Dell XPS 13 2015 Broadwell Infinity Display Owners Thread

It's a radio App (Jango) I installed from MS Store. Whenever I use the media controls, it controls the radio app while it runs in the background. Then when I try playing video via MPC or via youtube in a browser, I may get the two audio sources clashing with each other and losing all volume in the desktop. Only audio in the radio app continues to work.

 

Tried uninstalling and reinstalling the DELL drivers, but Windows Update doesn't show any new drivers. What driver version are you running now?

 

My new XPS 13 (2015) has been working great from day one. I did install the track-pad firmware update. Now Dell update keeps asking me to install BIOS A03 and the track pad firmware update. My XPS has BIOS A00 installed and every thing has been working fine with it, so I'm not sure I want to change to Ao3. Is it ok to just delete the Dell Update utility from my computer so it doesn't keep asking me to update my BIOS

 

Hi, mine arrived today too, so QHD+ / i7 5500U / 8GB and 256GB Samsung P841 SSD.

The good
Almost fine, less bleeding, superb display (brighter than my TF701 in full brightness and outdoor mode and more crisp out of the box, TF701 display which was my reference display with 10 inches and 2k resolution is awesome, but the Sharp Display on the XPS will top this in almost every way, I´m really happy due to this fact (also with less bleeding).

My Trackpad works really well too, I ´ve inverted the "gestures" (means i doubleslide down and scrolls down ...) and i´ve got no issues with that trackpad, it´s really great.

Display and Trackpad was my bigges "afraid of to receive an item which got issues there".

Audio works great, no complaints from my side here. Software get uninstalled (mcaffee and office and bloatware), updates get installed incl. BIOS update & stuff, all fine. The Samsung P841 SSD performes good enough for me (~ 450MB read / 250MB write), maybe later i will put in an samsung PX941 or any non-SATA one, we´ll see. My 512GB Crucial M550 (m2) from GT72 has much more write speed (for example) but .. i think that does not matter in how it feels.

Overall build quality seems really good, no scratches no any issues i´ve recognized yet.

The bad (you know, there´s always more bad to read than good, but its not an directly complaint)

It´s more heavy than it looks like (for example, first time you´ve got an macbook pro in your hands, feels almost similar, more heavy than expected)

Only thing makes me really wonder is the keyboard. You read and hear a lot good of this. So the haptic feedback of that is okay, but not more (on mine) it´s like on an 350 dollar laptop, on the right side it feels little cheaper than on middle or left side, also sounds different (lighter, higher) when i type there on right side, or let my fingers scroll over it. The Acer V3-111 keyboard was cheap but similar good on all sides of the keyboard, the XPS13 keyboard is good on left and middle side, on right side it sounds weird and little more flimsy. Whatever, maybe i have to type some mor on it and it get fixed by itself, or by dust ;o)

What my keyboard also has, the background keyboard light is on the keys F7 and F9 F10 much brighter than on the other keys, that little sucks, but my GT72 also got this problem due to RGB LED Backlight (which i can fix there due to different zones & color configurations). Engineers: nobody looks 90° from upper side on the laptop keyboard, yes then everything is fine, if you look from the angle like you sit in front of the laptop those keys are more brighter than the others (almost of the laptops have this, but not apple ones).

The fan: system is quiet in almost 2D applications, i guess there 4 fan speeds, 0=no fan, 1=really silent you wont hear a lot, 2= fan is on (load); 3= mid load (cinebench), 4= full load (prime95 and 90°C +/- 5 kelvin or 200/205 F). Overall, it´s not loud (or ok loud for the workload and such a small system) but here little complaint:

When my fan went back to 1 or 0 i hear some high pitched buzzing sound (no plan how to translate, the sound is like if you have an fan and give power on it with a rotary potentiometer and it´s not enough for the fan to spin, its near to this sound). It´s gone after 10 seconds or 20 but really weird sound. I hope that will fix it by itselfs, but thats a normal sound from a computer which got mechanical parts i guess, also you cannot hear it when window is open or you´re not in a absolutely silent room. <- i´ve recognized this just 4 to 5 times yet and cannot re-produce.

