Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook Review & Owner's Thread

Hey everyone....

I made a video that shows how well scrolling works for me (no issues to report here) with my settings - it might help some that are having problems.

XPS-trackpad.wmv - YouTube

I noticed that trackpad scrolling requires the mouse to be on the application that scrolls, whereas the arrow keys do not require this. Arrow keys require only the window to have focus and trackpad actually follows the mouse.

 

Interesting. I tried this, and I found that when scrolling with one finger on the right hand side of the track pad (in the zone that the cypress drivers illustrates) the entire trackpad froze for a brief period of time, and generally acted strange with all the queued up tracking suddenly causing the cursor to jump all over the screen. It seemed like when it came to execute the scroll, the 'jumpy cursor' others have described here happened (I've not had that behavior happen before.

Still nothing with the two fingered scroll, however, it does recognize it as a gesture, the problem seems to be with any scrolling on the track pad. It does seem to accurately recognize the two finger gesture (e.g it doesn't interpret it as a mouse movement, as it does when the gesture is turned off), and then crap out when it comes time to scroll.

Perhaps the issue is not with the gesture recognition in the driver as initially speculated, but with the actual windows scrolling ability.

 

Okay, so I love my XPS 13 and I have no intentions of getting rid of it but the audio on this machine is lame! All sound emanates from the left rear side of the machine. There is no stereo effect at all. Is there something wrong with my machine? I hooked up an external DVD-RAM to listen to a CD and the overall sound is OKAY, but actually kind of LAME ...

 

Do you have the latest audio drivers? It has a Dell app "Dell Audio" that allows you to do an test that will play sound out of each speaker with a graphic....

I hear sounds from left and right.

 

Old and new drivers produce the same results, sound primarily from the left side of the machine, specifically left underside ...

Using the test app you mention alphadog00, left sound is loud and clear and right sound is from the left side only but less loud.

Sadly I am not at all impressed with he sound from this laptop.

 

I didn't think folio would attract me. but in person, it looks nice and it is certainly solid.

not really like the look of asus.

i am torn between xps 13 and MBA.

not gonna make a purchase before the release of ivy bridge. so hopefully, the next iteration of xps and MBA would provide something that will help me make my decision.

I use windows for work as well. but at work, i have a desktop and at home, i have a pc as well.

 

Yes i have the same,mine is a model from the uk which i received last friday.

Do we need to be worried? and what is it?

 

These are the 2 notebooks that I am deciding between they are comparable in price but I am leaning towards the XPS 13 as long as the fan issue has been resolved. Now to decide whether to wait for the ivy bridge or not, the battery life makes a huge difference for me.

 

why not wait if you can?

i bought my x201 right before the release of x220. i am regreting until this day.

ivy bridge will not greatly improve the battery life, as fas as i know. but, it has good graphic.

plus, let's see what apple can do

 

Ivy bridge will be considerably more expensive and if you don't really need the boost in performance than what is already offered now, than I'd say you should not wait.

 

Something's up with that. The sound is pretty impressive for an Ultrabook. You might want to let @DellCares know about it. And roll back to the original audio drivers as well. I heard the sound output is reduced in the latest driver, though I've yet to confirm that personally.

One thing we've discovered in working with our review units coming back in- you need to uninstall the old touch pad driver and reboot before loading the new one.

 

Has anyone purchased extended warranty for XPS 13? At the time of purchase, the sales rep told me only premium warranty was available (hardware + accidental + phone tech). I only want basic hardware, anyway to get that from Dell?

 

If a warranty downgrade and partial refund can be done, @DellCares can do it.

 

Does anyone know if/when the XPS 13 will be on Amazon? I want to take advantage off the no interest financing.

 

Tweeted. I have no need of premium tech support and I handle the notebook too lovingly to cause any accidental damage. Thanks for the tip, lets see what DellCares says!

 

I would also like to know when it will hit the "Big Box" stores..... (ie - Best Buy) I would like to see and test drive it before making a purchase.

 

Just got my XPS 13 about an hour ago, currently experiencing a problem with one of my keys. My "/" key is sticking and I hear a click when I push on the key.

I'm going to be contacting Dell, but I was wondering if anyone has had this issue; if so, what has been the outcome for you when connecting with Dell?

 

Though nothing which most power users won't know, Dell has a blog post about maximizing battery life on XPS 13: Maximizing Battery Life on the XPS 13 Ultrabook and Beyond - Direct2Dell - Direct2Dell - Dell Community

 

Thanks Bill,

Interestingly, it was so bad I thought the machine literally had only one speaker. I played in the settings for the sound card, and looked at the service manual which clearly shows there are both left and right speakers.

