Poll: Buy or Don't Buy? Dell XPS 13 (2015)

I am close to buying the Dell XPS 13 (2015) Signature Edition i5 with a 256GB SSD from the Microsoft store. For those that own the laptop, would you recommend buying it?

 

I've played with my friends i5 FHD xps13 2015 for the last few days. Was incredible. Sure the trackpad isn't perfect, windows 8.1 scaling needs improvement in some programs, and adaptive brightness can be annoying for designers, but that didn't stop me at all from buying one for myself (although I opted for the QHD model since I like high res displays). The last time I remember enjoying a laptop this much was when I got a Vaio Z from Sony.

 

Right now I wouldn't recommend it. The touchpad is pretty horrible IMO and there's no three finger tap option. The adaptive brightness sucks, I just get to browse web pages in different shades of grey. My fans are loud even when it's not doing much - one chrome tab is enough to set them off for me half the time. If I'm lucky, I'll get two chrome tabs open before they kick in. It's pretty embarrassing when you spend $1500 on a laptop and it has so many issues.

 

I got it last friday - QHD, i7, 256GB and I love it. The fan kicked in quite often in the beginning but after finishing updates and uninstalling MCAfee I rarely hear it. The settings or software for touchpad could be better but it works for me. So far I have never noticed the adaptive brightness. I am not sure when it happens and what to look for I guess.

I came from SONY VAIO Z12 which was quite a lovable computer but my new XPS is far better! Would definitely recommend.

 

Buy only if you're realistic about battery life expectation. 10-12hr is the absolute max on the 1080p version, and that's doing light duty stuff including video streaming. Mine is silent 98% of the time. The only time I heard the fan come on was the initial round of giant Windows updates, and when running Minecraft. Even then it's not that loud. All other times the fan never comes on. I don't use Chrome, perhaps that's why

I'm very surprised opinion on the touchpad is such a big split. I personally think it's the best on a Windows laptop. I actually sampled a few "precision touchpad" equipped Windows 8 laptop lately. All work similarly well, even the one on my new Surface Pro 3's type cover. No, there is no gesture support on the desktop other than scrolling and zooming. No back/forward support other than full screen Internet Explorer.

 

I don't think there's an easy answer to this as there's a huge variety of opinions on the machine, some love it, some don't. I've decided to send mine back for a few reasons, I think if I had the i5/128GB/FHD screen I may have kept it but in the UK there's only more expensive options and there's no FHD option. I'm finding the QHD+ screen a real annoyance because of the scaling in the desktop mode which just makes it look ugly, the screen looks superb in the touch mode but there's not much I'm planning on using that for. My previous 11in PC had a 1080p screen and I was happy with it as I could run it with minimal scaling.

The fan noise one is difficult to quantify, it's not on that much for me but it's very noticeable when it is and rather than spin at a quiet speed for a while until it's done it tends to noticeably rev up and down. I'm sitting a couple of metres away from a microserver which has quite a noticeable fan noise when you stop and listen but as it's a constant noise you quickly filter it out and ignore it.

As for the touchpad, I'm old fashioned and dislike multitouch touchpads and prefer the more consistent performance of the older types so I can't really say much about the XPS 13 touchpad aside from it seems to work ok for this type of device.

I've just organised the return for my XPS 13 although it's been difficult, the keyboard is great and aside from the resolution the screen is incredible for the size of laptop. If it was a cheaper spec I may be inclined to keep it particularly if I had the 1080p screen but for the price I paid I think it's too much of a risk for now.