XPS 12 Owners Lounge

Well, mine went from China to Korea. It's now in Kazakhstan but it says it's still on schedule for delivery in England tomorrow. I do hope so! I wonder where next!

 

When did you order?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

I pulled the trigger on the 10th at 2 pm cst to get the i7 8gb ram and 512 gb SSD.

 

That is a given that I will be reviewing that too. I also have the new airport time capsule and a r6300 from net gear and will test the ac connection in my house.

 

Alright so I see a trend forming. I ordered on the 11th. If I get a ship notice today or tomorrow I'll let people know.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

Woot I got it.

It looks like dell has redesigned the power supply it is now rounded on the edges and has an improved strain relief on the brick and now has a light on the dc plug not the brick.

Boots in about 6 seconds now first boot was 30 seconds then got better with each reboot.

Currently updating it has 40 missing updates I also removed mcafee I wish they didn't preload it.

OK this is cool it appears that the xps 12 9q33 (Haswell) uses the NGFF wifi card nom mini pcie and yes the wifi card works as expected and have been running all the installers and copying files from my server and it is very fast though the 5ghz spectrum does have some issues with walls the 2.4 ghz has no issues at all.

The touchpad is synaptics and have no issues like I had with the 9q23. It is very sensitive and doesn't stutter at all.

Win 8 Experience
Processor: 7.2
Memory: 7.6
Graphics: 6.5
Gaming: 6.5
Primary HDD 8.1

CineBench
test type 9q33 (9q23)
Open CL 20.34 (15.02)
CPU 2.80 (2.17)

LuxMark2.0
test type 9q33 (9q23)
Sala
CPU Only 231 (212)
CPU&GPU 334 (324)
GPU ONLY 238 (225)

PC Mark 7
5494 (4515)

***Note all benchmarks on 9q23 are 8.1 beta all on 9q33 are win 8 will rerin on 9q23 when I reload the base windows 8 back on it

 

Wow 6.5 on graphics? I know WEI is not the most accurate but that seems high. Just saw a review for the Sony duo 13 that had a wei of 5.9 I think. The reviewer remarked that it was impressive considering other 4400 benchmarks.

Jealous you have it in hand!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

Chris, thanks for the quick review and update. Once you've gone through a couple of battery cycles, please let us know how it is!

Any bothersome things you've noticed in using it so far?

Are you also using Widi?
Thanks!

 

will do just unplugged for the first time and at 98% I have 9 hr estimate

nope only thing different s the hinges for the flip seem stiffer which is nice and it bots to fast it took me 3 attempts to get into the bios

no widi this is the first intel card I have used since the 6300 came out.

 

How's the touch screen? Also, can you test it with a stylus if you have one.

 

I'm just gonna obsess about this point a little if you don't mind. The touchpad is actually good? Like, it works fine, and is properly responsive? No phantom clicks or dropped taps, no general twitchiness? two-finger scrolling works properly, multi-finger gestures register properly? You never have to do anything twice because it didn't register the first time?

I realize I sound paranoid, but there have been bad synaptics pads before, and I basically returned the previous model over this. I really don't wanna deal with a bad touchpad again.

 

Hello,

what about the fan noise with the new (9q33) Modell

thanks

 

Hi Chris,

Would u be able to advice how your new XPS 12 run some games , say at 720p ? Eg Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 or other games u may already owned ?

Thanks.

 

Unfortunately I don't have those games i have hl2 and few others but haven't installed yet.

It seemed a bit loud at first but seems like after a few hours of use it has quieted down and don't seem very noticeable currently.

I have had Zero issues with it except for he rit edge swipe was annoying me like an notebook i have ha but i unchecked that and it has had no ISSUES Just Personal Preference

So far so good it seems to be on a different type of bus as the touch screen isn't is listed in the usb section as it is on the 9q23 and again no issues with responsiveness. sorry only have a blunt tip stylus for ipad it works but don't have any other styluses.

 

Chris, thanks for your great input. Please let us know how the battery life plays out in real life!
Also, let us know how HL2 runs when you get a chance! I know that HL2 is nothing new, but if it can run well, then TF2 will also run well

Anyone who ordered theirs on July 11th or earlier still "in production"? Mine is still in production and the ship date is "1/1/0001"....

 

I ordered mine late on the 10th and received my confirmation on the 11th. Just got a shipment notification this morning but don't have a tracking number yet.

I bought the i7 haswell with 8GB and 256 ssd.

 

yeah Hl2 And TF2 both run fine on my 9q23 @ 720 with med/lower settings (which is now in my fathers care) i could only assume that it will run it well will know for sure Saturday at the latest.

