Dell XPS 13 2015 Skylake Infinity Display Owners Thread

sounds like a manufacturing defect and something that's always going to bother you, so i would just return/exchange yours.

 

Thanks droyder, I am hoping that's the case. I just don't want to exchange it for the next one to be the same.

 

I bought two 9350s with the I5 and 128Gb SSDs. Immediately upgraded one with a 500Gb Evo 850 SSD. Both seem very fast and are really quite nice, but the crystaldiskmark 3 results are rather surprising for the 128Gb. Results are battery only (powered is slightly better) . I'm a bit puzzled at the differences. The 500Gb drive is significantly faster in 4K and writes.

 

Hey floydo,

Unfortunately, this is all too common with some of these OEM-sourced SSDs, especially some Samsung drives. The write speeds are really quite low (I believe 128GB PM841 drives are notorious for this), so it makes sense that the 500 GB 850 EVO would perform much better.

 

So i have a spare 250gb Evo 840 kicking around. Its not msata or m2.

Can i install this?

Sent from my LG-H812 using Tapatalk

 

This review http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9350-InfinityEdge-Ultrabook-Review.153376.0.html implies the other XPS SSDs are faster than the 128Gb 871 M2. " One of the more exciting enhancements of the XPS 13-9350 over its predecessors (and nearly all other currently-available Ultrabooks, for that matter) is the step up from conventional AHCI-interface SSDs to NVMe PCIe interface SSDs. This is the case on all but the lowest-end, lowest capacity XPS 13-9350 configuration (128 GB), and it promises considerably faster performance across the board via optimized interface capitalizing on the low latency and parallelism of PCIe SSDs"
Not sure exactly what they are saying re-the 128Gb, but regardless, the 500Gb Evo is much faster, and the 871 is really an OEM only memory product that has no published specs that I could find. In Tomshardware there is a comment that it is related to 850 memory, but not the same...

 

For those people having issues with touchpad scrolling, try disabling pinch to zoom. It seems to eliminate the delay between beginning to scroll on the touchpad and the browser actually beginning to scroll.

 

My screen is not very bright at maximum brightness and with adaptive brightness turned off in power options. It's noticeably dimmer than my 9333 Haswell xps 13.

It's an Australian-ordered i5/8gb/256gb/1080-non-touch model.

The difference is not really so much as to show up in side-by-side photos of the 9350 and 9333 notebooks, so not easy to demonstrate to Dell.

Anyone else have an issue with a screen not as bright as they would like?

 

received my 9350 QHD+ (check my signature) friday :

had a damaged windows installation, used the recovery to repair it and it works flawlessly now.

Battery life : better than the broadwell that's for sure, heavy surfing + a lot of writing/reading on the ssd + download got approx 5h30 before hitting 23% battery life remaining, this is great news for me .


NO dynamic contrast on my qhd+ panel, did the test found on the github discussion and the dell logo appears immediately (or with a sub 1 second delay), that is great. And after having it for a few days i can confirm it : no brightness change...

Regarding the trackpad, you have to check your windows trackpad parameters (not on the driver itself, rather on the windows control center, the gray interface), and select "low delay", that solved my problems, it's not macbook comfortable but it's not bad , i have to get used to it too, as I'm used to 15" trackpads...so can't be really objective with this...DEFINITELY better than the T300 chi (asus) trackpad.

temperature, whatever i do : heavy tasks, 4K streaming, modeling etc. never reached more than 80°, no throttling, expect some high temps in the high 60 for Hd videos, and heavy tasks, but that's nothing really, and some times my xps is on a bed, the fact that it has many holes (bottom and under the screen) is good..less obstruction.

I'm happy with it, i hope 4K will be more supported by third parties apps...visual studio 2K15, netflix, etc are great on it, but some apps are horrible...

 

Hey guys,

I want to buy some decal stickers for my xps13 in advance, but i don't know the size. Would you measure the diameter of a dell logo in backside? And.. embossed or not?

Thanks for helping!

