XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

I bought this USB 3.0 network adapter from Amazon. Works great at full gigabit speed and only $19.99!

 

For me, the lack of a numeric keypad is a plus. My last laptop was the ASUS Zenbook UX51VZ-XB71 (that's the quad core beast with similar specs with the retina-class display). One of the things I hated about it was the numeric keypad. The problem with shoe-horning a numeric keypad into a 15 inch laptop is that there's not enough room to have a border around each group of keys. So you end up with an unbroken sea of keys and it's tough to know where the regular keyboard ends and the numeric begins without looking. I'm used to working with the keyboard by feel and I can't tell you how many times I hit keys on the numeric keypad by accident instead of the keys on the right side of the regular keypad. Even worse were the arrow keys. Because of the numeric keypad there was no room for any border around them and I was always hitting the wrong key when I wanted to use the arrow keys. And I use the arrow keys a lot.

As for the lack of Home / End / Page Up / Page Down buttons, well, I used MacBook Pros for a few yeas before the Asus so I'm used to the exact same Fn key combinations to get those so I'm OK with it. The arrangement of those keys on the arrows is very intuitive and the keys are placed well to access quickly so it's very easy to pick up this style quickly.

The numeric keypad and the issues it caused typing is one of the main reasons I gave up on the Asus after only 4 months.

 

Can anyone with the top tier model (i.e., the one with the 512 GB & 91 WHr battery) tell me if it is possible to add a 1 TB western digital 7mm drive(WD10SPCX) without removing the 512GB mSATA card?

It seems that I should be able to as they are in different locations.



Also, is the SATA connector for the motherboard already there or is it something I have to buy from dell?

 

If you have a 91 WHr battery, you don't have room for a spinning hard drive, nor will you have a SATA connector. The first picture you attached is the mSATA slot (where the 512GB SSD card is). The second image is the spinning drive bay -- but the top-spec model has a larger battery that extends into the space that the hard drive would occupy.

 

You won't be able to add the 7mm mechanical drive with the 91 W·h battery. The battery physically uses the space where the drive would go. You'd need to buy 61 W·h battery and replace the 91 W·h in order to add the spinny drive. As to the connector I don't know. I haven't looked yet.

 

You'd also need to obtain the SATA connector if you started with a 91 WHr battery, since it doesn't include one. I don't know if Dell Parts actually SELLS it as a separate item, but it's basically a ribbon cable that attaches to a tiny connector on the motherboard.

Here is a pic of the XPS 15 with the larger battery: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-15-haswell-owners-lounge-59.html#post9447575

Here is a close-up of the SATA connector on the motherboard in a 91 WHr spec machine, along with a comparison for how it looks in a 61 WHr spec: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-15-haswell-owners-lounge-59.html#post9447610

 

Yes, you're right. But I'm pretty sure the iPad retina (now called the iPad Air) uses an IGZO display, not LTPS. Perhaps the Mini uses the LTPS still?

 

I was a little surprised when I received this laptop because I found the build quality to be top-notch. It's every bit as solid as my Retina MacBook Pro. No quality issues here. Very,very good.

It's funny how things change. For years, I used MacBook Pros even though I'm not an Apple fan because no one could touch them on build quality and performance in this form factor. But then I bought the Retina MacBook Pro. If I told you how many times I had to exchange it due to issues with the screen and other things you would not believe me. Then in August my trackpad starting going out and I was so tired of all the exchanges and repairs. I also didn't want to deal with their now crappy support again. The Geniuses, which used to be an asset for Apple, now act as if they're gods and any problems are the customers' fault. They really do have a "you're holding it wrong" attitude these days. So I decided to just buy a new Windows laptop and I'm glad I did.

 

I didn't have any issues with UEFI and GPT when installing Linux (OpenSUSE). If you're still having issues, send me a PM and I'll see if I can help.

 

Just spoke Dell on the phone. Ordered a top-spec one on November 29th, with planned delivery for December 10th (with delivery before Christmas).
It's been delayed with 25 days, due to shortage of their IGZO screens (or touchscreens, she wasn't specific). Webbased order info still says December 10th.

This Belgium-based.

"I chose the option for delivery before Christmas, though..."
"Yeah, that only counts if everything is in stock"
"Oh, well, yeah, that's kind of what I assumed if you offer to deliver before Christmas"

Why oh why do I want this laptop so badly...

 

many thanks...also keep in mind i cant pair with bluetooth...not sure i mentioned that...also, and this shouldnt matter, but my gs4 is root'd, i say it shouldnt matter b/c the rooted phone works fine with usb on my inspiron vista

 

In which way you have notice of this delay, Dell has warning you in some way or you have called Dell?

