XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

well, third having the laptop and now i think the whine has developed havent heard it before, it seems like the computer was dead quiet before and now i can hear an occasional whine and definitely the hard drive.

 

im still trying to make a decision to order one.

my budget is 2k so i think i have to go for rmbp 256/go meanwhile xps has 512/16go so im a bit lost. or should i wait to save some money and get the max one .
the 256/8go have cheap components (ssd scandisk, iris vs ssd samsung n iris pro)

even rmbp have problem with their screens (yellow tint) and the creaking noise. i know its impossible to have a perfect laptop but its so hard which one should i go for.

 

I can say that OS X 10.9 is much more efficient with RAM so perhaps that can make the 8GB vs 16GB less relevant.

 

You're right, it works fine if you hit Fn as the last key modifier then press the right arrow! Thanks for that!

 

And my touch screen quit working.. haven't tried a reboot or anything to debug it. But I did put it to sleep yesterday, and left it half closed today while I installed the restore discs to a USB, so that I can wipe it before I take it back.

 

So after having had the computer a total of 24 hours.. it's going back to CostCo tomorrow.. Although the pc is fast, the screen is beautiful, and the size and weight are good, there are too many little things that make the experience not worth the 2k.

I am almost certain that I would of just gotten 6 hours of battery life installing software, the track pad is already starting to look worn from my finger.. the touchpad works horribly. Touchscreen is flaky.

Costco gives you 90 days to return, and I'm doing it less than 24 hours. I really don't want to be a Dell beta tester. Probably just buy a MAC. Never had one, guess I should try it just this once.

Formatting it as soon as this post is done.

 

Does the rMBP have any heat/throttling issues ?

 

Did. Dell test this laptop before starting to selling it soo many negative posts!
Damn soo many people dissapointed

 

Guys I was just about to purchase this laptop when I saw all the problems.. Now I'm choosing between the Razer Blade(also has issues with bad screen and heat problems) and this. Which one do you think I should get, or would you suggest anything else? (need portability, decent graphics card, good battery life)

If you do suggest the XPS 15, which I am more interested in, are the issues actually very bad to the point I should not buy it? I am more into it just because of the 2kg weight and the more-than-alright battery life.

 

This is way off base. Win8 is capable of running with 1 GB of RAM. When you have more than that, it caches a lot of stuff to speed up operation (SSD is fast, but RAM is faster). Windows will actually cache the entire kernel, and also apps and whatnot. Of course it will free up RAM when necessary. Anyway, judging by idle RAM consumption is ridiculous these days.

I'm not sure how OSX works.

 

When my touchscreen stops working, I just go into device manager and disable the "HID-compliant touch screen" and then immediately enable it and the touchscreen starts working every time. This shows to me that it is definitely a driver issue.

 

Definitely way too many problems, too bad there's hardly a Windows substitute for this.

Dell has not one but two of these... because of the M3800. And we have seen that the M3800 was already much more than a work in progress so many months ago... they already had a working version going ages before we got the XPS 15.

So all the people saying that we have to give Dell time, these things are new and there has to be problems, not their fault etc... this is a frigging $2600 laptop (in fact in Australia it's going for a hundred below Three Grand and that's without extended warranty). If one or two of us had a tiny little problem, whatever. But many of us are having multiple problems. On top of that I'm not even expected to get half the battery life promised. Service/support's response has been good for some but terrible for many of us.

Time isn't the issue. I got the Studio XPS when it was pretty much no longer in production. Still had a bunch of technical issues after purchase, like any Dell laptop or desktop.

And if you still argue time is the problem, they've had 2 iterations to test for so long now, what excuse do they have? Or by some miracle were all the tested laptops perfect, and these issues not preventable?

For those returning the laptop, you don't have to justify the decision. But yeah, there's no substitute, this thing has unique features (CPU, GPU, and strong cooling combination in a lightweight Windows package). So I really want them to fix it, but right now I'm just wasting time and money if I have to call them up again and again.

