I had an XPS, top of the line with full warranty/premium support. Horrible experience. They swapped many models to a shitty wifi card that caused bsod. I had to spend over 15+ hrs with support to finally convince them the fix was to swap the card to the original Intel and not doing another system restore or reformat.
Then the battery. Oh the battery. The computer would randomly wake up from hibernate and drain the battery till it was dead. This also caused premature drain. Guess what? Dells batteries are rated for less cycles (half compared to apple) and this seemed to coincide with the end of my warranty period (time to buy a new one) but it doesn't even matter because their premium support only covers battery replacements for the first year!
And get this! They only sell refurbished batteries. Just everything about this company is trash.
The XPS is a nice line. It is very premium, but only skin deep
The secret to Dell is you need to buy “ProSupport”. It costs like $100 more.
I had an issue that was known with certain Dell universal docking stations. We had the elevated support and got a hot fix in a few days. A colleague with the same laptop, same dock has the same problem and got nothing - they refused to acknowledge or support the dock connection, claiming that they only support “hardware” and not windows drivers. Eventually the driver was released a few months later.
Other OEMs like Lenovo and HP don’t fuck around with stuff like this. Just price Dell like for like with the equivalent support offering. Dell’s pricing is usually very competitive, so you’ll probably find they will still win some comparisons, and when they do the “pro” offering is better.
Yup. Prosupport was very worth it.. People who buy Macs for work also buy Apple Care, right? Same thing. Dell sent technicians to my house twice to fix issues. My only gripe was that my Precision didn't seem to fully support the Ubuntu 18.04 it came with, but everything has been better with 20.04.
I do not buy AppleCare, especially for MacBook Airs. There are no moving parts, and I feel like the likelihood of something not working is so low in the period that AppleCare covers that it is just worth it to buy a new laptop if anything happens to it.
Note that apple would not sell AppleCare if they were losing money on it. If you can afford to replace a laptop, you might as well do that. Dell’s professional warranty sends someone to your house next day to fix it, which is worth something extra, especially if you are far from an Apple store. But I do not think Apple’s does anything special like that.
But if you break anything on that device and you want to have it repaired, that’s likely to be pretty expensive. In contrast, if you have AppleCare, the repair may be free, or just the cost of the replacement components and no labor charge.
More recent versions of AppleCare have even started covering screen replacements, which can easily exceed the value of the device, or even the cost of buying another one that is identically configured.
So, yeah — I always buy the maximum AppleCare I can. Just one broken component, and it has paid for itself for the remaining lifetime of that device.
Extended warranties are very high margin - probably 65-75% for Applecare. For a vendor like Dell, they pay a variety of third party entities something like $25-40 per on-site visit, plus a commodity part. If you're handy, it is often cheaper to DIY.
With Apple, remember that they are masters of business process, supply chain and scale. You either hump the computer to the Apple store or do a depot repair. There's no man in the van. They put OEM parts or replace the unit and refurbish it in some industrial process. Apple makes of money on this, as the process maximizes utilization and minimizes loss - they are using their own staff or a smaller number of depot contractors, and push losses like shipping shrink to their contractors like FedEx.
But... remember that you have captive to a single supplier for most replacement parts, and replacement parts are a profit center for Apple. It's gross, but if you're not prepared to essentially replace the unit in year 2, and you need the device, you may be better off with AppleCare. Another factor is because Apple devices are unpredictably hit or miss for quality. My company had a defective keyboard MacBook that was replaced in full 7 times. There have been issues with batteries, de-lamination, and other things at various times that are a risk as well.
Personally, I buy AppleCare for Macs, but not for things that are more accessories like Apple TVs, iPads, etc. My kids iPad has a cracked screen stabilized with scotch tape.
> People who buy Macs for work also buy Apple Care, right?
Not for laptops, the quality is so high I’m stacking them up as I can’t justify throwing them out or recycling them. I have a macbook pro from 2012 still going strong (albeit slow)
This is such a bad business decision as they could really establish themselves on the notebook market, even it got smaller in the meantime. But they have had this strategy for years and I don't believe they will be able to continue this for much longer because more and more people talk negatively about Dell. Problem is there are not too many alternatives and it seems to be a general trend.
