XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Even when using the NVIDIA GPU, the Intel GPU handles the actual output to the display (passing through the image rendered by the NVIDIA GPU), so check the Intel graphics properties and make sure scaling while maintaining aspect ratio is enabled. I haven't tested games myself, but if I set my desktop resolution to 1080p it scales correctly. You might want to see whether that's the case for you. If it scales in Windows but not the game, you should look into support forums/contacts for that game/developer.

 

Its in a selection of games from different developers, such as Bioshock Infinite, Civ4/Civ5, Eve Online.

In the Intel side of things the only option i've really got is "Maintain Display scaling", however this is always on, i've not got the option of turning it on or off.
When i set it to 1920x1080 it has the option of centre image, or Scale full screen, when I set it to Scale Full screen it works for the desktop, and games do scale to the size of the screen. This does however cause a problem as if I'm wanting to keep the 3200x1800 for Desktop use, I have to set the games to also use this resolution.

 

Interesting. What if you set the desktop to 1080p, enable scaling, and them set it back to native resolution, and then launch a 1080p game? I'm wondering if the Intel drivers will remember that you want scaled rather than centered when the game drops down to 1080p so you wouldn't have to set that resolution on the desktop first.

 

Alas no dice. Also if I alt-tab out of the full screen game, change the desktop res back to 3200 and alt tab back, it goes back to non scaling

 

I just received my xps15 mid-tier yesterday, and after taking a look at it, I noticed a small cluster of pixels that were black. I have a macro-lens on my dslr, so I used it to see what was going on, and it appears to be a bit of debris behind the glass in front of the lcd. I called up Dell this morning, and have never had such a *good* tech support experience as I did today. The agent was very supportive, and took a let's get this fixed attitude the whole time. We even chatted about the weather. They are sending a service-tech over with a new screen in 2 days, to replace the panel.

He also got me to run a diagnostics while I was on the phone, and I hadn't seen this information in the thread, so I thought i would share it. With the computer turned off, if you hold down Fn and the Powerbutton for 2-5 seconds, and release them, it puts it into Dell diagnostics mode to test all the hardware from screen, memory, to drives, and components. It takes about 10 minutes, and you have the option after it returns it's comprehensive results page to do an additional deep scan that takes an additional 30 minutes.

And the other thing that was different than some of the previous posts from people having received theirs, is this came installed with Windows 8.1 out of the box.

Not to get my hands dirty with the other information posted here.

 

Hmm, well it looks like this is something that will have to be fixed in an Intel driver update (or possibly NVIDIA, but I'm betting Intel). There are already newer drivers on Intel's site, but they don't appear to install on this system, I presume because those drivers are designed for non-Optimus setups. But that should mean that Dell (hopefully) won't be far behind getting those drivers available for our systems. They've been getting MUCH faster at keeping pace with vendor driver releases recently.

Windows 8.1 is installed out of the box on all of these systems; the launch of the XPS 15 and M3800 was held UNTIL 8.1 was out. The reason people are installing Windows 8.1 from scratch (myself included) is to remove Dell crapware and also delete the extra recovery partitions they put onto the disk that hog up space for image-based recovery and diagnostics. Of course that means the diagnostics partition you used is probably gone from my system now, but Dell always makes that available as a download from which you can create a bootable disc/USB device anyway, so I'd much rather have the extra hard drive space than lose it permanently for something I'll seldom if ever use.

 

got my high spec xps yesterday and wow this laptop is great. coming from an inspiron 6400 it is night and day.

- screen is good, no pressure point, no dead pixels (at least as far as i can see)
- no high pitched sound
- trackpad is a little flaky but similar to my w510
- it gets a little discoloured from the oils on your fingers, but that is impossible to avoid. my w510 with these little bumps on the trackpad has had the bumps wear down and there is a change in colour, its more shiny, and the texture is different. so im not worried at all.
- installed win 8.1 off a usb key in like 5 minutes, it was amazing
- firefox looks/works great on it. i see a lot of people use chrome here, whyyyy google is spying on you!

 

Got mine today! (Highend Specs, est shipping date was 10. Dec, wat a pleasant surprise)

Great machine and a worthy successor to my old M1530. No issues so far, coils are silent, battery life is around 8h for light work (python, sublimetext, stackoverflow,...)

Has anybody got NFC working? I'm stuggling to share data between my lumia 720 and the xps in both directions. The nfc antenna is supposed to be in the palmrest right to the touchpad?

 

Notebookcheck has integrated info about battery life for 91Whr model:

Idle (without WLAN, min brightness) 14h 10min
WiFi Surfing 8h 50min
Load (maximum brightness) 2h 10min

Preview Dell XPS 15 (Late 2013) Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests

 

i share and have shared with my Lumia 1020 and i find the NFC to be at or above the touchpad.

