A Couple of XPS 15 L502X Questions

Hi everybody. I'm new here, and I'm looking to get a new laptop soon, and the XPS 15, on paper, looks like what I want. I've read tons of posts here, but I'd really like to clarify a couple of things, if you folks could help me out.

First off, besides looking for a multimedia laptop, I also want something that's going to be quiet when performing office tasks. I've read about people being a little annoyed with the fan turning on and off in low-demand situations, and I've also read all the reviews on the net that I could find.

I'm a little confused because the reviews at notebookcheck seem to be saying the opposite of what people here are saying. They (notebookcheck) are saying that the Latitude fan switches on and off in low-demand scenarios and that the XPS fan runs more constantly at a very low level, on the latest sandy bridge models. This is exactly the opposite of what people are saying in a thread about this here, which is why I'm confused.

So, I'm wondering what the general consensus is here about this. I'm not posting this in the thread I just mentioned because I thought it would be a good idea to see what everyone was experiencing, vs. the problems a smaller amount of people may be having.

Also, while you're reading this, I was wondering what people were getting for battery life when doing office tasks, rather than when doing multimedia stuff, or even web browsing with Wi-Fi. I'm a little confused here too, since a review on laptopmag indicated around 4 hours with a 9-cell while surfing with Wi-Fi, and notebookcheck indicated over 6 hours surfing with Wi-Fi just with the 6-cell battery. This is a big discrepancy, considering that notebookcheck's results would indicate 9.5 hours with the 9-cell.

So, sorry for the wordy first post. Any input would be appreciated.

 

Hi,
I just got my brand new XPS yesterday and I was also bit too worried regarding the fan performance. But maybe luckily I got a good piece, my fan seems to work perfect. People used to say that the fan is off normally and then zooms to a high speed suddenly causing irritating noise.
But with me this never happened. The first thing I was focussed on checking was the fan and after using it for almost 6-7 hrs since yesterday, I noticed that the fan is indeed running slow during normal times, it speeds up when you do some heavy activity but that is the way it shoudl work, right!
IMHO, Fan is NOT an issue with this gem of a laptop.
For battery, I havent tested it completely but after 3 hrs of charging, I removed the charger and then did some web browsing along with some downloads and stuff for 3 hrs and it showed me still 18% remaining. So in my guess the battery should last minimum 3.5hrs if not more for a 6-cell one.

Also, let me inform you that I have not done a clean install yet and there are too many unwanted programs runnign in the background. Once I do the clean install (which I plan to do maybe months later, dont want to lose tht newie newie feeling immediately ) I am sure the battery should last longer.

If you are confused about buying or not buying I would say dont think twice 'Just Do It'! 1080p FHD is a must and JBL speakers are just too awesome: one of the best selling points of this machine!

Cheers,
KF

 

Congrats on getting an XPS that you're happy with. It's good to hear a positive reaction to the fan issue. I'm not saying some people aren't having real problems, but it's the problems, not the good experiences that you tend to hear about, for obvious reasons. Of course, it's hearing about the problems that make you leery. Particularly when you tend to have bad luck with these sort of things.

I'm still hearing about some pretty large differences in battery performance when people compare surfing with Wi-Fi. I'm not sure what the reason for this would be, different power conservation setting? I know that Sandy Bridge chips are suppose to be very low voltage in low-demand situations, and Optimus is suppose to switch to integrated graphics unless the dedicated GPU is needed. I was assuming that this meant the GPU is not being used during all web surfing... but I don't really know if this really is the case.

Have fun with your new lappy!