Dell has some decent battery usage options including ExpressCharge for the battery but that isn’t great for long term battery life battery life. Basic movies/YouTube for a bit but mostly surfing the web using Wi-Fi. The battery in the 9305 is slightly different to that in the 9310 in that it is still a 4-cell battery but is 52WHr instead of the 51WHr in the 9310 - that could well be a typo and the difference is inconsequential at that small amount anyway.īattery life from a single charge sat at just over 8 hours although in that time I did not push the laptop all that hard. It’ll do in a pinch but don’t rely on it as your main gaming machine. If you are heavily into your games, then it is unlikely you are going to be buying an i5 mid-range laptop to specifically game on. I wouldn’t be using it for high end gaming but with the basic options that I tested (NBA 2K21, Control, Fortnite and Minecraft) it worked well enough although it wasn’t as snappy as the 9310. Gaming was surprisingly decent on the 9305. The power button is also a fingerprint sensor as it is in the 9310 2-in-1 - just a circular shape this time. Once again it worked fine but don’t expect it to provide cinema-quality video. This time there are no Windows Hello cameras in the top bezel, just the 720P webcam.

Once again though, the setup worked seamlessly. If you want this USB-C to USB-A adapter with the 9305 you are out of luck and will have to purchase one separately. I set up the 9305 the same way I set up the 9310 2-in-1 with the left-hand Thunderbolt 4 port extending the display to a 4K 32-inch monitor (as well as powering the laptop) and the right-hand USB-C port using the USB-C to USB-A adapter from the 9310 box and providing the laptop with Internet access using a USB-A to Ethernet port adapter. It has the two Thunderbolt 4 ports with Power Delivery, headphone jack and a microSD slot but also has a USB-C Gen 2 Type-C port with Power Delivery/Display Port on the right-hand side. The Platinum Silver CNC aluminium chassis with Black carbon fibre palm rest laptop also has more ports than the 2-in-1.

The 9305 also shows that the 2-in-1 platform comes at a weight premium too with the 9305 weighing a couple of hundred grams less - which can be important when carrying around a laptop for large amounts of time and distance. The Dell XPS 9305 is slightly larger in its height and width than the 2-in-1 (1-2mm in each direction so not a hell of a lot) but is shorter by almost a centimetre.

Dell xps 13 2012 weight