 

Can you do some battery life tests and see how long it lasts? Thanks.

 

well im trying to but have a major issue IT WONT DIE I have used it for 8 hrs or so, so far with some screen off but running and still have 33% that is with downloading program installing them and copying 100 gb worth of files via a bus powered usb3 hdd and still going.

 

So first impressions are pretty good then

 

I found a pretty in-depth review of the new model... not too flattering on the touchpad, but interesting overall, and some good pics of the insides.

Dell XPS 12

Its in Sweedish, but Chrome translates it pretty well.

(sorry if this has been posted before)

 

Wow, I've been looking for an article like this. Thanks one4spl.

It generally gives a good review with a few non-dealbreaking downsides, most of which we already know about, like the lack of ports and getting hot (along with a weird fan curve).

Also said that with the screen on low brightness, 10 hours of battery life is certainly possible!

I'm even more pumped now.

 

I will concur with that review but I haven't had the touched malfunction to my knowledge also look at the date on the review 2013-06-29 14:36 this was a preview model likely and may not have had the current drivers/Bios

oh and I finally got my battery life count I am at 11 hrs. of on time or ~1.5 days including sleep/rapid start sleep from unplug to plug in.

 

While I got no notification via email, I checked my order link this AM and to my surprise my order, which was scheduled for a 26 July delivery has shipped and will be delivered tomorrow via FedEx!

My weekend was just made!

 

Yes, you're grounded for testing

Curious how the thermals are under continuous load. The Swedish review mentioned some very high temps in the CPU area, but i couldn't understand if they were referring to the chassis, the exhaust, or both.

 

Well it seems to be ok so far just gets a little warm on the bottom but not as bad as my macbookair tends to get.

 

My order had an estimate of 29th. But got my shipped confirmation and it will be here Saturday XD It left Tennessee this morning. I have not touched this model yet. My last dell model, XPS14, was a disappointment. Just a flat out terrible screen on the 14. The 12 should have that nice IPS screen.
If i had a question on this model is if a broadband modem can be used internally. Like swap out the WIFI chip and but in a broadband chip in its place. Or if there is a hybrid broadband/wifi chip that can sit in the mini pci slot....

 

I would love to have baked in 3/4G as well, but I haven't seen such a device- and then you are left without antennas as well.

EDIT- scratch that, wifi/3g cards exist -

WiFi + 3G Mini PCI-Express Card in Macbook Air? - Mods and Overclocking - InsanelyMac Forum
EmbeddedWorks > wwan > >

But you are still left without the right antennas, the SIM slot and losing bluetooth.

There are full-size cards with SIM slots on-board - but then you'd need to put it in the SSD slot and then put a half size SSD in the WLAN slot- but its probably not wired for the SATA pins, and at best you'd be stuck with a slow 64GB SSD.

I suspect there isnt enough room in the chassis to install a de-shelled 3g usb stick anywhere, either, but I'll give it a red-hot go when my XPS 12 arrives.

 

I had the xps 14 L421x and i will say the screen is 200x's better.

no Mobile broadband is not a possibility. it only has the msata (Full height Minipcie) and the NGFF slot (currently only the intel card and i think i saw there was a qualcomm/killer card coming for that slot to but no MBB yet. and with it shrinking the card size more i doubt it would be possible to have a MBB and Wifi on the same card.

 

http://www.sweclockers.com/image/red/2013/06/28/Dell_XPS_12-19.jpg?t=original&k=049b64ae

It doesn't appear to be NGFF.

 

take a closer look at the connectors blown up 300xs

 

What kind of usage scenario is that? Can you really use it 11 hours straight? What about the power settings and brightness. Balanced/Dell/Power Saver?

 

dell with low brightness it wasn't 100% constant usage 1hr was copying files and the screen fell a sleep here and there but was about 11hrs I had it set not to sleep today and drained the battery just a bit ago and with it set to dell and 2 notches up from dark and playing music through iTunes and got just shy of 10 hrs.

 

I need to buy a spare PSU. I really like the one that came with the computer so this time I would prefer not to buy a generic one or use an iGo. Did I see someone say that the new XPS 12 comes with a different PSU from the previous model? I like the size of this one and the little lights at the end of the cable. If I order the one shown on the web site for the previous model, will I get the same as the one I just got with my new computer?

Thanks for the help.

 

Everyone here talking about changing SSD and repalcing parts I just confirmed (and you might already know this and not care) that if you change something like the SSD while the machine is under warranty it will void it.