 

Hey mate.. did u have to drop ur desktops settings to 1600x900 to play bf4? When I am running qhd rez and enter game.. as soon as I drop it to 1600x900 it only shows up a small screen with alot of black around it.


Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

So the touchscreen consistently stops working ? What are the other major problems ?

I want to get this too and I have no hope that any of the problems that presently exist will be remedied by Dell.

The question is are any of these deal breakers ?

My Yoga 13 TouchPad driver also stops working consistently but the app/driver re-launches itself automatically and continues to work; a pathetic fix indeed. But if that's the only problem, I'd accept it for now.

Unacceptable would be any components that fail to work (ethernet, touchpad), overheating, or making the laptop unusable, or constantly needing to be serviced/replaced.

Make no mistake though, none of this is acceptable for a new laptop, especially at this price point.

 

You might be hearing from the vocal minority. I have read every post and understand all the issues discussed. My only disappointment is about 4 hour battery life (mid-tier). I have not yet tweaked any settings to optimize.

 

Just try it!

 

why dont you look into the Aspire V7-482PG-9884
many people happy with it there is a 14 inch model with 750 gpu
i have the 15 inch model with the nvidia 720 this thing has great battery life
6-7-8 hours browsing, thin ,light , very well built IPS screen

good luck

 

Wow mate, been looking at it, and it's a great laptop. Acer | Aspire V7 | V7-582PG | Datasheet This is the version for my country. Unfortunately it is the 15 inch one with a darn numberpad at the right side of the keyboard, who even needs those zz. But do tell, how is the battery life during normal wifi usage(watching videos and editing documents) and also during gaming? I will consider this laptop as well. Thanks!

Also, is the warranty global?

 

So i am using my xps 15 this morning and when i was about to turn it on, and noticed this on the left side of my screen ,almost in the middle, i tried cleaning it off thinking it was dirt or something but it apparently it is under the glass right here



so this doesnt affect the image itself, it is hardly noticeable with the screen turned on, but i know it's there, (yeah, a little OCD), Will it to be much of a hassle to ask for it to be replaced, or will it be quick?will they replace it for this though since it does not affect the screen performance itself?, what do you guys think?

 

Yeah I can't keep it thinking "Oh they will fix it" just in case they don't.

So I believe that the touchscreen driver is bad, and the touchscreen has a power down issue that randomly affects people. It was fine for me for a bit, but then after a sleep or screen off, it never gets re enabled. If you don't really plan on using it.. not a deal breaker. Have to go in and disable the device and reenable or reboot to get it working.

Touchpad is flaky.. turn off a few gestures, and use the synaptic driver -- probably not a deal breaker


Some have CPU/COIL Whine, mine did not -- YMMV.
My Screen looked perfect -- some have the pressure points, or dust/stuff under it --YMMV

The Touchpad discolors from the oils on your hand within hours of using it.. Going to just be aesthetic, but I would hate to see it in a year. Not a deal breaker.

GPU does throttle some, but which ones don't? Probably not a deal breaker, CPU still goes strong.

But for me, If I pay that much, I expect a mostly trouble free laptop.

I think I am going to buy the 13" rMBP, decided I don't really need the dGPU, and would probably prefer the lighter weight. I still have a Gaming desktop, as long as the 13 can play some games when I am traveling even if it is at LOW settings, I will be happy.

There was a big sale on the 15" rMBP right now, and I have one on order at the price (same price as the Dell non discounted). But I believe that I will order the 13 instead.. trying to make up my mind.

 

Where is the MBP sale?

 

Apologies if this has been asked/answered already, but has anyone checked the GPU clock on the 750M? A lot of discussion on the M3800 thread about the differences with this model, and whether or not the GPU is slightly lower clocked on ours. GPU-Z would have that answer in about 30 seconds.

 

There are competitors of XPS15 does not throttling on GPU, for example Samsung Ativ Book 8, also someone has overclocked very easily, maybe AMD GPU generates less heat, unfortunately it's not updated to Haswell, and power supply unit it's a little undersized.

