Dell XPS 13 2015 Broadwell Infinity Display Owners Thread

Hi Cooleddie,

I have the i7/QHD/256 GB version and for gaming there is nothing more simple than to use 1600x900 resolution. This way the picture is not blurry - as every game pixel equals to exactly 4 pixels on the screen and you can even go for a bit higher details than on the i5 as you have a little more processing power and a lower resolution to compute (1920x1080 Vs. 1600x900). On a 13,3 laptop a gaming resolution of 1600x900 is quite alright as far as I am concerned.

As for me I can recommend to go for the QHD screen.

 

New review from Wired - http://www.wired.com/2015/02/review-dell-xps-13/ - he says he adjusted the sensitivity of the touchpad in Control Panel...I can't find any touchpad settings on my XPS, where are they?

 

He most likely was referring to the [limited] options within the Metro settings interface. You'd find it by going to the Charms menu (left side of screen), Settings, Change PC Settings, then under the Mouse/Touchpad section. Again, it's limited options, but it's something...

 

Has anyone gotten a PS3 Dualshock 3 to work with the 9343 yet? I can't even get motioninjoy to see it over a USB connection.

 

Thank you! Yes any external display scaling does not work. Everything is blurry and a lot of applications don't work. This is the primary reason I returned it.

 

That is terrible, makes me rethink this purchase. All though I wouldn't use it with an external display all the time, but I do use a 24" Dell LCD for an external. This will be my field laptop so I don't think I will use it as a primary so a lot of issues I might ever see. This will be replacing a Macbook Air 11in running parallels.

 

I think you'll be fine with it. I plugged mine into a 1080p samsung panel and it was good enough. If you don't like it, you can always send it back too.

 

Good point, I would love to get back to a larger screen, 13.3 is about as big as I would go considering the laptop travels in my tool bag. The MBA is a perfect size and looking at videos the XPS 13 and MBA are almost identical in size.

 

Yeah this was going to be my work computer so whenever I'm in the office (~50%) I have a Dell USB 3.0 dock with two external 24" 1080p monitors. With scaling set to anything above 100% on the laptop both monitors were blurry. The other ~50% of the time I'm projecting in front of clients and there's no way I would use this laptop to do that. The scaling is so bad with icons, power points, etc that it looks horrible. I could set the laptop to 1600 by 900 or 1920 by 1080 and scaling to 100% and the external monitors or projectors would be fine but that defeats the purpose of having a nice high DPI laptop display and changing the scaling and resolution every time I dock / redock (sometimes 4-5 days a day with meetings) requires logging in/out. Not acceptable.

More info on the issue:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...s-blurry/367c746f-1477-4199-b7ae-98f3d2b86cb8

and:

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...694-5f7b435f9cd1/perdisplay-scaling-is-blurry

You can see exactly the result of greater than 100% scaling in this comparison screen shot:

https://wpwmxq.bn1302.livefilestore...f_HQwovS7Ultzpx8xqftW0g/Comparison.png?psid=1

The bottom is clearly blurry compared to the top non-scaled screen shot. For coding, photo editing, or just about anything this makes it not usable (at least for me).

I'll be sticking with my XPS 12 for the time being. The battery life is hours longer and the 1080p screen is great with an i7. I wish Dell had an i7 FHD version of the XPS 13. It's unfortunate laptop makers (not just Dell) are releasing higher DPI screens before Windows has a chance to catch up with DPI scaling across multiple displays. OSX seems to nail it with the MacBook Pro Retina laptops and external displays.

 

Hey

What games have you tried running?

And what level of settings do you use?
Any info on FPS?

Are you absolutely sure theres no blurry ness on a 1600x900 screen and it feels like a "native" screen? Do most games support 1600x900 automatically / natively?

Cheers,

 

I thought the same way as Dextrosan about the 1600x900 resolution, and for older PCs / Notebooks of mine cutting the resolution by half always resulted in a sharp image. But on the XPS13, whether it is due to the graphics driver, Windows scaling, display scaling or whatever not, 1600x900 IS blurry. If you look closely you can see that the image is interpolated. Every logic pixel should result in 4 actual pixels of the exact same color, but that is not the case on the XPS13.