 

Hi Guys,
I just got my XPS 13 Skylake QHD+ touch i7 16gb 512gb ssd. Beautiful everything I thought it would be.......
However, its un-usable due to the display and/or video driver. The driver or display is constantly re-sizing the apps to compensate for the screen resolution, well that's what I think is the issue anyways.
I've attached a link to a video so you can see what happens.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-cTyvdVfTT9TzBXSzlNME1XM28/view?usp=sharing

I downloaded and installed all of the newer drivers from the Dell website and from Intel. I only downloaded the Intel driver as it seems that Dell only give the Windows 10 32 bit driver and I got the 64 bit driver from Intel. Neither drivers fix the issues.
I can only conclude after reading this forum that I must have a dud, because I can't find anyone else on the internet who has this issue.

Do any of you guys have a solution???

Dave

 

looks like something not working fine, turn off your Pc, reboot in the bios setup page, does it stutter ? If yes then it may be a hardware problem, if no then do a factory reset using the dell recovery partition (already on the SSD) and re-test. If it still doesn't work => dell RMA .

 

I already did the factory reset, but I'll try the boot into BIOS and check that out.

Thanks

 

So

I've made a

 

So I made some progress when I use the laptop from a cold boot no issues, however if I do a restart they come back.
Totally weird!!

 

What is battery life like with the FHD vs QHD with the skylake models?

 

wickette,

are you finding that the fan kicks in only when you're streaming?
how much work do you have to put on it before begins to whir?

i'm just about to take the plunge on the qhd, but i've been waiting for a review like yours. it's quite reassuring

is your experience with the touchpad your biggest quibble with the laptop?
i'm coming from a four-year old clevo laptop.

also, i plan to buy the 128gb ssd and replace it with the oft-quoted 512gb samsung drive ($350ish)
how are you finding the oem ssd?

 

This helped a bit with the weird delay in the touchpad, but the pad's performance is still rather awful. Scrolling is smooth enough, most of the time, but there are delays, accidental click inputs, zooming instead of scrolling, scrolling doesn't always work properly when my finger's aren't horizontally aligned enough (which is normal when you have the laptop right in front of you instead of to your right); and of course basic functionality like three finger click, and three finger finger swipe for forward/backward aren't present. And the most annoying thing is that when using two finger scrolling, very often the scrolling bounces upwards or downwards again, when I lift my fingers off the pad.
I seriously hope this gets fixed, but seeing that the 9343 model had the same problems, I doubt it.
If anyone finds a way of using a proper driver with this touchpad, please let me know.

 

This makes it way better.

 

Disable the pinch to zoom fixes this.

 

Hello, the OEM ssd can get hot, but that's the case with ALL pcie nvme ssd , again nothing abnormal or throttling etc. and it behaves better than an intel 750 pciE SSD... It's really fast, but keep in mind that the 128Gb SSD version is not a PCIe version so i don't know if changing for a pcie SSD will be possible only a sata 3 M2 maybe can't tell you...

between you and me ^^ (some here won't like reading that), pciE is not useful it heats more compared to a sata 3 M2 and traditional SSD are really fast ! So if you have an M.2 normal port that won't be something bad imo, but just don't buy a pciE SSD before checking that the 128gb version can support nvme pcie...

but : in idle, moderate use the pciE samsung ssd is absolutely excellent, very low power consumption and heat, only heavy heavy tasks will stress it to the point where it heats.


The fan kicks in moderately when reaching the 60°C bar approximatively, seen (slightly) quieter ultrabooks but for me it's a very comfortable laptop, i don't see why people complained about the fan noise, it's a quiet laptop, the 4K broadwell received some "high pitch noise" complaints , i think it's quieter because i'm simply not disturbed by the noise and I'm quite sensitive on that,


Regarding streaming, 4K youtube streaming expect some fan noise, that's for sure, Twitch is moderate i'd say 30-40% you'll hear the fan kicks in. Youtube 1080p is really great.

it depends on how you use it in the end and what do you want to stream ? tbh only 4k youtube disappointed me, not really the dell xps but the chrome/html5 combination, very cpu intensive compared to an offline 4k content.

