
Dell XPS 15 9560 Review - mcone
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11670/the-dell-xps-15-9560-review-infinity-edge-part-two
======
wslh
If you want to buy one you should extend your analysis beyond the hardware
specs because the software and operating systems are not ready yet. I can give
the example of the latest XPS 13 2-1 where Office applications like Outlook
cannot recognize a monitor with a different resolution and the fonts are
blurred. Look for example at [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Office-
apps-appear-...](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Office-apps-appear-
the-wrong-size-or-blurry-on-external-monitors-
bc9f7279-4e42-4b15-a949-46ab8bcfe44f) high DPI is a whole issue.

I can give many other examples with drivers support. For example, if I unplug
the notebook from the dock the audio playback doesn't work again if I don't
reboot the computer or remove/reinstall the driver.

It would ve nice to hear about a critical analysis in Linux.

~~~
oulu2006
Very true, the previous XPS 15 had huge problems with the Killer NIC card
because the drivers for it took months to stabilise and its only recently been
that a driver update has made the Wifi somewhat stable and the machine has
stopped crashing every few days.

What other people seem to have done is get Dell to swap the Killer NIC with an
Intel one which has much better driver support.

~~~
masklinn
Colleague recently bought one of these, has a Killer NIC, still not stable,
machine hard crashes every time they boot a VM.

~~~
dz0ny
Intel card is the one recommended. Even Dell uses it in Linux pre-installed
version of XPS.

I don't know what these guys are doing but even in Windows, I would get
IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL after deep sleep.

------
blunte
My experience with my 1-month-old maxed out 9560:

\- less precise trackpad than my 3 year old rMBP

\- palm-sensitive trackpad

\- failure that politely states that I need to reboot (if I try to use
fingerprint reader to login too quickly after opening the laptop)

\- unplanned reboots due to updates

\- laggy and choppy video on a single external 4k monitor (compared to no
apparent lag when the old rMBP drives 2x 4k monitors)

\- very slow Bash (ubuntu subsystem) - but at least they're making an effort

\- Cortana seems less effective than Siri, and she wasn't great; and Cortana
still only uses Bing search and displays results in Edge browser

\- louder and more frequently spun up fan compared to old rMBP (which was also
an i7 with an Nvidia GPU)

\- occasional crashes when opening laptop or logging in

\- very slow unzipping of files (on new 1TB PCIe SSD), regardless of whether
7z is used or built-in unzip is used, and regardless of where I unzip/extract
to

In summary, it's just a sexy little game machine. In that regard, it does
pretty well. You do have to wear headphones to game because the fan is so
loud. And you can't play on an external monitor... too laggy and limited to
30Hz refresh.

Too bad Apple no longer caters to my crowd. Thankfully this old rMBP I use is
still running well (despite the screen covering deterioration in weird spotty
ways).

~~~
stuff4ben
> Too bad Apple no longer caters to my crowd

What is "your crowd"? Only thing I wish my rMBP had was more than 16GB of RAM
for some of the dev I do. Other than that, I can't see switching anytime soon.

~~~
alvarosevilla95
Since we're on HN, I'll assume 'his crowd' is software development.

How has apple stopped catering this crowd? Let me give you my opinion.

The new macbook pro's main feature is one that is totally useless to
professionals. The touch bar is an interesting idea for the casual user, but
for anyone who uses any software professionally, it provides no value as it is
much slower than keyboard shortcuts. Not to mention that the lack of tactile
feedback means you need to look away from the monitor to use it.

The new design has force a redesign in the keyboard, giving it much lower
travel, and it is now a lot more uncomfortable to use (this one in particular
is quite subjective)

16GB is just not enough in the era of containers.

The price. It's just absurd and some of the most expensive features (TB) are
just useless as I stated above.

~~~
mixmastamyk
I used to manage with VMs on 8gb, 16 should be enough for most people using
containers. Believe the laptop in this review can be upgraded to 32 for the
heavy-hitters.

~~~
markeissler
I've read it will be able to support up to 64GB when 32GB sticks become
available.

------
trzeci
Hi, I've had lots of problems with the previous version of XPS15 - 9550 (More
info @ [https://trzeci.eu/dell-xps-15-9550-was-the-most-
problematic-...](https://trzeci.eu/dell-xps-15-9550-was-the-most-problematic-
device-for-me/) )

It was included: problem with CPU and random freezes, Coil Whine, Swollen
Battery, SSD problem and problem with misaligned Jack port with a hole in
case.

In total, my device was repaired 3 times (within 10 months) and from the
original device I have a case, touch-pad and screen only.

I'm not here to complain, because after the battery fix was done, it works
perfectly. The Dell Service is super helpful and reactive, D2D warranty is
just awesome.

My question is: Have somebody seen any indicators of problems listed above in
9560?

