Shadowing Practice: The New Dell XPS - It's Back and SO MUCH Better! - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Video made in partnership with Dell for CES.
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Last year, Dell did the unthinkable.
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They killed off their XPS brand.
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It was the weirdest thing.
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Like, this brand name, XPS, that's been associated with, like, their top tier, most premium hardware, they just nuked it because they were trying to simplify their naming of their systems.
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And it just made no sense.
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But thankfully, someone at Dell realized that this was not the move.
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And so for CES 2026, they are bringing back the XPS brand.
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So we have the XPS 16, XPS 14.
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This has been fully upgraded this year.
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We have brand new chips from Intel with powerful GPUs We
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have new keyboards new screen tech new battery tech this first of its kind It's all new
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and even the chassis new
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so these have a completely new design This is a very
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thin system with the body being milled from a single block of aluminum
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So Dell has been very good with this kind of metal work They've shown year after year
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that this is what they do with the XPS line but this year it feels a little bit different.
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This feels so sturdy and so rigid considering how thin this device is.
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It's kind of crazy.
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And here's the thing.
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When you look at a video like this, a lot of high-end premium laptops can look similar because it's just like metal stuff.
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But when you hold this thing in hand, there's just no flex to this thing.
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And it's a very clean design.
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There's almost no visible seams on this thing.
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You can see the screws, but unlike a typical laptop, there isn't a panel to lift away.
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To open it up, you unscrew those screws and then you remove
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the top keyboard deck like it comes off and that's how you access the internals.
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It's not as easy to get in there now.
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There's a cable you have to watch out for, but it just maintains a very clean and seamless look.
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Now the top logo is no longer that old school Dell logo they had from the previous generation.
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It's now this more modern XPS and I think it looks a lot better.
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The colors of the devices that I have are this graphite gray color, but there is another colorway that's releasing later called shimmer.
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It's like this warmer colored metal finish that I think looks really good.
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For ports, we have three Thunderbolt 4 ports and an audio jack, but there are no SD card slots on either of the devices this year.
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Now, the trackpad area on these devices, so I'll show it to you on both the 16 and the 14.
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Actually, we'll have to see how the kind of two compare on the inside.
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So, if you'll notice, there's a few things that are different this year.
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So, the first thing, there are no visible cutouts or grills for the speaker on both the XPS 14 and 16.
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They're invisible.
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There's four speakers in each of them.
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They sound great, but you just can't see them.
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They're underneath the keyboard and they fire up.
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The second thing pertains to the trackpad.
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So this is a previous generation of XPS 14.
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And if you'll notice this, so these both are all of these things have haptic trackpads in the sense that they're like a MacBook.
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They have a trackpad that doesn't have moving parts for the click mechanism.
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It's just like a haptic motor that sends a vibration to your finger when you click to indicate that you've clicked.
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Now on this one, the previous generation, there was no visual indication as to where the active area started and ended.
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So you could be kind of sliding around and once you get past a certain point, the trackpad stops working and now you don't know where it is.
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For some people it could have been frustrating.
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Now they've added like a bit of etching to here.
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It's not super visible, but you can feel it as you're sliding your finger across.
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You just feel it and you're like, you know that you've reached the end of that active area.
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But the most important change in this keyboard area, I'm sure you've noticed by now, they've gotten rid of this row of capacitive function buttons and the escape key.
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This is something that I think a lot of people disliked out of the gate.
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I honestly don't even know why they went with it to begin with.
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And now the new versions of XPS products with the relaunch, They have physical keys for the function keys, and most importantly, at least for me, the escape key.
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It's a very welcome change.
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The lattice keyboard does take some time to get used to.
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I've always thought this thing looks really nice, but you do have to spend some time with it, like a couple hours, but the type as fast as you normally would.
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At least I did.
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Now the displays, both of these have an option for a tandem OLED panel and these look so nice.
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So it's two layers of OLED material stacked on top of each other and it gives you better brightness, Gives you better efficiency, better longevity of the panel because you don't have to drive them as hard.
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Everything just gets better when you have tandem OLED.
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It is more expensive than the LCD panel.
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It looks awesome though.
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120Hz refresh rate and it just looks so good for games and content.
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And both the LCD and tandem OLED panels support variable refresh rates, so they're also more efficient than before.
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Now, under the hood, these are running Intel's new Core Ultra 300 series chips.
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Now, because this is so early on in the launch cycle and these are both running very raw and early drivers, I'm not allowed to benchmark these things and show the numbers to you.
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But I will say, just playing around with them, testing them, I think people will be very, very happy with the performance they get from CPU and GPU.
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These are just so good.
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Intel claims that these new integrated GPUs can deliver up to 50% better GPU performance compared to the Lunar Lake stuff.
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But yeah, for an integrated solution, very impressive.
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Now, because the GPU is as good as it is, these devices, XPS 16 and XPS 14,
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do not have an option for a discrete NVIDIA GPU.
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For the past 10 years or even more, there's always been the ability to be like, hey, you know, if you want to, you could get a NVIDIA GPU on the XPS devices.
