XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

Im in Australia and ordered the top spec model on friday. The price listed on the website is AUD2999, and after talking a dell sales person on the phone, they reduced the price to AUD2570. I told them I would look around at other brands as that was still to expensive. I got a call back 30 minutes later asking if I would reconsider if the price was lowered to AUD2420 (that's almost a 20% discount). I told them that would be great, and ordered the computer.

I'm concerned about quality issues that people have discussed on this forum, however thanks to great consumer protection laws in Australia, if there are any problems, Dell is legally obliged to either fix them or replace or refund the computer. I also didn't bother getting extended warranty/prosupport, again thanks to Australia's great consumer protection laws which say that products have a reasonable lifetime expectation of functioning, and if the product doesn't meet that expected lifetime the manufacturer is required to resolve the problem

It's expected to arrive before Dec 18. I'm happy to run graphics tests, battery tests etc if anyone requests. I'll also post a review when it arrives, especially if there are any problems.

 

I have no experience with Plextor SSDs, whereas Samsung and Crucial are both established in that area. I'd personally go with one of those even if the performance numbers aren't quite as good (within a certain range the exact numbers are purely academic anyway and not indicative of any noticeable difference), but whatever you choose you won't need to update the machine's firmware for the new mSATA unit. It's always a good idea to update the SSD's firmware of course if an update is available, but even that's not strictly required. You may need to adjust the BIOS to flip the mSATA port from cache to independent unit depending on the spec you buy, but after that you're good to go.

 

looks like newegg is carrying the mid tier one now...

Newegg.com - DELL XPS XPS15-6842sLV Intel Core i7 16GB Memory 1TB HDD 32GB SSD Touchscreen Notebook

wonder if they will have the high tier one soon...save on taxes and shipping (free shoprunner for amex users)

 

I am luckily the owner of an xp 15 9530 without any issues- the machine is extremely well built and has worked wonderfully so far ( about 9 hours of browsing battery life and 12 hours of non browsing battery life (word, etc)).

I've seen mention of NFC usage in this forum but all I know how to do is send an app link to the PC from my phone. Dell support was clueless and read canned answers from a manual. They were no help.

Is there a way to transfer files or photos via NFC on this computer? If so, how ? Any help is appreciated. I can't figure it out. I can get the PC to recognize my NFC-enabled phone but I'm not sure how to send files back-and-fourth this way.

Thanks!

 

You guys are lucky to even have received your laptops! After waiting for 3 weeks my order showed up cancelled with no prior knowledge! They keep claiming it was me who called to cancel it, sometimes they claim it was a technical issue...

 

I've had one of these (top end model) for a couple of weeks now and so far it's been pretty good. Screen is very good, very quiet unless I am running a game in which case the fans make a bit of noise. No problems with track pad but I mainly use a mouse. Battery life is good enough that I can use this without the mains. I can't see 11hours but it is certainly better than the hour I was getting with my last laptop and good enough for me to consider this machine to be portable. Occasionally I get a noise from inside the case like something you might get for an old mechanical hard disk but I can hardly hear it. Overall I am pretty happy with it. I had intended to buy a MacBook Pro retina until I saw this but I am forced to use Windows by some of the software I use and this has comparable specs.

I do get the wireless dropping out occasionally and I'm hoping a new router I have brought might fix that, the current one is pretty old. I've played Skyrim and Team Fortress with no problems (after updating the graphics drivers) although I am still working out what settings are best.

However when I play Battlefield 3 I see the GPU overheats despite my attempts to use minimum settings and a cooling pad. Using GPU-Z I see the GPU core clock run at 1058MHz, GPU load of 99% and the GPU temperature slowly climbing to around 79 degrees Celsius at which point the clock drops to 135MHz and then I see around 5fps. After the temp drops to around 46 degrees Celsius the clock goes back to 1058MHz and we are off again. I suspect the throttling others are reporting is the same problem. Works great for a while until the temp gets too high. If anyone has any ideas that would be really useful. I've read a little about reducing the GPU frequency to try and lower the heat generated but I am not sure how to just yet. It could be the machine just can't run BF3 but I feel it is close.