Don't get me wrong - it doesn't look bad. But it's not sharp as i hoped for. 1920x1080 looks better imho.

 

What is the difference between changing resolution and windows scaling? What are the pro's and cons?

 

I use XPS13 as a "desktop replacement". It's hooked up to my Dell 27" 4k monitor running 3840 x 2160 @ 60hz. Beautiful picture, no blur and/or scaling issues.

 

He specifically said in the Control Panel.

 

Resolution changes the actual resolution of the monitor. By default the 3200 by 1800 screen has 200-250% scaling enabled so you can actually use the computer. If you set it to 100% scaling everything is so tiny it's not usable. The issue is when you have a high DPI laptop monitor and a normal / low DPI external monitor. Windows tries to guess what the best scaling is for you and it doesn't let you individually set per monitor DPI scaling so while you need your high DPI laptop monitor to be at 150-250% scaling to actually use it (depending how you like it) that means it tries to scale the external monitor as well but does it poorly and everything appears blurry. This is a windows bug and occurs whenever scaling is set to over 100%. I've seen it on the Yoga 2 Pro, the XPS 13, the XPS 15, and all the work station Dells at my company with 3200 by 1800 screens. No one is able to get externals displays to work correctly without setting scaling to 100% (smallest dial).

^^I haven't tried it on a 4k panel yet. It's possible because BOTH your displays are high DPI the bug doesn't show itself. Basically windows is correctly scaling how it should. I'm not sure though. You may just not notice the blurryness. Some of my coworkers are just living with it. I've gone over and showed them how to fix it (changing the laptop to 1600 by 900 and setting scaling to 100%) and they're like "wow that's so much easier/better on my eyes and things are actually clear!".

 

UK owner here (i7/8GB/256GB/QHD).

Received mine ~5 days ago and so far i'm almost completely happy with it.

Shipping: I ordered on the 9th Feb, it "shipped" on the 12th. The original ETA was the 26th but the Syncreon tracking advised delivery on the 19th and that's what happened. Tracking between the 12th and the 18th was non-existent, however.

Touchpad: Seemingly, as everyone is reporting, no matter what you do there is a small delay to the pointer moving vs your physical input. I've tried the control panel settings and the "charms" settings in both W8 and W10 - no dice. I also really dislike the fact the "mouse buttons" are also part of the touchpad - i.e. they are also touch sensitive - as I normally have my index finger resting on left-click and 2nd finger moving the pointer. I'd hope, should a Synaptics driver ever surface, the touch sensitive area could be adjusted to exclude the "buttons".

Content aware dimming: I've only noticed this once whilst watching a film on our projector with the lights off and the XPS screen down the minimum brightness. The rest of the time I've hardly noticed it - and i'm usually quite funny about these things. Don't let it put you off.

HiDPI: So far my only scaling issues have been minor, aside from Photoshop, where I had to create a manifest file to force scaling - which looked crap but worked. (you can use manifest files on most apps that don't scale properly).

Power/battery: I primarily use my laptops plugged into the AC with the battery removed (where possible). I liked the fact that dell gives you the option (via the BIOS or the Configure app on the support site) to have a "mainly plugged in" charging profile - which should help battery longevity.

OS: I hated W8 when the original Tech Preview was released and have run W7 ever since. I made an effort to use W8.1 but after an evening of annoyance, I wiped it and stuck W10 (9926) on - much better. It's not a finished product and there are some issues but I'm actually preferring it to W7 and better still, when it goes RTM you can upgrade over it instead of having to wipe.

Screen: Originally, I wanted the FHD i5 but I've really needed a new laptop for the last few months and who knows if/when FHD will be available in the UK so I bit the bullet and got the QHD. One word, gorgeous. Incredible viewing angles and stunning colours. When I thought about where the laptop would spend the majority of its life - indoors, plugged into the wall - I realised I could probably live without the extra battery life and anti-reflective coating and worst case scenario, I could always get a matte screen protector. My only real concern was the high res scaling issues but so far, it's not too bad, especially on W10.

Speakers: Can't believe how loud the speakers are! Even got a little bit of bass in there too.

