Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook Review & Owner's Thread

1440x900 and 1600x900 would have the same "size", only the aspect ratio would be different. And you can always increase the size of icons and font, they'll just be of higher resolution. (think iPhone 4 instead of 3GS, the icons did not become smaller...) With 16:9, you'll have more horizontal space though, vertical resolution being equal.

 

I was really worried when I was researching the xps 13 right before it came out and read all over the place that the battery was subpar compared to other ultrabooks - battery life is very important to me. If you look at the charts on the hothardware link that alphadog00 posted, it says this:

"As you can see, the XPS 13 really sips power under light workloads in the web browsing test, besting the 12-inch Zenbook by a wide margin. However, it also loses by a fairly significant margin under worst case conditions with Battery Eater Pro." -http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Dell-XPS-13-Ultrabook-Review/?page=7

Having used my xps13 for a few weeks now, it's definitely true. As long as you're just doing light stuff like web browsing, streaming, word processing, etc., it just sips power and makes it last. And honestly, if you're going to game with this laptop or video edit or something power intensive, I'd just plug it in.

 

So interesting somewhat related question. Has anyone tried to game on this notebook? What plays well/doesn't?

 

Suggestion i have not seen mentioned - get rid of the 2 level back light for keyboard and just go with the lower level. It is plenty bright in pitch black, and if there is light, then no need for a bright keboard - it is not like the screen where you need high backlight in sunshine.

Maybe some people have other vision issues, but i would be happy to just tell the keyboard backlight to either be off, or at half strength.

Just a thought.

 

I've only installed starcraft 2 on mine and played it a bit. It works just fine on low/medium settings - which is pretty much the default settings it starts up with. Of course, the fan gets going and it gets a bit warm, but nothing too crazy.

 

We have a video here of the XPS 13 playing some fairly challenging 3D games. Not in the video is Skyrim, which actually does decent fps with effects set to low.

MobileTechReview Forum and News: Video: 3D Gaming on Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook, Crysis 2 Here we Come

 

Any chance of this thing being used outside in sunlight? Or is the screen just too reflective for that?

 

I have been away for this week on vacation, so I was able to test this scenario out quite a bit. Used it in the car on the way to Florida and back to Austin. Had a few times where the glare did get me. I used it outside in sunny weather and again there were times that I could not see a thing. A less shiny option would be nice, but I have to say the one thing this machine has over most of the competitors is a really bright screen. When I was outside I turned the brightness all the way up and I was able to work on it.

 

O hope it plays diablo 3 on low/medium.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

 

Gaming is going to be much better with Ivy Bridge!

 

Yes it will! The improvement to integrated graphics are really the exciting thing about Ivy Bridge, much more so than the CPU improvements.

 

Wow, it does get hot when the CPU runs wild. I was running Plex (a media center). I chucked about 40gb of media at it at one go to scan and "publish to server" (in other words, unlike adding media to iTunes, adding to Plex involves wifi) and the machine discernibly slowed down and the fan kicked in hard. I placed the XPS 13 on my bare knees; it wasn't like a kettle, but I decided to move it back to my desk after maybe 20 minutes. Might be better if I were wearing longer pants that covered my knees. Good thing I seldom use laptops on my knees

 

Office Depot sells a great "LapDesk" from Logitech. It has a cushion on the bottom, nice flat surface on the top so your laptop can breath through the vents, and is even big enough to place a small wireless mouse next to the Dell XPS-13.

 

Yuck. If this laptop needs something like this to comfortably be used on the lap, I'm out. I think I'm starting to lean back towards the Series 9.

 

It does get a bit hot, but not uncomfortably hot to me wearing jeans, just warmish/hot. It's been better since A03 update IMO. Series 9 does look good though... I think I saw it at Best Buy and ehhh I didn't care for the look of it as much.

 

Going back the partition questions...

After playing with the XPS13 as it came, I can see that I have got to get back the "other" disk space. I'm coming down from a 320GB HDD to the 256 SSD, so I need all the space I can get.

If I reformat the entire drive into one big partition, what I think will happen:

- I'll loose the Intel rapid resume. Given how fast this thing starts, I'll take the 8GB back.
- I'll loose the recovery partition. If I get a USB key with the recovery stuff on it, I can have that 18GB back too, can't I?

Assuming those are the only downsides, why shouldn't I reclaim that space?

Will a generic Win7 media install get me up and running enough to get access to the Dell drivers?

Thanks, all!

 

You will also lose the Dell 32 bit Diagnostics partition, but that's no big deal. I think you can run them from a bootable USB key and definitely can from a Resource DVD and an external USB optical drive.

I have some Intel and Dell documentation on IRST. I'll go through it and post back anything I see of value. I'm pretty sure you guys are all ahead of any information contained therein, however.

 

What's the latest news on the trackpad driver. Mine .is really uncomfortable. It starts fine, and then seems to jump 5 or 6 lines. Certainly not buttery smoothe like my 3 year old dell 14z. I spent an hour talking to CS and they knew nothing of a new driver coming out. They kept trying to tell that all laptops are different, but did offer to change out the trackpad. I'm also having a bit of trouble with the palm rest moving the curser. Other than those items, it's perfect.

 

What's wrong with 16:9 HD+ 1600x900. As far as I'm concerned, HD+ is an upgrade to 1440x900. Probably the only upgrade as far as 16:10 → 16:9 resolutions go.

 

I concur. The trackpad is the one remaining source of unhappiness for me.

With the new bios I'm happy with the fan results.

 

I deleted all the partitions on the harddrive and did a usb install of Windows 7 and Windows 8 [btw only took 30 minutes total =) ]. You can get all the drivers and software from Dell.com. However, Windows 8 recognized the wifi card, but Windows 7 didn't (Windows 7 was a plain installation from Microsoft, not made from Dell or the laptop). So I'd make sure you have or can access the wifi driver before you start.