~~~
masklinn
/r/dell lists serious issues with the Killer NIC, coil whine, thermal
limitations (when playing), speakers are bad ("average android 4.0 device
sounds"), Win10 scaling make 4K display still not great (especially with
external low-density displays), backlit keyboard disabling itself, some people
get absolutely dreadful battery life.

~~~
velobro
I really don't know why anyone would order a laptop from Dell, or any other
OEM for that matter.

Dell and their like, obviously, aren't at the for-front of laptop design. They
are still using plastic and calling Carbon fiber a "premium" laptop material
(it isn't). They are using second rate network adapters. They are using second
rate SSDs which have terrible write speeds. Windows trackpads arent any better
than they were 10 years ago.

To top it all off? You'll need to do a whole damn Windows reinstall to get rid
of the tons of bloatware they pack in.

~~~
pmontra
If one doesn't want Mac OS the usual vendors are HP, Dell, Lenovo, maybe
Toshiba, in the order suggested by a repairman to a colleague of mine.

I've always been lucky with touchpads on high end HPs. I've been using Ubuntu
since 2009, maybe it's a Windows problem.

~~~
markeissler
That order is pretty much spot on and it's been that way for 20 years.

HP's competitor to the 9560 would likely be the just-released Zbook Studio G4
but it does not offer a 4k touch screen option. Lenovo doesn't really have a
competitor right now, the closest would likely be the P51s but it's only dual
core...I think the regular P51 (not the slim) is at least one pound heavier.

------
jorgemf
This is a great laptop if you are not using the gpu and the cpu at the same
time and you don't care about the screen response. So basically you put a game
in this PC and after some minutes you see the great faults of the computer.
The 4k screen has low response and it is a bit more blurry with movement than
usual displays, although you will only notice this if you have another display
to compare.

The biggest issue is the power throttling. When the CPU and the GPU get a bit
hot, the VRMs area get hot too and they drop the CPU to 0.7GHz. You play for
few minutes and you are amazed, you can play last gen games quite good. But
suddenly everything is crap. The VRMs area is hot and is dropping the voltage
of the CPU to cold down. Really bad air flow design. Where I said games you
can say another application that uses GPU and CPU like deep learning, or maybe
watch a video and compile the kernel.(Message for Dell: why do you put a great
CPU and GPU in a laptop if we cannot use both for more than few minutes?)

The other minor issue with this laptop is the thunderbolt with 2 PCI lanes. If
it had 4 PCI lanes it could be you all day computer as you could connect
external GPUs without losing too much. But 2 PCI lanes is not enough.

As a side note some people also have problems with the Wi-Fi. I had to buy
another Wi-Fi card for my router as it couldn't connect, but with others
routers that it connects it works quite good.

P.S. I run Windows 10 Pro and Archlinux in this computer. The fingerprint does
not work on linux yet, everything else is fine.

~~~
gizmo686
In my (anecdotal) Dell laptops have been crap at heat management. My current
laptop (about 4 years old at this point) had the problem you described, except
once the CPU throttling turned on, the BIOS was extremely conservative in
turning it off, to the point where I would often reboot to get it running at
speed again. Eventually they released a BIOS update that fixed the issue, (and
started throttling earlier to avoid dropping to .8ghz)

Point being, when buying a laptop, always ask about the thermal.

------
sametmax
I have had a XPS 15 9550 as my main machine for almost a year now, and I can
say I'm disatisfied.

It needs a very specific combinations of driver update and bio flashing to
work, charging using USB-C sometimes just stops, making it work with a dock
took me a good month to figure out, the battery last only a few hours, the
webcam is weirdly placed. Worst of all, the sound has suddenly started to act
wildly and is now full of cracks.

Given the price I paid for it (2500 € to include a 1 To hard drive and 32 Gb
of RAM), I found it less than satisfactory.

But what is infuriating is that some very big problems (like BSOD level) where
brought to the attention to the Dell staff on their support forum and the post
have been dormant without clear answer from their part for months.