 

Anyone else testing the Windows 8.1 beta?
I just installed it, and it does not like the mouse at all

 

Just got my XPS12 from Mr FedEx

First impression...very cool device! Screen is incredible. Feels solidly built.

Uploading unboxing video to youtube as I type.

Additional first impression with installing some software, fan is all over the map and kind of loud. I'm hoping it calms down as Chris mentioned his did. I am not doing anything but staring at the screen as it downloads a few things off steam and the fan is fluctuating all over the map from loud to silent.

Again...very early impressions here, don't consider this extensive testing over a few days. It did come off a very warm fedex truck on a 90+ degree day here in DC.

UPDATE: Quick unboxing Video: Dell XPS 12 Haswell mid 2013 Unboxing Video NEW ULTRABOOK - YouTube

 

Quick initial benchmarks:

3dmark Ice Storm (all defaults, 720P) - 14,940 (Physics 19,015)
3dmark Cloud Gate (all defaults, 720P) - 4312 (Physics 2455)

WEI shows 6.5 (graphics is the lowest)

Actually, these are pretty respectable! Compares well to my previous Acer 4820TG with dedicated graphics

Downloading some games to try!

UPDATE: Comparing to the standard, I think something is wrong with the initial Ice Storm score. It ran really well but the score is about 1/2 of what I would expect. It's possible it wasn't running at 720?

 

I installed a 7260ac card in both of our xps 12s and neither have Bluetooth anymore. Nothing in device manager, wifi works, Bluetooth amp is on. Any ideas? 7260 HMWG is what I purchased.

 

That is NGFF

 

Many Windows 8 machines are like this when you first get it. It automatically downloads and installs a buttload of W8 updates, which I gather is pretty taxing and can make it run hot. Once all the initial background stuff is done, it runs cooler. This was actually noted as a thing that happens in a couple of the Ivy Bridge XPS 12's original reviews.

 

Hope so...notice quick fluctuations in temperatures from the 40s at idel to 70s at "load". The load can be anything...simply surfing the start menu and using some of the built in windows apps.

 

Temp profiles basically show that fans are near inaudible at 40-50C, but the second they creep over 50C the fans want to kick in. The fan in my particular unit has a bit of a higher pitched whine once it kicks in, so its more than just straight fan noise.

Couple of additional benchmarks...

Borderlands 2 - 30-37 FPS during a fight sequence at 720P
Civ5 - works great at 1080P with touch controls!


Still working on other benchmarks.

Good news for those who like a smaller PSU - the AC/DC adapter is fairly compact. The "brick" itself is smaller than a Macbook Air, but loses one point because I cannot plug it straigh into the wall. Overall pretty compact for travel though.

 

I love playing Civ5 on my first gen XPS12. This is my main use of tablet mode. With the screen at just past half brightness, I can get about 2 hours of play time on a full charge. I look forward to hearing how long it can run with the Haswell chip.

 

Don't know if this link will work, so someone test and let me know

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qqyqw6nb3v3ie50/FVjWb4_10z?n=3740854

Just some pictures if anyone wants to see

Also, if anyone wants me to look at anything/test anything in particular, let me know!

 

Hi smug,

Thanks for sharing performance in games. Any chance of trying Diablo 3 at 1080p and 720p ? Posting the first YouTube video would be even more awesome!

 

Nice pics smugpanda! Thanks!

 

Dishonored on the XPS12

Dishonored Performance on a Haswell powered Dell XPS 12 2013 Core i7 with HD4400 Graphics - YouTube

Just a quick video. Was seeing 30FPS at 720P easily. For some reason I think the FPS was capped because it wouldn't go above 30 FPS, but I didn't have VSYNC enabled.

Despite fan noise on my unit, this thing is turning out to be one surprising machine in terms of performance in the basic benchmarks. Also, the Intel HD4400 inside is serving up the duties for light gaming on the right set of games. Dishonored proves to be fairly forgiving on old systems so I thought I'd give it a try!

 

In the middle of the Diablo download...will try both modes. So far, for most games that aren't Triple AAA graphic intensive games, this machine is rocking it. I was going to try torchlight 2, since it is far superior to Diablo 3, but I'll do diablo since I know more people play it worldwide. Give me 30 minutes!

 

Nice ! Am trying very hard to hold out for the I7-4650u release but so far only seen it on Dell Canada Large Biz site

New XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook and Tablet PC Details | Dell Canada

The other convertible I know w this chip is Sony Vaio Pro Duo but u have to Orrr it at their site with customization.

Really prefer the HD 5000 version as videos on new MBA showed it really run most games at 720p fluidly.