The company’s new Precision 5520 is a successor to last year’s Precision 5510 featuring a "vibrant" UltraSharp PremierColor InfinityEdge 4K display, along with the latest 7th-gen Intel Xeon and Kaby Lake processors (i5 7300HQ, i5 7440HQ, and i7 7700HQ), the latest Nvidia Quadro professional graphics cards, Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, up to DDR4 2400MHz memory, up to 2TB of PCI-E SSD storage, and higher-capacity batteries.



Similar to last year’s Precision 5510, the refresh features a 15.6-inch display inside of a smaller 14-inch chassis, giving the impression of using a smaller workstation but with more versatility thanks to the lighter design.

Last year’s Precision 5510 measured 0.66 inches thick and weight 4.6 pounds (2.09kg), while the refreshed units now bring the weight down to 3.93 pounds (1.78kg) and an incredibly slim 0.44-inch (11.1mm) thickness. For very close to the recent ASUS ZenBook UX390UA at 0.47 inches (11.9mm), the HP Spectre 13 (Skylake) at 0.41 inches (10.4mm), and just above the Acer Swift 7 at 0.39 inches (9.98mm).

In terms of connectivity, the Precision 5520 includes two USB 3.0 ports, one Thunderbolt 3 port, a memory card reader, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and an HDMI port.

It is always nice to see a workstation notebook thinner and lighter than the majority of consumer-oriented ultrabook designs, and this is clearly a product where Dell has managed to achieve a market turning point in form-factor portability.