I'm going to give an anti-recommendation for the Dell XPS 13. It was considered the top Macbook alternative back in 2017-2018. The design is good, but the parts are flimsy and the customer service is poor.
My wife and I both bought one: me a 9360 and later her a 9370.
Around a year into using my laptop, the power button started to occasionally get stuck behind the case and turn off the computer. After 3 years, it's gotten so bad that this happens any time I close, open, or adjust the angle of the laptop screen. The screws that hold the bottom of the case together tend to get loose, but the root cause of this problem is a crack in a metal part of the internals of the laptop that's probably been there since day 1. Currently, I'm using KDE Neon since Plasma gives a good warning when the power button is pressed.
Additionally, I had to replace the battery since after 2-3 years just outside of warranty, it went down from 10 hours to 45 minutes.
Dell Support refused to fix either of the issues.
You might think this is just a case of getting a lemon, but my wife's 9370 had problems too.
The computer came with several keyboard keys not working. Dell Support took over a month to ship a new one, and I spent forever on the phone with them figuring out why the repair was still "processing".
Now after 2 years, the battery has started to swell and has cracked the outside of the case a little. No luck from Dell Support getting this issue fixed.
Unless you buy a good support plan like many large companies do that have large amount of Dell Laptops for employees, I'd stay away from the brand.
I have an XPS 9300 (the 13" 2020 version). I've had a great experience running Ubuntu on it.
I don't doubt that some people have issues with it, but I wonder what percentage of people have issues with it, and how that percentage compares to other laptops.
The only issue I had was with the power adapter, it made a very high pitched noise (the laptop does not make a noise and does not have "coil whine"). Customer service replaced the power adapter without hassle and the new one is fine.
Mine came with a year of Pro Support which was free, I don't know if that made any difference on the ease of replacement.
- I'm through 2 swollen batteries (at least the touch pad coming up gives you a warning...). One the sent me for free after warranty though.
- blew a speaker in week 2
- bluetooth and wifi didn't work together (I now swapped the chip)
- fan blades are very brittle (broke one accidentally when de-dusting and then took out an opposite one so it's correctly weighted)
- these case screws... Super short and mounted at an angle. Easy to screw in in the wrong angle and without lock tight you might loose the before you notice one is coming out.
- gforce card played dead for a few weeks.
- do not use USB-C for power in. Even with a dell branded dock I get system freezes. It's only fine to charge over night or while watching a bit of youtube.
Other than that that it's my daily driver since a few years though and quite alright...
Had another 13" xps at work and the matte version had auto backlight dimming when the screen showed dark content. Super frustrating for dark themes. Had to patch in a leaked fix to remove it (risking a brick) because support wouldn't hand out one.
I have the 9570 i9 and after 2 years had to replace the battery. Coil whine is obnoxious, fans spinning up constantly, headphone jack blew up. It's just shit. Screen is nice tho and generally is fast. Hoping the replacement battery lasts longer now that I have capped the maximum charging to 80% capacity and only have a slow charger via USB-C.
I would agree. Got 15inch XPS 9560. Loads of problems from the get go with screen, keyboard, WiFi etc. Cool whine very noisy, and support variable. Very disappointed with the “MacBook killer”, and all round a struggle to use tbh.
XPS 9380 owner here. Mine has a very annoying coil whine that's present more or less all the time (it's louder under activity). Same issue with the power supply.
Another very annoying thing is the fan, which is quite loud, and also on most of the time. I cannot even have a single tab open in a web browser, or watch a movie, without spinning up the fan.
Battery life is also nothing special, it's definitely worse than on comparable MBPs.
Doubling down on this. Discovered this the hard way last year. Well documented my troubles with their 9300 (2020) models trackpad here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dell/comments/ibk4je
I also had a 9360 that ran into issues (the motherboard died) but I had bought several years of support and the issue was resolved (they sent someone over to fix it). Perhaps the support is worth buying, and the cost considered should not just be the price of the laptop, but include the cost of support.
Could be anecdotal, but I've had a refurbed Latitude 7270. No issues until now, I replaced the battery with a larger capacity and 32GB RAM + 1TB NVMe. It might also be like since the Latitude are enterprise laptops, while the XPS is the consumer grade line.
Also concur, XPS 9560 that randomly refuses to start and needed service three times for a defective screen. Entirely unimpressed for the cost and what I thought the brand was.
My wife and I both bought one: me a 9360 and later her a 9370.
Around a year into using my laptop, the power button started to occasionally get stuck behind the case and turn off the computer. After 3 years, it's gotten so bad that this happens any time I close, open, or adjust the angle of the laptop screen. The screws that hold the bottom of the case together tend to get loose, but the root cause of this problem is a crack in a metal part of the internals of the laptop that's probably been there since day 1. Currently, I'm using KDE Neon since Plasma gives a good warning when the power button is pressed.
Additionally, I had to replace the battery since after 2-3 years just outside of warranty, it went down from 10 hours to 45 minutes.
Dell Support refused to fix either of the issues.
You might think this is just a case of getting a lemon, but my wife's 9370 had problems too.
The computer came with several keyboard keys not working. Dell Support took over a month to ship a new one, and I spent forever on the phone with them figuring out why the repair was still "processing".
Now after 2 years, the battery has started to swell and has cracked the outside of the case a little. No luck from Dell Support getting this issue fixed.
Unless you buy a good support plan like many large companies do that have large amount of Dell Laptops for employees, I'd stay away from the brand.