Aesthetic issue on trackpad on a laptop sold for 2000€/$ it's unacceptable, specially because it's happened on a week of usage.

Driver issue on a touchscreen could be a problem because if it's true that it's made by Microsoft this means that it's the same for every touchscreen, so you can not expect a solution from a generic driver.
I wonder if a clean install of Windows can solve this issue, maybe Dell has made some wrong setting.

 

perfect laptop dont exist if u check mac forums there is a ton of peeps who return their units 3/5 times trying to have a good screen due to yellow tint and creaking.

so dell/rmpb we just have to be lucky to pick a good one i think

 

GT750m on XPS15 is clocked @948MHz and 1058MHZ in turbo mode.

 

I find it interesting to read the reviews on Dell's own site regarding the new XPS.
Most if not all are positive.
What caught my attention was this one review, which called attention to the mid-tier model (mSATA+1TB HD).
This review points out an obvious design flaw that is quite embarrassing that Dell did not design it properly - considering this is their business.

Here's the review contents of "wmarsh":
"My model comes with 16GB system memory.
It has a 32GB mSATA drive intended to be used for Intel Rapid Start and Intel Rapid Storage.
The mSATA is partitioned with 8GB for Intel Rapid Start and 22GB for Intel Rapid Storage.
However, Intel clearly documents that you need a partition equal in size to the system memory for Intel Rapid Start to work.
This makes sense because what it is doing is writing an image of system memory to the SSD.

Consequently, Intel Rapid Start does not work on the midrange XPS 15 9530..
I noticed this because it starts slower than my old Inspiron 15 with its Crucial SSD.

Unfortunately, one cannot fix this by repartitioning the mSATA.
If you dedicate 16GB on the mSATA to Intel Rapid Start, only 14GB remain for Intel Rapid Storage, which requires a minimum of 18.6 GB to work.

Dell needs to ship this model with a larger mSATA for both technologies to work.

Now I really would not care personally, as my intention was to recycle my 512GB Crucial M4 as a boot drive by performing a clean Windows install on it.
This would allow me to dedicate the entire mSATA to Intel Rapid Start.
Unfortunately, this system does not ship with Windows Install disks.
And I can't seem to order one as Dell's system does not recognize my Service Tag.
I've tried to use the factory reinstallation disks I made to reinstall on my SSD, but they won't let me reinstall to a smaller drive.

And I can't contact technical support because Dell's system says it does not recognize my service tag. Frustrating."

 

Hm I spoke to a Dell advisor in live chat and she said that there was not an issue. The mSATA actually works.

 

I'm also having a problem connecting my Galaxy S4 to my XPS15. This is very inconvenient because I develop Android apps. I also had a problem restoring from hibernation last night: the computer froze after pressing power. The lights were on but nothing was happening. Caps lock key wouldn't switch state. I had to hold power to force it off but I lost some work. I think this is all software related but I'm not confident Dell will fix these problems. I'll contact support on Monday and see what happens.

EDIT: For some reason, changing USB port fixed the problem. It even connects to the original port that wasn't working. There must be something else going on.

 

There you go:

 

There really isn't a true competitor to this outside of the MBR. In other words, very high res IGZO or LTPS 15" screen, dedicated GPU, and relatively light. It's the only Windows laptop of its kind. I wish there comes competition as that will make Dell take notice. If Samsung makes an Ativ Book Plus 9 with 15" and a GT750M or even better, a GT7650M, or Lenovo makes a Yoga 15, or HP makes a Spectre with XPS 15 like specs, we'd at least have a choice. Right now, that's not the case but 2014 will likely bring these type of machines.