It's a powerful laptop, and any powerful laptop makes some noise,..heavy tasks = some noise like any laptop under stress would do...except that imo it's quieter than the average

Movies (720p-1080p MKV) run great and cpu is in the high 50 (very quiet) when not obstructing holes (bed surface etc), on a bed i reach the mid 60° bar, it's still quiet for me but the fan will kick in more frequently.


the keyboard is great, was a little afraid because i'm used to 15" keyboards, but no problems...

the trackpad is noisy when clicking, but it's well designed ! nice quality and response time...would have prefered an even larger one but again that's subjective.

My top complaint would be high dpi + some windows apps...in 2015 it's not normal that active, regularly updated apps do not have 4K support...especially apps designed with java, like eclipse or arduino IDE...that's really annoying but restricted to few apps..that i use often. Trackpad comes second but I'm more and more getting used to it. Again, It's a good trackpad just needs some "practice" time.

the 1080P matte version is for me, not representative of the xps premium feeling and really not bright enough so no regrets...the FHD screen is glued, no gorilla glass. my old dell latitude E5540 had a glued screen and it could get pretty ugly (sometimes you had a slight gap that appeared between the screen and the bezel...)

 

I had a similar issue that I seemed to have resolved. My problem was the I would occasionally have my screen flicker. I would also get a message that popped out from the lower right corner that said something like "display driver stopped responding and has recovered." I also have the same configuration as you; QHD+ touch i7 16gb 512gb. I looked at the video drivers from the Intel website but I opted for the drivers on Dell's website as it's possible that Dell's drivers might have been customized for our displays. You are right that it seems like Dell only has a 32-bit driver because it has "wn32...." in the name. However, if you read the "driver details" you will find this info "This package provides the driver for Intel HD Graphics and is supported on XPS 9350 running the following Windows operating systems: Windows 10 64-bit." If you think about it, an XPS 9350 does not exist (or at least not sold) with a 32-bit os. So, it only makes sense that the drivers are all for 64-bit.

Regardless, I have not had a flicker or the "display driver stopped..." message since I did thiss yesterday... I first downloaded the Dell driver. Then I went into the device manager and unistalled the video driver. I restarted my laptop. Then installed the Dell video driver. Then restarted again. I have not had a problem since.

 

I am still looking for a solution/idea on outputting to dual monitors (2x Dell U2515h at 2560x1440) ... The dock is not available yet and I can barely find any USB-C to Displayport adaptors.

I have found one from China and it's going to take days to arrive and I'm not even sure that will work properly the way I am hoping - which is:

USB-C -> displayport adaptor -> displayport cable to monitor 1 -> displayport cable from monitor 1 output to monitor 2 (displayport daisy chain).

Any ideas?

 

http://www.amazon.com/Nearpow-Displ...447042603&sr=8-5&keywords=usbc+to+displayport

Or

http://www.monoprice.com/mobile/product/details/12908

 

Thanks stallen. Convertor looks similar to the one I have found and ordered (see below).

http://aud.dx.com/product/cwxuan-us...-female-hd-adapter-cable-white-19cm-961408940

My main concern is whether displayport daisy chaining will work.

Currently when outputting from mini display port on a dell XPS 15 (2012/2013 model) to the two Dell u2515h monitors we have this working just fine at full resolution.

See pic below to get an idea of how it's setup (except it is two monitors at 2560x1440 :

https://dlcdnwebsites.asus.com/existone/websites/global/products/UjihzQKhBmQmiVsY/DisplayPort.jpg

I am just not sure it will work with USB-C/thunderbolt 3.. one would assume it definitely should but no-one has attempted this yet it seems. Absolutely critical for me to have dual external monitors.

 

I might get the one from mono price. However, I'm concerned about the output. Will it be 4k at 60Hz? Cause if it's not, then I'll pass. I have a Dell 4k monitor which I used to connect to my XPS13 9343 via DisplayPort to MiniDisplayPort at 4k 60Hz resolution.

 

I can't answer your questions. I can only say that if you order that particular one from Amazon it is shipped from an Amazon warehouse so you'll get it in 2-3 days. And, returns are super easy. Similar with monoprice. Only 3-4 days depending on where you live. Personally, if I wanted to go out to a monitor with display port I would prefer the monoprice cable since it is USBc on one end and plug directly into the monitors display port on the other end. The only benefit I can see from the "adapter" cable is if you need more than 3' length you get from the monoprice cable.