 

May I ask you what's model of cooling pad are you using?
Your tag says that you are in Australia so I imagine that there it's summer then what's your ambient temperature?

 

hi
could you tell me where can you check the gpu cpu temperatures?
thanks

 

Just ordered the mid model in nl. When I started my order, it showed estimated delivery date was 8th December. When I finished configuration and paid and viewed the order detail, it showed Dec.27th, !

 

Hey guys - just wanted to drop a quick review of the XPS 15 I received late this week. I bought the i7, SSD model. I'll preface my opinion by telling you I run a computer shop so I do play with a lot of different notebooks. I owned a MacBook Pro Retina before giving it up mainly because I'm a Windows guy and our main business software uses the INS key extensively, which as you may be aware, Mac's do not have. (I couldn't fine a good way to emulate it either.. blah)

Anyways.. here you go.

Exterior - The XPS15 is pretty much a copy of the MBPr. It is slightly larger, but not noticeable. I would say the fit and finish on the Apple product is superior. My XPS15 has some minor fit and finish issues. Nothing major like what I have read about on here, but my unit, for example, has a misaligned name plate on the bottom so one side slightly sticks out unless I push its hinges to the side. Not a big deal, but for a $2500 notebook it should be flawless. BTW, what's with the battery check button on the side? Is that really needed? Seems silly to me.

Interior - Fit and finish was fine, again looks fairly similar to the MBPr. Personally, I do not like the rubberized interior. It leaves marks like crazy and because of the slightly large depth it makes moving my hands/palms/wrists around the face a bit difficult. Maybe it will get worn in over time, but aside from the wrist-cutting edges on the MBPr, I prefer the all-aluminum finish.

Screen - Absolutely gorgeous. A review I read from someone who used a MBPr mentioned he noticed the additional "touch layer" on the XPS15 vs the MBPr. I gotta say - I'm not sure what he is referring to or maybe I'm just not super picky. The screen is very nice and competes with the MBPr display without issue.

OS - Okay, so here is the sticking point for me. I've never given Windows 8 a chance. I didn't plan on using Windows 8 on this but when I got it, I figured I might not have a choice. So I spent Friday night basically reading, making changes to the W8.1 interface, learning the Touch nuances, etc. I guess I still don't really love it. The OS has scaling issues at the native resolution which the MBPr didn't seem to have. BTW - Can we load Windows 7 on this thing and have it run 100%?

Overall impression - It isn't totally Dell's fault - but as a PC lover, it makes me sad that I have to really work to learn and love this machine - mainly due to the OS. Add that up with the other slight nuances and I'm not sure this is a winner. It is the nicest Windows notebook I have used, but at this point I have higher expectations. Unfortunately, I and I'm guess many other users feel that if I have to sit here and learn a new OS why not go with a Mac?

Anyways - this is an initial review after using it for 2-3 days. I'll provide more feedback for anyone who cares in the coming weeks. Let's see if I can fall in love with the XPS15 and Windows 8.1.

 

What stage of production did your order get to? Mine is shipped, i have had an invoice emailed to me which says no payment due yet i dont see it on my credit card statement despite the funds having been reserved last week. Theyre no longer reserved! Has anyone else had anything similar happen?

Also, when i ordered it said estimated shipping November 27th and delivery Dec 4th, it shipped on the 29th and then later that day i got an email telling me that due to unexpected demand my order would be delayed to Dec 13th (a 9 day delay despite the 2 day late despatch!) and... that i would be emailed again when my order shipped?! Its already shipped, is this normal?!

 

I have a question for European owners, how many days have passed from order to delivery?

Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 con Tapatalk 2

 

Dec 8 was probably unrealistic to start. Most are receiving prior to the delivery date. Could have it before Christmas

 

To those that have received their laptop... anyone care to share a review w/ pics and all? Or if I've missed a post with this stuff, please forward me to it! Thanks!

As for those users wanting to switch the mSATA, Dell supplies their laptops with Lite On/Plextor (at least in Bokeh's M3800, which should be identical to the new XPS 15). They use Marvell's controller (identical to Crucial/Micron). It is an excellent drive and is very competitive with the Samsung drive.

http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/plextor-m5m-msata-ssd-review-256gb/4/
http://www.amazon.com/Plextor-M5M-0...UTF8&qid=1385930994&sr=1-1&keywords=PX-256M5M

 

My XPS15 shipped with a Samsung mSATA drive.

 

Macbook pro 15 haswell retina display is the better option to buy at this price range

 

At least for now, the 256GB unit is a Lite-On, the 512 is a Samsung. No idea what the 32GB unit is.

 

So mine just started doing this flickering video thing after I woke the screen... Anyone else?

A reboot fixed it, but uhhhh...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqYeNOrhrL0

 

Mine did that once, but closing and reopening the lid fixed it, as I knew it would because that power cycles the display. I've seen that on other panels with other machines too, both internal and external. Sometimes digital interfaces just don't initialize correctly and a clock sync error can lead to that behavior. And all else being equal, the higher the resolution, the higher the bandwidth required and thus the greater the potential for error, so on a 3200x1800 panel I wasn't too surprised this happened. And like I said, it only happened once.

It's a pretty quick fix as long as you don't have the machine set to go to sleep when you close the lid. I always set the lid close action to Do Nothing because sometimes I want to keep an app running with the lid shut, and if I want to sleep the machine I can select that manually or set the Power button action to Sleep. Plus if you sleep the machine by closing the lid, you won't know for sure if it actually went to sleep (some app might have prevented it), and you don't want to toss a running machine into a bag. That risks thermal issues, data/damage issues on spinning drives, and of course battery discharge when you might have been counting on having more battery life later.

 

Is anyone else having issues with the wireless card in this machine? I've had two of these laptops sent to me and both are randomly losing their wireless connection. I have to run the Windows troubleshooter to fix the problem and the problem is always, "The default gateway is not available."

Some background... I have an Actiontec DSL modem and an Airport Extreme Base Station acting as a router. I've had this setup for over a year and have no problems with any of my wireless devices staying connected. The first XPS 15 was sent to me about three weeks ago and out of the box it started losing it's wireless connection intermittently, sometimes its once an hour, sometimes its four times in half an hour. I tried doing some troubleshooting, updated the Intel wireless driver, and even installed windows 7 but the problem remained. I contacted Dell technical support who just said they would send me a new system. The new system arrived and it had the same problem. So now I've got two awesome computers but neither can stay connected to the internet. Any advice?

 

Just to confirm, when you say you updated the Intel wireless driver, are you getting the latest drivers from INTEL'S website, not Dell's? The 16.6 version that seems to be solving people's connection issues isn't up on Dell's site yet, only Intel's. If you've already done that, try updating your Airport Base Station firmware if you haven't already.

 

I appreciate the response I just checked to see if the Airport Extreme had any updates (it did not) and I double checked which driver version of the Intel wireless I had, and it is 16.6.0.8. So those seem to not be the problem.

edit - to clarify the driver I updated was for the Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260

 

Hmm, well I know this wouldn't be a solution, but if you have access to an alternate router (or multiples), it might be good to test whether your machine is having trouble with any Wifi connection or just certain models.

 

I'll take it into work tomorrow and test it on their wifi... then report back. Thanks for the help!

 

I have the same problem and have a Netgear DGN2200 DSL modem router. If I switch airplane mode on and off that usually clears it. It is a little frustrating, I have a new router to install that I am hoping will fix it. I am using the 16.6.0.8 wireless driver.

