XPS 15 (Haswell) Owner's Lounge

seems like it's really close to the old one in dimensions based on reported specs, but I don't know the reported specs may not always be right. I would assume a bag or sleeve would fit the new one if you had it for the old one.

Dell said 0.3" to 0.7" high/tall, I thought that meant because it was wedge shaped it was one end and the other. Turns out the other end is pretty high still, I think around 0.5"...

You can custom order sleeves or bags online (Etsy)

 

Could someone please compare vs. rMBP15 and comment on how *glossy* / *reflective* the screen is.
I would be choosing between the two mostly based on the screen.
Side-by-side photos would be awesome!

Could someone also do a subjective comparison of both touchpads.
Thanks

 

It switched to shipped yesterday (November 5).
Good luck!
(Spybenj)

 

I will as soon as my XPS gets here. Which may be never as its still in production. My rMBP is last years model.

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Mine (high spec model) shipped today, scheduled to be delivered on Monday. Estimated delivery date when I ordered was 11/18 so Dell is well ahead of schedule. I was expecting it to ship from China, but in fact it is coming from Torrance, CA. Hard to believe they are assembling these in USA, maybe they are importing containers of assembled machines from China then distributing them from the USA. Either way, kudos to Dell!

I look forward to comparing the screen and battery life with my 2012 rMBP. I also saw the Yoga 2 Pro at Best Buy, the design of which impressed me greatly, although I have read the screen has issues with reproducing the yellow color. Also it does not have 5Ghz network compatibility, and of course has less memory and no real GPU. Still, it is a tempting machine.

 

Its exactly that. The importing from China/going through customs process is all part of the "In Production" stage of the order. I'm pretty sure none of the consumer systems are built domestically anymore.

 

Here's a side by side. This is the m3800, but it's identical to the XPS 15 hardware except for the graphics card. The poster said they were pretty similar in glare.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...ision-m3800-owners-review-26.html#post9431998

 

Thanks
Gonna call dell soon

 

Call up Dell 'Sales Resolution'. In the US - 1 800 624 9897 ext. 2169555. I believe they're the ones that try to stop you from canceling/returning your order. If you tell them you're not happy, and ask nicely, they can knock a chunk off the cost of the system to put a smile back on your face. I got the impression that they can kick back 5% without too much trouble. I found a nice agent that got me $120 off the mid-tier model after a bit of chatting.

 

Let us know how it goes. I called them and they were fairly useless. They did upgrade me to the next day shipping, but still have no clue about when it would actually be shipped.

 

Question for those of you who are replacing your mSATA drives with something bigger. How are you transferring the OS from the old drive to the new one? I know you can't just copy the files (and since you can only have one mSATA plugged in at a time, you'd have to use a third drive as an intermediary anyway). Are you using a system image program? And if so, which one?

Bonus question -- does the XPS come with a system restore disk? Is there a way to re-download Windows 8.1?

 

I got a good laugh out of the fact that Dell still installs the hard drive free-fall protection stuff on the SSD only machines...

 

I like to know your result to spybenj.

I chatted with customer service (not sales) yesterday and he was all too happy to help me cancel my order when I told him I was considering cancelling.

I also realized why are laptops are delayed. One of the customizations dell offered was opium and I order several bags. Probably holding that pallet up in customs. Sorry guys.

 

that's pretty daft, what program is that under

didn't really notice much bloatware but they tend to exist as multiple files and folders rather than grouped... and without a start menu I can't even see my programs most of the time

 

I will probably use win7. I will keep the default msata for warranty purposes.

 

Man I am noticing depending on how I get to the XPS 15 page, prices vary widly for the high end config. 2299 to 2599.. and a 2399 in between. Not including any discounts I get... weird...

 

Thanks for the pics, I was getting a little worried

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Hey Guys...

MY XPS15 JUST ARRIVED!

Newb question...to ensure long-term battery health. Should I let the laptop run on its battery until it drains out. Or should I plug in straight into a power socket let it charge to full, and then run it down to empty. Or just use it as I normally would.

Cheers!

 

Lithium Ion.. won't hurt it really either way.. go ahead and plug it in and use it.

