XPS 12 Owners Lounge

The latest WiDi drivers got rid of the yellow exclamation mark on the device manager.

I updated the WiFi drivers to the latest ( 10/26/2012 15.​5.​6 from the 9/12/12 15.5.4.45 driver)...and I could not connect to my network whatsoever and it kept saying failed. I rolled the driver back, and after two reboots its now working again.

Anybody else have a better driver to try? I am still having connection issues randomly.

Everything is functioning perfectly....Just the wireless that is a problem.

 

Oh.. the one thing I did do ASAP upon receiving my XPS12 was to update drivers.. I had like 8 to update from Dell day 1 and maybe thats why I have no issues? hard to say.. hope its just a fluke for you guys with issues.

 

I have ordered the i7, 256, 8 version. Today (08-JAN)

EDD is 15-FEB.

UK

 

Well I was about to place my order for the Timbuk2 sleeve but I found out my uncle went ahead and got me a gift of the Dell XPS 12 leather sleeve.. I guess I will have a review of that on Wednesday when its due, I may still get the Timbuk2 tho.

 

just curious, have there been previously any good discount on XPS12. I've been monitoring it the past month and don't see any coupon or discount. EPP BUY really don't give much either.

 

Don't think so. I've been waiting for a coupon or discount, but since it's a new laptop, I couldn't find any. Don't think there's going to be any in the short term future either, so I pulled the trigger and just decided to buy it.

 

I got it during black friday for £300 off the £1200 version, don't think you'll find anything now that comes close.


KingChris, yup going to be a while, I'm getting my replacement on the 13th of February, over 80 days since I ordered. *Sigh* there's probably going to be a update as soon as I get mine, They'll probably update it with the 7Watt Ivy Bridge to add a third more battery life.

 

The fact that the delivery times have been long for a while, might mean they suddenly improve before long? (hoping).

 

Would much rather trade a few extra days of shipping for a notebook without any problems though.

 

Hm, should I be worried? I bought the XPS 12 as a replacement for the Sony Vaio Duo I sold as I didn't like the form factor much and I got a Thinkpad Tablet 2 for the Wacom and inking capabilities. However, I'm worried about all these defective units running around. Mine comes at the end of this week. I haven't had a Dell laptop in a while (like Sony more) but my desktop is a Dell. I'm hoping everything turns out OK. I just need something that does basic tasks and is a laptop haha to replace my 4 year old Vaio Z. What kind of battery life are you guys getting? I had the extended battery on my Vaio Duo and was getting close to 7-8, but I couldn't get over the form factor to keep it haha.

 

I wouldnt be worried.. you probably see every problem posted here and you dont see all the good thoughts and feelings from owners as most dont have issues to complain or check up on.

 

Used to live by those sentiments, but I've been noticing a worrying trend that I almost always experience problems that are commonly noted on the internet. I used to think those people getting those problems must be the vast minority, but experience is telling me otherwise. I feel like coil whine is exceedingly common on the xps 12 and yoga 13 (Checked 3 xps 12s and 4 yoga 13s, all had coil whine); whereas a lot of AMD computers and of course clovertrail and ARM computers I looked at have nothing of the sort *sigh*.

 

I hope so! I will say the Vaio Duo was built like a tank and had impeccable attention to detail. No coil whine or anything--just terrible battery life haha. I'm hoping Dell will be at least close to the same quality. People were saying the XPS screen is even better than the Vaio's which is amazing considering the Vaio's screen was REALLY nice. We shall see!

 

Remember, this forum only represents a proportion of the people who own a Dell XPS12. Also, the people posting here are mostly only people who have problems with their units, not people who don't (take this with a grain of salt).

As for me, I just like to worry a lot. It helps me lower my expectations a bit so I can get blown away when my laptop arrives!

 

Any reason you're moving from the sony to the dell xps 12?