Software complaints (not up on Dell!)
4k video runs in firefox for the first minutes, but stucks sometimes (yes pre-buffered ...), in Chrome it stucks in general as the system will have too hard load (guess software issue from browsers or flash or whatever as 4k content from SSD or network works fine).

Scaling Issues are funny (ICQ <- replaced by pidgin, VLC <- ... and so on) but i guess Win10 will fix that, or any "force scale" option, but i was aware of that before and hope linux will have not this issues I hate that, it´s like in the 90´s ;o)

So over all, lot more text at complained part but at the end for me this is an superb awesome laptop and i did not find any deal breakers on it for the high price I´ve paid. Great system, thanks DELL & Sharp engineers & employees to design build such an nice system. I hope battery life will come up to 6 or 7 hours (no plan, we´ll see) and there´s an running LINUX Support cause i have to threw windows away latest in this week, then everything is fine. For my first thoughs about this, it seems a best buy like the TF701 was in the past. I hope my dell runs well...

Yes QHD+ model is expensive (for an 13 inch "not super high performance" system) but build quality and overall performance is good for the price, the display currently is unique I guess. Awesome. As i saw FHD reviews online, i guess the FHD nontouch also will be a really nice thing if you do not choose the eMMC 128GB SSD one.

Regards
aVa

 

Long time since I browsed these forums...been an Apple and Lenovo guy for some time. That said, I just saw the Dell outlet coupon code for 25% off and pulled the trigger on a refurbished XPS 13. I chose the i5 5200, 8gb ram, 256gb ssd, matte FHD model with Win 8.1 Pro. Coupon brought the pre-tax total to $749...I couldn't resist jumping on it. Excited to try this bad boy out!

 

Hi all again, received my machine (i5, 8GB, 256, FHD) yesterday. Very happy about it. I have installed the three upgrades (bios, touchpad drivers and another one).
As far as the touchpad, I have tried in Chrome and Chrome Canary and havent found any difference. I have set the sensitivity delay to "null" from PC settings, scrolling is good but not smooth. I must say that such a behavior is similar also in MS Word: good but non as smooth as it could be.

A question about FRONT LED: what's the behavior of the front led? I have plugged in the PC and I supposed that it would light on for the time of the charge, but now it must be already charged and the lead is still on...

 

Same, I'm sticking with A00

Yellow means really low battery, not sure about white.

 

I noticed yesterday that mine flashes when I keep my finger on the trackpad.
It is not clear what advantage this provides and I don't recall seeing this before.

 

My observation was that it indicates charging when the machine is turned off, and it is always on as long as the machine is running and the power cable is connected.

 

For anyone looking to output to a single external display, you might be interested in the following miniDP dongle as opposed to DELL's USB3 one...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NHGA81U (£13.59)

From a product review I read, this works fine with the XPS13. Just ordered one myself.

 

Yellow is battery low.
White is currently charging - when your laptop stops charging and runs of AC power (battery status: plugged in, not charging), the light should turn off.

 

^this
LED on = charging
LED off = not charging.

simple as that ;-)

 

have the XPS13 FHD for a month now but cannot fall in love with it
I even kept working on my old laptop till this weekend postponing the migration to the XPS

The laptop itself is beautiful and all but I cannot get over the screen resolution
Out of the box it is set to 150% scaling but this makes many windows blurry
I have now set it to 125% but then the text is so small that it is very hard to read

Is there no way to use the 150% without things getting blurry?

I am currently on 8.1 and was also wondering if the above is fixed in Windows 10?
If so I just have to be patient for this to get fixed

What scaling are you using?

 

I´m still in hope in Win10 there´s any solution for the scaling thing, as on QHD+ its much more blurry than on FHD which sucks, in my case i´m happy is an application allowes "stretch" (yes looks **** but you can read it ^^ ... ) but i´m still in hope there´s a solution within the next 4 to 6 month´s from software side anyhow i mean, such > FHD displays are running arround everywhere and on the other side, with android and 2k on 10" there´s no scaling issues...

Regards

 

Anyone running Win 10 10049?

I installed this today on a test unit at work (wanted to see how well it worked before I did my own unit). I really like it a much better experience then Win 8 on a laptop but there are a few small issues I have come across and I wanted to see if other have them:

1) After a restart at the log on screen the touchpad will not work at all, the keyboard and the touchscreen does so logging in is not a issue. If I lock the machine the touchpad does work until I press the switch user tab and then stops again. This did not seem to happen on the previous build (which was quite old it is the current ISO on the TP site).