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I will add that my touch screen (top tier) crapped out at least once a day, and by "day" i mean i use the thing about 1-2 hours a day...so it crapped out once every 2 hours...and i would have to log off and back on in order for it to come back to life...that is UNTIL one of the fellas here said to go into settings, and disable the sleep parameters under HID devices...since i did that, I have NOT experienced a single touch screen crap out...or TSCO, since

so kudos to everyone who figured out the HID driver sleep issue in resolving touch screen issues...it is a bonafide solution

now who is going to solve my galaxy s4 mystery

 

Guys just a quick quetion. Do you think that Dell adds a lot of bloatware to this machine?

 

On this machine I was pleasantly surprised to see almost none at all, except the stupid McAfee Anti-Virus trial. There's also the Office 2013 Trial mentioned on the product page unless you order a full version, but unless you'll be downgrading to an older version or not using Office at all, that's not really bloatware. I still wiped it because that's just how I am (plus I wanted to reclaim the space allocated to the factory recovery partition), but if you don't want to do that, check out Programs and Features and the Startup tab of Task Manager (or msconfig if you're on Win7). I think you'll be happy with how little junk you see, and whatever else you don't like is easily uninstalled.

 

Have you used the Samsung software yet like has been mentioned weeks and dozens of pages ago?

 

There didn't seem to be too much bloatware on the machine to me. Mcafee and some Dell support stuff was the most obvious.

 

Someone just wrote an outstanding post in the M3800 thread about the whine noise people have talked about. Quoted below:

I replied that on my system the whine seems to change volume (and maybe pitch) with workload, and it seems to happen more while playing games, so I believe it's coming from circuitry handling the GPU(s), though possibly not EXCLUSIVELY from GPU circuitry. But since the fans come on when I'm playing games anyway, causing my laptop to make more noise overall (plus there's the game audio itself), it doesn't really bother me in the least.

 

Nothing serious really, I just did not realize I have to boot the install CD in UEFI to install grub2 on the EFI boot partition. OpenSUSE probably have better automatic detection and I heard they use elilo, so maybe there are some differences. I am still prefer the flexibility of Gentoo, even though I have to google a lot

 

That is some useful information. I did not realize the humming could be serious for electrolytic capacitors. For my case, the whine happens when the cpu is under load AND battery fully charged, as a matter of fact the battery is a little bit over charged, the maximal capacity is 99% and it always charged to 100%. If I disconnect AC or the battery is below 95%, there is only minor cpu whine, I cannot hear it unless I put my ear really close to the keyboard. But when the battery is full, it is hard to ignore the noise when I am in BIOS or Diagnosis.

 

There is no whine that I can detect on my system at any time. Perhaps only some are afflicted? In fact this is one of quietest notebooks I've every used (in everyday normal use), right up there with the current Macbook Pro.

Of course, while I have good hearing at normal frequencies at my age my hearing drops off steeply above about 13KHz or so, so if the whine is much higher pitched than that I may not notice!

 

Good point, my laptop is connected to AC almost constantly, so it could well be that I only get whine when my battery is full as well. :thumbsup:

 

Kies does not work. sorry

and not for nuthin, thats not a "solution" as file transer speeds OTA will be well below usb transfer, and i trasnfer several gigs at a time

 

I saw this announcement today also.
This would be the ideal SSD size for a laptop with so many other high-performance parts in it.
Since pricing has not even been released yet - I shudder to think how $$$$ this is going to be, and how much MORE Dell would charge us for it, if it was installed in the machine.

 

So no one else has noticed white -> yellow color shift when viewing the display even just a little off center? I'm generally OK with the display (it's actually very nice) but I wonder if it's worth having Dell replace the monitor for this. Thanks!

 

Interesting.
I wonder if there's an issue with Dell's charging circuitry or perhaps its charging logic in the BIOS that causes this ?
I hope Dell visits these forums and tries to investigate and solve these issues, as I suspect not many people are actually reporting these things directly to Dell.

 

Is there a way of moving the recovery partition to an USB stick? There's no point on having something using space that I'm probably never going to use (especially since the recovery would not just recover Windows in its partition, but would probably wipe out all the partitions, including Linux)

 

There is an app for Android called AudioTool this is capable to do a spectrum analysis:
For example I can see the 15KHz peak that a my old CRT TV emits when it's on.
Unfortunately is an App very pricey 6€, maybe there are others apps that do the same thing for free.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.julian.apps.AudioTool

 

To make it clear what I'm talking about here's a photo. The background color of the windows is white, not yellow! Strangely, the grey areas, even light grey, seem largely unaffected by the yellow color shift. It's mainly white that has the problem. (Sorry about the reflection of the light in the photo. In real lif it's not as prominent as it is in the photo.)

 

I actually suspect it has something to do with another issue I find, the "Battery Charge Configuration" in BIOS has no effect at all on my machine. I tried to change the setting to "Custom" and stop charging at 80% capacity (between a former Thinkpad user, I really like this function since I use AC almost all the time). Nothing happened, the battery just kept charging until it reaches 100%. I talked to the Dell tech support this morning, they insisted they need to do a remote diagnosis before they can provide any support. I am waiting for the recovery USB to arrive and will talk to them again.