My previously positive perception of the dell brand have been seriously
ternished. This is not just bad manufacturing, it's really bad marketting.

~~~
cnahr
I've had serious reliability issues with every Dell or Alienware product I've
bought. Yes, the specifications look great and they seem to work fine at
first, but quality is simply ridiculously bad for such expensive products.

Case reports: [http://news.kynosarges.org/2017/04/23/dell-alienware-
reliabi...](http://news.kynosarges.org/2017/04/23/dell-alienware-reliability-
issues/)

------
sraquo
Earlier this year I bought a Developer Edition (Ubuntu) of Dell Precision
5520, which is the business version of XPS 15 9560. Same chassis and hardware,
better factory QA and different GPU options.

I very much regret this decision. I spent ~100 hours trying to get it to work
properly and to configure Ubuntu (including supposedly simple things like
switching Alt and Ctrl keys). At the hourly rate I'm charging, this is more
than enough to buy ANY laptop. Next time I'll swallow my pride and just buy a
top of the line Macbook Pro.

Out of the box Ubuntu works great, but it is very fragile to updating. For
example, updating BIOS to a version that fixes an important CPU bug causes the
computer to freeze and shutdown every few minutes at random.

Updating the OS itself caused weird bugs such as being unable to click on app
menu items with a USB touchpad. Ditching the default Unity for Gnome3 fixed
this particular bug.

The recovery image that Dell provides for Ubuntu simply does not work a few
months after release – craps out when it's unable to either fetch or install
some package. So I don't even have a way of getting a working version of
Ubuntu on this laptop if anything happens to my hard drive.

Oh and the touchpad configs are appallingly bad out of the box. Impossible to
use. I fixed 98% of palm interference issues with a few lines of xinput
config. I don't know why Dell didn't do that themselves.

And of course, Dell only provides only 7 days of Ubuntu support. After that
you're on your own.

Now I'm trying to sell this laptop, but no one on craigslist wants it even at
35% ($900CAD) off the original price. A few months old laptop in perfect
condition that is still on warranty.

Speaking of Ubuntu itself, it has been a profound disappointment as well. I
will not be trying Dell or linux on desktop for another 7 years at least. My 9
year old Macbook Pro is far superior to this mess.

PS I also tried hackintoshing this laptop, and it worked 95% of the way, but
it requires the latest BIOS to work, and that causes random shutdowns
regardless of the OS.

~~~
satysin
Try Fedora on it. I switched from Ubuntu to Fedora a while back and couldn't
be happier. Not saying you will have a perfect experience but it is worth a
shot if you at least like the hardware?

~~~
sraquo
I don't think so. A lot of my issues are with BIOS and various linux apps or
the window manager, not technically the distribution flavour itself. Also, I'm
done spending time on this :)

~~~
satysin
Totally understand. Just thought I would do my bit to promote Fedora when I
can ;)

Any idea what you will move onto?

------
chimeracoder
I've used the XPS 13 Developer Edition (ie, running Linux) as my daily driver
since 2012. For me, it's been way more reliable than either the ThinkPad X1 or
even the MacBook Pro, both of which I used as my work laptops during that same
time (running Linux and OS X respectively).

I've been hoping to upgrade to the 15-inch for a while, because I like larger
screens. It's nice to see the review of this point release version.

~~~
clvx
I have the xps13 2016 dev edition too, and it's a solid laptop. Let me ask you
which dongle do you use to connect to external hdmi monitors? I got this
one[1] a while ago, but it doesn't output more than 800x600. I use the wd15 at
home without issues, but it's not suitable for traveling.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adapter-Type-
Ethernet-470-ABQN/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adapter-Type-
Ethernet-470-ABQN/dp/B012DT6KW2)

~~~
rootbear
I have the same laptop and I'm happy with it, but I'm not happy with the
dongle madness that universal adoption of USB C is foisting on us. I also want
a reliable travel dongle for external HDMI for this laptop but the reviews of
the units I've looked at are not encouraging. The current obsession with
thinness (looking at YOU, Apple) is forcing useful connectors off the main
system board onto expensive, unreliable dongles. Yuck.

~~~
neverminder
I don't really understand this adversity towards USB Type-C as a single
connector for everything. I was around when pretty much every single device
had it's own dedicated port and it looked like a snake nest under a desk until
USB came along. Yeah, LPT1 for printer, PS/2 for mouse and keyboard, VGA for
monitor, etc. We're in a transitional period now to something better, so some
people will need dongles for a while and I don't think it's a big deal.

~~~
khedoros1
I got my first computer with USB in 1999. I used it with a serial mouse, an AT
keyboard, and an LPT printer (passed through a Zip100 on the same port, of
course ;-) ). I think that my first use for USB came years later, when I'd
already replaced that motherboard. I think I might've used a USB->PS/2 dongle
at some point, but that was at the back of the computer, and I didn't care.
Any memory card besides SD needs an extra adapter, and that stinks.

Over all these years, this is the first time that my primary machine is a
mobile device (laptop), and that I might have to use dongles with the hardware
that I'll be repeatedly connecting and disconnecting as I move around.

It's not a big deal, but it'll take time to transition from the _last_ "single
connector for everything" to the new one. The only problem I have is the rabid
USB-C fans telling me I'm being left behind for sticking with my current
hardware for a few more years.

------
rasengan
If you use Linux like arch please make sure to set kernel mode parameters to
get your video to work. I also had a lot better luck swapping in an intel 8265
but the one it comes with works fine when you have a good signal.

All in all the 9560 has replaced my Mac as a daily driver.

Edit: Incase, to save time for someone, put this in kernel mode parameters in
the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg and rerun grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

nouveau.modeset=0 acpi_rev_override=1 enable_psr=1 disable_power_well=0

------
highace
As a developer I can't imagine buying anything other than a Macbook Pro, and I
mainly use Windows.