 

Guys, this pretty much fixes any trackpad issue. I got on the slow ring last night night and upgraded to 10565, and I would say that 2-finger scrolling in Chrome is now 95% perfect. Before the Insider build, the trackpad was perfect everywhere else in the system, and on IE it was buttery smooth perfect. After the upgrade, it is SO much better in Chrome.

 

Guys, how bright is your FHD screen? Can you compare it with others? I expect the Macs have brighter screens but if it is at least comparable with some older laptops.

Also I am curious how durable the USB 3.1 port will be - I hope it can withstand similar wear as a few years of day-to-day connecting of HDMI monitor etc. Maybe the Thuderbolt dock which is coming in 2016 will be a good investment (if it is compatible with future laptops as well).

BTW I have heard that the Dell configurator (at least in my country) offers 128GB SSD only with 4GB of RAM - so maybe there is a different motherboard altogether (one motherboard with SATAIII+4GB RAM and a different one with 8/16GB RAM compatible with the PCIe SSDs. But I cannot confirm that, so it is just speculation.

 

I've had my i5/8GB/256GB/FHD for a few days now, and after a bit of initial buyer's remorse I'm warming to it and admiring more and more about it. This is after spending some time also with a 12-inch Macbook running Windows in a VM, so that's my main point of comparison. Some impressions:

Build quality
First impressions out of the box is that it's very sturdily built and a bit more boxy than I was expecting. I initially thought the long feet on the back were ugly, but actually they're well built and really handy for keeping stability on all sorts of surfaces like seat trays - better than single feet in to the corners, actually - and they make it easier to carry in the hand. The aluminium is shinier than Macbook's, but attracts fewer fingerprints (yay). Most disappinting was the "carbon fibre" surface on the palm rest. This has no texture at all - it's little more than a painted decal, not terribly well fitted in some places like around the power button, with a smooth surface. It smudges very easily, making unsightly blemishes and is difficult to clean properly (boo). But otherwise I'm reassured that the laptop will last a while without falling to pieces. The hinge is very strong, too: no wobble at all when it's open, but it takes a bit of force, and you certainly need two hands unlike with the Macbook. The LEDs in front of the trackpad and on the power button are quite distracting, I really wish these could be toggled off as they're somewhat unnecessary as well as being too bright.

Trackpad
This doesn't feel like glass to me at all, it has the same texture and feel as the soft-touch plastic around the rim of the laptop. So it's slightly sticky and definitely not as fluid to use as the Macbook's. It's a bit on the small side, not quite tall enough for easy or fast scrolling, and anyone suggesting it's the same quality as a Macbook's is in fantasy land. I had to disable the right-click button to get much use out of it (the left-click area is just too small otherwise). Installing the latest WIndows 10 Insider build improved the trackpad lag quite a bit, but it's still got some ways to go. It's very frustrating that Windows 10 doesn't allow more configuration of gestures beyond the measly couple of options. So far I don't see what all the fuss is about with these "precision" trackpads. I'm not sure what they've actually brought to to the table with this.

Keyboard
The keyboard is solid with a tiny bit of flex in the middle, keys have enough travel to keep my typing accuracy reasonable, and are very quiet. The bottom row is a bit recessed and mushier than the rest, but I have no real compaints here. The only minor point is that everything is black and white - a little color on say the function key labels etc. might have offset the otherwise very stark effect. There's little visual differentiation between keyboard, palmrest and screen. Basically the aesthetics of a stealth fighter and a bit too bland for me. Some may prefer it this way, of course! The keyboard backlight is OK, but I've been spoiled by the Macbook's which has indiividual LEDs on each key without the harsh light bleed around them, so I leave it off most of the time. Others have pointed out the nuisance of the backlight automatically switching off after 10 seconds regardless of any settings.