 

First off, where that review says Rapid Storage, he means Smart Response. Rapid Storage is just the name of the AHCI/RAID driver. But Dell's white paper on setting up Intel technologies (read it yesterday but can't find it now) says that Dell hasn't validated Rapid Start on systems with more than 8GB of RAM and don't support it, cautioning that enabling it in those conditions could increase the time to enter hibernation. I set up Rapid Start on my 512GB mSATA + 16GB RAM system and it seems to work fine though, but I agree there's no point in shipping a system with a Rapid Start partition created if it can't be used with that system's RAM configuration. And not that it's an excuse, but fwiw it only affects the mid-spec option since the bottom end comes with only 8GB RAM and the top has a full-size SSD.

And yes the lack of installation media is frustrating. They want you to use their recovery partition, but I wiped my hard drive for a clean slate. I ended up resorting to a torrent to get the media because my Win 8.1 ISO would only install Pro even after the EI.cfg tweak, and Microsoft's downloader only lets you use retail keys, not OEM. Ironically the torrent is an all-in-one that will install any version of Win8.1. Why Microsoft can't/won't offer that if the torrenters can is beyond me.

 

Anyone who ordered from Costco get any order updates? I ordered on the 14th and haven't gotten anything.

 

This is very interesting. I downloaded the Win 8.1 ISO from my MSDN account. It is the all-in-one version though. I plan to make the EI.cfg change and put it on a USB key. Perhaps the ISO you had was only a single version? Was it the full 3.8 Gb iso? I will let you know how this goes on my machine when I get it. I do agree though that they should make it easier to get the ISO, makes no sense to not have it widely available.

 

I ordered on 11.12. No email since my initial receipt. "Shipping status" at costco.com is "order received".

 

Bestbuy and Amazon. Both have it $250 off.

 

what model galaxy? who is your carrier? ive got the sprint SPH-L720...I tried all the ports, nothing...I beeps like it is connecting, over and over and over

 

Mine had already been delivered and I just got back from returning it. Costco showed 0 updates until after Delivery.. I found out I was getting it from FedEx SmartShip or whatever it is, where you create an account and they alert you whenever a shipment is headed your way. Signature required.

Actually I had the laptop in hand and Costco still hadn't charged me until the next day. Think My order was the 11th. I had contacted Costco and they looked it up and told me to expect it December 5th. Got it 2 days ago.. on the 21st.

I was at BestBuy just now, trying to decide 13" rMBP or 15"rMBP and went and looked at the Window laptops. The Sony convertible laptop touchscreen was also non responsive when I woke it up.. so as someone said earlier.. this could just be that the Microsoft generic driver sucks, and have to wait for Microsoft to update, or the manufacturers to write their own.

 

new message "My Dell Has Stopped Working" windows will close this program and notify you blah blah blah

anyway, I never attempted to open My Dell from the metro page...I just woke the screen after 5 minutes of non use...and saw that message

oh well, now I cant even open "My Dell" I click on icon and get nothing

 

The one I had was an 8.1 Pro from the retail downloader that I got from a friend, so evidently that one doesn't have the index file for Core. The even sadder part was that I had actually bought the Pro Pack, so even though Pro was going to be my "final destination", I couldn't install it off the bat with my Pro Pack key. Sigh. At least the Core to Pro switch was easy though, just two quick reboots.

 

I think the word 'works' should be clarified.
I mean, the system will not fail because of the mSATA. But whether it does what it's supposed to do is another question.
By the way, I saw a post in M3800's thread, that the customer ordered a mid-model M3800 with a larger mSATA through sales rep. I just wonder anyone did that. Because the above mentioned potential problem can simply be solved with a larger mSATA and paying like about 100 euro for a 256G mSATA will make it possible to install the OS and software on it.

 

My top-end XPS15 arrived two weeks ago--great design, but I'm returning it.

- It makes an awful high pitched noise--infrequently at first, but now about half the time it's on. With all the reports on this forum, Dell must have noticed this during development... so they obviously don't care.

- The trackpad click is annoyingly unresponsive, especially in the corners.

- The tiny arrows and lack of dedicated page/home/end keys make some coding tasks painful. The fact that there's plenty of room to correct this design flaw is just irritating.