Dimensions: Only a few mm bigger than a Macbook Air 11" - meaning lots of choice for cases

Originally I was holding out for the Macbook Air 12" to be announced or a Broadwell Macbook Pro as none of the Windows Ultrabooks were a match or likely to be a match for some time but as I generally hate Apple, I'm glad the XPS came to my rescue

 

I have : Core i7 256gb QHD model.

Some thoughts and feelings, for those interested.

I came from a SP3 after being frustrated by the trade-off with the (clever) but ultimately flawed keyboard. This laptop was its replacement.

Input/output devices and touch:
The keyboard, to me at least, is wonderful. Keys, whilst some have described them as 'mushy' have a perfectly acceptable level of travel and enough tactility to provide an enjoyable, accurate and quick typing experience. Soft-touch material on the palm rest obliterates any attempt apple have made at ergonomics and comfort. Metal looks cool, sure, but it ain't nowhere near as comfortable as this. I like softness. Dell is softness.

The track pad is a little like autism - sometimes you just don't know whether or not it knows you're there. Know what I mean? You know it knows your fingers are gliding frantically up and down and up and down and yet...nothing. Other times though it responds entirely disproportionately to your input and takes things a step too far. Other times, it's the trackpad from heaven. In comparison to the SP3 it's far superior. To my other lenovo - it doesn't hold a candle.

The screen is divine. Really. 1080p will now be known as the ugly cousin in the cheap suit that no one wants to talk to at the wedding. QHD is truly stunning. There are, however,, many issues with scaling which you must consider prior to purchase (more a reflection of software rather than hardware, I realize) for example Adobe audition is almost unusable at native resolution. There are also performance issues to be considered for more graphically intense ventures at that resolution. Lower the resolution, certainly. But you then trade image quality.

The small bezels, however, make for a wonderfully immersive experience for video or light gaming. The size, of course, is the real bonus of niente bezel.

I have found however that the screen is somewhat dim. I'd read people banging on about how damned bright the thing is but to my disappointment, I don't find that the case at all. In fact, contrary to what the reviewer said on the verge that "20-30% brightness was all I needed at work" I can barely see anything at this level. Maybe he worked in a dark room. Maybe he just didn't turn the lights on.

Anyone else with thoughts on this? I'm aware of the dynamic contrast issues, and have disabled all auto-brightness related features in the advanced power settings etc.

The battery has been average at best. Most I've had (considering I seem to have the brightness pumped right up almost constantly) has been at best around 4 hours of light usage on balanced power mode. Playing a little Banished in steam ran the battery flat in approx 1hr 59 mins. How dell achieved their monstrous results I'm not sure; but using a laptop at 10% brightness, battery saving mode, wifi and Bluetooth turned off is not a pleasant experience no matter how long the battery lasts. Id rather play with a dead squirrel.

Sound - I get crackling from the (albeit) very loud speakers. Not sure if that's normal or not? As soon as my volume hits around 60-70 percent there is noticeable distortion and crackling. Other than that, they sound about as fine as any laptop speakers. No bass, all treble, but plenty loud. But no one expected much more, right?

Had huge problems with windows indexing - but a re-install of windows seems to have fixed it. Strange.

Performance is stellar. Complex photoshop filters, large file transfers, wi-fi speeds and over-all speediness (thats a word now) seem great. To be expected with this spec, I guess.

You won't need an old pack-mule to carry it around - it's small, light, sexy stylish and basically great. It hasn't however delivered on everything I'd hoped but then again, how many devices ever really do that.

P.S has anyone been able to get the windows 10 technical preview installed with working hd5500 drivers??

Rant complete.

 

Any word on when the Linux edition will be released?

 

Yes but if you change your resolution you still have 3200 by 1800 physical pixels. So that's why I'm asking what the difference is betweens scaling and changing the resolution. I think I don't quite understand it yet because if changing the resolution and/or scaling it up, what's the point in having a high res display?

 

It's not just screen real estate, it is also screen clarity. That is the point of the higher resolution screens. Tex is clearer, web pages look nicer, etc. Real estate is a big bonus but not the only thing that makes the higher DPI panels worth it.