 

The Sony, while nice, was a little too small for my needs. I am replacing my Vaio Z (a phenomenal laptop in its own right) and as such, I needed something that could be used on a daily basis. The small keyboard (my fingers are small too) and the trackpoint weren't very comfortable for long writing sessions. In addition, I didn't really like the slider form factor. I can understand its merits: less unstable when using touch, easy to become tablet and laptop, lightweight--but in the end, it just wasn't for me. And the digitizer wasn't the greatest. I got the Thinkpad Tablet 2 for the digitizer support and it is miles ahead of the Vaio Duo for writing and stuff. Because I now had a good digitizer, I didn't need a laptop with one and I saw the Dell at the Microsoft Store and really liked it. Comfortable keyboard, really nice screen, not too big, etc. My only worry is the potential for shoddy Dell QC and construction, the trackpad, and the battery life. I had the Core i7 Vaio which netted me about 7-8 hours with the extended battery, which was great. Now I am getting the Core i5 Dell (don't really need the extra power) which I'm hoping can get me 5-6 hours.

 

I agree, most people are only motivated by dissatisfaction of some kind. I have had the XPS12 (top spec model) now since Xmas eve and I have to say, it is by far the best laptop I have ever had (and it is a long list). I bought the machine for BYOD at work and for my university studies which require a bit (but not too much) grunt.

I work in IT and use a variety of different applications day to day. So far the machine has dealt with everything I have thrown at it, without breaking sweat! I have even installed Steam and played a few games (Football Manger 2013 and Carrier Command) and was surprised at how well it coped. Carrier Command set on medium settings was excellent.

So far I have only had a couple of issues, neither which are hardware related:

1. Our standard VPN client reduced the machine to a brick......crashed the system, which had to be restored from the image. This is just one of those things. VPN clients can generally be a royal pain the ****! The positive from this was that the Dell recovery was excellent. The combination of the ease of the recovery and the performance of the machine resulted in the system being up and running very quickly (the image restore took literally minutes to complete).

2. The gestures for Windows 8 for the trackpad are truly awful...Fortunately it is possible to easily disable this. If I want to gesture I have a spanking touchscreen!

 

I also had a Viao Duo but it was faulty as the back power port wobbled and it would tap on its own if I left the nub "tap to click" option on.

It was a nice machine, but having 1/3rd of the base taken up by the hinge was such a terrible design flaw, the keys had little to no travel and were far, far far too tiny to be any use of me and the nub was only slightly annoying at it took even more room away from the centre keys.


My Dell had the Coil Whine which drove me nuts, and the main reason I returned it, the official reason was the windows key under the screen just didn't do anything except make useless clicking noises when I pressed it.


Everything else on the Dell was excellent, the keys were better than my 3 month old MacBook Air, though I was disappointed with the trackpad being the a grease magnet surface, (Give me a MacBook Pro trackpad and Dell keyboard in the XPS12 and a Digitiser and I'll be in heaven), unfortunately I won't be receiving any replacement units until halfway through February, which is when the Thinkpad Helix is released, albeit at a much higher starting point.

 

Those of you that have received yours, how long was each stage?

Order Processing - 1 day
Pre-Production - 24 days
Production - 4 days ~current stage~
Shipped - -

 

My high pitch sound changes when I'm scrolling this webpage... strange....

 

Order Processing - 1 day
Pre-Production - 24 days
Production - 3 days
Shipping - 5 days

Unit faulty out of the box. Contacted dell and unit picked up and awaiting new one due 44 days after I reported the fault.

Total time, over 80 days from placing the original order until receiving a (hopefully) flawless unit, promised £50 Dell voucher as unit was delayed when I got the phonecall on the 20th, and now they are unable to honour that promise as they have no reference of it despite everything that's happened. Feels like a sour purchase.

 

I've been tracking this forum for a couple of weeks now and have been pleased to see the many positive comments about the build quality of the XPS12. What has been less inspiring have been the reports of long delivery delays. I ordered an i7 spec machine on 11 Dec and right from the off the EDD has been 18 Jan. just recently I see 'good news' posts reporting surprise earlier than scheduled deliveries - is that only in the US or are UK deliveries accelerating too?

 

Sorry to disappoint, but TDP rating only kicks in when you are doing something really demanding. In most cases, CPU will be at few single watts.

What the lower TDP allows manufacturers do is make thinner and lighter systems.