Screen
The FHD screen is fine and sharp enough for me, although it's hard to go back to 1080p after being used to a Retina screen. The matte coating does a good job of nixing glare, but adds a bit of extra grain and fuzziness, although nothing you'll generally see unless staring at it up close. Full brightness is a bit low, but color reproduction seems fine to me (not sure about the review that suggested below 70% sRGB, this doesn't seem right). Windows 10 is still a bit ropey when it comes to scaling even to 1080p, I had to set it it to 125% to get a reasonable work space, but this still makes some Windows elements really tiny and difficult to use. There's a bit of light bleed on the bottom right side, but nothing too distracting and I've definitely seen worse IPS displays. Black levels are good and generally the screen is great for watching video. The speakers are also great for this size, especially if you tweak the inbuilt MaxxAudio Pro settings, so media consumption shouldn't be painful.

Ports
The USB-C port has been working well so far with all the adapters I've tried, including USB drives and a VGA adapter. It responds quickly and transparently to the different types. The Macbook USB-C charger is recognised, but it doesn't draw power from it - the Dell Command Power Manager tool reports that it doesn't provide enough power to charge the XPS, so no trickle charging from low-wattage mobile chargers like with the Macbook, it seems. The SD Card port leaves cards sticking out quite a bit. Generally not a problem, but I wished they'd gone for a more recessed option with an actual spring loader.

Performance
This machine is almost completey silent for most of the time I use it, with the fan ramping up only occasionally but then it's so quiet I barely notice. It rarely even feels warm to the touch - Dell has certainly done a great job in this respect. The Macbook could get uncomfortable in the lap quite often, but this one has been just a pleasure so far. There's plenty of ventilation from both the bottom grille and the vents along the hinge. No worries here at all about it ever over-heating. The PCIe SSD isn't the fastest, but plenty fast for my uses - especially once Windows 10 has calmed down after a few days. Top tip: install the latest Windows 10 Insider build, it solves many problems like with the trackpad responsiveness and really improves overall performance, though it has some bugs of its own too, like with losing local network connections more often than I'd like.

Battery
Battery came with 7.3% wear out of the box, which was less than pleasing. I've been averaging 8-10 hours at 20-50% brightness, which compares to the Macbook but isn't quite what I was expecting. It's OK, but certainly nowhere near the numbers suggested by Dell. I can live with it, though. It's definitely worth installing the Dell Command Power Manager tool to configure charging params and the like without having to jump into the BIOS, not sure why they didn't include it by default to be honest.

So far I've found most of Dell's preinstalled software useful and well put together, and actually better designed than Microsoft's in most cases, and certainly more functional than Intel's hopelessly buggy and shabby tools. The Support Assist diagnostics & stress testing are useful, as is the Dell Update tool. Generally I've been impressed by Dell's business-like approach here and it makes me more confident that this is a quality product that's received some proper love from the company. You can't say the same for all OEMs, so this has won me over to Dell for now.

 

Wow you don't seem very happy of it, like you prefer the Macbook actually. Am I right?

 

It's very dim.
On a scale of 100, my assessment (not scientifically measured) of the brightness of my 3 computers would be:
3 year old Samsung 9 series FHD - 100
1 year old xps 13 (haswell) FHD - 80
new skylake xps 13 FHD - 50

On the new xps 13, full brightness is roughly equivalent to dimmed brightness on the one year old xps 13.

This doesn't really show up in side-by-side photographs that I have given Dell, so it is hard to reach a conclusion as to whether there is something wrong with my xps13 or whether they are all like this.

 

Heh, perhaps it came across a bit harsh on the XPS. Generally I think the 12-inch Macbook is better built and just more pleasant for casual use, but the XPS is a better work machine, plain and simple. With more ports & Thundebolt and more CPU & graphics power than the Core M it's just a more realistic proposition for me, and definitely more portable & lappable than a Macbook Pro.

Otherwise my main gripes are with Windows 10, which is still quite an incoherent mess and really undermines the otherwise fine quality of this machine. But that's for another time ...

 

Well, about W10, it can only get better now... So you would say the best choice is rMBP? Like the more balanced

 

Is it possible to install a 3rd party PCIe NVMe SSD on the 128GB version of the XPS 13? The documentation seems to indicate so, but looking for someone who actually did it. Its actually slightly cheaper for me to buy the 128GB from the Microsoft Store + a 256GB NVMe SSD than the 256GB XPS 13 from Dell since I'm looking for the FHD screen... :|

 

+1 for the question. Actually I'm looking forward to upgrading to 521GB or 1TB.

