XPS 17" 9700 is the 17" 4k screen.  It is a touch screen but you can disable that in the BIOS which I have done.  I don't see a point of having a touch screen on a laptop.  Sure, an iPad or an iPhone type device but not on a laptop or a desktop.

My two favourite pieces of software for photo and video editing are Affinity Photo and Davinci Resolve.  Affinity Photo is really fast on this Intel based system.  Photo editing is a breeze on this system.  

Davinci Resolve runs smoothly on this system as well.  No lag or hick ups at all.  I've only edited one 75 minute video on here and it took a few hours to export the video.  It was a 4k/60 video shot on an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max.  

Today after work I will be going to do some video work for myself.  I want to edit 4k/30fps videos shot on my Canon Vixia HF G50.  I want to see how quickly the computer edits 4k/30fps videos that are only about a minute long.  It's supposed to be nice and warm today with a lot of sunshine today.  We shall see.  I will update you at a later date as to how the computer performs. 

New laptop. No Adobe products whatsoever.

 So I got a new Dell XPS 17" 9700 Windows 10 Pro based laptop.  The laptop has an Intel i7-10750H CPU clocked at 2.60GHz which goes up to 5.0GHz I believe.  I got RAM maxed out at 64GB which runs at 2966MHz which is fast but it's not the fastest out there.  It still beats the RAM that Apple puts in its MacBook Pro laptops.  I maxed out the hard drive specs as well going with the 2TB of storage.  The nice thing about this laptop is that it takes 2 internal NVME m.2 SSD drives.  I have one on order coming in this Tuesday.  I also bought two Samsung portable SSD T5 accounts.  They're both 2TB SSD drives and are awfully quick.  The 4K 17" laptop is spectacular. 

I got the laptop for editing photos and videos that I submit to micro stock agencies.  I tested out Adobe Lightroom CC yesterday and the computer almost caught fire because the fans were working so hard and fast, the laptop nearly elevated itself.  I have the Affinity suite of software installed on my new laptop.  No issues whatsoever.  The computer is very silent.  The fans don't turn on and the computer doesn't want to melt away from the heat.

Adobe needs to completely rewrite its software.  And I mean all of the software.  For the system to ramp up like that where the fans are at 100% is unacceptable.  I tried editing photos in Lightroom CC and it was such an awful experience.  Affinity Photo is so much better.  I also purchased the Luminar Suite of photo editing apps and they run silent as well without the fans ramping up.  I haven't tried editing any video yet as I need to go shoot some footage.  I use Wondershare Filmora Pro to edit videos.  I will be testing that over the weekend.

Overall I'd give this laptop a 10/10 on performance.  The laptop also looks and feels fantastic.  I don't think I'd be going back to an Apple laptop or desktop for a while.