I've received plenty of decent support from what seem to be Indian call centers. ("seem" because I could be wrong about accents). I've had awful support from other call centers. I have also been involved in multiple call center procurements: The question is more about the training of call center staff that you're willing to pay for, not location. Dell could get high quality call centers in India if they were willing to put resources into building an excellent knowledge based and extensive training for call center staff. Dell has chosen not to go that route.
Yea of course, my implication was that it wasn't US support, which could have more maneuverability and decision making as opposed to a rigid script. But you are right in that it's actually about the company and training/policies.
I had disavowed Dell more than a decade ago due to their horrible support, but I figured it was time to give Dell another shot at the height of MacBook keyboard gate.
Boy was I wrong. The laptop itself was great when it worked. But my XPS 13 shipped with a barely functional trackpad. As with you, I had to spend countless hours on the phone with them to get them to repair the laptop that was well within its warranty. Never again.
I've had mostly good experiences with dell's XPS 13 laptops. Coil whine has been a problem.
Dell is the only company I know of that really stands behind their products. The default(at least here) warranty includes next business day on-site repair.
The times I've had issues during the last 15+ years Dell has sent someone to fix it, fast. Nobody else seems to be willing to do that if their product fails. Must be really expensive for Dell when something goes wrong.
They do however stop producing/selling batteries much earlier than they should...
I worked for EMC through the acquisition by Dell. I spoke with a someone in Dell MFG about their test process. In short, they test as configured by the customer. We were discussing a blade server. I asked what happens if a customer buys an additional blade and that slot on the backplane doesn’t work, because it wasn’t tested? The answer: we get them a new backplane really quickly. Dell is all about removing cost from the business and that means they made the calculation that it’s cheaper to test as configured and pay for the few cases where someone upgrades and has an issue, versus test everyone’s machine comprehensively. Needless to say, this wasn’t the EMC way. So yes, it’s expensive to overnight a new part to customers, but someone has done the ROI and figured out that is cheaper than testing every system for every anticipated problem.
Lenovo took care of my Thinkpad T14s AMD when the keyboard started acting funky. Ordered the parts and sent a tech to my house to install it within a week. So I would still recommend getting a nice Thinkpad.
Keep in mind there will be much more people complaining about how bad some electronic device is than people praising about how good it is because they have more reason to complain.
All products have lemons and unless there's a site that collects information on repairs, it's hard to tell which laptop has a bad design.
I've had 2 Dells for myself and bought one for my dad (all Inspirons) and never had a problem with them. Lattitudes are workhorses, so with people now working remotely there are companies that buy those laptops by the 100s, so the production quality of Dell Lattitudes should be high enough that Dell wouldn't have to deal with warranty issues from its corporate clients
I don't think this is a case of "some units are lemons"- from what I can see this is a design flaw of some sort. I've been buying Latitudes for personal use now for MANY years and this is the first "annoys me every day and can't be fixed (or they refuse to fix it)" issue I've had.
I'm glad that when I got a Dell XPS I noticed the problems extremely quickly so I could return it. It had a horrendously whiny fan that seemed to always be running. Battery life was unimpressive. And there was a trackpad issue where picking the machine up from a corner would cause it to click (apparently this is an issue that's been there for a few generations).
Unless you need x86, just go with an M1 Mac. They're ridiculously power efficient without sacrificing performance.
i own one and running Ubuntu on it and I confirm that it will drain the battery if left on sleep. Mine is always on charge and I make sure to shutdown before traveling. Otherwise, it is a decent machine for lagging around
Some of us, many of us, rely on these machines to do their job. Perfection is pretty well required or you’re using substandard tools which may or may not affect your productivity.
And stating Apple is just okay next to the rest of those is completely disingenuous. Apple clearly had higher quality than all of these manufacturers.
