Dell XPS 13 2015 Broadwell Infinity Display Owners Thread

I figure I would start this thread since people will start getting their Dell XPS soon. I have had the Microsoft signature model (low end i5/4gb/128 FullHD) model for a few days now just wanted to give a few thoughts.

Form factor: Love the size of this thing! The weight is just right, it feels a little heavier then some other 13.3 inch but that is because it is more dense It feels very premium and solid.
Battery Life: Definitely not 15 hours more like 9-10 hrs at 50-60% brightness with browsing and occasional youtube videos
Speakers: WHOA! This are amazing for a laptop of this size. Loud, not too much distortion, decent amount of bass. Overall im really impressed
Display: Love the Matte display, absolutely love it! There is some burn in issues (see other thread) but I believe them to be more image retention then burn in because they have gone away and don't appear to be permanent. Still slightly disssapointing, but I guess the battery saves from the IGZO display is worth it.
Keyboard/mouse: Top notch in my opinion. Not Lenovo quality cause its a bit stiff but that will loosen over time.
Webcam: A little awkward people staring at my chin and ceiling but its not too bad if you push the laptop a little farther away.
Performance: Not too much gains from haswell. I downloaded WoW for the heck of it and get similar frame rates but Intel XTU is not supported currently so I can't see if there is any throttling. I cant do any tweaking to really push performance yet such as changing the TDP and undervolting.
Acoustics: Pretty darn quiet, not as quiet as a surface pro 3 but pretty darn close. At full load I would say its quieter then surface pro 3.

Any other questions?

 

When you do extensive typing, is there a case where your right hand registers random clicks?

 

I haven't noticed a single incident. But ive never had an issue with any laptop ive used with that.

 

any issues with the lid pinching you when you open up the laptop? When I was at the store the other day I nearly cut my finger off. I had my fingers resting on the back of the base while I folded open the screen with my thumbs..

 

That has happened twice haha but I have wised up.

 

You mentioned the SP3, were you an owner of that previously?

Would you say the XPS 13 has tangibly better battery life than the SP3?

 

Funny.. I was really surprised by how bad it pinched me, plus the edge was just sharp enough that it really stings... Definitely not putting my finger there again!

 

I have. I had battery bar installed on both and I am surprised how well Microsoft did with optimizing power use on the SP3. With a digitizer and higher resolution display (albeit smaller display) the battery consumption is near identical. About -3,000 to -5000mw (with jumps to 12,000mw) usage on on XPS 13 and about -3700 to -6000mw (with jumps to 9,000mw) on SP3. Moreover, the Dell XPS 13 has a larger battery by 10,000 mwh so it gives about 3 hours of better battery life.

 

Thanks, if it does get about 3 hours more battery life than the SP3, that would be great for me. I know it's a lot to ask, I understand it's not easy to attain, but I've really just been looking for a laptop around the size/form factor of an SP3/XPS 13 for a long time now that could me comparable battery life to an iPad and I would permanently make the switch. Again I know it's not even really a fair comparison, but I know at some point that will happen. If this laptop can pull 10 hours of battery life, I would feel really good about that.

 

After a week of obsessive research, i finally hit the trigger on the $999 model with $100 off

Here comes the normal buyers remorse

 

I just joined the club :thumbsup: Fantastic laptop. Dell has a homerun with this. I know the MBA13 does not have that small a footprint, but next to this XPS13, it's huge lol. It's almost exactly the same footprint as the Inspiron 11 3147. Finally a Dell that has surpassed the MBA in design and quality. Two things though, the touchpad still can't touch the MacBook, and despite Dell's 15hrs battery life claim, I think the best I'll get is 10-12 on light usage, whereas my MBA13 does get close to 15hrs of light usage.

Some glamour shots for you guys

 

Hi could you post Crystal Disk Mark results? Also - Who makes the SSD?

 

How did you get the $100 off?

Has anyone tried any Linux distribution on it?

