XPS 13 FHD or QHD

I'm stuck between which one to get...how much of a hit is there to battery life, and is the scaling as bad as people make it out to be? Either way it'll be i5, 8gb RAM and 256 GB SSD, so it's just the screen at this point. I'm so close to buying it and just need to know the differences between the two. Do you guys think touch is worth it?

 

Honestly I would go with the FHD, especially if you value battery life highly. I would have specced mine out exactly like you would have with the FHD, but it actually worked out cheaper for me to just get the QHD i5/8gb/256gb from the Microsoft Store in Canada. I'm not sure if it's because I'm often using my laptop with a mouse, but I have trouble seeing the usefulness of the touch capabilities in a laptop that doesn't have a detachable screen or a 360 hinge. Granted, the QHD screen is very nice and there is something to be said for whether or not you prefer matte or glossy screens.

I think the scaling on the QHD is okay, but there is definitely some room for improvement. Depending on the programs you use and how well they support scaling, you may or may not run into many issues -that would be considered deal breaking- at all.

 

Must have touchscreen - QHD
Otherwise - FHD

 

It would be ~100 more for the QHD if I decided to get it, as well as picking it up in-store vs. waiting for Dell to ship it after ordering from their site. hmm...

 

you have the same scaling issues with the fhd panel, i had the 9333 before. if you can afford it i would get the qhd+ as that is the far superior display. check notebookcheck.com review. and yes, the touch is a nice feature. once you have it you didn't want to miss it.

 

This. It was a big part of what me to the QHD model. It was in stock and could be ordered and I had it the next day. Could've had it same day if I 'd made up my mind while I was still in Manhattan.

The other big thing that drove my decision was being able to see and touch the unit. The Microsoft Store had three QHD models in stock to look at and play with. I'm sure the FHD screen is also nice, but I did not want to spend so much on something I had not seen first.

As Sven147 points out, you probably have scaling issues either way. I did set the resolution to FHD while in the MS store, and I'm pretty sure my eyes would not handle it for more than short periods. Either way I'd need to scale. (But your eyes may vary).

The QHD is a joy to look at. I am mostly in Office and a browser all day long. Scaling works fine in that environment. Thankfully my corporate VPN app will scale properly. The few issues I've encountered are nothing compared to how nice it is to finally have a laptop screen that is tack-sharp and with good color. My eyes really appreciate the crisp-looking text.

FWIW, I mirror the monitor on one of Dell's 24-inch, 4k displays during the workday. That way I get the high-dpi goodness all the time. If using an external display, I think 4k makes life easier because it is also a similarly high dots-per-inch as the built-in screen.

Battery life. I'm getting about six hours in real use. That might matter to you. I'm a little bit disappointed in that. When I travel that is sometimes not quite enough, and I can see the attraction of the FHD display for its greater longevity while on battery power.

 

I was debating myself which one to get...
I've look at the MacBook Pro 13, my favorite combo size/performance/weight, if only some dam company can simply produce a clone for the windows/Linux world I'll buy it in a heat beat (and I really hate the Apple ecosystem, so this one speaks volume about how much I like it)..
and I see that it sell with retina screen...so no way that I was going with FHD.
I've chosen the QHD version...
I can live with a shorter battery life.

 

Asus ux305 perhaps?

 

It has a Core M cpu... not a i5-7 inside... and in Europe is pretty hard to find notwithstanding.
At $700 is a steal no question, but anything more the xps 13 is simply faster and better value.

 

CoreM should be fast enough for day to day business tasks. But I haven't tried one yet