XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Not sure but I just got the following msg .. Dell Order 87XXXXXXX: Reply '1' for delivery on 8th November between 9am-1pm; or Reply '2' for 11th November between 9am-1pm; or Reply '3' to receive a phone call

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Oh good I need that phone call

 

My status just changed to manufacturing build complete and EDD changed to 11/11.

Hopefully they get it on its way soon. Would be nice to have it for the weekend so i can get used to windows 8 before taking it into the office on Monday

 

Mine too

Just in time for end of exams

 

How well does dell usually manage expectations - I mean is it reasonable to expect it to arrive earlier than the posted date?

 

Fairly safe to assume it will arrive earlier. There are always exceptions, of course, but the estimated delivery dates have always been kind of a worst case scenario. They try to, and more often than not do, get them out the door as quicker if possible.

 

Just got a text saying mine will be delivered Thursday morning. Hopefully will be better than the last model


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Anybody in the US getting these messages?

 

Ordered mine in the first day (highest spec) and haven't gotten a message yet.

 

Ordered mine a few days ago - got the mid tier, planning to replace both drives with raid 0 of the samsung 840 pro 512 I already have and an msata yet to be determined. (also replacing Windows with Ubuntu)

BTW, I asked Dell support if the 9530 supports two external monitors and the laptop screen and they said yes, for the versions with the nvidia card. Psyched to be running this with my 30" and 24" monitors... so many pixels!

 

The only problem I see with this is that the two display connectors are quite close together, and most HDMI connectors are pretty chunky so the two cables might not fit unless the docking station is used.

Also, I assume there is a resolution limit like on the rMBP split between the 3 monitors.

 

The cheapy hfmi cables I buy don't have the chunkiness to them.

I would hope the decent video card in this.machine would be ok pushing that many pixels. I had a latitude 6530 that pushed two 1920x1200 screens along with its 1920x1080 laptop screen just fine, and that was with a mediocre graphics card.

I guess we'll see. If it can't, I'll be pretty disappointed. That's half the reason I wanted a new laptop. (The other half was DisplayPort support and better battery life).

 

Any ideas whether bios on the 9530 will allow boot from SD card reader?

 

Purchased a base model XPS 15(1TB HDD) on 31st, and it says ETA is 22nd Nov. Want to change to SSD by myself, wondering if the 2.5-inch SSD fits the haswell model. Any recommendation on which brand to go, Crucial, Plextor, Samsung? Thanks.

 

OK so as I am getting mine(highest spec) on the 8th Nov, I will be sure to get some pictures up of the machine and also do some real life gaming tests ie. Battlefield 4 and Diablo 3 etc. Please let me know if you want me to test anything else.

On another note, I really am curious about the heat dispersion, cant wait to find out?

 

Please do a Wifi test for both speed and range. That was one of the biggest problems from the older model.

Oh, and if you could do a quick video or so, that would be good too. Thanks.

 

Definitely try it at a good range from the router. The L521x will perform decently when really close to the router.

 

Soooo. I guess this 2-day free shipping in the US is kind of BS.

 

Like you'll get it faster than other people in the US

 

According to the owner's manual I saw your HDD-equipped-from-factory model should take the 2.5 SSD in replacement for the HDD without difficulty.

The SSD only version that Dell is shipping apparently uses only an mSATA SSD and may consume the extra space required for the HDD with the optional 91Wh battery.

 

The Samsung 840 Pro series has gotten rave reviews from a ton of very well respected hardware sites, it's what I would recommend to anyone. They're a little more expensive than some others, but also faster and more reliable.

I'm also planning on swapping out the spinny disk for an SSD. I have a Samsung 840 Pro 512GB I'll be transferring from my current laptop for that purpose. I'm sure pretty much any SSD is going to be smaller than a 1TB spinny disk, so space shouldn't be a problem. The only thing others should watch out for is that the top spec that comes with a 512MB SSD actually has it as an msata drive, and the battery is bigger, taking up the space where you'd put a normal 2.5" SSD... so to use the top spec with a second drive would require replacing the battery with the smaller battery. That's actually why I got the mid spec, because I wanted two drives.

 

Yes, the big battery takes up the space unfortunately. But the 500GB mSATA storage should be enough for me. I only used a combined 500GB/700GB on 2 drives on my old computer. I have external storage which is hardly ever used, and in the future we should get affordable large capacity mSATA if needed.

I'd rather have a battery that can go at least 4 hours unplugged. 1 to 1.5 unplugged on my old computer is pretty useless. The big battery surely can't go 11 hours for everyone, and the M3800 review thread suggests a generous 5-6 hours of wifi/light office use on the small battery, possibly more if optimized (whatever that means).