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But now it's integrated GPUs only, at least for this product line.
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I don't know about future stuff that they're planning on putting out.
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The battery, or let's talk about energy efficiency first.
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This is a very energy efficient chip.
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The The idea being this is as efficient as Lunar Lake, which was Intel's most efficient chip that they ever put out.
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It's supposed to be on that level.
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The 14 inch pulls up to 25 watts.
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The 16 inch pulls up to 35 watts because there's just more room in there.
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It's got a more powerful cooling solution.
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But in addition to having a very energy efficient chip, these also have very energy dense battery packs.
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This is the first laptop I have seen, in fact, I think it's the only one out there right now, that have the new 900 ED cells that are significantly more energy dense than a typical laptop battery.
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Those are going to be like six, maybe 700 watt hours per liter.
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These are 900.
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And it's because they're running a new silicon carbon tech, right?
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You just get a different anode material that allows it to be more dense versus the typical graphite anode.
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And it's just a better pack.
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Now, because of that super dense pack, the 14-inch device gets a 70-watt hour pack despite being super thin, which is great.
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The 16-inch, however, also gets a 70-watt hour pack.
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In terms of battery life, that's like their claims, this is around 25, 27 hours.
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The 16-inch is supposedly the same somehow.
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From my testing so far, I, again, can't give you, like, numbers, but they look very good.
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The thing is, why is the 16-inch running the same size pack?
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It should be a bigger one.
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My only guess, and this is just, like, a guess in my head, because this battery tech is new, like really new the manufacturers behind this they can't do like
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multiple skews for dell they just want one skew you get
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a 70 watt hour pack that's all you get for now
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and maybe in the future they'll have more options that's the
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only thing i can think of as to why this is
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but i think most people that would love the extra battery size
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and be like yeah bring on the weight i'll take it
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because a 99
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or a 95 watt hour battery in this thing would be
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like awesome okay there you have the new dell xps
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and uh 14 and 16 thank you for dell for partnering with me to be able to show you guys things early.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “The New Dell XPS - It's Back and SO MUCH Better!”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: xps, Gpu, dell, battery, watt. This video has 111 sentences and 1528 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:20. The speaker talks fast, about 209 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| dell noun | /dɛl/ | A small, deep, and wooded valley or sunken area of ground, especially in the form of a natural hollow. |
| watt noun | /wɑt/ | In the International System of Units, the derived unit of power; the power of a system in which one joule of energy is transferred per second. |
| trackpad noun | /ˈtɹækˌpæd/ | touchpad |
| keyboard noun | /ˈki.bɔɹd/ | A set of keys laid out in a gridlike pattern, used for typing on a typewriter, computer, etc. |
| dense adjective | /ˈdɛns/ | Having relatively high density. |
| tandem noun | /ˈtændəm/ | A carriage pulled by two or more draught animals (generally draught horses) harnessed one behind the other, both providing pulling power but only the animal in… |
| integrate verb | /ˈɪn.tɪ.ɡɹeɪt/ | To include as a constituent part or functionality. |
| anode noun | /ˈæn.oʊd/ | An electrode, of a cell or other electrically polarized device, through which a positive current of electricity flows inwards (and thus, electrons flow… |
| graphite noun | /ˈɡɹæfaɪt/ | An allotrope of carbon, consisting of planes of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal arrays with the planes stacked loosely, that is used as a dry lubricant, in… |
| haptic adjective | /ˈhæptɪk/ | Of or relating to the sense of touch. |
| skew verb | /skju/ | To form or shape in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position. |
| refresh verb | /ɹɪˈfɹɛʃ/ | To renew or revitalize. |
| capacitive adjective | Of or pertaining to electrostatic capacitance. | |
| colorway noun | /ˈkʌləɹˌweɪ/ | Any of the schemes of two or more colors in which a design is available. |
| discreet adjective | /dɪˈskɹiːt/ | Respectful of privacy or secrecy; exercising caution in order to avoid causing embarrassment; quiet; diplomatic. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| put out verb | To blind (eyes). | |
| bring back verb | /ˈbɹɪŋ bæk/ | To fetch something. |
| come off verb | To become detached. | |
| get past verb | To continue around a blockage; to get around (something); to surpass something that is in the way. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been · you've clicked · they've added |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | been associated · being milled |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Lake, which was · thin, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 32 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, don't, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: unthinkable /ʌnˈθɪŋkəbəl/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: refresh /ɹɪˈfɹɛʃ/, shimmer /ˈʃɪm.ɚ/, vibration /vaɪˈbɹeɪʃən/, benchmark /ˈbɛn(t)ʃmɑːk/, indication /ɪndɪˈkeɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: unthinkable /ʌnˈθɪŋkəbəl/, longevity /lɒnˈd͡ʒɛv.ɪ.ti/, supposedly /səˈpoʊ̯.zɪd.li/, aluminum /əˈlu.mɪ.nəm/, indication /ɪndɪˈkeɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like dell, watt, trackpad.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.