For some odd reason after flipping the machine over and blowing off some minor dust from the bottom right side both speakers seem to be working now.

I'll have to keep an eye (or an ea, rather) on it to make sure all is good.

 

How loud should this whine be to make it a concern? Mine has a whine that I can hear only if I put it a few inches from my ear. Somewhere earlier Bill said there wasn't a safety issue - is it just that the whine is annoying?

 

555 Best Buy stores will have units in stock on 4/8. Amazon is a work in progress.

Suggest you hit the links in my sig for the fastest service. Sounds like you need a new keyboard, and we should be able to have a tech out with the new part pretty quick with minimal hassle. Let me know how it goes.

That's one of the execs in my org. The embedded white paper is pretty cool, but like you said, it might not be anything you guys don't already know.

If it's annoying enough to you, that should be all we need to know. Just got an update on the situation with the part that seems to be out of spec. We were subbing that part for all tech support ac adapter orders, no matter what part was ordered (2 to choose from). We had to loop in a bunch of folks from procurement and engineering to get the ship turned around. Latest word is in North America we're good on Vendor A stock long enough that we should be able to get more in before we have to dip into the Vendor B (one with the issue) stock again. The sub order has been reworked in the tool. So if tech support orders you a Vendor A part, you should get a Vendor A part. All we're waiting on now- and it shouldn't be a customer concern at this point- is for all the other regions to be looped in and a decision on how to handle the particulars of the purge.

 

No idea! If noone elses is doing it then we need to be worried Noone else seems to be complaining so far...??

My right-shift key is doing the same.


For those struggling with two finger scroll try starting with two and continuing with one. Once the scroll is initiated you're in scroll mode until you let go of the touch pad, you can just hang with a finger on it while reading. It's not perfect at detecting the scroll, but once it's going it is pretty good if you just use one finger.

 

Some questions on the windows mobility center and general battery usage.

What does the 'Radio Control Option" and "Desktop mode battery charge" do?

Does watching movies on a laptop use more or less power that general usage? and is there a difference between HD or DVD quality in battery drain?

I do a lot of long flights across the planet on planes with no power available. I like to watch at least 2 movies and an episode or 2 of a TV series. As of now, I have everything in Blue Ray HD quality, but I can change and compress if that will save power. I doubt the quality will look much different on these smaller screens. Is it worth going to the trouble?

 

All, just got back from vacation and it was the first real chance to use the system for long periods of time. I was using a Corsair 3.0 USB flash to play divx rips through VLCplayer. The problem I noticed was that many times the system wouldn't recognize the flash drive being plugged in. In other words sometimes plugging in the drive Windows would pick it up but mostly the LED would just blink rapidly but no recognition in Windows. Now a standard USB 2.0 device would work everytime with no exceptions. Anyone else notice this? I do have the new drivers that were released last week installed.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

I just received my Core i5 256GB last night. I read through this forum ahead of time and wasn't sure I'd be happy with the XPS given the comments about display quality, trackpad issues, sound, etc. I'm coming from a 6 year old Panasonic business ruggedized that I squeezed Win7 onto. This XPS rocks! And of course everything about it is better than my Panasonic so I have no complaints. My only issue is the hard drive size, but once my 750GB Go Flex Turbo arrives, I'll be all set. Thanks for all the great feedback on here!

 

I had preformed this on the stock install (you have to reboot, and then a post-install script runs, and you end up having to reboot again) as well as installing on a fresh install where the previous drivers had not installed, both with the same result.

 

I use a Seagate GoFlex USB 3.0 drive extensively with this laptop, never had an issue with Windows recognizing the drive.


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I am here: http://tapatalk.com/map.php?42m5ls

 

I know I have no room to talk because I don't have a ultrabook 13, but if you're having problems with USB 3.0, it might be similar to us L702x owners (Dell 17 laptops). I can't get mine's to stabilize half the time, and when it does it cuts off on me in the middle of a heavy USB 3.0 load on an external HDD. All in all, go through Dell chat with a service rep, and he'll do a remote desktop thing with you, try to fix you laptop for you and if all else fails, you will get a technician to come out and help replace the faulty part for you.

Hope this helps!