2) Spartan and IE seem very laggy especially with two finger scrolling a lot of the time it won't register the scroll and you have to keep on doing it and eventually it will work (I have updated the touchpad firmware from the Dell site).

Other then that it all works really well I do get the odd moment where things don't respond but I am pretty sure that happens on Win 8 with my own XPS as well. Unless someone else has any show stopping bugs they have come across I might upgrade my own one.

 

Well, spoke to Customer Care and the Dell respresentative wasn't keen to help me, saying that the marketing page on their website continuously changes with different offers all the time and that in order for me to have had the discount applied, I would have had to call up before the order went into the production stage.

Fair enough I suppose. I could always return the laptop for a refund and reorder, but the discount period is already over! I'm not overly displeased as I'd already gotten 5% discount anyway. However have noticed 2 issues that I'm not quite happy about that will probably need a new laptop sent out to me.

1. Keyboard errors - occassionally getting double 'i's and 'spaces'.

2. Screen brightness/bleed uneven and most noteable both bottom corners...

 

Does anyone have a "perfect" screen they can upload pictures of to compare with? Preferably shot at max brightness and on a black background.

 

This is my Full HD screen. I think that some light in some point at maximum brightness is normal. What do you think about?

 

Hi guys, We just got 3 units of this fantastic laptop (i5, 8gb, 256ssd and FHD display). Everything seems fine except 2 units have the touchpad a bit loose, is that a known issue, does Dell provide support/replacement for a defective touchpad?

Also it is a bit annoying that the default touchpad scroll is up side down to what I am used but I cannot find out how to change it. Do you have any idea?

 

Call up Dell Tech Support and they should be able to send a replacement or a tech out to fix it.

Go to PC Settings from the Charms Menu (Win+S) > PC and Devices > Mouse and Touchpad > Reverse scrolling direction.

 

Pc settings in the charm bar, then input devices, mouse and you can reverse the scrolling

Inviato dal mio SGP621 utilizzando Tapatalk

 

Seems better than mine. I could live with that. Whereas mine is easily noticeable under normal use in the bottom left and a little distracting.

 

I will try to contact Dell about that.

For the reverse scrolling the links you are suggesting me does not exist on windows 8.1 pro.

From Control Panel -> Hardware and Sounds -> Device and Printers -> Mouse: I opened the options but there isn't anything to revers scrolling

 

It's an option under 'PC Settings' in the Charm bar, which is different from the regular Control Panel (it's silly, I know). Check out the posts above yours for instructions on how to access it.

 

It's in the Charms menu not Control Panel (Slide in from right or Windows Key +s)

 

Found, Thank you very much for your help!

OMG two different places for settings/customizations (Control Panel and PC Settings) which are not linked to each other... it is really terrible the usability of this OS

 

Hi all, anyone know how do you turn off the screen or otherwise make it dark on this laptop?

 

Went ahead and installed Win 10 on my personal machine and have the same problem with the touchpad not working at log in. Also played around with Chrome due to the lag in two finger scrolling in IE and Spartan. Two finger scrolling now works a lot better and not sure if this was there before but you can swipe page back and forward by swiping left or right on the touch screen.

The 3 finger scrolling for app switching is nice as well.

 

Assuming you want to leave to laptop powered on...

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Turn off the display xx time

 

Hello, all. I'm planning on placing my order this weekend, but I've heard this laptop has a "blurry text" issue that has something to do with Windows 8.1's zoom feature and the QHD+ monitor. Owners of this machine, do you notice this problem? Can someone take a picture of this issue if it's real? It's the only thing holding me back from buying this.

 

Windows handles highDPI content differently compared to OS X and Android. Just compare IE and Chrome, set it side by side. Content on IE will have blurry pictures, although texts are sharp. Chrome is fine. I can post a picture here when I have the time. Ill be using my 24 inch 4K Dell monitor for it.

Also, another problem that might annoy you is the forced Auto Brightness on this machine. I believe its BIOS controlled and overrides any software installed on the SSD that handles the laptop's brightness (Windows Power setting and Intel Graphics).