The build quality is top of the line, the drivers are solid, and everything
just works. The trackpad is industry leading, and the keyboard is great too.
Performance is exceptional, especially in the 15" which comes with a HQ
processor (not ultrabook-grade) and a discrete graphics card. It has a PCI-e
SSD. The price is reasonable compared to the competition.

But despite being IMO the best laptop available, the main reason I choose them
is because every so often I need to boot into OSX for testing, or to do
something Mac-only. And nothing else can do that.

~~~
sundvor
You just described the XPS 15 9560... Except the Dell gets a mostly proper
keyboard with real function keys (this matters greatly to me as a programmer).
It's not ThinkPad grade, yet close. (I've tested my colleague's top spec
model).

As for Apple, it's a shame they don't ship 32gb laptops with touch screens.

I'm currently on an ageing OG X1 Carbon (i7/8/256), which has a sensational
keyboard and track pointer, with a superb light and strong chassis; for my
next, I'm hoping they'll upgrade the core count to 4+ and memory to 32, and an
AMOLED display.

~~~
blunte
In my experience with this new XPS 15 9560, the touch screen is only
marginally useful. It doesn't seem to play well with screen pens, so it's just
a thing to smudge your finger grease on if you want to show off.

~~~
saratogacx
I've found that it was useless until you start to learn what apps end up
having a better experience with touch.

I use it a lot for document reviews, working with spreadsheets, and anywhere
that touch corresponds more with manipulation of the object on screen.

I completely disregard it when the laptop is docked though. For me, mouse/kb
habits take over.

------
sp0ck
This laptop looks like mixed bag of opinions. I'm looking something to switch
from rMPB 2013 (need more RAM, storage). That laptop i still on my list but on
last position. I had rMBP2016 for 3 months and I could't write on that
keyboard. After 1-2 hr's I felt pain in my fingers because constant contact of
my nails with that keyboard. And I don't have some bear nails :) Sold it and
now my short list is 1\. Lenovo X1 carbon WQHD - best keyboard I ever written.
2\. XPS 13 (coil whine, spongy keyboard) 3\. XPS 15 - problems described in
many places .. Still can't make decision :/

~~~
cm2187
I suggest the lattitude E7470 or E7480 (if you don't see a laptop as a fashion
statement). Light, practical, enough ports (the E7470 has a full Ethernet
port) and a boring keyboard (which is what I expect from a keyboard).

~~~
sp0ck
My friend have one of lattitude models (12.5") and those Dell business screens
are not the best ones IMO. Maybe I'm wrong but it is hard to find reseller
that have those on the shelf to touch and feel :/

~~~
manaskarekar
Actually the matte FHD (1920x1080) displays on the E7450/7470/7480 are some of
the best displays with no pwm etc. They're not the widest color gamut but
they're solid.

Can't speak for the touchscreens.

------
m52go
I really wanted to love this machine but couldn't find one that wasn't a
lemon.

Went through 3 of them. A well-specced model with 4k screen, 16GB memory, and
512GB SSD.

First had a bad screen, second had sticky keys, and third had faulty video
card.

Third time I took it back, I was _still_ willing to get it repaired but the
support staff wouldn't do it. They told me they've had so many XPS 15s
returned for service that they just recommended getting a totally different
machine...

But it was a brilliant machine when it worked.

------
remotebug
That looks like an amazing machine. Is it the same as in this review
[https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-15-9560-i7-7700HQ-
UHD...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-15-9560-i7-7700HQ-UHD-Laptop-
Review.200648.0.html) from 4 months ago?

I had lots of annoyance with a previous Optimus based notebook. How has the
situation of bumblebee and primusrun and dualbooting improved in the past two
years?

~~~
pricechild
I've given up on bumblebee.

I have upgraded an Ubuntu laptop over a few years and every upgrade it broke,
requiring some new incantation to fix it the next time. I don't think it's
considered the future?

I believe the future is called "Prime Synchronisation", announced a few years
ago. Good luck getting it to work though:
[https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/957814/prime-and-
pr...](https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/957814/prime-and-prime-
synchronization/) I gave up after a while.

We're probably nearing the time when I'll give all the methods another go, but
currently I'm back into the "change setting and log out + in" camp.

As an aside, bumblebee also seems to break my i3 environment... I get hangs &
magic sysreq won't recover. I've had to go back to the default DE.

------
masklinn
> They’ve opted to go with the same Killer Wireless-AC 1535 as they use in the
> smaller XPS 13.

FWIW this NIC is a huge liability, wifi instability is common and it will
bring some machines down hard (bluescreens/kernel panics, just check /r/dell).

Dell US apparently has instructions to replace this POS by a compatible Intel
NIC (7200 or 8000 series) if you have issues and complaint, that seems not to
be the case for Dell EU.

An Intel NIC costs $20~30, some folks just order a 8260/8265 at the same time
as the laptop and install it before even booting.