Looks simple to upgrade the M.2:

 

GadgetNuts how does the keyboard and touchpad compare to the 11 3000? I am curious to know as the GF has one and I'm well accustomed to it after upgrading it to a SSD. Have you had any burn in issues or the burning smell as mentioned previously? What version do you have? I'm looking at the i3 128GB basic model for office tasks and upgrade the SSD further down the line. Thanks for the pics

 

It's a LiteOn. My last XPS12 was also a LiteOn. Sure I would've preferred a Samsung but any current SSD is fast enough if I'm not just strictly looking at benchmarks.

Keyboard is better on the XPS13, it has a bit more travel and less stiff than my I11. Touchpad is vastly superior. The i11 touchpad is laggy and unresponsive to gestures (two finger scroll, back/forward etc), it's laggy just controlling the mouse pointer, which was a bit surprising since it's a Synaptics touchpad. The XPS13 "precision touchpad" is very responsive, two finger scroll works 100% of the time without fighting it, even the zoom gesture works really well. There is no longer a Dell touchpad control utility on the desktop, and the mouse driver in device manager is just the generic Microsoft driver from 2006, so forward/backward gesture does not work on the desktop. Scroll and zoom do work. It seems the OS completely takes control of these precision touchpad. Forward/backward gesture only works in full screen apps. I would've loved it it worked on the desktop, but I've grown accustomed to not using gestures on a Windows laptop because non had ever worked well.

No burn in or any burning smell. I haven't even read about those complaints yet. This is the standard Microsoft signature config, so it's the i5/4GB/128GB. I'd have gone for the i3 to save the $100 if they had it lol. Microsoft isn't kidding when they say no bloatware on their signature series - the only extras loaded were Dell My PC and Dell PC Checkup. I had to manually download the Dell backup&recovery to save the factory restore image. There is no more Dell Quickset or any of those utilities, so I can no longer control the keyboard backlight and stuff. If you browse the drivers download for it on Dell, there's only two things listed, which is good as I don't particularly enjoy the many driver downloads from the past when I manually reload the OS.

 

I have not had a single incident of the touchpad accidently registering movements or clicks while typing, and I'm a pretty fast touch typist when I want to be. This happened often on my Inspiron 11.

 

Looks like they did better job with getting drivers right. Also by shortening the keys to the way right (backspace, enter, shift) they were able to offset the keys bit more to the right, hence making it less chance of contacting touchpad with the right hand.

 

With the 1080p version,what kind of battery life can i take?
Especially with wifi always on,doing light stuff like listening music on youtube or surfing.

 

With 2RRVTDD4TVJMCM

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-xps-13-2015-looks-amazing-3.html#post9885196

 

I hope the 4GB of RAM is enough. Think I will grab that one this weekend.

 

DONT! 4gb is NOT enough. Especially if you want to use this for few-couple years down the road.

I have no idea why 4gb is offered still. It's equivalent of 720p on a screen.

 

Not entirely true. It will be hard to find a difference between 8gb vs 4gb in everyday performance unless you like browsing with 15+ tabs and/or you are a heavy mulitasker thanks to pagefiling on a fast SSD. If you are doing any sort of gaming youll probably want 8gb but atleast dell made the 4gb dual channel But I do agree 4gb will be phased out within a 1-2 years on ultrabooks.

PS Ram is soldered on the MB so you will be stuck with 4gb if you opt for it. I have been using 4gb systems for about 2 years because I usually go for the lower end model and see little difference between my desktop with 16gb of RAM but I'm not a huge multitasker or huge application user such as photoshop that can take gigs of RAM.

 

It looks very impressive and could be my first dell since the xps1330. One question, where are the fan vents located I could not see from any of the picture and coupled with this what is the fan noise like when watching flash videos. I am currently using a vaio sa 13 and fan seems to kick in all the time.

Also has anyone used the xps display port with an hdmi adapter to connect to a TV?