But the main reason I'm returning it is the lovely vertical blue line that appeared on my screen yesterday. I went through diagnostics with Dell over the phone, and they agree--the screen is borked.

Since I didn't spring for onsite support (silly me), I have to send it to the depot for repair. For $2300, I think not; maybe I'll try again in six months' time.

(The attached picture shows the line in Windows. It's there on startup, too ... right across the Dell logo during boot--so it's not a driver or software issue.)

 

Did you notice any decolouring of the trackpad?

 

The trackpad has become darker in the center -- where it's most used.

 

Received my top tier XPS 15 yesterday. Set it up today.

So far no issues, not convinced the mSata drive would be as fast as a Sata drive, but I will probably keep this one.

I don't use trackpad much as I like a mouse, and I am not playing games with it, but I'll let you know if I have any issues.

 

Thanks for your feedback.

I defer my action on this one. Alternatively, for $2300+, I can get a solid notebook at a store downtown.

 

Why exactly are you unconvinced? mSATA is just like microUSB or mini-DisplayPort -- same capabilities as their full-size counterparts, just in a physically smaller package. It may be the case that the fastest regular SATA SSDs aren't available in mSATA form factor, but that would be a difference in drive model, not a connector type issue. But even THAT doesn't appear to be the case. If you look in the M3800 thread, the Lite-On 256GB unit has been benched at over 500 MB/sec read, and the Samsung SM841 512GB unit is pushing around 540, which is as fast as any 2.5" drive I've seen. The Samsung unit is presumed to be a repackaging of the 840 Pro, which is the fastest SATA SSD on the market now. I can't remember the write speed benchmarks, sorry.

No idea on the 32GB unit's performance, but that would probably be slower purely because cache units are designed to be inexpensive, and even a slow SSD will be noticeably faster than a spinning drive, so the improvement is still there.

 

Here a review (in german)

Dell XPS 15 im Test: Alle Augen auf das IGZO-Display - onlinekosten.de

 

When will this new XPS 15 come to stores? I have been trying to find one and after looking at all the issues here I would like a hands-on if possible. Is it always like this around a new XPS model release where only dell.com sells it for a while and no other retailers?

 

I wonder what Dell must be thinking - with so many returns because of defects...
I find it hard to believe that they had no idea about all these issues.
What kind of Quality Assurance department do they have, anyway ?
Maybe they just hoped that most people would rather live with the problems than return the computer to them.
I just hope that people who order their units now, don't get someone else's "returned" unit - as a (secret) refurbished device.
That would suck.

 

I doubt the return percentage is abnormally high. We also don't have a sense of how many machines as a percentage even suffer the problems being discussed here -- this is an enthusiast forum after all and is therefore going to be biased toward the critical and nitpicky. Plus there are plenty of people who might have these issues and not care. For example, mine has that coil whine, but so does my old M6300 and so have many laptops I've used, including Macs, so I don't care. The touchpad got on my nerves during initial setup, but that may go away after an adjustment period -- but even if it doesn't, mine will spend most of its time with the lid closed and external peripherals attached, so the touchpad and touchscreen issues (if mine has any) are pretty much moot to me. QC problems can happen (like the Latitude E6430u smelling of cat urine!), and so can design flaws that affect all units. It's not yet clear which category these issues fall into, but even if they're design issues, there's no such thing as a perfect laptop at any price, and any laptop will have its share of returns for whatever reasons. And if they're QC or launch issues, they'll get resolved with service and/or software and firmware updates. Like it or not, we're in the era of launching unfinished products. Look at the Xbox One and PS4, both of which shipped with the caveat that you'd have to download a launch day software update before you'd really be able to use them properly. Reasonable or not, this is part of being an early adopter, especially in the tech world (yes, even with Apple products) and especially with a piece of technology that has so much new stuff in the same package.

But returns never get resold as new units. Even units that were part of orders that were cancelled before they were even shipped don't get resold as new. In both of those cases, if they end up being resold anywhere it will be in the Dell Outlet where you're told whether the unit is a refurb or an order that never shipped.