~~~
rocky1138
I have a Killer NIC in my MSI gaming laptop. Opening the Killer wifi desktop
configuration app would bluescreen my desktop every time :(

The only thing that worked was uninstalling all Killer software and just
letting Windows install the wifi driver.

------
mysterypie
Any driver issues or other advice about running Windows 7 on this?

(I don't want to use Windows 8 or 10 because of telemetry, nor do I want to
spend countless hours trying to figure out how to disable all telemetry, and
worry about future updates that introduce more telemetry. I'm happy staying at
Window 7.)

------
post_break
I wish business laptops still existed. I bought a 5 year old laptop because
you can't get anything today with serviceable parts or design that makes
sense. The thinkpad retro can't get here soon enough (assuming it actually has
function keys and isn't slimmed down just to be slim).

~~~
cm2187
The lattitude E74xx series is pretty good, I upgraded the RAM and disk on
every model I owned. And they still come with win7 drivers. But the latest
generation (E7480) has dropped the full Ethernet port with the same sort of
foldable port that Sony used on its z-series and they break too easily. You
should try a E7470 which has a full Ethernet port while still being an ultra
book.

Also they haven't tried to be creative with the keyboard layout, which
includes page down/up keys which the xps lacks, quite important for shortcuts.

~~~
post_break
I'm rocking a thinkpad x230 and I will probably continue to do so until they
stop making decent batteries for it. I will weep when I can no longer use it.

~~~
mwambua
I use an x230 as my primary as well... but I can't seem to suppress my desire
for a FHD screen. Do you know if any of the newer X-series are worth the
money?

~~~
post_break
Nitrocaster FHD mod. I just had an X250 with a FHD screen and I hated it. I
sold it just this weekend.

[https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640](https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640)

------
jvehent
I have this laptop and run archlinux on it. It's a great machine, and almost
everything works straight out of the box (even the external docking station).

~~~
charlespwd
Same here. Precision 5520 (the business edition of the XPS). Only thing I wish
I took was the better GPU. 4K screen + external screen can be a lot to ask
from the onboard graphics.

Other than that, it is so much more performant than my old MBP. Couldn't be
happier to have 32GB of ram and the infinity display.

------
JamesMcMinn
I've had the XPS 9560 since February. I mostly run Fedora (26), but have also
run Solus and various versions of Ubuntu. I have a Windows 10 install which I
use for Photoshop, Lightroom, and some mobile gaming.

Specifically, the version I have comes with a i7 7700HQ, 32GB RAM, 1TB SDD and
4K screen.

Hardware wise, the laptop is lovely, and the build quality of mine is good,
although it hasn't been perfect as I'll get to later. The screen is honestly
the best I've ever used, although I do sometimes notice ghosting due to slow
response times, I understand in that regard it's comparable to the retina
displays used in MBPs.

Performance wise, the hardware speaks for itself. It's a very powerful
machine. I haven't experienced any of the lag or video issues that others are
reporting. It'll happily play games and crunch whatever data you throw at it,
without any thermal issues.

My model was a very early version, and came with which I can only describe as
a mushy keyboard which often did not register key-presses. I contacted Dell
support, who after a short over the phone test, agreed it was not satisfactory
and arranged for an engineer to be at my house the next day to replace the
keyboard. This fixed the issue, and the keyboard has been fine ever since.
Compared to the new MBP keyboards, I much prefer the 9560 due to the extra
travel.

I've also had the GPU fan replaced due to it developing a grinding noise.
Again, after a short phone call, Dell agreed to send an engineer to replace
the fan the next day. The issue has since re-appeared, and although it's not a
critical issue, I'll be getting Dell to replace the fan again. This does seem
like a somewhat common issue, although I can't find any recent reports which
would hopefully suggest it has been fixed on the manufacturing side. On the
topic of noise, my particular machine has no coil-whine.

The webcam position is frankly bad. It's not an issue for me personally, but I
do tend to place the laptop somewhere higher if I'm doing a video call - I
can't be trimming my noise hair for every call I do.

I did try macOS on the 9560, as a bit of fun more than anything else, and it
seemed to be usable after some effort. However I generally dislike macOS, so
I'm back to using Fedora 26 which runs perfectly. Some older apps have slight
scaling issues with the 4k screen, however nothing has proven to be unusable
(yet). I haven't had any issues running a clean version of Windows either.

Overall, I'm very happy with the 9560.

------
bhouston
This is my current laptop and I love it. I finally replaced my desktop PC with
a laptop. I use it with a 4K 32" monitor via the docking station (I have the
exact same setup at work and at home, I just bring the laptop with me each
day.) Having a single machine saves me so much time regarding the complex
development setup.

I have a dual boot setup with Ubuntu and Windows with no issues.

I bought it for $1699 CAD for the 7700HQ + Full HD Screen (not 4K) + GTX 1050
+ 256GB HD + 16GB RAM and immediately upgraded the disk to 1TB and the ram to
32GB.

