XPS-15, 9530, I5......How is it, and are there any issues ?

My new XPS-15, 9530 is in production. It's the base model with I5 4200H CPU, 8GB RAM, 500GB/32SSD, 61WHr Battery, touch screen.

Do any of you guys have it?

How do you like it?

How long does the 61WHr battery last?

Any issues I should be aware of?

Thank you

 

Have you seen the XPS 15 Haswell Owner's threads? There's slots of information there, but I haven't seen anybody that has gotten the base model yet. (Most people there have the top one, and a few have the mid)

I have the mid-tier model.

Overall, it's quite nice. I used to use a ThinkPad so the keyboard took a little getting used to (this is a thin computer,so the travel on the keys is much shorter than a ThinkPad), but I'm 5 days in and pretty comfortable now.

It's very quiet, 90% of the time all you can hear is the muffled clacking of the hard drive (it's quiet, but since this thing barely produces any other sound, you can hear that. The HD is a WD Blue.)

As far as battery life, keep in mind that my computer has an i7, a dedicated GPU (which doesn't turn on unless you need it, but I assume it still takes some idle power), and a super-high resolution display, so the numbers I specify will probably be below what you see.

In my personal experience, the first time I took it out, I got 3.5 hours, which I wasn't happy with. Today, I have been playing around with power profiles and just running it on battery at my desk, and I've been getting 2.5 hours, which is painfully low.

However: In the other threads that I mentioned, another user mentioned BatteryBar which shows you the mW/h power consumption at a given moment. He said that his (on the top tier model) hovered at around 8-12mW/h, but so far, mine has been sitting at 19-20mW/h, nearly double! And on the bigger battery in that machine, her's getting ~8 hours. I'm not sure what the issue is on my computer, I think I have everything cranked down, but I guess I'm just missing something. In any care, I'm returning this one and getting the top tier at Costco because they have them for really cheap. (And for some reason, Costco didn't charge tax on my order, so unless they contact me and make me pony up, It's coming out to only ~$50 more than what I paid for this one)

As far as issues, there have been some mixed reviews about the touchpad. There have been reports that certain corners have a hard time registering clicks and taps, it doesn't break functionality, you just have to train your fingers to work around those spots.

In that thread, people were saying that the webcam is very good. I found it to be mediocre, at best. Maybe it's just because the image is getting stretched out over a high-res screen, but it looked very grainy to me.

 

Yeah, I read the XPS 15 Haswell Owner's threads, but I really didn't see anything on the Base model. If I was buying, I would have ordered the nigh or high end, but this is a direct exchange for our older non repairable XPS-1640 which has complete care on it, so I can't complain.

Hoping a couple of other guys who have the base model will chime in here; I can't be the only one!

I'll give this a try, but I'm still leaning towards an MacBook Pro.