 

I will wait a bit for most of you fine folks to receive your XPS machines before I decide which one to get.
I wish there was such a thing as a 1 TB mSATA SSD out there - as 512 MB won't be enough (for my purposes).
I may end up sacrificing battery life and getting the mid-tier model, so that I can swap out the HD with a Crucial M500 960GB SSD.
That will give me the speed and storage I will need for the foreseeable future.

We should put together a Review Wishlist for this XPS.
The items I am very curious about are:
- Screen Resolution. What resolution are you running it at and is it "useable" at the highest resolution ?
- Screen Resolution. If you run it at 1080p, is everything still "sharp", or are things fuzzy ?
- Screen Quality. Being the new IGZO technology - what's it like ?
- Screen Quality. BIG one here - IMAGE RETENTION. Is there any ? (after-image of previous windows/icons when you switch to a blank screen)
- Keyboard Backlight. Is it bright or just "barely-lit" ?
- Screen Reflectivity. How reflective is it in various environments of different ambient brightness ?
- Touchpad. It is huge from the pictures I saw. Does it get in the way of you typing - moving the cursor where it should not go ?
- Fan Noise. How is it when doing light activities versus under load such as gaming ?

 

I have noticed that the very corners of the mouse clicks, when you click they dont seem to be responsive compared to a mouspad that has seperate left and right click buttons. Anyone else have this issue?

 

You can find it in the control panel...under Free Fall Data Protection, its disabled by default on my 512gb one.

Its possible we still have the sensor but obviously dont need it...

If you want to uninstall for some reason it you can remove: ST Microelectronics 3 Axis Digital Accelerometer solution.

There isn't really that much bloatware on this machine, and it looks extremely easy to remove..

 

So how is everyone's opinion of it so far? Would you still buy it given the choice now that you have it? Find anything you wished they wouldn't of done?

Battery life? Big battery get anywhere close to the 9 hours they claim in light web use?

 

Mine is finally in shipping (Dell hasn't sent an email, just checked online). So hopefully you other first day'ers will see it in shipping too.

 

Anyone in the UK got theirs yet? How long did it take once shipped with standard delivery (didn't see any other option)?

 

Welp. Dell messed up. Twice.

I originally ordered on October 23rd with a Nov 18 delivery date, but their system silently cancelled my order later because something was misconfigured and I only found out a week l went online to check the status.

Got a pretty great CS rep, he immediately gave me $100 off and transferred me to a sales rep that punched the order back, in. New delivery Date - Nov 25 (this was on Oct 30). The CS rep submitted an "Expedite request", but he can't do much beyond that (fair enough)

Today I got to check the status, and what do you know - the system cancelled the order again. This time it automatically submitted a new one which (I would hope) is valid, so no additional time wasted, but again, delivery date pushed back to December 5. CS rep (I've been getting the same one every time) says he can't do much more than put in an expedite request, but we'll see how much that helps.


I remember seeing one guy that previously worked at Dell post here, but does anybody know how much of a difference Expedite requests make? In Canada they only ship through standard ground, so I'll be waiting no matter what when it gets off the pallet, but does the request really move me up the queue that much?

If it doesn't ship in the next couple of (business) days I might just have to cancel because my existing computer died this week so I have nothing to work on (but the library).

 

Got mine, just now!

 

Congratulations!
How is it? Any initial thoughts?
Still waiting for delivery in Toronto.

 

Impatiently waiting for my "shipped" notice.

Out of curiosity, anyone planning on running Windows 7 on this? I have no experience with Windows 8, but have loved Windows 7 from the moment it was released.


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noob here, sorry
i am in New York, ordered top model on 10/29, ship date 11/22, i am replacing a 6 year old dell inspiron 1525. here is a general question for a new set-up? i use cable for internet, and have an old modem and somewhat newer belkin wireless router. i should replace both, yes? if so, how would you all set this up? im in a 2 bedroom apt, and work mostly in the room the cable for internet comes in. i was loooking at top of line Asus RT-AC66U - Networking - ASUS

also, if im replacing modem too, what kind?

also, is there going to be a problem having the laptop constantly plugged in? i rarely will take it out of apt..will that affect the battery/battery life?

ive followed this forum since before ordering my dell...you guys are all great, and i am super excited for us all!! id like to consider myself a somewhat early adopter

looking forward to diff peoples ideas on wireless setup at my home and the constant power plug-in question i had....thanks!