 

Delivery Lead Times...What type of lead times are you all experiencing on delivery of your XPS13? I work for a state agency in SC and on 3/19 an order was submitted to Dell for a base model and on the order status at Dell it is showing a delivery date of 5/7 and that the unit is "in production". Is this normal? Dell-Bill, what say yea please. Thanks ...jaybird4

 

Funny... I have an L702X as well, no problems to speak of - I will keep my fingers crossed.

 

I ordered mine March 26 and it was delivered March 29

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

 

I heard on the news Best Buy was closing 500 stores. I am not sure when but I am glad I'll be able to see this machine before that happens.

 

I would also like all of the extras unbundled. I don't need the Adobe software and the premium warranty features.

 

Thanks Madchild for the response. I thought that was the answer based on other posts I have seen here. Dell-Bill B, could you please help me with this? I can provide PO numbers and order numbers if that helps. Thanks in advance....jaybird4

 

Do you really think it will be a huge jump in price? For me to get the i7 with the 256gb SSD drive with 3 years warranty is almost $2000.00, I am in Canada so the prices are higher then the US.

 

1. Can this thing do 8 gb of memory?
2. I hope for a delicate graphic soon.
3. Mini HDMI is same as HDMI right?

 

1. No, 4GB of ram is the max and RAM is soldered onto the motherboard due to space

2. I doubt ultrabooks will see dedicated graphics, too small for another chipset. These are not meant to be gaming laptops

3. The XPS 13 has mini displayport, not mini hdmi. You can get a mini displayport to HDMI adapter. I ordered one from Monoprice for $6 and it works great.

 

Thanks for the reply.

RAM is sholdered in? There is no future then. I might still be able to run one VMware instance.

I guess this laptop will be able to fit my desire. I went from 15z to 14z. I might get this down the road when it hit the outlet.

 

fyi, xps 13 was released in Brazil today. And just asked via Dell Brazilian support for a replacement power supply. They said I will get a call from a technician in two days for the swap.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

 

I heard we ran short on some parts (demand exceeding forecast), but all orders are being fulfilled at this time. This is not hard data from a report, but a conversation with second hand information, so it could be inaccurate. I imagine we'll move to add air freight in addition to the normal ocean freight to cover any gaps. We've done it before. Based on your dates, something's up. If you want to PM (don't post it on the thread due to privacy issues, please) me your order number, I'll ask for an accurate status.

 

Thanks. I got in touch with DellCares through Twitter. I think the problem is with just the key itself rather than the keyboard, but they are going to send someone to replace the whole keyboard.

Dell XPS 13 Keyboard Issue

 

@Dell-Bill_B

I have an iGo 85W charger that i used with my Latitude in the past. When iGo releases a tip, will it charge faster?

In general, can you find out if a higher Watt power supply will charge faster or do the internal electronics and battery limit it to what we have.

 

@alphadog00
In general, yes more wattage means faster charge. However, there may be something in the BIOS that will limit the power draw the system can get from a non-Dell adapter, or a Dell adapter for that matter. However, since this is a "special" adapter, you can't re-purpose another Dell adapter without a tip. We use an ID chip in the adapter so the BIOS can validate it's a Dell adapter.

Given that this is a "special" adapter, it's entirely possible we didn't implement a wattage limit, since there are no Dell alternatives. But my sense is they "saw you coming" and put the limit in anyway. It's a safety thing. We get hit a lot from people not happy that we have walled you into our adapters this way, but the fact is there are some questionable third party suppliers who may not meet our safety specs out there, and we have to do our due diligence to make sure we are putting out a product that's as safe as possible.

 

What is a good cleaner for the keyboard area on this system? I don't want to use something that could ruin the look.

Thanks

 

I've been using the Windex Electronic Wipes (not the spray) and it works great. Gets the fingerprints off and doesn't take the finish off.

 

Thanks

@Dell-Bill_B

I noticed today that there was an updated date under the BIOS files on the site for the XPS 13/ The date now says updated 4/4/12, however it is still A03 bios. Is that a misprint or was there something updated.

Just seemed strange.

 

That's odd. It's supposed to be the update to fix the charge light. I bet it was an attempt to post A04 that went awry. I'll follow up.

Also odd, for some reason I don't see the link to previous versions. Or am I just looking right at it? I was going to compare the file names.

 

You can get the link to the old bios by selecting current bios update and clicking on previous version from the menu.

 

Anyone notice how much battery drain occurs in standby mode? I think I lost about 40% in 24 hours. Seems kind of high...

 

Yes, something got messed up. It is A03 and link to previous version is A02.