Just look at keyboard-gate to prove that, by design, Apple doesn't care about user productivity. I personally have a work issued 2019 16-inch MBP and it drives me insane.
Before this laptop, I'd never had to make sure my AC was turned on before I took Zoom meetings. With this thing, if the ambient temperature is over about 25 C, the CPU throttles to 1GHz and I get about 2 frames per second.
I have a personal Lenovo Yoga that has none of these issues, is 4 years old, and apart from the battery being degraded (my bad), has been amazing. Meanwhile, I can't wait until I hit IT's refresh window on the Mac, as I'm going to delight in destroying it myself.
> Just look at keyboard-gate to prove that, by design, Apple doesn't care about user productivity. I personally have a work issued 2019 16-inch MBP and it drives me insane.
One instance, which they fixed. Shall we enumerate the issues with the rest of the brands?
Interestingly your rage is what made that take so long in the first place. Engineers like to claim the sky is falling because their keyboard feels weird. How can anyone take someone like that seriously?
> Before this laptop, I'd never had to make sure my AC was turned on before I took Zoom meetings. With this thing, if the ambient temperature is over about 25 C, the CPU throttles to 1GHz and I get about 2 frames per second.
Meanwhile I run unreal engine on a macbook pro 13”, with no issues. Sometimes software sucks.
I bought a new Dell a couple of years ago and just after getting it I was sitting beside my wife on the couch. Her macbook had 2 out of 3 wifi bars while my dell had trouble connecting at all. Thankfully they accepted the return and issued a refund without much hassle. I got a Lenovo ThinkPad (T-Series) and it's been rock solid.
I switched to Dell because my Apple MBP was dead-dead and their existing line at the time was garbage according to everyone I knew who got one.
I had the same problem as you with my new Dell. On my own I replaced the Wi-Fi card with an Intel one and it fixed the problems. That said, I had the same battery issues, etc. as the original poster. I don't hate my XPS, but I would not buy again.
> Then the battery. Oh the battery. The computer would randomly wake up from hibernate and drain the battery till it was dead.
I have a Precision laptop (absolutely top of the line business laptop that shares hardware with the XPS 15) that does this too. The only fix is to either keep it plugged in 100% of the time or perform a full system shut down any time it's going to be unplugged.
It's extremely frustrating and has basically killed any usefulness the laptop has as a portable computer.
We used to buy Precision laptops for 3D designers due to the need for a beefy graphics card, and I got the impression they were just heavier versions of Dell's regular crap. IBM was my preference before Lenovo, but now I have no idea if there's any premium Intel laptops left.
My XPS 13's wifi stopped working completely. After a similar experience to yours with support, they dispatched someone to replace the whole motherboard.
The dude completely botched it. The device wouldn't boot into Windows (BSOD), and he told me it was because I needed to reinstall Windows. And he didn't put the laptop back together properly - something inside was jammed under the motherboard so that the back plate wouldn't screw down all the way, and the laptop wouldn't close. Then he said to me, "Can I go now?"
When I tried to argue (politely), he said he'd just call his supervisor, and then drove off! About 15 minutes later, I received an email that the job had been successfully completed. Under the "customer signature" area, I kid you not, he had written something like "verbal confirmation given".
Needless to say, I kicked up such a big stink, emailing customer support, Michael Dell, and Angela Fox at Dell Australia. They sent me a brand new replacement.
I had a couple of similar problem under Linux, but I believe these are purely software issues and thus unrelated to the windows ones. and also not specific to Dell AFAIK.
1. Linux kernel "mem-sleep" mode default [0], which determines what actually happens when systemd-sleep "suspend" is called. The default value is "s2idle" for many distros which is as good as leaving your computer running with processes paused... when what most users expect is some kind of suspend-to-ram ("deep"). Obviously this burns through battery pretty quickly but at least it shouldn't overheat.
