Welcome to a Biomedical Battery specialist of the DELL Laptop Battery
Earlier this year, we took a long, hard look at one of Dell's most highly-anticipated multimedia notebooks to date. That was the XPS 15z with battery such as DELL Y9N00 Battery, DELL PKH18 Battery, DELL WV7G0 Battery, DELL 489XN Battery, DELL XPS L321X Battery, DELL XPS 13-L322X Battery, DELL 75WY2 Battery, DELL NMV5C Battery, DELL XPS L511X Battery, DELL XPS 15Z Battery, DELL XPS L511Z Battery, DELL XPS 15Z-7777 Battery, and we thought pretty highly of it in almost every measurable way, including its delightfully thin dimensions. Fast forward a few months, and in slides the XPS 14z. According to its branding, this unit is just a single number different than the XPS 15z, and if you didn't know any better, you'd just assume that someone took a shrink-ray to the 15z. Indeed, the 14z really is just a small 15z in some ways, but by the same token, that's something that hasn't really existed outside of HP's Envy 14 and Sony's VAIO SA line. Sub-15" multimedia capable notebooks aren't exactly easy to come by, and most of them make pretty big sacrifices on performance somewhere along the way.
The 14z is Dell's "thinnest, fully-featured 14" laptop with an internal optical drive." That's a lot of qualifications, but one thing is clear: it's thin, it's compact, and it packs a punch for the size. LG's Shuriken display is one of the standout features here, enabling a 14" display to be crammed into a 13" form factor. How so? There's barely a bezel. The display stretches almost entirely from edge to edge. In other words, the dimensions here resemble that of similar 13" notebooks, but you're getting a 14" display. Unfortunately, Dell doesn't do a lot to really take advantage of it. There's only a single screen resolution option -- 1366x768 -- which is the same as found on many 12" and 13" machines. In other words, you aren't actually gaining any screen real estate with this in terms of pixel density, but it does make it a bit easier to see fonts and such without squinting. There's still no question that this machine is serving a niche. If you're in the market for a gaming-capable notebook, but you'd prefer the form factor more closely associated with an ultraportable, the XPS 14z is a worthy option.
Let's not beat around the bush: Metro 2033 is an intense game. And we aren't just talking about gameplay. It's a title that seriously taxes a machine, and it requires serious hardware to run this title well. The CPU on the XPS 14z was probably ready for the task, but its lower-end NVIDIA Geforce GT 520M isn't exactly powerhouse. This is one of the compromises Dell had to make to keep heat and cost down.
BatteryEater Pro tends to measure worst case scenarios, in that it doesn't really take into consideration power saving features, instead loading up the system until it dies out. It runs a spinning graphic constantly until the battery dies. We keep our test machines with Wi-Fi on, and screen brightness hovering at 50% for the life of the test.
A 58WHr, 8-cell battery is pretty impressive for a machine of this stature. There's no battery bulge, either. The XPS 14z managed to last just over two hours in our rigorous battery rundown test, which loops a graphic in BatteryEaterPro with screen brightness at 50% and Wi-Fi on. It handily beat the XPS 15z's battery, and while it's certainly not netbook-level longevity, it's pretty solid for a taxed Core i5 and discrete GPU. Just browsing the web or firing off emails should net you a lot longer uptime as well.
The XPS 14z is a dead-ringer for the 15z. If you enjoyed that design, you'll enjoy this one. Plenty of metal, plenty of smooth edges. That said, Dell missed perfection somewhat by refusing to say no to three senseless stickers on the palm rest, and not having a single USB port on either edge of the machine. We generally appreciate having the IO ports in the rear, but there needs to be an additional 1-2 USB ports on one of the side edges for quick USB flash drive transfers.
The biggest problem with the XPS 14z, outside of the horrific bloatware load that it ships with, is another 14z in Dell's line: the Inspiron 14z. While that machine is certainly not as sexy, it can be customized with similar specifications for less money -- oftentimes much less. The Inspiron 14z starts at just $600; the XPS 14z starts at $1000. That's a major price gap, and while the 14z performed well, the excess fan noise, awkward port layout and non-high res display make the price premium somewhat tough to justify.
Dell's XPS 14z is a solid little machine, and it'll certainly serve its customers well, but it's just a little too pricey with some of its shortcomings. Gamers will want more than a lowly GT520M, and bargain hunters will demand a lower price from a 14" machine. In a way, the XPS 14z stuck between a rock and a hard place, though it's well-built, a pleasure to use and very easy on the eyes.