 

So it means that for my case, the 32GB mSATA with 1TB HDD, I don't need to change the battery in order to replace the 1TB HDD to 512GB SSD, right? Thanks for the advice, I think I am going to get the 512GB Samsung 840 Pro.

 

I know how you feel about the low battery life - my current laptop got an hour at best and is down to a half hour or less two years later. However, I'm on AC 50 weeks a year, so the battery is less important to me. I don't need the extra space, either, I'm just hoping to RAID 0 the two together for faster disk speeds (we have unit tests at work that can take 5+ minutes to run, hopefully this will help drop that down).

 

Interesting. Assuming you get it configured it'd be interesting to hear the results. I'm assuming both the mSATA and the SATA interfaces on the new-gen are -3 interfaces, aka: 6 Gbps. No idea if they have equivalent latency though, interesting to find out what the IOPS rates would end up in your raid configuration.

 

Hi, one quick question: to which type of customers is the base xps 15 targeted? I love love love love the design and battery life seems good (even though with just i5 and no dedicated graphics card) but compared to the same line, it is a little lackluster, don't you think? Would you buy it if you - as a normal user - want a premium top of the line looking laptop and are willing to pay for that? Or do you think that the inspiron 7537 fits this situation better. I am not a heavy user at all and currently have an envy with i7 4800 and 740M graphics card. I have been looking at this laptop for a while now and it just screams gorgeous to me. Thanks.
PS: now that I have written down, it sounds really stupid!

 

No, in your case you should get the higher spec model with the 512GB mSATA and 91WHr (40% larger) battery.

Why would you spend $1899 on the laptop plus $430 on a 2.5" SSD ($2329)? You end up spending *more* than you would if you just put down $2299 on the higher spec to begin with. Even if you plan on selling the 1TB you aren't going to be saving much if anything going your route.

EDIT: I see you already purchased the laptop. I strongly urge you to change/cancel your order. The route you are going just doesn't make sense financially.

 

Doesn't look all that different to the old XPS 15. Better, but the same top bit/keyboard and lid.

Also not really a "power" machine, with a slower CPU than most quad core 15" lappies out there, and a slower GPU.

But just powerful enough, and just light enough, to suit those who don't want a tiny 13" ultrabook but hate the chunky 15-17" laptops.

If you can afford it... sure. Otherwise I think a lot of people have pointed out you can get an Inspiron with Full HD, the same GPU setup, and a decent i5 or i7 dual core.

 

I'll definitely write it up. Fair warning, I'll be doing it on Ubuntu, so it may not be a perfect 1:1 comparison for the equivalent on Windows... but from a pure hardware point of view, it should be pretty close. The Precision m3800 owner's thread on this site has a guy with a production version of the m3800 (which is the same as the XPS 15, just with a different graphics card) and he confirmed they're both SATA III. I'll give it a try and see what happens. Now to convince my wife I need another $400 hard drive

 

Just saying that if international orders are already shipping, given a FIFO order log, with 2 biz day shipping - one would expect the laptop around now. But maybe it's 2 biz days once the laptop reaches US shores.

 

The US shipping is just from the time the box is in FedEx's hands. Every once in a while there might be a hang up coming through customs or something of that nature which Dell can't control. So for the US the "shipping" part of the process doesn't include when it is on the way over from the factory. Just when it is in the carrier's system.

 

Guys, can people let me know if they fixed the wifi in this version?

 

No one has it yet
Although Bokeh has the m3800, a workstation version of the xps 15, and has no wifi problems.

 

Sorry for my bad understanding in English. I am a little bit confused, coz the other guy said that
"the only thing others should watch out for is that the top spec that comes with a 512MB SSD actually has it as an msata drive, and the battery is bigger, taking up the space where you'd put a normal 2.5" SSD... so to use the top spec with a second drive would require replacing the battery with the smaller battery. That's actually why I got the mid spec, because I wanted two drives."
Shouldn't that mean I am just fine with the configuration I have now if I want to replace the HDD with a SSD? Besides, if I am to choose the top specs (512GB mSATA), I am ending up with both replacing the battery to a smaller one and purchasing a 2.5 inch SSD, isn't that going to cost even more?

 

its just a misunderstanding. He doesn't understand why you would want two harddrives

 

No it isn't a misunderstanding at all.

erfpt: You mention replacing the HDD with SSD. Conventional wisdom means you want to replace the 1TB HDD in the mid-tier model with a 512GB SSD (Samsung 840 Pro, which is $430 minimum). This would leave your laptop with a 32GB mSATA SSD, and 512GB 2.5" SATA SSD, and a 61WHr battery.

