The camera is also used for Dell's presence-detection features, which I find interesting. Adding a higher-resolution camera would likely mean a thicker lid, so I get that there's a size-versus-functionality tradeoff.Ī great webcam, this is not. Jumping into a Zoom meeting in low light, I had a distinct orange hue. Premium laptops have made a major switch to FHD cameras in the past couple of years, even dragging long-time holdout Apple in with the latest MacBook Air Dell says the lower-res camera here benefits from image processing help on the software side, but I found it to be merely ok. On a relatively small laptop, you can get away with FHD resolution, but adding touch is going to be valuable. There's also a FHD touch panel for $100 more, and if you're looking to cut costs, it's probably where I'd go.
Either one is a $300 upgrade from the base non-touch Full HD 1,920x1,080-pixel model. Dell calls this 3.5K and you can also get a true 4K version, but that's no OLED panel. I tested the 3,456x2,160-pixel touchscreen version, which is an impressive-looking OLED panel. The Performance mode was indeed faster, but also cranked the fans up even more, created a lot of heat, and certainly didn't help the already limp battery life.
In the preloaded My Dell app, you can switch between performance presets (navigate from My Dell > Power > Thermal).