~~~
markeissler
Which display and which dock?

------
inertial
Can anyone help me understand the pricing on this one. An Inspiron with core
i5 / 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD costs about $500, whereas a similar spec'd XPS 15
retails for more than twice.

Is the "premium" really worth the extra $500-$800 or Dell is overcharging
because there's hardly any good Windows machine in this space (except maybe
Thinkpads) ?

~~~
PascLeRasc
They're upcharging for a really nice screen. It'll make all the BSODs super
sharp.

------
artursapek
I was considering this laptop last fall but because of the coil whine reports
I ended up going with a Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Glad I did.

------
noir_lord
I would have plopped the money down on one of these on saturday but I tried
the one on display and the keyboard was horrible.

So I bought the 7560 (which had a much better keyboard and was 650 pounds
less)..that went back after 6 hours when the hinge broke.

Shop didn't even quibble so I suspect it wasn't the first they'd seen.

Now I'm buying a Thinkpad.

~~~
seabrookmx
I've been pretty happy with my Precision 5510 (which uses the same chassis as
the XPS 15) but I agree, the keyboard is a low point that the reviews seem to
miss. I prefer the keyboard on my old HP Folio 1040, which admittedly is very
Macbook-like.

That and the webcam are my only complaints though. I love the speakers,
screen, trackpad.. and the single-cable thunderbolt dock is great.

~~~
noir_lord
For me it was that the keys actually _rattled_ if you ran your fingers over
them, that would drive me crazy, with the backlight on the spacings where all
over the place because they moved around so much and the typing experience was
sub-optimal, if the XPS15 had had the keyboard on the 7560 I'd have bought it
there and then.

The 7560 was a nice looking/nice spec machine at 950 but the damn chassis bent
just from opening and closing the lid in the first day.

Dell can make good machines but mostly by luck I think sometimes.

My current Laptop is an old Vostro 3750 I paid 500 quid for new (stacked
discounts on the Dell site) and _it_ has a better keyboard after 5 years of
abuse.

Damn thing just won't die.

------
hyperbovine
The line about the 99 watt-hour battery limit caught my eye. I wasn't aware of
this:

[https://www.cnet.com/news/macbook-pro-
october-2016-battery-l...](https://www.cnet.com/news/macbook-pro-
october-2016-battery-life/)

------
256cats
I really don't know guys, I have both XPS 9550 and Precision m5510 for more
than 1 year and had 0 problems.

Yes, touchpad is not as good as MBP, but you can get used to it.

Now I'm looking for 13" laptop with 32gb ram. Do they exist at all?

------
JaggerFoo
I was looking at this laptop with 32Gb RAM for development work, where I would
be using multiple VirtualBox VMs to simulate (small) clusters. I also would
need it to travel well and connect to foreign wifi AP's.

I have a MacBook Pro with Retina display, but I don't like it for developing -
it's mostly gathering dust.

My workstation and personal laptop are running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/KDE, which
I love.

I don't mind using a Windows OS as long as I can launch a VM for my
development.

But I guess the Dell XPS 15 9560 may not be my best choice given the real-
world problems I am reading here.

------
SideburnsOfDoom
Is the webcam back at the top of the screen, or is it still at the bottom-left
"I can see right up your nose" position.

 _edit_ Yep, on page 2:

> The smaller bezels really do reduce the bulk of the notebook, with the one
> downside in Dell’s case of a poorly positioned webcam at the bottom of the
> display. Dell wants to keep the top and side bezels the same size for
> aesthetics, and heavy webcam users will not appreciate this, with a less
> than flattering up-the-nose result.

------
jarym
I've all but given up hope on Apple bothering with 32Gb RAM.

Been researching the Dell alternatives (XPS and Precision) for a couple of
months now. Very tempting machines indeed. I just want to see one in real life
to see what the build quality feels like.

Pssst.. Mr Schiller... it seems it is possible to stick 32Gb of RAM into a
laptop AND have decent battery life. Well, that is unless you're intent on
giving your products anorexia which it seems you are.

</end rant>

~~~
marsRoverDev
I own a Dell XPS 13 and it seems to be fine build quality wise. Others have
not been so lucky.

To be honest though, if I had the budget and Apple weren't being ridiculous
with the specs I'd still consider a mac a much better development machine;
specifically due to Adobe's refusal to port photoshop to ubuntu. If you do not
have any need for photoshop, then XPS developer edition is much better value.

My only concern with the dell line is that drivers really are a problem. For
some reason, the audio works perfectly fine under Ubuntu and is really half
baked on Windows 10 (with the newest drivers from dell). It's like upside down
bizarro world.