 

I ordered on November 5th for a planned delivery no later than November 18th.
In the end I got the order
on November 21st.
You get an UPS tracking number soon after the order, but you can't use it while the order is in transit from China to Amsterdam, Europe.
I would count about 5 days from China to Europe after the site informs you that the notebook was sent.
In Europe it is super quick as used to with UPS, it takes 2 days top and generally only one day.

This was for the Platinum version with delivery in France.

So far I find it is an outstanding notebook and I will soon write a review, but I am checking with Dell regarding battery life as I think I should get more.

 

I am using a 'Cooler Master Notepal U3'. It has 3 small fans that you can position to best effect. It feels good to use but the fans are a little noisy, as all fans will be and I wonder if I am getting enough air flow. The ambient temp is around 23 deg Celsius. If I could shave a few degrees off I think I could make this work.

I am using a program called TechPowerUp GPU-Z 0.7.4 to monitor the GPU temperatures. I get slow frame rates on BF3 consistent with the high temperatures and slow clock speed reported by GPU-Z and the graphics card data seems to be correct so the program seems to be working.

 

I'm having another really annoying problem here. I got the 3200x1800 screen, and obviously the discrete GPU isn't enough for running somewhat demanding games at thtat resolution, so I just lower the resolution to something like 1920x1080 or so, but unfortunately when I lower the resolution some games don't stretch and I get black borders around the screen.

This is Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, @1920x1080:



I also have this problem with Far Cry 3.

Does anyone know why this is happening? I suspect it's an issue with the Intel Graphics driver...

 

So people playing games on the new xps 15, I've changed my battery power options (when plugged in) to high performance. What else do you need to set for gaming on the computer to make sure you're utilizing the computer performance (again when plugged in).

Edit intel or nvidia settings? More fiddling with power options? I want max performance while plugged in, and max battery when not plugged in, as it should be (brightness I can work out myself), but others?

 

Please may I know what your power settings are? I use ~20% brightness, max Wifi performance on battery, do not sleep, and it is about 5 hours browsing. Light browsing.

9 hours is difficult to fathom based on my experience, but Dell hasn't been too willing to talk about the battery.

 

MBPr is not in this price range. I got my XPS15 for $850 cheaper than the comparable Mac. They simply aren't in the same price category.

 

I get similar wifi browsing battery life and I use between 0-20% brightness, max Wifi power saving, and I also disabled the NFC/Bluetooth/touch screen because I do not use those. That is about all I have changed so far. That and setting the graphics to default to integrated instead of Nvidia.

 

I got about 8/9 hours of using videos and some light browsing. Turned my power options to high performance, but then went into settings (advanced options) and changed everything on battery to battery performance. Went into Intel graphic properties and wrote maximise battery for battery usage. So far its been ok, but obviously the high res screen takes a lot out of it. I also went balanced for video properties I think.

It's just gaming I'm confused about trying to maximize.

 

I've been keeping up to date on this thread since I first ordered my laptop a month ago...

I received my one (top tier) this morning, and while I've not yet had an opportunity to put it though its paces, what little I've experienced with it so far has been good.

 

Does anyone know if there are going to be any cybermonday deals/discounts on this laptop for the **USA** market today?

 

The High Performance profile gives you maximum performance when on AC and battery, it doesn't give you max performance on AC and max battery life on battery; the latter is achieved with the Power Saver profile. If you want to create a profile that does both, I've posted the settings I recommend below. Anything I don't mention here should be obvious and/or left at defaults. Other than Power Options, the only other thing I can think you might have to do in order to get max performance is force games to use the NVIDIA GPU if some of them are buggy and for whatever reason default to the Intel unit. That should be pretty obvious if that's happening though. Power settings below:

Turn off hard disk: 5 minutes for battery, 20+ for AC. If you're SSD-only this doesn't matter at all unless you have an external hard drive that responds to this setting, in which case you might want to disable this feature entirely because constantly spinning hard drives up and down isn't great for them especially when you don't even get any battery savings out of the deal.