Rich

 

Ok just got mine delivered in Melbourne.
Looks brilliant screens is amazing.. touch is usefull and software scaling id terrible. Chrome is no good. SAP was bad untill I made font changes
. And I feel lile some software will be unreadable

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no unboxing yet on youtube but i keep refreshing lol

 

Weak... I didn't get any shipping notice (website or email), no credit card charge, and yet I come home to a FedEx door tag that says "we missed you" and requires a signature. And guess what, the reference number for the package matches my order number on Dells website.

Looks like I'll have mine tomorrow.


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I'll have one up when I get mine on Tuesday

 

Just got mine. Impressions after one hour..

- The screen is beautiful. Really great. Bright, sharp, nice contrast and color. I'm a photographer, this is why I bought this machine, and I am not disappointed. Should be even better after calibration.
- Windows 8 is totally bizarre. Not a fan, so far. I hate how MS tries to force you to sign up an account every time you launch an app. So far I have resisted creating a MS ID, but most of the apps will not run without one.
- Keyboard is definitely not what I am used to, coming from a Lenovo T-series. There is so much empty space on the palmrest... they did not need to go for such a small minimalist keyboard. It types fine, and I'm already adjusting to it. but it seems just slightly... insubstantial. Backlight is nice. I miss the dedicated volume buttons, mute button, wireless switch, etc from the Lenovo. Silly not to have these, with so much open space.
- Trackpad works well. Responsive, no glitches. No buttons, but I knew that. My only beef is with the Dell software. Minimal, with few features. I will be replacing with stock Synaptics.
- Touchscreen is pretty fun. Don't know how much I will use it, but it works very well. Nice for scrolling text and scaling images.
- Scaling on the large display is pretty good for the most part. I think it is scaled to 200% by default but I still havent found that setting in W8. Most text is normal sized, very crisp and high contrast. Here and there, in some programs and dialogs, text overflows its intended area, or appears extremely tiny. But so far not a big problem at all. I have good eyes, and it is very difficult to see individual pixels on the screen. Text is smooth, and sharp. Did I mention that this display looks great?
- This thing is completely silent so far, and I am still running off HDD. I havent stressed the GPU, yet.
- Wireless seems perfectly fine. I haven't tested, but it gets a strong 5 bar signal on the two networks I've tried.
- Build quality is solid. Everything is tight. The lid is so thin that you can see finger presses from the back. But the aluminum back is rigid and strong. I think they've found a good balance between strong and light.
- The build decision I question most is the palmrest. They've covered it with the exact same rubberized coating they use on Thinkpad lids. It looks and feels great out of the box, but I know from experience that it is a matter of days before it starts showing scuffs and scratches. I hesitate to think how it will look in a few years. I wonder what is underneath it? The way I use laptops, I'm pretty sure I'll be finding out, sooner or later. Not a huge deal, but if it starts looking ratty, it might affect resale value down the road.

Next hurdle is replacing the stock msata SSD with a 256gb and booting it. Making a W8.1 USB installer is proving to be a chore. The Windows key is not written anywhere on this thing. Found it with a script, but the OEM key can't be used to download a retail copy of W8.1. So now I am waiting on a slow torrent to get the .iso.

Overall, I dig this thing, so far. Once I get it booting from SSD, and I get used to W8, I think I will really enjoy it. Basically, for me, with a screen this good nothing else really matters.

 

Ditto. I just got mine as well. I'm used to a Lenovo T as well, and I really like that keyboard, but this one is growing on me fast. Seems like they used Apple as a benchmark and nailed it.

 

What's the best price you can get on the high end XPS 15 in the US and how did you get it ? Please be honest

 

Just spend the last 2 hours with dell technician, because my unit come with windows 7 drivers and the touch screen is not working!!!I
after tried many methods, we came to conclusion that the option for me is to get a replacement unit
The good news is, I get to keep playing with this one until the new unit arrive which is probably another two weeks or so.
I was planning not to use touch screen anyway because I hate having fingerprints all over my screen but it's good to have it.