------
NedIsakoff
It looks good, but seriously one big thing that's a no-no for me is only
HDMI1.4 (not HDMI2.0). It means that you can't do 4K@60Hz.

~~~
chimeracoder
> seriously one big thing that's a no-no for me is only HDMI1.4 (not HDMI2.0).
> It means that you can't do 4K@60Hz.

You can, using the Thunderbolt 3 port. I run my XPS 13 at 4K@60Hz using the
mini-DP port, and Thunderbolt 3 is capable of that and more.

~~~
ClassyJacket
Not to a TV, tho, which makes it a deal breaker for me. They should put a
proper HDMI port.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Not to a TV, tho, which makes it a deal breaker for me. They should put a
> proper HDMI port.

I'd rather have an extra Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port, to be honest. HDMI 2.0 is
bigger and clunkier as a port, and Thunderbolt 3 is strictly better as a
protocol (we're not even talking about HDMI 2.1). Maybe if you're talking HDMI
2.1, but the protocol can still be carried over a USB-C connector anyway, so
keeping the standard connector interface is preferable in my books.

My bet is that TVs will soon start to have USB-C ports built-in (with
whichever protocols they're willing to support). In the meantime, an adapter
will do the trick; it can even live with the TV, since that's not meant to be
portable.

~~~
ClassyJacket
Sorry I shouldn't have said port. They should've put in HDMI _support_. Over
the USBC port. I agree that extra ports are superfluous.

------
cm2187
I bought one in February. Horrible experience. It couldn't display any video
in the browser without freezing. Apparently an intel driver issue. The
solution was to manually install an unsupported version of the video driver
from the intel website. That solved it but left me with an unstable wifi and a
noisy fan. I had much better luck with the Lattitude E74xx series.

------
neverminder
XPS is great, having said that I'm waiting for one with USB Type-C charging
only and as far as I'm concerned it's time and all sockets should be USB
Type-C. I have my Chromebook Pixel for 2 years now and I got used to plugging
in a charger from either side.

------
Roritharr
If anyone cares, I just got a Toshiba Portege X30, it's the lightest machine
that can be equipped with 32GB Ram, has 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports and a matte fhd
touchscreen. Sadly only a dual core U processor (they launch quad-core U
processors in just a few months)

------
rtnyftxx
I tried the XPS 15 Kaby Lake UHD touch version \- coil whine \- ctrl key on
the most left part of the keyboard \- sound \- no notch for opening \- fan
noise \- led bleeding \- touchpad \- surface coating \+ touch display \+
UHD/GPU/RAM/CPU

------
ralphc
I'm looking for a (possibly) portable machine to do some deep learning
exploration on. Would a developer edition of this with Ubuntu pre-installed,
be a good choice? Is the NVidia powerful enough and accessible via drivers?

------
avenoir
This is the laptop I have. The biggest (and the only) complaint is that after
about 3 or 4 days of use the track pad stops scrolling and starts doing a
"click-and-drag" instead. A restart takes care of this.

~~~
post_break
How the hell is the acceptable ugh.

~~~
dmamills
5-10 minutes every 72-96 hours. Behold the unwieldy struggles of the modern
man!

~~~
mustacheemperor
For $1500 I don't want to regularly spend 5-10 minutes fixing my trackpad, and
the anguish of that task relative to the turning of the cosmos is irrelevant.

------
zero_k
Mine came with:

* space bar double-registers once in a while. There is a well-known issue with the space bar, extremely well-documented: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/3ebe6t/dell_xps_13_20...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/3ebe6t/dell_xps_13_2015_space_bar/), [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R333HXzT7Ws](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R333HXzT7Ws) [http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/...](http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/20014634) and so on

* Killer Wifi BSOD'd 5 times in 1 week. Also well-documented, fix is apparently to complain and get an engineer to change it to Intel: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5r1fu5/xps15_9560_wif...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5r1fu5/xps15_9560_wifi_problems/)

* Sound was choppy (driver-based issue), apparently this is again well-known: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5yvsng/xps_15_9560_au...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5yvsng/xps_15_9560_audio_driver_poppingcrackling_noise/) there is no fix, the fix is to send it back (potentially also caused by Killer Wifi, Dell will never recognise that so you'll not get a WiFi card change)

* Mouse has a lag on the screen in 3D applications. Apparently, this is due to partially the XBox app that wants to record and isn't optimized to 4k + possibly McAfee + some other Dell boatware.

So, I returned the laptop. The 2nd thing in my life I ever returned. It was
too much, and I wasn't sure I could fix all of the above in 2 weeks (return
period in UK). I used Linux for my main OS, where everything but the space bar
double-tap was a real issue. But that was _painful_. I was afraid that the
replacement keyboard would be more or less the same. You can apparently just
go to a random retailer, and it often double-taps there too (i.e. it _will_
break). Worst about it is that Dell offered a BIOS update to "fix" this. The
Dell Knowledge Base (KB) article detailing this has been pulled, BIOSes now
come pre-updated (yes, I did update my BIOS, no, it did not fix it). When a
BIOS update "fixes" such a basic hardware bug, you really ought to wonder
about their quality control.

~~~
PascLeRasc
I can't believe that a machine as high-end as this has all those bugs. I've
had an Asus $400 boondoggle from Best Buy for 4 years now and the worst thing
it does is occasionally unmount the optical drive. It seems like Dell just has
very poor quality control.

------
vladimir-y
I'd rather get Thinkpad Carbon X1 5th gen or Thinkpad T470.

