Last Updated on January 25, 2020 by Mathew Diekhake
We’ve bought the Dell XPS 13 and XPS 15 from last year, and we loved the fact that on both laptops the webcam was positioned at the bottom of the screen.
While the DELL XPS 13’s webcam didn’t look great with the white background, you were happy to accept its looks knowing that it was giving you the Windows Hello facial recognition.
The Dell XPS 15 only came in the darker carbon fiber, and there was nothing wrong with the way the webcam appeared.
On both laptops, the bezels were beautiful because they were thin and even all the way around. Sadly, that won’t be the case anymore, as the popular opinion around the internet from bloggers and YouTubers is the webcam shouldn’t be at the bottom.
The argument was that the webcam at the bottom didn’t give good performance when making the video calls because of the angle of the camera on the person’s face (some would call it “nasal view”). And while that might be true, the reality is that these companies know how many people use webcams, and based on Dell’s willingness to shift it to the bottom of the screen, it probably isn’t very often.
We loved the idea of sacrificing the webcam performance—which we hardly ever use anyway—for having a better-looking laptop bezel. But when these YouTubers with millions of followers express their views, it forces these companies to act. And sadly that is what has now happened with this year’s models of the flagship XPS range: the webcams are moving back to the top of the screen. Subsequently, you’re going to have a thicker bezel at the top of the screen, and the thickness will be different than on the sides, all for the sake of a webcam that few people used anyway.
What’s more, the webcams on last year’s models worked great with the facial recognition, so that wasn’t a problem either.
Even with the unfortunate new webcam placement, the Dell XPS 15 will still be one of our favorite laptops on the market. HP’s designs are ones that we aren’t sure we could look at all day every day if they were in front of us, and while Dell laptops still have quirks, their top-notch support on social media and from their website means you can always get quick assistance when you need it. For now, that’s enough of a reason to stay away from some of the lesser known manufacturers if you’re living on a tight budget and don’t have a lot of spare time.
April 24, 2019 @ 05:34
I was watching a YouTube video the other day from David Lee I think it was. I can’t remember the name exactly but I think it was an Asian tech reviewer.
In one of his videos, he was talking about why he thinks people shouldn’t shop from manufacturer’s websites when it comes to buying goods. I didn’t continue watching his points but I really don’t have to either because that’s horrible information.
I do a lot of shopping online because I’ve gotten pretty good at it and to a point where it’s obviously saving me money compared to driving around. And one of the things I always do now is buy directly from manufacturers. The prices you see on other websites are not any cheaper and sometimes you even pay more to not buy directly from the manufacturer because you get charged for shipping. A lot of the time when you buy direct from the manufacturer you don’t get charged shipping fees.
Also when you aren’t buying from the manufacturer you don’t know how old your item is. You don’t know the date it was manufactured. But when buying direct, it’s obviously going to be new stock, both in part because stocking old items would be bad practice and they would turn over a lot of sales.
And then in addition to all of that, you can obviously trust buying good directly from manufacturers much more than some small business. At least you know the item is actually going to arrive.