Anyway here is my review on my 'default' XPS 15

First impression: the design is absolutely gorgeous, definatly better looking than rMBP, palmrest is large and soft.
Keyboard : okay, working quite well but very small comparing to MacBook but I'll get used to it real quick
touchpad: do the job but not so awesome comparing to rMBP ( have to give them that)
fan and heat: so far running normal tasking is quiet as a cat, it get slightly warm after steaming video and it's comfortably warm. Fan went off once I was installing the driver but nothing too loud
wifi- work very well
screen resolution: not much different from rMBP to be honest, but when I played 4k video, that's when it shines, the texture is real crisp and beautiful.
sound: is good, not much buffer tho

Now scaling is no good with windows 8.1 everything from UI work great regardless of the setting but desktop mode very suffers. If I set it to 200% texts in chrome seem odd and not sharp. Although, the icons large but pop up windows seem to be all out of ratio. Right now I am running 100% scaling and it is fine to me. I just need to scale chrome to about 125%

btw the screen is pretty glare but I guess that's what expected from gorilla glass

 

Uninstalled the Dell Touchpad software/drivers and installed the regular Synaptics drivers from their website - CPU usage when using the touchpad from the touchpad process is down to 0-1% instead of 3-5%! Hopefully that will help out battery life a bit.

Secondly, has anyone else tried using Firefox with this laptop? IE and Chrome are fine, but for some reason, Firefox is very sluggish/laggy. Was wondering if it's just my computer?

 

I did an online chat one night, not really intending to buy. Started with 2% student discount, then the guy talked to his manager and came back with 6.9% discount. Not sure how they came up with that. He said if I signed up for their 12 month finance plan he could get it to 2115. I think some guys are getting it for 2068 or something.

 

Thank yo Mark Pozzi for starting this owner's lounge. I have been looking for a really good replacement for my 15" laptop. My requirements for a high end machine included touchscreen, I7 haswell, combo hd / ssd, backlit kb. When i saw news/specs on the new Dell XPS 15, I knew it was the one, but didn't want to pay full retail. I figured I would wait at least until Dell's black Friday event.

While cruising this lounge last night, I got some important questions answered. I also read about a discount available for the some in the medical community - then the light went on. I am a member of the National Association of Realtors and Dell is one of the companies offering Realtor Benefits. I found the code which gave me 15% off for the XPS 15. The order has been placed.

I thought i was going to end up with something other than Dell, but once again, i have found them to be unbeatable. I have only bought Dell for the last 16 years. I always get the extended three year warranty. Can't wait to unbox this beauty! Tom Ward

 

First off, I got the top config.

I'm not having this issue at all. Clicking with my fingertip works every time in both bottom bottom corners.

I'm not having this issue either. Resting my thumb on the bottom left and mousing with my index finger works fine. I'm satisfied with the trackpad.


Other impressions:
-I'm loving the keyboard. It is NOT small. I repeat: This keyboard is NOT small. It is FULL SIZE. The key spacing is standard size. I measured the keys (between capslock and enter) and compared to three other keyboards (HP Pavilion DV5t, iMac keyboard, and old HP desktop keyboard); It was exactly the same. The chicklet keys and rounded shape might make the keys look smaller than people are used to. Edit: I also love the minimalist keyboard; I like having my hands as centered on the screen as possible.
-They keys themselves are awesome. They go down very flat, even when you hit them very off-center. Combined with the slightly concave key faces, it makes for a nice typing experience. On the other end of the spectrum, the keys on my Samsung Series 7 are flat, and tilt a lot if you hit them off-center, which makes it feel like you're typing on convex keys. Unpleasant. Anyway, the keys on this XPS 15 seem to require a tiny bit more force than the Series 7, but I'll get used to it.
-The trackpad works fine. I haven't had any problems with it.
-The screen is very nice. Painfully bright at max brightness, when indoors at night. Reflections don't bother me much, so I'm probably not the person to ask about that. Viewing angles are much better than your standard TN panel, though not as good as IPS. At any rate, it excels at this viewing angle test: Viewing angle - Lagom LCD test
-I'm running at native resolution, with 166% DPI scaling (gives 1080p equivalent). As expected, text looks great everywhere, but most icon-type images look a little blurry. A small sample: http://i.imgur.com/MTJxGN2.png I expect this will get better as developers update their applications/websites. I don't understand what everyone is talking about with scaling in Chrome. I'm using Firefox and I don't have to do anything special for it. Everything is sized as it should.
-opening the lid does require two hands, though I don't understand why this is such a big deal to some people.
-Edit: the center of the bottom, by the vent, does get fairly warm even just web browsing, but this is because the fans are spending most of their time completely still. It's trading some heat for slightly better battery and silence. I wonder if a third-party tool could change this.

