XPS 13 (2015). First impressions/experiences/issues (POLL)

The posts in the main thread on the new XPS 13 seems to be somewhat polarized (from extremely satisfied to frustration). To get a better overview of the experiences new users are having, I have made a poll; including some of the most common issues

Hopefully this poll will provide future buyers with a good overview of the pros/cons, as experienced by first-hand users.

You can do multiple votes.

 

I posted a lot of long post on the owners thread, due to frustrations with Windows 7 (which is not officially supported for this model). With Win 8.1 fully updated, my sentiment continues as these. I know many of you are confused, so I hope this clears out, after I had chance to fully spin this out and test it.

*NOTE: DO NOT INSTALL WINDOWS 7 OR 10. DO NOT!!!!

1. Touchpad is fine. Overall, pretty good. There are a few things that you have to sacrifice - 1. Slight input lag in order to prevent from random clicks while typing 2. Light but registered physical clicks sometimes not actually registering clicks 3. When pressuring touchpad to click sometimes the cursor wiggle moves slightly. Microsoft fault.

2. Battery life is nothing compared to what is advertised, because actual usage of touchpad spikes cpu usage (drivers/OS thing on Windows). So any simulated software that does web browsing, etc, will not generate same kind of "REAL life usage" if touchpad is not physically being used. By the way, battery life on Win 8.1 here is A LOT better than Win 7. Surprisingly, because they both shouldn't have big difference, but upon booting of Win 8.1 and nothing running, at low brightness wifi on, I get 4whr of usage! Windows 7 on this machine somehow kept draining fast, perhaps due to drivers, but not sure. Also overall improved battery usage, which is better than 5.5whr idle on Haswell version XPS with Win 7. Microsoft fault, with Dell's not so honest claims.

3. Charging rate continues to be very very slow with meager 45whr ac adapter. It does get very warm. Not "hot" but VERY VERY warm. If you have thin skin, you would feel very uncomfortable gripping very tight while charging and using. But not a big deal in reality. Dell's fault.

4. I did notice the adaptive settings. Not a big issue for me personally, but I generally get pissed when machines try to tell what I ought to have (with brightness in this case). Intel/Dell's fault (?)

5. Fan noise isn't quiet. It isn't anything so loud that it is unusual neither. But this definitely isn't something you could claim as one of the quietest ultrabooks, like you could with size, for example. Overall, I say pretty typical for an ultrabook. Maybe just slightly towards to the loud side. It does definitely need better fan profile with bios update. This I think, is for sure. Dell's fault.

6. Keyboard is great overall, but the travel depth is not as good compared to previous generation. I still get pretty good types, but it's something I constantly realize in the back of my head, wishing the depth was deeper. I could still work on the keyboard for office use. Dell's small fault.

7. Perfect build quality. Literally perfection. No wiggle, absolutely no keyboard flex at all. All feet of the laptop are intact to the surface, etc. Good stuff Dell.

8. Surprisingly pleasant and loud speakers for ultrabooks, maybe even for smaller full sized laptops. It was greatest surprise I found. Good stuff Dell.

9. 100% cpu load holds decently well with 85c around as max temp. It does throttle under 2.5GHz (2 core turbo speed) on the i5 only briefly. Just seconds before it attempt to recover to around 2.4GHz. Overall, I would say the laptop doesn't really throttle and I am satisfied with this aspect. I did not load graphics while I loaded cpu. I am sure the speed won't keep at 2.5GHz due to power restraint if you load up both gpu and cpu - case for all previous gen low-V processors. Good stuff Intel/Dell.

10. And everything else is pretty much on track with what other formal reviews say. Yeah of course there is some glare with the QHD screen, etc.

*A lot of the issues also happens because of Windows and its rather amateur OS Win 8.1. So it's pretty important to distinguish what Dell did right or wrong. As an example, at this point anything has to do with touchpad, physically or software wise should be faulty of Microsoft and their continued mediocre development projects.

 

Thanks for your nice overview!!

 

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