Battery life-wise, the 4th Gen Intel Core, Haswell will bring big improvements. I'd like to see Dell take a XPS 12 and make a shrunk version. Perhaps a Dell XPS 10? One can dream, because Dell doesn't seem to like making small products.

 

Guac, on my i7/8GB/128GB version, I get 5-6 hours in moderate browsing scenarios, and little over 5 hours with video watching, when on Power Saver mode. I'd love to have a Samsung SSD rather than the Micron one as the former would probably grant me extra 30 mins of battery life. And Core i5, because i7 on Ivy Bridge seems slightly worse than i5.

Light web browsing: 6 hours
Moderate web browsing: 5.5 hours
Local video playback: 5 hours
Youtube and non-accelerated flash video(tons out there): 4-4.5, 3.5-4 with Balanced power mode
League of Legends Power Save mode with Graphics at Max Power Saving: 3 hours
Starcraft 2 Balanced: 2 hours

All using minimum brightness.

 

Sry to hear about your faulty unit. Can't imagine your disappointment. When did you place your order btw?

 

26th of November.

Using a old 2009 MacBook Pro until I get the replacement. I miss the screen.

 

The XPS has cursed me! I am on my gaming laptop and i keep touching the screen thinking it will do something!

 

Anyone here actually replaced their SSD?

The Dell XPS 12 (with EPP) is a bit more expensive than Lenovo Yoga 13 (with EPP). With that, what is known is the RAM isn't upgradable. So was thinking of getting the i7 w/8GB and 128SSD for $1300.00(ish) they have now and replace the SSD to 256 or higher later on.

OR

Go with Lenovo Yoga 13 (with EPP) i7 w/8GB RAM and 128SSD for about $1200(ish), but the advantage is they have dual SSD slot, so I can add on 256GB w/o losing the 128GB.

 

I think there is an issue with the Yoga in the SSD controller is slower?

Yoga ssd speed - Lenovo Community

 

do this all the time on my m11x!

 

I think it's that the whine is part of the CPU or power delivery system. Because coil whine varies by load on the system from what I've noticed.

 

Hey guys! I've going checking everyday for my XPS to arrive. I placed my order on the 26th dec. I went out of pre-production on the 1st and I'm still currently in the In-Production: 6th (business day) stage. I was surprised to jump out pre-production so quickly, but it seems to be stuck in post. I bought mine online from Dell.ca Canada and shipping it to Canada (domestic, BC) so does anyone have an idea how much long I will need to wait? I bought the i7 core.

Another question is if anyone knows if dell solders the CPU to the mobo? Basically I'm wondering if I could swap CPU's later on. Also, I'm definitely considering changing the mSATA 128gb to something larger later on, but I know that's definitely possible to swap.

 

Most likely they are soldered. They soldered the RAM to the board.

Trying to figure out if anyone actually swap the SSD. There is no you tube on it.

 

You gotta be kidding me, they solder the RAM too? I will 100% swap the SSD. Dell has a doc showing you how to swap SSD. But yea I couldn't find how to replace the RAM nor CPU. I could remove the system board, however. That just does no justice.

I've been using tablets all my life and I stuck with fujitsu tablets but hopefully dell can do justice. I still have my fujitsu available whenever I am in the need for a digitizer.

 

The only laptop I am aware of that allows both RAM and SSD upgradable is the Lenovo Yoga. Or should I say the only Ultrabook I am aware of.

Acer S7 - Soldered RAM & SSD
Dell XPS 12 - Soldered RAM
Asus UX31A Touch - Soldered RAM, not sure about SSD
Thinkpad X1Carbon - Soldered RAM, but very unique SSD. They use the new Sandisk X100 mSATA, not many to choose from

Not sure about Samsung, I've cross them out of my list. Maybe add Series 7 Ultra to consider once they are available

My favorite design thus far, Acer Aspire S7...if they have 8GB RAM / 256GB..sold! in my book.

 

Makes sense though. They don't want you to move things around since ultrabooks are delicate. At least the mSATA is removable in XPS 12.

 

RDP faster than local?