Wireless Adapter: Max power saving on battery, Max performance on AC. Obviously if you find that your Wifi throughput and/or range isn't good enough on battery, you might need to switch to a less aggressive power saving mode.

Sleep: I set this to never on both because I prefer to sleep my system manually, and I don't want my system to go to sleep if an app I'm running needs to stay running while I'm away. But if you're not judicious about that, obviously enable a timer here.

Hibernate: Never on both, because that could preempt Intel Rapid Start, which is a better hibernate.

Wake timers: Disabled on both. They're a cool idea, but unless you actually have IMPORTANT tasks that use them, best to leave them off, otherwise your machine might spontaneously wake up inside your laptop bag in order to install Windows updates or update anti-virus definitions or something. And those tasks don't put the machine back to sleep when they're done.

Intel Graphics: Max battery on battery, Max performance on AC.

PCIe Link State Power Management: Max power savings on battery, moderate power savings on AC. Turning it off completely apparently can cause some systems not to be able to go to sleep at all, and this only affects how long it takes to wake up PCIe devices when they're needed, not how fast they perform once they're awake.

System cooling policy: Passive on battery (prefer throttling over fans), active on AC (prefer fans over throttling).

Display: Brightness varies based on your environment, but I turn adaptive brightness off because it makes manual adjustments more confusing. But I set my dimmed brightness to 20% on battery (still totally readable on the QHD panel even in lit areas).

Critical battery action: Change to Sleep in order to use Rapid Start hibernate.

 

I am having a similar problem as someone else has mentioned here about connecting their phone via usb.

I cant connect my Blackberry Z10 via usb cable to my laptop. No sound is made that the connection was detected, the phone isnt mounted in my computer, nothing. Has anyone else experienced this problem and been able to work around it? Usb key works fine.

 

Given some of the variable quality control on these units reported per this forum, I'm wondering if perhaps the newer builds are more stable/have modifications based on user feedback vs. those constructed right at product launch.

Also has anyone ordering from Costco had a good experience with their XPS 15?--I'm wondering if they order from Dell each time and get new builds or if they have a stockpile in their warehouse of perhaps older build machines?

 

still cant get "My Dell" app to open anymore...has anyone had luck with a dell tech to resolve this? its been almost two weeks without it working

 

Well my order just got very mysteriously cancelled.

The website stated a -400€ discount on all XPS laptops. So instead of 2000€ I would only pay 1600€.. nice deal ! Additionally I added a 10% coupon and ended up somewhere at 1400€. Awesome, right ?
I recieved and "Order done" e-mail but nothing else. Today I called the support to find out that my order payment wasn't successful (credit card) and I should re-play via credit card.

Here comes the first weird part: I should tell all my credit card details via phone hotline... well its Dell.. I guess I can trust them. Anyway, 5 minutes later I get another call from Dell, telling me that the order doesn't work anymore and I should re-order. Well fine for me.. but where is my 400€ discount ? The hotline women starts random blabla.. after 15 minutes blabla I finally ask again: 400€ discount.. yes or no ? She says it was a website mistake. I say go yourself.

On the same day I ordered the Dell XPS 15 I also ordered 2 screens + cables + lan adapter, etc... seriously what a bull****.

There was a big "banner" on their homepage saying "-400€ on all XPS notebooks" as well as the price on the laptop itself was "crossed" from 2000€ to 1600€.. website mistake?!

I will call tomorrow again and see if I can reach someone above the random hotline women.. this isn't acceptable at all. Small companies like Malibal try to give you whatever discount possible (e.g. there was free US shipping but I am from EU.. so I got a different discount instead). But Dell makes discount mistakes worth 600€ (=800$) ?