 

Yeah, I've been getting mixed reactions about the screen. The auto-brightness shouldn't be too much of a problem, though. I'd probably choose to have it on even if I had the choice. Thank you for offering to provide images.

 

Oddly enough, I thought it was hardware as well...however, when I installed win10 tech preview, adaptive brightness is disabled

Spartan is super buggy. It is impossible to scroll on as well. It's alpha software. That said, I am a fan of the direction that MS is going with it.

The touchpad is a known quirk in this build of win10

Broken Record... I know....but I highly suggest Chrome Canary from the Dev channel...it is smooth as glass and handles scaling beautifully

 

did dell every fix the auto brightness issue?

 

Hello!

Ive been lurking around here for the last month waiting for my Dell Xps 13 to arrive.
ive been using the Macbook Air 11" since 2010 as my primary computer and Ive been waiting for an update the last few years, but the new macbook 12" was just silly. To expensive and no ports. So I decided to try the XPS 13.

i got the FHD non touch 2,2 hz i5 (2,7 turboboost), 8gb, 256gb from dell.
Wow! first impressions was very very good. Awesome screen.

My pc came with the A00 bios, but still i didnt hear any fan noise people are talking about. It was way more silent than expected (maybe after reading these forums). Ive updated to A03 now.

Only thing that is not perfect is the touchpad. But I dont think its a dealbreaker. Ive only had some issues with the scrolling with two fingers, but I read it was smart to use the trackpad in the middle and that helped.

I havent seen this "adaptive brightness" thinggy people are complaining about. But im not sure what to look for.

Will this feature kick in if i watch a movie?

after 12 hours im very happy with it.

 

Glad you are enjoying it so far. The adaptive brightness that people here refer to is -in most cases- actually a content adaptive contrast setting. Whereas adaptive brightness will change the brightness of the display based on ambient lighting, content adaptive setting will make small adjustments to the brightness of the screen based on the overall color of the content you are viewing. It's most noticeable if you transition from a bright screen to a dark screen or vice versa (e.g. by minimizing or snapping a white web page to show a dark wallpaper on your desktop).

Also note that there was a touchpad firmware update not too long ago. It did improve things a little bit, but it still has a ways to go.

 

Hello, DELL also sells the QHD+ XPS13 2015 now with Ubuntu <- does anyone has an idea if there´s an DELL UBUNTU ISO available and an link where to get? (Reason: not wanted to do an install/config marathon if there´s an prebuild ISO from Dell available)

Btw: my trackpad works superb no issues at all, but it´s implemented a little askew so the "front right side" of the trackpad looks a half mm over the carbon chassis, the "back left side"is an half mm under the chassis. Weird build quality (but not an dealbreaker for me as its just very little, but for an 1400 bugs laptop .. mh)

Btw2: if my XPS13 is plugged in (power) and in load, fan goes on and wont go off again (5min´s later, CPU temperature ~ 35-45°C). If i now unplug power, my fan turns off, i plug in 2sec later - fan keeps to be off until the system went under load again. Anyone same issue (i guess software issue which will get fixed) OS is win8.1 + all updates + all dell updates + dell stock BIOS config + dell stock powermanagement in windows

Thanks and Regards
aVa

 

What app are people using to measure temperature, my XPS was getting very warm yesterday and the fan did not kick in at all under the A3 Bios?

 

I´m using HWMonitor http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html as "non pro version".

Please be aware of that while using this tool, i´ve recognized on a different system that performance was a tick lower (as it continously reports temperature of everything) so i not have it on 24/7 just for testing and seeing how healthy system works. Also some hardware is sometimes not yet supported (you see incorrect naming of devices but correct temperatures in the table). I really prefer this tool over others i´ve seen in the past.

Regards,
aVa

 

Here's an example of hi-res dpi scaling versus bitmap scaling when an application isn't designed for use with hi-dpi. (I'm surprised Window's own app is still isn't supported...)



I've heard Windows 10 will fix the issue. For now, I guess we have to live with it and for me, I think it's an acceptable form of scaling as opposed to using the app at it's original resolution where everything is tiny and hard to make out. For those tiny apps, there is a work-around involving a registry hack and custom manifest files for each application needing force bitmap scaling.