 

So I just bought the strongest built with a -760$ coupon. Anyone tried runing windonws 7 on it yet? According to Dell my notebook will be here in 4 days.

 

Guyy, can you confirm what this review complains: the lid is not even - so one side is a bit higher that the other and so the display is uneven. Can you confirm this?
Dell XPS 15 (2013) im Test

And has anyone the 512GB SSD that Dell offers? Is this an mSATA SSD or a full size one?

 

I can be pretty OCD, constantly adjusting desktop monitors if I feel they're not horizontal, but this is not something I've ever noticed on my XPS 15. One side does not look higher than the other.

 

Hello all,

I saw a post in this forum a few pages back that Dell ?Australia? was going to have 10% off XPS for Cybermonday--is this going to occur for the US market as well?

Thanks,
N123

 

It's mSATA

 

No problems with build quality. Everything on mine is square and even. The review unit must have been an exception.

The SSD is mSATA. Very fast. the full-size bay is taken up by battery on the top spec model.

 

Im not seeing any sales for the new XPS 15...only discount i see is the older version (with 3rd gen Intel) will be on sale for cyber monday:
52% off Dell XPS 15 laptop w/ 3rd Gen Intel Core i7, 1080p display, 8GB memory, 750GB hard drive plus 32GB SSD for $799.99 w/ free shipping

Theres also a $50 off coupon. not seeing anything else.

 

I just ordered XPS 15 (9530) in France with ssd 512go and with the larger battery (91wh). This is necessarily the mSATA because the big battery take the place of disk 2.5". No choice .
Later when I have stored a lot of data on the ssd and my battery is worn so why not add another 512 GB SSD (samsung pro 840 if possible) in 2.5 "and a battery 61wh.

 

Hi guys,
Thanks to all who've contributed to this mega thread - it's very helpful to a prospective purchaser

I'm thinking about buying the top spec version - would anyone be willing to run Maxon's 3D 'Cinebench R15' benchmark and post the results? I'd really appreciate it. You can download Cinebench at:

MAXON | 3D FOR THE REAL WORLD: Overview

download link is at the bottom of the page.

Many thanks!

 

I can confirm that even in Italy is available 10% of discount on XPS and Inspiron for Cyber monday, moreover I have tested the coupon and it works fine at least in basket I do not finalized my order.

 

Cinebench was run in the German review cited above. It scored a 6.28. That seems representative of generally expected performance as their review unit scored about the same as mine on 3DMark and PCMark. Here's the link to the exact page:

Dell XPS 15 (2013) im Test

 

Could you share the coupon so we can test in the US?

Thanks

 

No one tried windows 7 on it yet ?

And yes there is a 10% coupon.. actually in my country there is 10% coupon + 540$ discount + 10% coupon from my company

 

Looks like no one has tried Windows 7 on this thing.

I wanted to, at one point. Given the iffy situation with the 9530, I've decided to do my work on a different box. Roughly the same price range, anyway.

 

To make a 3 finger tap trigger a middle click (so you can easily open new tabs in browsers):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Synaptics\SynTP\TouchPadSMB2c]
"3FingerTapAction"=dword:00000004

 

im having trouble installing the synaptics drivers from the synaptics website. i downloaded and run the setup and it says the driver is ready to use. but nothing is installed...there is no synaptics tab added in the mouse setttings

anyone have this problem?

 

Yeah, I tried as well and got the same results, ie Synoptics driver not installed in device manager, even after first removing the dell driver. I reinstalled the dell driver and will wait for dell to upgrade.

 

Yeah. Same problem here with the newest version. A couple of weeks back they had an older version posted that worked. The new one seems to somehow detect that it's a Dell Touchpad and it doesn't install (though it says it does).

 

May I ask you how did you get 540$ off, also are you in Austria or USA?

Yes I do, but It's the same Dell site that informs you of the coupon, anyway: 21GGLZCDLLWLVF

 

Hello and thanks to those who have contributed to this thread.

I tried searching but haven't been able to confirm: has anybody determined whether or not the msata port (specifically for the mid-tier model) supports SATA III speeds?

 

Both connectors are SATA III because the motherboard uses the Intel 8 Series chipset to control them. It also wouldn't be possible to achieve the benchmark numbers people are seeing on anything less, since 3Gbps SATA II would be 375MB/s even without any protocol overhead, whereas the 256GB mSATA drive is pushing around 480MB/s and the 512 pushes around 540. It would be crazy for those ports not to be SATA III these days considering how long SATA III has been around already and the fact that a single modern SSD would be bottlenecked by SATA II and can very nearly saturate even SATA III now.