 

I think you can just ask Dell to give you one. They wanted to remotely diagnosis my machine this morning, and I told them I already wipe out the windows and the recovery partition. The guy on the phone told me he will send a recovery USB and I can keep it afterwards.

 

oh HELLL NO...that is yellow my man...hello replacement

 

So you have an XPS 15 already? And yours doesn't do this? Yeah, then I guess I will need to have it replaced.

 

i may not game on mine (top tier), but i spend most of my time on websites, and i'd notice that in an instant...you gotta replace that

 

When you create a USB recovery stick in Win8, you have an option to include the custom refresh image on the stick. But that assumes that Dell is using that Windows function to store their recovery image. And it's possible that that can only be used to REFRESH your PC (i.e. keep your profile folder data but reinstall Windows) not RESTORE your PC (i.e. wipe everything and restore it to truly out of the box status). I haven't tested any of that. I just build the system the way I like it and use the Create System Image function to back it up to an external hard drive. Then I create a recovery tools USB stick whenever I need one. True that requires two devices, but it works. Plus I can add/remove whatever apps I want to that image before I create it rather than being stuck with whatever Dell decided to provide or not provide.

 

Careful when you ask for a part replacement because the technician might be an old guy or sweaty man that might mess things up or scratch all over the laptop. I had my 7537's panel (yeah yeah not an xps) replaced and that dude just totally destroyed the polished edge on my laptop. They DO NOT TREAT the laptop like their own property like we do, especially on a 2k laptop. So BEWARE!

 

CONCERN:

Shipping has now been pushed back a month, as in the Earliest you can recieve the high spec model is the 10th of January 2014.... do you reckon this is due to a potential re-design?

 

Nope, this delay is due to shortage of WQXGA+ (3200x1800) screen, in fact is you look the delivery date for FHD model this is still on December.

 

No, part shortages.

 

Is there anyone who ordered their top-spec in October and still haven't received the unit? (USA)

 

It's perfectly normal, mine turns yellow if you view it from the side.

It's not the best for viewing angles but as a user you never even notice it as you're looking straight at it.

 

It concerns me that you still actually haven't actually tried this, because your notion of Kies is completely wrong. It is a software package (which crucially also installs the Samsung USB Drivers for your phone) that allows your phone to connect to the computer and manage files via USB, it does not use your OTA the connection. In fact the newer Kies App for Android (not what has been talked about) does allow for wireless connection, but only on a local Wifi network, again not using the OTA connection. Please go here: GT-I9500 - DOWNLOADS | SUPPORT | SAMSUNG download the software, which will install the USB drivers, and try to connect your phone via USB.

 

For some reason, even being an admin, I cannot turn off windows updates.
It says it is managed by system administrator.

How do you turn that off?

 

That's typically what you see if you join your system to a domain that uses WSUS or SCCM to deploy updates, in which case you can't change those settings because they're managed by the domain's Group Policy, unless you remove your machine from the domain or get your system set up in the domain such that that Group Policy doesn't apply to you. If you're not on a domain, technically you can use Group Policy Management to set an update policy on your own PC (though why you'd want to do this is beyond me), so you could try launching that, though I believe it only works with Win8 Pro. If you're on Win8 Core, then I can't account for why you'd see that.

 

so do you think kies will solve the bluetooth connectivity?

 

It might, only one way to find out. Why do you care about bluetooth though? Your previous post said Kies was unacceptable due to low transfer speed OTA. I assume you were confused by the Kies Android App that uses a local Wifi connection. Bluetooth has a transfer rate that is *slower* than Wifi. In fact, Bluetooth 3.0/4.0 doesn't even use the bluetooth protocol to transfer files. It uses Bluetooth for negotiation and a collocated 802.11 band for the actual file transfer. The amount of complaining you have done, and your unwillingness to try the potential solutions offered to you has me thinking you don't want to solve this and just want to have something that can be "wrong" with your laptop.

 

Anyone actually install those Gamespirit audio drivers that add the Creative X-FI, etc to the Realtek chip? After installing these, my headphone jack doesn't work; sound still comes out of the internal speakers even when I've plugged in headphones. Anyone seen this?

 

I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 GT-i9100, there are 2 way to connect using USB port.

1)First way, you do not need driver on PC, but you have to select on Samsung device to act as simple memory storage, in this way you can use just a simple USB key.

2)Second way, you need to install Samsung USB drivers on your PC, and even for this there are 2 way:
-2.1)you can install Kies on your PC (if I remember correctly GS4 could use Kies 3)
-2.2)you can use Windows update with your phone connected to USB port.
With Samsung drivers you can use your phone as modern 3G/4G, Wi-Fi adapter, USB key and others functions.

I find a little strange that there are no others Samsung device owners in this thread to verify this issue.

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i doubt that as even the 1080p XPS 13 has January shipping dates.

 

Dell has not made revision for the faulty L521x, it was produced for a full year without any change, so I find hard to believe that now they make a revision without any big issue.

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