 

That is the exact setup I'm after so pardon me for the bunch of forthcoming questions...What monitor is it? (asking to know whether it's SST or MST) Does it put any extra load on the system when external monitor is plugged? Fan behaviour being any different? Also can it run both external and internal displays at native resolutions at the same time? Any stutter when playing 4k videos? Thank you!

It looks a bit grey area to me because broadwell are the first among ULV chips to support 4k displays and no one has yet covered how much graphical power is really sufficient for office/multimedia type of tasks at such resolution.

 

Any other thoughts in terms of playing 3D games? QHD+ or matte 1080p? Which is the better choice?

 

Exactly a higher DPI screen will have more clarity. As far as screen real estate goes a 1080p screen actually has more than a 3200 by 1800 screen depending on scaling. The effective resolution of a 3200 by 1800 screen is 1600 by 900 (/2). So you're actually getting more screen real-estate with a FHD 1080p screen depending on your scaling settings than a 3200 by 1800 screen.

The way scaling SHOULD work is the software should always enforce an even ratio of pixels. So if the application isn't DPI aware and it doesn't know how to scale itself than the OS should quadruple the pixels (in the case of 3200 by 1800) to make scaling work. For some reason this doesn't work correctly at other scaling levels and makes external monitors look blurry.

 

This isn't a gaming computer it's an ultrabook. With that being said I'd lean towards 1080p as it will look much better than running the 3200 by 1800 at 1080p or 1600 by 900 as they are non-native. I wouldn't try running any games at 3200 by 1800 at all.

 

Yup: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/SearchResult.aspx?lang=eng&ProdId=3862

 

My thoughts would be that you shouldn't even be considering this notebook if you're even remotely thinking of gaming beyond Pac Man or Pong. The HD5500 will give you a slideshow for anything higher than old games on minimum settings.

 

It's P2715Q (SST, 4k 60hz). Both displays run @ native resolutions. There's no extra load that I can notice and fans behave the same with our without the external monitor connected.

In terms of 4k content, nothing that I played on YouTube stutters. For example, videos from http://www.harmonicinc.com/resources/videos/4k-video-clip-center play smoothly with ~5-6% CPU utilization. Non-YouTube videos also play smoothly:

 

Those who have returned their XPS to Dell, did you do it because you considered it defective and was it outside the 21 day period? How'd it go?

The fan on mine has started making a weird rattling/grinding sound, and that combined with the brightness and touchpad issues are making me seriously consider returning it.

 

There are two problems with the touchpad. The first is the size, it's way too big and extends too far towards the right. I was hoping it could be resized in the registry here - https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn467306(v=vs.85).aspx - but I'm not sure. I found a partial solution that works great - http://touchpad-blocker.com/

The second problem is there are no sensitivity settings, unlike all my previous Dells going back to 1999. There is only Charms on/off settings, and delay which I set to "short".

 

I returned it for the exact same reasons as yours. Dell didn't want to know anything about the laptop being "defective", because the guy on the line did not understand what I was talking about. I'm good to pay 300 bucks for the restocking fee. Clearly, Dell won't see my money anytime soon. Well, actually, they won't see it again - ever.

 

That's disheartening to hear. How hard did you insist that it was defective? I really don't want to have to pay a restocking fee on a defective product that I've been dissatisfied with since day 1.
I think I'm also just outside the 21 day period too (although I've seen other people claim 30 days?) so I imagine it's going to be a pain to return.

 

The way you avoid the restocking fee is to bring the defect to their attention first, then insist for a refund. If you ring up and ask for a refund and ask to waive the restocking fee because of a "defect" they will not waive the restocking fee. In my experience with refunds, you need to bring up the defect first e.g screen dimming by itself making it difficult to use the laptop and when they suggest a solution such as sending out a technician to replace the part decline it and ask for a refund as you did not pay for a product that has defects. Also that you do not want refurbished parts in a new system that is only a month old as that is not what you paid for.

Also, don't be afraid to speak to a Manager. You will find that the Manager is almost always "out" or "on a call" and can't speak to you. Ask for the Manager's Manager or ask them to leave the case open and get the Manager to phone you later and you will not proceed further until you speak with the Manager. Everyone at Dell has someone working above them. Also ask for the matter to be referred to Customer Care who seem to be a little more educated and understand issues about refunds and customer satisfaction.

