Coil whine, audio distortion - return or mail-in repair?

I got a new Dell XPS 13 9350 with i5 and 128Gb SSD from Microsoft store two weeks ago. Since then I noticed two issues that kinda bug me a lot:

1) Electric buzzing from under the keyboard. It is not too bad, but can be noticeable on occasion;
2) Audio distortion from the speakers - for example, speech from Skype sometimes sounds like a nail scratching a window;
3) One of the battery status LEDs on the left side is broken (very minor issue).

I spent an hour with Dell support trying to fix the issues which included updating drivers and BIOS, but they obviously still persist and I am certain these are hardware issues.

Otherwise, I love this laptop and still want to have it, but I desperately want these issues fixed (especially the audio distortion which makes using Skype a pain for my ears!).

I can either send it back to Microsoft and request a replacement or send it back to Dell for repairs. However, if I send it to Dell I would no longer be able to send it back to Microsoft.

What are my chances to get these issues fixed? I heard stories where repairs fixed the issues and where they made them worse. Also, there is no guarantee the replacement unit does not suffer from something given Dell's crappy quality control.

I saved over a year for a new laptop and then waited over three months just to get this model. :-\

 

Go back to the Microsoft store, and get it repaired or replaced there. It's only been two weeks, so you should still be within the return / exchange window for a retail store.

Once you are unable to do a return to the retail store, you need to get it repaired. It won't matter if you do it through Microsoft or Dell, because they both will sub-contract the work to local repair shops to perform the services. And in all likelihood, they will be using the same repair shop in your local area to do the work.

And don't worry about the horror stories about people having bad experiences with Dell. It's always a very vocal minority of people complaining. If you look at any product from any manufacturer , you'll have 99% of the people perfectly happy with the product, and 1% of the people who have terrible experiences and think that it's the worst product ever made. So don't worry too much about what you read on the internet.



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