Also, the RAM is NOT upgradable, right?

Thanks for any input.

 

According to Dell rep the RAM is upgradable...at least on XPS 15 model.

 

I'm in Brazil, and the rep said the XPS 13 was RAM upgradable, but I'm not trusting it until someone actually does it...

 

The RAM is not upgradeable on the XPS 13; it is soldered.

Also ghtop, very likely the screen brightness insufficiency is a product of the CBAC firmware-level backlight control. As referenced in our review at Notebookcheck, there will be a tool made available (reportedly "upon request") that will disable this feature. Since the panel is the same model as that of the previous XPS 13-9343, it stands to reason that brightness ought to be comparable (and thus quite good). We shall see upon the retests by our lab.

 

Yep, apparently it is. Here's an excerpt from notebookcheck.com: '' The RAM is soldered to the board and cannot be upgraded post-purchase, so be sure to choose a configuration that meets your needs up front.''

 

If anyone else can't live without middle clicks (you have to close all those damn tabs after all.. ), I found this a reasonable workaround: double two finger click translates into a middle click with this Autohotkey script:

http://james-ramsden.com/a-trackpad-middle-click-hack-for-bootcampwindows-using-autohotkey/

 

This is an update to my display issue, which is now fixed, I did a factory reset, (third time), via windows and installed the latest Intel Video driver, (64 bit version from the Intel site).
I installed the driver before any windows updates occurred. I assumed this was the fix. However last night I enabled the Hyper V functionality and the display went all wonky again.
Removed the feature and it went away. So I can only guess that this and probably other features like this, (Windows 10 RSAT tools, which I had installed in a previous set-up), cause the display issues. The laptop works fine at the minute, no issues.
I also installed the free VMWare Player and there are no issues as yet from that.

My battery life is getting better with every discharge and re-charge, would hazard a guess at 8 hrs, (QHD), for me the touch pad is great.
Don't care about the fan its not an issue.

 

Are you 100% sure that this will apply to FHD screens too ?
I've read this kind of info but it was stated it would apply only to QHD screens...

For some people, it's crucial to know if it'll be possible to disable CBAC on the Sylake XPS 13 with FHD screen. And why is the tool still not available ?

Thank you very much for your help.

 

Yes it is the case with the FHD screens; that was the model I reviewed at Notebookcheck. And as for why the tool is not yet available, I cannot speak on Dell's behalf. All I know is that a tool has been promised; we were told personally that this is the case and we may even receive it for testing soon so that we can post revised lab measurements of the panel.

 

@othersteve,

Are you by any chance reviewing the G752 as well for notebookcheck?

 

I don't believe so.

 

You wouldn't by any chance know when can we expect a full review of XPS 15?

 

so for those of us still on the xps 13 fence:

|ram: soldered
|ssd: still questions surrounding compatibility of a 3rd party ssd on the 128gb qhd setup. some have brought up concerns about temperature and the nvme ssd affect on battery life as well.
|battery: according to once user, 8 hours on the qhd
|qhd: varying reports on auto-brightness. though, personally, none of the monitor talk bothers me too much.
|trackpad: between insider update, pinch to zoom -- experience seems to be improving for people.
|fan: pretty damn good performer by all accounts

i guess all i 'm waiting for is the sales season:
does dell typically offer somewhat significant discounts during this time of the year?
does amazon (figuring i go for a 1tb or 512gb nvme ssd)?

 

There was a leaked Black Friday ad for Dell Small Business where they have the 256GB FDH i5 XPS 13 9350 for $999 (so $250 off I think). Is this open to the general public or does it needs some kind of verification as a business? Link

 

Thank you for this confirmation, this is really great news for many people.
So Dell has changed something between XPS 13 FHD early 2015 and late 2015, as they indicate that it's impossible to disable CBAC on early 2015 ones "in the field". Do you confirm that (or can get a confirmation of that as you're in touch with them) ?