Dell XPS 17 9700 4K streaming

I am looking for a windows laptop with great 4K resolution and HDR video streaming for when I am traveling and have nothing to do but watch a movie for a few hours. I have a 4K Netflix account but prefer my VUDU for streaming new video releases. Is the 9700 a good choice for 4K streaming to a PC? I wonder about the 16:10 aspect ratio and wonder if that reduces the overall screen image due to horizontal bars when streaming a 16:9 film.

What 4K streaming options are available to watch on the 9700? Is it limited to Neflix, Vudu and Youtube?

Also, anyone prefer last year's 15" XPS with the OLED screen?

Thanks.

 

Welcome to NBR.

You will get top and bottom black bars on the XPS 17 when watching 16:9 content. If we do a little math, the XPS 17 display has dimensions of 14.42" W x 9.01" H. Maximizing the width of the display to view 16:9 content means the 16:9 image will be 14.42" W x 8.11"H. With these dimensions, the resulting image will be equivalent to a 16.5" 16:9 display. This is still a decent improvement over the 15.6" display on other devices like the previous generation XPS 15 OLED.

I'll leave your other questions to members who have experience playing 4k/HDR content on the 9700. Good luck deciding on your next laptop.

 

Is a black bar any worse than a black bezel at the bottom?

 

For me black bars and black bezels are pretty much the same. I just want an image that's as big as possible in a laptop and it looks like the XS 17 is just a little smaller image than I expected due to the less than ideal aspect ratio. but I am still thinking of getting one if people think is the best 17 incher for streaming video. So far, its either the new XPS 17 or the Macbook Pro 16 with the OLED screen.

 

Thanks a lot. kinda what I thought that image would not be as large as a 16:9. That's a downside to 16:10 no one is mentioning. May I ask what the image size would be for a Macbook Pro 16? That is my other choice. Maybe the difference between the Macbook 16 and the XPS 17 are not that big?

 

MacBook Pro 16 doesn’t have OLED screen and it’s aspect ratio is 16:10 same as the Dell.

 

If looking at anything mac right now, I would wait until the apple silicon version comes out. They are going to be fantastic hardware. Im still iffy on the software, but you know apple is going to mop up with their own chipsets in the macbook lineup now.

 

Right. I think OLED screens are only available for 13-15" and none from Apple.