 

I agree. For $800, this is really hard to beat. I would be far more worried about the 128GB limit. Even with cloud storage, I need at least 256.

 

Same situation, I bought the XPS M1330 because it was the best available, and I'll buy this for the same reason.

 

Another questions for those of you that already got there. The SD Card slot, the previous XPS13 did not have the SD Card slot, good to see it is back on the new version. Have you tried inserting and SD card? Is it pretty much flush with the side of the laptop so it can stay in at all time?

Thanks!

 

The keyboard is definitely superior to the MacBook Air's. Got 90wpm on my first try on the XPS13. On my MacBook air, I can only muster 75 after 3 tries. On a Thinkpad with the super awesome deep key travel I can get over 100.

 

Nope. 1/3 of the SD card sticks out unfortunately.

 

I got my xps 13 in today. Had to be at work all day while it sat at home after receiving it a couple minutes before leaving for work.

My god is this a nice feeling laptop. The keyboard has no flex, great travel for a ultrabook and carbon fiber. So luxurious feeling!

There is no flex to the laptop when you pick it up from one corner. I've noticed no weird edges in the craftsmanship between the aluminum and carbon/plastic parts and where they meet.

The trackpad feels great. but doesn't seem as responsive as a macbook trackpad. Just some delays when scrolling. I can't figure out how to turn off tap to click. Theres no real trackpad controls for that.

My only worry is, I'm sitting in bed at minimum brightness just casually checking websites and my battery life estimate has been floating around 5-6 hours. It may be working on stuff in the background so I will give it a couple days to work stuff out. I have the 1080p Matte screen.

So far I am a fan, I quickly installed WoW and it runs fine at native res. I've found the most demanding but static part of the game to be in your personal garrison at level 3 with the alliance. I get about 32 fps with everything at low at 1080. Running around normal parts of the game is about 45. I noticed the cpu while gaming doesn't go past 2.2 ghz which is basically what this laptop is designed for.

I will throw a battery of tests at it tomorrow and report back with what I got. If there is anything you guys would like to see let me know.

 

I thought BatteryBar needed a few discharges to learn discharge rates. Dunno for sure.

Are you using Power Plans? Which one are you using while unplugged?

 

Can anybody comment on this trackpad vs the lenovo yoga thinkpad? I love the thinkpad yogas trackpad and would like something similar.

I ordered from Microsoft Store and got the 10 percent off with edu email. The awesome thing is that I don't have an edu email address and it went through without it asking me for one.

 

anyone have issues with voice calls and echo cancellation and sounding muffled? what is this audiosmart ssp business?

 

Question about the M.2 SSD It's one of those if you have to ask the question, you already know the answer. It looks like at least the 256 version of the SSD that Dell uses is LiteON. I ordered the 512 SSD. I was hoping it would be the new Samsung M.2 SM951 or even the Samsung XP941. I'll find out in another couple of weeks when my machine comes in, but anyone out there know for sure which SSD?

 

Here are the current build options and pricing levels in the US:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC

 

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Not sure if it helps, but I compared its trackpad to 13" rMBP (Mid-2014) that I own and I should say I was impressed. It actually has slightly better tactile feedback when clicking, although with slightly more noise which I personally don't mind. In terms of responsiveness, it was among the best I've tried on Windows laptops but still behind all MBPs. If I wanted to get a Windows laptop I would either pick this or the new X1 Carbon.

Regards

 

Can you get hwmonitor and post the battery specs, designed cap, current cap, max cap, etc?

 

It NEVER made sense that it gives 15 hours battery life. People must be shot in the head to believe that.

Consider that full 50whr is available on the battery, including little wear and how Windows will shut down when only few % is left.

Doesn't matter how Intel reduced chip power consumption. The reality is that due to the SCREEN, these ultrabooks WILL use around 6-7whr even in very very small load. Not using keyboard & touchpad adds to all that. That's 7-8 hrs at best! in reality with QHD+ web browsing using touchpad and keyboard, I anticipate more like 7 hrs on battery.