A couple less-positive things:
-I'm getting a small popping sound from the left edge of the base that occasionally happens when opening the lid or picking it up from the left. I doubt this is a common issue, and I bet I can fix it by just opening the thing up and putting it back together.
-I'm not convinced the wifi is completely fixed. It certainly works (streaming 720 video works fine from where I'm sitting, medium distance through a wall and a floor), but in initial testing I was getting speeds about 70% as fast as my old HP Pavilion DV5t. I'll want to do some more testing before posting any numbers. I'd be interested to see other people do similar comparisons. The wifi may work, but I'd be disappointed if it's still not working as well as it should.

I'm going to wait at least a couple full charge cycles before saying anything about battery life.

Firefox 4 lyfe. Anyway, it does seem kinda sluggish. Mostly noticeable in scrolling. Not unusable though. I'm gonna have to figure this out, as I don't want to switch browsers.
Edit: Could you say more about the Synaptics driver? Is the trackpad performance any better or worse? Different options?

 

Touchpad:
After making the post, I ended up reinstalling the dell touchpad drivers - generally it seemed fine, but the right clicking was worse, and there were a couple gestures missing. Hopefully dell will work out whatever issues there are with the current touchpad drivers - you can see this by opening task manager and moving your finger around the touchpad. CPU usage of the process "Synaptics TouchPad 64-bit enhancements" will be hovering around 3-5% cpu constantly. This means anytime you're using the mouse, tack on an additional 3-5% cpu :\

Firefox:
I know! I love Firefox, which is why it's making me sad that it's laggy the cpu/ram usage isn't high, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

 

I'll confirm the CPU usage from the "Synaptics TouchPad 64-bit enhancements" process. While moving the pointer around, I was seeing around 3.4% CPU usage, though I could make it go higher by moving the pointer very quickly. I might give the Synaptics driver a shot tomorrow.

 

try search online for student code dude, I got 15% off.

 

Still only 1 person notices the touchpad left click area can't be rested on when moving?

It's as if it functions as a non multi-touch clickpad.

It two-finger scrolled fine... just if you need to 'point and click' the problem comes up

 

Are there any codes for the New xps15 for austria or germany? I couldn't find any in the Internet.

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Anyone have/find a student code for those in the US? The ones I found aren't working. Thanks.

PS - Looking for a code for "Save 12%^ off Dell-branded systems (excluding Alienware) between $1,500 and $1,999." Don't think I can apply a 15% code on the mid-tier model.

 

Interesting you say this... I had made a comment about the keyboard being small, but after using it the past couple days, I realize that it's not. It absolutely looks like it is with it being placed so high. I'm loving the keyboard. I do find myself pressing the caps lock button more often than my desktop keyboard (Logitech M800 - which is awesome by the way).

 

I have this issue. It is my one real complaint of this laptop. I have gotten used to it though. I now click more towards the insides of the left and right buttons.

Anyone that is curious about fan noise: doing basic things such as browsing, opening pics, running basic apps does not cause the fan to spin up much. I do not really hear the fan at all. Even photo editing, or watching a Netflix movie, the fan was very quiet. Gaming is another story. I loaded up Payday 2 (which looks awesome on this screen!), and the fan noise came out of nowhere. Not that it is ridiculous loud or anything, just that it was louder than what I expected. With the laptop normally being so quiet, maybe it seems louder than it really is. I guess this is to be expected, given the hardware under the hood, and fact that it cranked out the graphics in Payday 2 like a champ.