~~~
Matthias247
I got a T470s for work and I can't recommend it. My current major issue is
that the main screen attached to my docking station (Dell 4k 27") goes off for
a second in random intervals. At some times as often as every minute, which
makes it super annoying to work with it. After Win10 creators update I had
another major issue where the video driver did not work anymore after standby.
That was at least fixed with some driver updates. Besides that I experienced
more bluescreens with it in 2 month than with any other PC that I owned.

Besides the stability issues the screen and the keyboard are quite good.
However the touchpad is no comparison to the one on a Macbook. I can work
without a mouse on a Macbook without missing anything, but not on the Lenovo.
According to some reviews the T470 should be better in that area than the
T470s, but I don't have one for comparison.

------
rocky1138
> The XPS 15 was never a gaming laptop

With a full GTX 1050 it pretty much can be. This looks like a great machine.
How is Linux support?

~~~
nonamechicken
I have the older xps 15 9530. If you try to run any decent game (spec wise
easy for the laptop to handle), it will throttle down to 10 fps or less within
5 minutes. When I contacted customer care, they said since this is an
ultrabook, this is expected and that they couldn't do anything.

So, my advice would be to research thoroughly if you are buying an XPS for
gaming.

~~~
JamesMcMinn
The XPS 9560 shares the same thermal design as the 9550, both of which are
considerably better than the 9530.

I'm able to game for hours on my XPS 9560 with no thermal issues.

~~~
nonamechicken
I guess different people have different experiences. Googling "xps 9560
throttling" shows up quiet a few results which sounds very similar to what I
face. For example, this is from the 4th link in my search result:

When I play a game (overwatch, fallout 4, gta v), after some time my gpu
throttle and i lost between 20-30% fps. And after more time, my CPU throttle
to aroung 0.80 ghz and I lost all my FPS, the game become unplayable.

------
pier25
Did Dell fix the coil whine problems?

~~~
vladimir-y
No as far as I know, Latitude line is also affected.

~~~
IronBacon
I have an XPS 13 and the coil whine is one of the things that annoyed me the
most, seems like they don't care at all. I've briefly used a Thinkpad and on
that front is dead silent.

If they continue to provide a model with a Linux distribution installed, I
would like to support them and purchase their products again, but that defect
is the only thing I would like to see it fixed.

~~~
vladimir-y
> seems like they don't care at all

It's proven for me that they don't, as it's a long standing and massive
problem. Consumers should stop buying poorly engineered/manufactured devices,
that would be the reasonable reaction.

> If they continue to provide a model with a Linux distribution installed, I
> would like to support them and purchase their products again, but that
> defect is the only thing I would like to see it fixed

Normally Thinkpads support Linux very well though don't come with it
preinstalled.

------
praulv
Had a Dell 7537 (non XPS) and it is honestly the worst machine I have ever
used, from physical reliability (broken hinges and parts) through to flat out
non-functional components including numerous issues with Wifi. After falling
for the looks, I've vowed never to get a Dell again.

------
ta444888g
Swing apps under Windows 10 are especially unreadable on this beast.

------
curiousgal
Sure sucks being a poor college student.

~~~
hyperbovine
A lot of people reading this would trade places with you. Enjoy it for what it
is :)

------
rocketon
Dell is trash and thats why I will soon release www.shitdell.com - to let
people around the world to know what kind of shitty product they are getting.

I'm from Brazil and over here everything that Dell sells is trash. Dell
Inspiron's hinge breaks usually after 1 year, so you better buy an extended
warranty... but why in the hell would you buy an middle to expensive notebook
that you know it is made with bad quality and that you need to pay more for
extended warranty?

Dell doesn't deserve to exist as a company and soon I will help more people
learn about how trashy are Dell's products...

~~~
PopsiclePete
Inspiron is not great, yeah. But my XPS 13" 9350 rocks. No hinge problems.

I have a feeling it's your country's insane import tariffs that are the real
problem...

~~~
rocketon
The import taxes are insane and, yes, I would agree that they are so high that
they could generate the blue screen of death for some... but never heard of
taxes causing hardware problems lol

A quick scan through the comments and you can see that Americans aren't that
happy with Dell's hardware neither... and the hinge problem, tons of reports
at Dell's USA community forum. So if I were you, would start getting careful
with the hinge... or, like customer support from Dell suggested me one time:
not open and close the notebook that much.