If you believe that a computer will run with 3.33whr (for 15 hrs) with the screen on, you are bigger of a joke than what the specs claim.


Take my true number advice: XPS 13 is designed for 7-8 hours battery life on light office work load.

 

Not true. 3.33mw is not that far off according to battery bar. I'd say on light load just browsing and typing it sits around 3.33-4mw. I agree this isn't all to do with broadwell but moreso the IGZO tech. XPS 13 2015 FHD model I can easily pull 9-10 hrs with 60% brightness (11 hours could be feasible with just word processing for example). It also has a 54mwh, ,not 50mwh which you can set the bottom limit before hibernation at 3-4% to help get all of that juice out.

 

Perhaps the new display technology will surprise me. But with QHD+ devices and all that pixels and backlight needed for it, I still see 7whr during actual web browings. There has been about 1.5whr in battery savings for each generations of Intel. The best that I could even see happen is 6whr.

I was referring to 50whr to take into consideration 3-5% battery wear out the door and the hibernation it takes at 3-4% battery life. So full 50 whr usable.

 

The 15 hour number was never stated for the QHD+ screen, it was for the 1080p screen. They claim 12 hours for the QHD 3200 x 1800 screen, which in the real world probably means closer to 9. If the 1080p version can pull around 12 hours I will be absolutely thrilled with it.

 

This guy got 12 hours looping a youtube video at 1/2 brightness + wifi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFhoMyQHH3A


Digitaltrends reviewed the QHD+ model it with 9:25 running a benchmark:

I asked someone on dell forums with the 1080P model what he thought of the battery: Forums - Laptop - Dell Community

 

I just got a call from our Microsoft store saying they now have the i7 Touchscreen 256gb in stock. I am going to check it out on Wednesday.

 

IF someone would PLEASE test a or any Linux distribution on this? Just plop it onto a flashdrive. My wallet is screaming at me.

 

I think that one thing Dell missed, again, is that the charging speed will be ridiculously slow. That has been the case for the past three generations. Packing meager 45w charger, when you are working with decent load, it will take you a few hours to get to 100% charge from full depletion. I remember it being like 2.5hrs or so on the last gen.

I get that they want small charger, but what Lenovo did with their charging scheme is to be followed. It needs at least 65w to ensure that you can get at least 80% under one hr while working with heavy load on the machine.

They kept the good work with the keyboard, added SD card slot, kept the carbon fiber, IMPROVED upon the already thin bezel and definitely went out to fix the touchpad fiasco. I think for the next gen XPS, they MUST fix this too slow charging scheme. For a portable machine, the capacity for faster charging is ever more important!

Two things are must for next gen:
1. Option for 16gb ram
2. Faster charging

Then, you will have THE perfect laptop/ultrabook that Dell can easily charge $2,000 for top configuration. That will be THE "PERFECT" model.

 

Easy fix if you are still concerned about battery life ...
just add a Dell Power Companion and you get up to 22 hours and the ability to power all of your USB devices. :thumbsup:

Dell 12,000 mAh Portable Power Companion - PW7015M : PC Accessories | Dell

 

I have one on order and I'll be throwing arch on it as soon as I get it. However, that probably won't be for another week.

However, they are planning on updating the developer edition with this version. There won't be any hardware differences and it will use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Its supposed to be released sometime in February.

 

So, does anyone know how to disable the annoying ambient light sensor ? Not the power plan settings for adaptive display. Example on a dark website or scene it dulls the brightness then switching to a white scene it brightens back up.

 

this thread is having similar problems so worth a read? Not sure if they found the answer yet. Ignore the title!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/769312-burning-smell-new-xps-13-a.html

 

That doesn't actually have to do with the ambient light sensor. You can find the option to turn that off under the Intel Graphics Control Panel > Power Options. I think it's called "Display Power Saving Technology" or something like that.