 

Something thats been bothering me for a while but not got round to looking for a fix. The time on mine is stuck 2 hours ahead of where it should be even though i have the correct UK regional settings applied. Can someone advise how i can remedy this so i automatically get the correct time? First world problems i know.

 

Can someone with a QHD i7 test 4k playback please?


Is it lagging or does it play smoothly?

 

Smooth. If you're trying to play in Chrome, don't (unless using Canary). Open in IE or another browser.

 

Thanks for testing!
Why would it be lagging in chrome? Any idea?

 

It seems to be an issue w/HTML5 player yet I'm still looking for a definite answer; after all, things do work in IE and Canary. If you force Flash (through extension, for example), the video doesn't stutter.

 

I now see the following on UPS/Dell tracking website

China 24/02/2015 20:04 "agent brings to UPS"

The production phase is over. Does someone know how long the shipping phase is? How many days after production was finished did your XPS arrive?

 

Whereabouts are you located? We have people here from all over the world and shipping times different for each country/region. Moreover, Dell uses different couriers. USA->Canada took 3 business days with Purolator and the laptop remained "in production" until I received it.

 

If you find an answer please do let me know

 

It's easier to just not buy from Dell. I've never been charged a restocking fee for a defect from any company. I've never even had to fight for it either. It's not like they are going to turn it around and resell it as an open box item, so what are they restocking? Seriously, if I got charged a restocking fee for something that was their fault, I would look to press charges or something. That's pretty much theft...

 

If they didn't refund my whole purchase amount, I would just charge it back with my credit card. Amex has always taken care if me in those situations.

 

hey folks!
I'm new here, been reading alot on that forum before i pulled the trigger on the i7 5500 8gb 256gb ssd model when they had a 100 euros valentines bonus here in germany.

i like the machine very much but after 2 hours of owning it my fan started to make loud grinding noises when the laptop is being tilted. its only noticeable when its spinning at very high RPMs.

even though there is a fan noise thread, nobody but one person explicitely was talking about a grinding noise but just about loud fan noise. so my question is, is this a widespread symptom? im still hoping that it will settle down when the fan sort of lubricated itself properly (or whatever lol). i dont wanna send it back after waiting for so long

qnd @kristof1234 : i got shipping confirmation on Feb 13rd with same status as yours staying until monday 23rd when it finally showed up on the ups site. it got delivered yesterday 24th. for german order that is.

 

Sorry, didn't specify my country. I am from Holland.

Hopefully I don't have to wait 11 more days as you did

 

My fan went crazy the first few days, to the point where I was disappointed but it settled down by the 3rd day now it occasionally spins up at random for a few seconds and stops. It doesn't even spin up that much if I have it sat on my bed at night while streaming Netflix or Amazon.

As for deliver, UK here and it took a week from being shipped to any tracking data actually appearing. I got initial shipping email on a Friday and then the following Friday I got a SMS to tell me it would be delivered the following Monday. I did phone Dell during the week as I was concerned the tracking of the laptop was not updating only to be told the UK courier estimate about 7-10 business days for it to reach the UK from China.

 

It is an annoying fan that's that for sure. Mine doesn't spin up all that often but I do not have any grinding noises either.

 

Does anyone know if Dell will be selling the FHD version of the Dell xps 13 in europe, more specifically in Sweden anytime soon.

Right know I don't feel like I need the QHD version and would prefer more battery instead, Thanks.

 

Don't quote me, but I am pretty sure I watched some reviews that mentioned something about the QHD being the only model sold in Europe?

 

Dell have said I can return mine. I called up and said it was faulty - that the fan makes a horrible loud grinding sound and the display brightness cannot be controlled. The rep asked if I'd like someone to come look at it, I said I'd just like to return it. After holding for a while, he came back and asked if I'd like an exchange. I just repeated that I want to return it. So he went ahead and sent the return label etc.

There was no mention of a restocking fee so I'm under the assumption that I won't have to pay that. Although the call seemed so easy, I have a feeling they'll just stick that on when they get it despite it being faulty.

 

That looked amazing in 4K first time I have seen 4K and even on the XPS it looked really good.