What I have suggested is to buy the top tier model which comes equipped already with a 512GB mSATA SSD, which for all intents and purposes will perform nearly identical to the 512GB 2.5" you want to put in the mid-tier model. In addition to this you get a larger battery. You do not need to buy a separate SSD if you get the top spec model, it already comes with one.


You didn't mention needing two hard drives specifically, and really there aren't many cases when one would need two physical drives when you could just logically partition a single drive.

I stand by my statement. If your goal is to have an XPS 15 with 512GB of SSD storage space, get the top spec model. It is cheaper and you get a better laptop out of it with a much larger battery. The only thing you lose is 32GB of storage from the mSATA.

Mid Tier + 840 Pro
* 32GB mSATA SSD
* 61 WHr Battery
* 512GB 2.5" SSD
* $2329

Top Tier
* 512GB mSATA SSD
* 91WHr Battery
* $2299

As you can see, the top tier is cheaper, larger battery, but loses out on 32GB of storage space. Are you willing to give up 4 hours of battery life and $30 in order to get 32GB of storage? That is what you are doing with your plan.

Buy the top tier model if you want 512GB SSD!

(mSATA SSD == 2.5" SSD , they are just different sizes but really the same thing)

 

Also, if you are really fretting over that lost 32GB remember that there is an onboard SDXC card reader. Sure, it may not be quite as good as a built in drive. However, those things are becoming surprisingly cheap and still give pretty great transfer speeds. You can easily find 64GB for ~$35 US nowadays.

I agree with Erasmus354. Unless you already have a spare 512GB drive laying around that you're going to install in the mid range model it just makes more sense to buy the top end one.

 

SD cards are alright but it seems that on a 15" laptop there isn't room for it to not stick out! Sure in a 13" ultrabook but why in the XPS 15?

 

This seems like an appropriate time to ask, will this XPS allow booting from the SD card reader, i.e. install windows on a (fast) SD card and choose to boot from the SSD or SD?

 

Now, I got it. Thanks so much Erasmus354. I will cancel that order, but the only drawback is that I might need to wait for a week longer, lol~

 

Ah see... that's my mistake. I assumed that buying the mid teir model to only have one SSD drive made no sense to anyone. I figured people might to it to have 2 high capacity SSD drives (but really is 512GB not enough?). My bad... appologies

 

I'm not sure if anyone knows if it is enabled in the BIOS or not yet. The best bet for getting an answer to that would likely be over in Bokeh's M3800 thread. Of course even that isn't a guarantee that the BIOS will be the exact same between the M3800 and XPS15.

Otherwise you may have to wait till the system is in users' hands to get a definitive answer.

 

I ordered a max config on the 23rd in the US and my status changed to shipped just now. So I should get the machine any day. I can' t wait. Too bad I am not home for 4 days

 

I will get my XPS 15 tomorrow. I am from Germany.

Waalwijk, Netherlands 05.11.2013 11:00 Abfahrts Scan
05.11.2013 5:54 Herkunfts Scan
Netherlands 05.11.2013 6:36 Auftrag verarbeitet: Für UPS bereit

 

I ordered the top of the line XPS 15 on Oct. 25. Original delivery date was 11/18. Just got an email saying it's in Nashville trying to catch a flight to Boston. Should be here tomorrow evening by 8pm.

-bv

 

I have an XPS 13z which has no hdmi out. For just under $7 you can get a mini-display port to hdmi adapter from monoprice.com Mini DisplayPort | Thunderbolt

Thats a cheap solution if you hdmi cables wont fit ... also makes it easy to drive 3 external monitors.

 

Florida. Ordered mid configuration on 10/21. Shipped 11/4 via 2nd business. ETA 11/6. That's tomorrow. I've been without a personal laptop since my m1530 died 7months ago. That machine was a work horse. Hope this will be the same and not another L521x.

Yeeeaaahhh!!!

 

I actually ordered my XPS 15 (top config) on October 28th and will get it tomorrow. .. even they stated delivery date November 20th until 3 days ago.

 

I guess it does not pay to be up early and be one of the first to order. I ordered early am on the 18th with 2 day shipping and mine is still in production. That is messed up.

 

Hi,

the top model in Germany lists a normal 500 GB SATA SSD drive and not a mSATA drive. At the same time it also has the large 91WH batterie. I have chatted with a DELL sales person and he confirmed that spec. I wonder if the German model is different from the US/AUS or if that is a mistake on the DELL website.

I actually would like to have the large batterie and space for my 2.5 1TB Samsung 840 EVO (which is just too good to give up)

Anybody got more details on that?