Dell Precision 5540 i9 16GB Ram 1TB SSD UDH OLED Display (Brand New)

Dell Precision 5540 

CPU: Intel Core i9-9980HK
GPU: Nvidia Quadro T2000
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 1TB SSD
Display: 15.6-inch, 4K OLED
Battery: 6:20
Size: 14.06 x 9.27 x 0.45~0.66 inches
Weight: 4.4 pounds

Dell Precision 5540 display

Thanks to the Dell Precision 5540's 15.6-inch, 4K OLED display, everything I watched was incredibly vivid and bright. Like the XPS 15, the Precision 5540 is one of the best OLED laptops around.

n the Stranger Things, ahem, I mean Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer, Finn Wolfhard's blue shirt popped on the Precision 5540's screen. Even though the quick shot of the diner was dimly lit, I could spot the details of the coffee pots on the counter. And that 4K screen made those doughnut holes look so damn crisp and delicious that I was actually hungry right then.

Our colorimeter clocked the Precision 5540's display for 200% of the sRGB color gamut, which flies past the 165% workstation average, the ThinkPad P1's 179% and the ZBook 15's 112%. The MSI WS65 came in at a more colorful 251%.

At 384 nits, the Precision 5540's panel is awesomely bright, skidding past the 332-nit category average and the ThinkPad P1's 285 nits. However, the MSI WS65 and the ZBook 15 killed it on brightness, with 393 nits and 631 nits, respectively.

Dell Precision 5540 keyboard and touchpad

Like the XPS 15's keyboard, the Precision 5540's keys were relatively comfortable to type on, but still a little too shallow to be satisfying. The keyboard backlighting is white and fairly bright. Despite having copious space, there's no number pad on the deck. That's something that you expect to see on a workstation.

Dell Precision 5540 audio

The Dell Precision 5540's forward-firing speakers were decent, but they could've been louder and they didn't boast a lot of bass. I listened to Rise Against's "Prayer of the Refugee," and the opening electric guitar strums were bright and clear, but the percussion or bass guitar is barely audible when the guitar is playing. The vocals sound crisp, but when all of the instruments are playing together, they start to sound muddy.

Dell Precision 5540 battery life

While the Dell Precision 5540 mimics most things about the XPS 15, it didn't take any pointers on battery life. After the laptop continuously surfed the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the battery lasted only 6 hours and 20 minutes, which slides past the workstation average (6:05), but it could be better. The ThinkPad P1 (4:16) did significantly worse, while the MSI WS65 (6:57), and the ZBook 15 (8:56) surpassed the Precision 5540.