Found this out randomly, but when I make a remote desktop connection from my desktop PC to my XPS 12 (over 802.11n) and load "Metro" apps, they open noticeably faster than when I open them logged in locally on the laptop. Can anyone explain why this happens? It's driving me crazy that the Weather app takes 8+ seconds to open on this laptop (when not already running) - it should be faster! Over RDP, Weather opens in 2 seconds. Same for Mail. I don't understand why apps load so much faster over RDP.

The RDP connection settings are: 32 bit color, full screen on a 1920x1200 monitor.

Anyone else out there observe the same thing?

General Notes
These are my impressions after having the XPS 12 for 3 days:

Concept
I like the XPS 12 concept. It's a good ultrabook and can pass as a tablet in a pinch. The weight really prevents it from being a dedicated tablet. But performance (of non metro apps) is more than acceptable and having a tablet that can run all native Windows apps is closer to my ideal. Having an always on-hand keyboard is also important for me, so this design is great.

Screen
The screen is very crisp and clear. It kills the XPS 14 screen, and is better than my 2011 Macbook Air 11" screen because of the higher pixel density. But the high pixel density makes some legacy Windows applications difficult to use. I can still make it work, and I appreciate the screen real estate of 1920x1080, but until scaling of legacy Windows applications gets sorted out (never), it'll still be challenging in some scenarios.

Battery
Battery life is 5+ hours. Way more than my Macbook Air 11" (3+ hours), and rightfully so because of the battery size and newer Intel CPU w/ better power savings.

Touchpad
The touchpad is frustrating. When it works, it works pretty well. The issue is that it is inconsistent. I get the same issue that some others have mentioned where the mouse cursor disappears for a few seconds. I thought it was some sort of capacitive short when I had my wrist on the aluminum border, but there is no pattern to this issue. The other inconsistency is just what it recognizes, or fails to recognize, as a tap. Whether it's a single tap that I want to act as a left-mouse click, or a two-finger tap to emulate the right mouse button, it just can't get them right 100% - maybe 93% of the time. Settings-wise, I disabled the gestures and increased the speed, but it still feels slow to navigate the 1920x1080 screen. Dell needs to fix tweak the driver to fix these issues. The touchpad (a synaptics) on the XPS 14 is far better.

Random power-offs
The last 2 nights when I was using it in tablet mode, the XPS 12 shut off with no warning. Poof. Just turned off. No blue screen, just complete blank screen. This happened twice last night with about 5 minutes between each instance. And it happened a couple times the night before, but I don't remember how long between the two times. I powered it back on with the side slide-switch and it booted up normally. I checked the Event Logs and there is no indication of any issue. Just the System event indicating "the last shutdown @ xx:xx was not scheduled". Any one else experience this? Stabbing in the dark, I uninstalled the Intel Smart Connect software today and will see if it that helps. Note that I had Smart Connect disabled this entire time too.

Wrap-up
I do like a lot about the XPS 12, but it needs some fixes that I think driver or firmware updates may resolve. Until then, it's a frustrating machine, but I'll keep trying to make it work because I think it still has potential. Of course, I wish these issues were taken care of before it went to production...

 

Yeah, it's a shame they have soldered ram in these Ultrabooks. Oh well..my advice is to get the 8gb version to reduce the hassles of upgrading in the future.

 

I was thinking of the exact same. Get an 8GB version and replace the SSD later. Just haven't see anyone do it or show how to do that.

 

I thought about that, but personally, I think my laptop requirements will only decrease as I get older. No more gaming as I get older (only basic games like CS). Maybe some video editing for recreational/personal uses, but I think 4GB will be enough for that.

As for replacing the SDD, there is definitely a Dell manual for that, but like you, I don't know of anyone that has attempted it yet.

 

I posted a link a few posts up with the Dell manual that shows you how to change the SSD. It includes pictures. I plan on doing it once there is a fair price on mSATA's with at least 500GB or storage (which I'm guessing is in the next few months). Or if the price of 256gb drop I'll pop it in. From what I've seen in the manual, it doesn;t look that complicated.

 

Yea, if I come to terms regarding the 4GB, i would've picked up the Acer S7 13" or Asus UX31A way before the Dell XPS 12. Lighter, better build quaility, nicer looking.

Yet there hasn't been a good sale on XPS12. EPP discount is like 50 bucks...blah..