 

I assumed the top-tier model had to be, but wasn't sure if that necessitated the lower- and mid-tier models were configured the same way with respect to both connectors being SATA III (since they only have the 32gb drives vs. the 512). I really appreciate the answer, thanks.

 

Hi,
i have masive problems with my XPS regarding the throtteling of the Graphics.
Im trying to play F1 2013 (Codemasters) on Full HD 1920x1080.Even on low settings i get throtteling latest after 2 laps.
Nvidia Geforce experince sets it to almost high settings,cant even make on lap.
At it is now my old XPS 17 L702x with Geforc 555m is faster than this new Laptop and it NEVER throttles.I will contact Dell on Monday but hoping somebody could let me know his experiece maybe even with F1 2013.I found that really lam,in fat i cant play at all.
Trackpad same thing,extremly laggy,hope for an better driver,at th moment on Synaptics.
Thanks a lot !!!
Greets

 

thanks,

is this coupon for cyber monday only?

 

Hey guys honestly, is there anything wrong with the screen scaling? Is it bad up to the point I should not get the laptop? I'm really interested, but I don't know if I should get the laptop if the icons and text are bad etc

 

Yes, you can use it until 2 december.

 

Well looks like I have to try it out myself then... I guess there shouldn't be any big driver problems ?

 

It can be worked out. Resolution 2048 x 1152 or 1920 x 1200. There are a number of other settings that can be adjusted. Some programs need the help, others don't. Some browsers can be adjusted inside their settings. See jpegs in post #1520 on page #152, for help.

 

What a disappointment!
Ordered the $2,000 top of the line (model 9530) from Costco almost 3 weeks ago and finally received today:

1) Ridiculous buzzing noise when the AC adapter is connected
2) Orrible LCD pressure point when moving lid up or down
3) At least one burned pixel (didn't even care to check further for more)
4) Touchpad borderline unusable
5) [A matter of taste but] the font used on the keyboard looks more like Klingon (isn't this supposed to be a pro machine?)

Do Dell even know what QA is?
Didn't even bother to call support (don't want to wait 3 more weeks for another possibly flawed unit).
Thank God for Costco wonderful return policy!

 

I love this machine, everything working as expected.

 

Wish I could say the same!
Judging from the complains on this forum alone you might be one of the few lucky!

 

It is interesting reading all the posts here.
I typically expect a LOT if I am to spend > $2,000.00 for a product.
It is unacceptable that the actual quality of these things coming off the assembly line is hit-and-miss.
I thought the Samsung Ativ-book-8 was pushing the limit of my budget, but I gave it a chance and ended up returning it because of various issues.
This new Dell is even more than the Samsung, so my expectations are higher as a result.
I am, however, extremely hesitant to buy this new Dell based on all the mixed experiences posted here.
I will probably wait for a price reduction/sale before "rolling the dice" and take my chances - or wait until you good folks start reporting that Dell has fixed the majority of the issues.
Maybe early 2014 will see the issuance of an updated version of the XPS 15 which addresses the issues with the "premature-birthed" one that you all are beta testing now.

 

darn, not working in the US.

A new $100 off came out for the US: CJBF1?$D?WPN4F

 

Even the new line suffers from this problem? On my L521x I am having the same problem with the LCD, I just forgot how many times has been change, around five times, and it is having the same problem, both, left/right edges when moving the lid up and down I can see the pressure of the LCD, maybe from the back of it inside, too tight made...
I just got tired of it.

 

I've decided I'm just not going to buy a new laptop for a while but are there seriously no reviews of this still?

 

Will do a review and compare it to my Malibal P170HM as soon as I recieve it.

 

Does anyone else experience a resolution change when opening the laptop from sleep mode? It's kind of annoying and would like to see if there is a fix. I usually have to restart to fix the issue.

 

Guys in Australia, if you want a decent discount, order on the phone, give them yours or a friends RACV number for a 13% discount or even better give them yours or a friends teacher/education number forr a 15% discount at anytime

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

Nope. Not on the QHD panel or either of my two external displays. I run all of them at native resolution if that matters. The only thing that occasionally happens is that text on the lock screen when using the QHD panel sometimes won't scale up correctly for a few seconds after waking up from sleep, but that fixes itself quickly and honestly who cares about the lock screen.

 

Regarding switching the mSATA, I just checked amazon.co.uk and for 256gb mSATA, there are following 3 options
1. Samsung PM851, 200 pound
2. Crucial M500, 130 pound
3. Plextor M5M, 160 pound

I quickly viewed the specs and it seems that Plextor one is better than Crucial one at a reasonable price, do you think it's going to work?
Is there any firmware update needed to fit this mSATA on Dell machine?