 

No there aren't going to be any modifications only 1 month in, it takes much longer for revisions of hardware. My Costco machine is just fine, I was one of the first to order from Costco.

 

You really don't need to mess with anything else to get the best performance on gaming. My out-of-the-box machine with max-perf power settings returns a 3DMark11 score of near-as-makes-no-difference 3000 points. That's just about what to expect with this machine (2900-3000) and it works very well for games within its wheelhouse.

Only suggestion would be to launch GeForce Experience from the task bar and let it auto-configure settings for the games you have installed. Open the games tab, select the game, press auto-config, and you're done.

 

The 'My Dell' app isn't working for most. I'm not sure if it's working for anyone. I spent a silly amount of time the other night on the phone with a dell rep. Ended up doing a Win reset and eventually a full reinstall (which was pretty annoying, but went VERY quickly because of the fast hardware). After all of that I got the app to launch for a few seconds, but then it errored out and hasn't opened since. The rep ended up elevating the issue, but haven't heard of any resolution as of yet.

 

That looks really annoying. Where did you change the settings for the game? Have you checked the settings under GeForce Experience in the taskbar and tried to auto-configure under the games tab to see if that works?

 

Sounds like this "app" is just a shell for a web resource, in which case if the resource is down, the app will appear not to work. But can someone PLEASE enlighten me as to what this app does that makes people care about it so much? I wiped my system first thing so I don't have it. If it's just an app to retrieve driver updates, that can easily be some by just going to Dell's Support page.

 

I think if you drop the resolution in Windows prior to launching the game, this gets fixed, though if you Alt-Tab out and come back, it'll be non-scaled again -- at least that's what I remember from someone else who reported this a few pages before this other person. It's got to be a driver issue, but I'm not sure whether I'd put my money on the fix needing to come from Intel or NVIDIA given the circumstances.

 

While I think that there probably are some defective units out there - I don't think that there is as much variability as you'd first think. The main problems that have been discussed are (in no particular order):

1. Screen issues when moving screen (pressure point)
2. Touchpad performance
3. Battery life
4. Wireless performance.

I think the first point to consider is that some people just don't care or "percieive" and issue with something that someone else complains about it. Maybe they are used to poor battery life or a crappy touchpad so it doesn't bother them that this one isn't particularly awesome. Or maybe they use a mouse most of the time or leave it plugged into AC most of the time.

The second point to consider is that some things are dependent on external factors. My guess is that temperature has a lot to do with the screen movement/flex issue causing a pressure point. The backing is metal. Temperature greatly affects the flexibility of metal. This could lead to different results for different people. For the wireless, the quality and configuration of the wireless base station has A LOT to do with how the wireless in this laptop will perform. Some people may have never percieived a problem with a previous device because it was a lower bandwidth device to begin with. Sometimes there are just odd incompatibilities with some routers and some cards - it happens and I've seen it first hand over the years.

Lastly, battery performance is variable based on the wear level of the battery when you get it. Wear levels from 5-10% aren't uncommon when you get them. While I do think this laptop will NEVER hit the 11 hour mark that Dell said it would (even with the screen off) I do think that the typical battery run-time is going to vary by 20-25% depending on wear level, age, and personal use - and what background apps are running.

Overall I think the laptop is a turd for the $2200 they are charging for the top spec model. It would be better priced around the $1500 price point - but even then it should have a very well configured trackpad. Having a poor trackpad on a laptop of this caliber is like putting crappy steering and gearshift in a sports car.

 

Well graphics pros, Dell just launched new 24" and 32" Ultra HD displays (16x9, 3840x2160) to go with your QHD internal panels: Dell's UltraSharp 32 and new UltraSharp 24 4K monitors are available now, 28-inch model on the way

Be extra good for Santa!!

 

You're assuming that they didn't already know about some of the problems and weren't already working on hardware revisions in the mean time to respond to consumer backlash.

 

it was still in the "in production" stage.