OR if XPS13 is touch screen...OooO! So there.

 

Got a call/email from Dell this afternoon, saying my my order shipped. Since I got 1 day shipping, it will arrive tomorrow.

My order:
Base config (Core i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD)
Ordered 12/26/2012
Went into production 1/3/2013
Shipped 1/10/2013
Should arrive 1/11/2013

 

Interesting...

Dell EPP / Member Purchase
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3317U processor (3M Cache, up to 2.6 GHz)
4GB3 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz
128GB Solid State Drive

List price is $1452 -> Sale price $1201

NON DELL EPP
Same configuration -> Non-sale price 1199

hahahah. Dell EPP is a sham! What a terrible Sham!

 

For those of you who already have the laptop, how large is the power adapter? What about relative to macbook pro power adapters? The reason I am asking is I am looking for a sleeve that has an outer pocket to hold the power adapter (sleeves with handles are a plus).

The case I found Amazon.com: Mobile Edge 13.3-Inch Neoprene Notebook Sleeve: Computers & Accessories meets my needs, but some people say the pocket is a bit small, but can fit a Macbook Pro power adapter.

I'm going to search this thread a bit more, but does anyone have any suggestions for sleeves w/ outer pocket and some kind of handle for carrying?

 

Argh I ordered it on the same day but mines not finished. I'm still in production. I got the i7 config with 128gb.

 

So here is an interesting one. Through a very good friend, I ended up with an XPS 12 that had been used (sparingly) in an expo environment. Fearing that there was a chance that the machine could have been compromised in some way (keystroke logger, spyware, etc) I decided to do a full Win 8 "deep" reset before actually using this system as my PC.

I don't have the Dell supplied restore disk, but I do have a usb key with Win 8 pro on it, which the system accepted to complete the reset. After the reset, I loaded all of the drivers on Dell's support site and everything worked well, except for one minor detail. The touch screen does not work at all. I went into the control panel to look for the tablet PC settings and it's not an available option. It's like Win 8 doesn't realize that the system has a touch screen.

In device manager, everything looked normal. I was playing around in the menu and clicked on "show hidden devices". That option revealed an unknown device with a hardware ID that I've never seen. It said:

GPIO_Laptop-Slate_Indicator

WTH is that thing? There are no drivers on Dell's site that I haven't installed, and windows can't find anything via driver search. I'm fairly positive this is the root cause of my problem, but I'm at a total loss on how to fix it.

Alternatively, I was thinking I could do some sort of Dell factory restore, but I can't find that option (outside of the Windows based reset) anywhere. Is there a documented process that will restore the Dell factory settings?

 

Is there just a plain Dell System Software driver on the support site? That might contain that driver, just a guess because I'm never sure what the "System Software" driver does.




Anyways for the buyers that browse this thread that are unsure of purchasing the XPS 12 or want to know more information about it, here is my video review on it. Please comment on the vid if there are any improvements to my reviewing style that can be made. Thanks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzKjIl_LwIU

 

I betcha it works in setting up Windows installation, or in Safe Mode. I called the guys to replace the screen for a seemingly minor issue(worried about long term), but after replacing it, the touch doesn't work. Tried everything, but one thing is for sure. It works in diagnostic mode, and in Safe Mode. And its exactly like what you said. I don't have Tablet PC settings, and in System it says its not a touch capable display, even though in Safe Mode it says "Limited 10-point Touch".

I finally accepted the fact that the system has to be restored. If I were you, I would have just downloaded multiple anti virus and spyware programs to try to fix it. CCleaner to clean everything up. You will likely have to send it back to Dell for a new one.

 

Ok, so I fixed it by upgrading to Windows 8 pro with a product key from MSDN. The touch screen works well now, but the random unknown device remains in device manager under hidden devices.

I can't think of any real rhyme or reason for that, other than perhaps Pro has more native driver support for touch screens than Standard does. At any rate, something for others to try if they find themselves in a similar spot.

I'd still like to know what's up with this GPIO "device" that I'm apparently missing a driver for. Just out of curiosity, does anyone (or everyone?) else have the same hidden device with no driver assigned to it?