 

I've heard from Dell that it will be out any day now!

 

A day or two.

 

My advice to you would be to download Acronis True Image Home trial and create a backup of your entire drive. Then you can do as you wish and delete as many partitions as you want. If the wheels fall off then you can just restore the entire drive with all the partitions intact.

 

Just bear in mind, if you backup an SSD image to a standard drive and then restore back to SSD, there will be a performance hit as the data blocks will be optimised for HDDs. Clone to another SSD if possible.

 

Observation - AO3 or just me?

When XPS is off and charging, there is no charging idicator. I thought the light blinked before on AO2 -or is something weird with my box?

 

The XPS comes with a driver CD - or you can download the drivers from Dell support site to a USB stick.

I can't remember if Network drivers were installed by win7 - but it is an Intel wireless, so they should be.

I Formatted my box and did a clean install after deleting all partitions. I added back the 8gb partition for quick start after the fact.

 

I was considering the Series 9 as well, but I read way too many user comments about the unreliable (and pitifully slow) WiFi.

 

That was the old, original Series 9. You might wanna read the user comments and reviews on the new "2nd generation" Series 9. It's a love-fest.

 

I also notice that battery shows 92% when i turn it on after a charge - but if i plug it back in, it goes to 100% immediately.

Not sure if either is a side effect of A03 or something else.

 

Scrolling on my track pad has stopped working all together even though it is enabled in the settings. I thought I could live a day or two with this while waiting for the drivers but it has been 5 days. Any advice? Thanks.

 

The new driver (2.3.6.33) is up this morning.

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

 

I just downloaded the latest driver. Completely uninstalled the old one, restarted, installed the new one, restarted. The trackpad went from being somewhat useless to being completely useless. None of the multi-finger gestures work and even worse, if I try to use the scrolling regions, random key sequences are now sent to the open application (literally, asjwqirnIFA{enter key}, etc). It does, however, track smoother and tap-to-click better...

I had the 15z drivers installed previously. Is there something I'm doing wrong or something I should be trying? This is by far worse than the out of box drivers.

 

I believe the gestures are disabled by default in the new driver. Did you verify they are actually on?

 

Yes, verified they are on in the cypress trackpad settings (both the enable and two finger scrolling have checks).

I forgot to mention that I'm on Windows 8 CTP; however, both the 15z and original 13z drivers worked with Win8 (including two finger scrolling and other gestures with the 15z drivers). I assume the new driver should work with Win8. Regardless, it doesn't explain why using the trackpad is sending random keystrokes (a single swipe across the scroll region will generate 20 random keystrokes).

 

Interesting. I used the 15z drivers as well, but I am running Win 7. I'll update shortly and let you know if I have the same issue.

 

So I performed the same procedure (uninstall, reboot, install, reboot) and do not have any of the same experience with Windows 7. Scrolling is beyond smooth, as you mentioned, but all of the gestures work (FYI mine were still enabled by default) and I cannot reproduce the random characters

 

I finally read up on the new Series 9 as you had suggested. Very nice hardware. Compares nicely with ours. There are some trade offs (different features) with each platform. We get them on build quality (see loose, creaky hinges comments for the Sammy) and a few other spots, but it sounds like they got a nice screen in theirs. I like them both, actually, but I'd still go with the Dell for support, build quality and slight performance edge issues. Just a rare opinion on competitor products from me, FWIW.

Correct, and we did not validate the driver on Win8, so that may be the reason for some issues seen there.

 

For those that are wanting a dock and wondered about the Toshiba Amazon.com: Toshiba PA3927U-1PRP Dynadock U3.0 Universal USB Connect Docking Station: Computers & Accessories

This dock is awesome! It works flawlessly so far. I've tested pretty much everything on it except the speeds of USB 3.0 as we dont have any USB 3.0 devices at the office, but everyting else works great. I am running it with an external monitor at 1920 x 1080p resolution, while downloading files, while burning CDs, while listen to audio through the audio jack on it, while transfering some USB files, with a keyboard and mouse plugged in and everything is running as normal... just as you'd expect .

Anyhow, just thought I'd mention it.

 

One more thing I forgot to update about. There is a new audio driver (A01) coming soon. You will need that to address an issue we've seen on our forums and CNET's forums. When the screen is locked (screen saver, Windows key + L, locked work station, closed lid), sound stops coming through the headphones. Speakers still work fine, but full reboot required to get sound back on the headphones. The OP on CNET says tech support installed A00 over itself to correct the issue, but I have not replicated that fix. I do know Quality Engineering says A01 is the fix.

Feedback on the touch pad drivers? I'm all ears.

 

The front led blinks if it's charging. Stops blinking once it hits 100%

 

New touchpad drivers are amazing. Scrolling is smooth, and gestures work great. Can you get engineering to make the drivers for my XPS 15 this smooth?

 

Happy to try. Sent your quote over to the team.

 

More on battery tests here.

 

The new trackpad drivers make scrolling work like it should. But I can't get 2-finger click to work. I tried the registry setting that worked on the older driver, buy no go with the new ones. Anyone get 2 finger click working?

 

Tested the new trackpad drivers, love them!

I also noticed that if you unplug the adaptor after a full charge, the battery indicator shows up as 92%. This happens roughly half of the times.

Bill, is this a issue that you guys have been able to replicate?

 

I haven't had time to update the drivers. Is there a setting you have to enable on the new version that is disabled by default now?

I had not noticed this yet but saw the comment earlier. Will ask around.

 

Nope, it doesn't. How do you right click on this thing, other than pressing the the physical key beneath the bottom right part of the trackpad?

 

I didn't see it either. Only way I see to right click is to right click.