2. I found this systemd infinite hybernate loop bug [1] (now fixed) when swap is smaller than RAM... although you only would come across this is you accidentally under-provisioned the swap partition on install like I did - but the failure mode was spectacularly bad, because it will retry over and over swapping and compressing the RAM which obviously ramps up the CPU, get hot with the lid closed, make short work of battery and SSD.
Anyway the common issue is #1 which you just have to know about otherwise your computer doesn't really suspend at all, and since most machines are very quiet these days you won't notice unless you dig.
It pains me that there's still no comprehensive user docs for kernel features. Everything from hybrid graphics to power-saving to cpu frequency scaling keeps changing from kernel to kernel, and you need a PhD in kernel hacking to know how to use any feature of a specific kernel. I've searched forums for weeks trying to gleam enough information to just get a graphics card to work.
I'm still having an issue where double-finger-touchpad-scrolling causes my X server to core dump, and I can't force the X server to actually dump a core file, because I can't run `ulimit` before the X server runs. You're kind of just shit out of luck as a Linux user.
It is, the problem is you need to explicitly set it.
The default behaviour is unintuitive to most people and often they are not even aware it's not doing what they expect. This is the problem, not that it doesn't work, but that it doesn't work by default.
From my experience, it is the wake timers in some apps that abuses it. I recalled it is one of the function that use the wake timers. To find this out, open the cmd/PS/WT and type:
powercfg -lastwake
This will tell you which action or hardware initiated the wake. It should provide enough clue of the offending software. Also the wakes are recorded in the log, you would be able to pull up the event viewer to find the lists of the offending software that abuses this. There is a event ID for it which you can use to track this down, I couldn't remember the number.
Edit: Here the guide for finding this in the event viewer.[0]
> On occasion, the system stays in the active mode (with the screen off) for a longer interval of time. These longer active intervals occur for a variety of reasons, for example, processing incoming email or downloading critical Windows updates.
Similar experience with the battery and sleep on XPS devices. Constantly opening my backpack to discover a literal hot mess.
At this point I’m fed up - what’s a better Windows laptop? Not interested in touchscreen/tablet modes and I’m willing to pay quite a bit. I am leaning towards something from the Surface Laptop line, but open to suggestions.
I can recommend the Surface line. I think it's a huge difference when Microsoft is selling both the hardware and software, so you know they are fully compatible. But definitely buy "Microsoft Complete." I've swapped my Surface Pro 4 out twice no questions asked, both times for some screen artifacts which I think came from too much pressure on the screen, and the second time they gave me a Pro 5 which hasn't had the issue. Their keyboards are exactly the same dimensions as Macbook too.
After using a macbook with bootcamp for years, I finally bought a Surface Book 2 a couple of years back, thinking the same thing. Was close to the top of a line, nearly $6k AUD. Nice 'not butterfly' keyboard, unified hw/sw manufacturer. From the first few days it was problematic - had to reinstall from rescue media, and it intermittently failed to see the GPU. In between times, normal windows updates would create annoying issues - no more screen brightness adjustment for example. My least favourite one set the volume on any reconnected bluetooth device to 100%, thanks guys.
I'll give it to them though, they didn't quibble about replacing them. On the third one, the keyboard went dark and the top half failed to identify the bottom half (they snap apart so the top half is like a giant ipad, for those unfamiliar). So dozens of device issues popped up constantly. At that point they were ready to give me a fourth and I opted for a refund.
So support is good, the idea is fantastic (loved that crazy giant ipad!) but the dream of the 'hardware creators making sure the OS works perfectly' makes complete sense and has been proven by Apple. But MS failed to do it. I still live in hope for a future iteration that realises the promise.
PS. I know a few people who have others in the surface line which seem reliable, so those are likely to be much better.
Switched to System76 after I was given one at an old workplace and loved it, never had any problems with Linux on one. Had to deal with their support too once after I spilled beer on the keyboard during a late night hacking session. It was easy, low friction, talked to a real human, quick, and they even offered to replace it for free but I paid for it anyway.
The broken hibernate is my biggest problem - back in college my laptop cooked itself one day because it woke up in my well-padded messenger bag and started installing updates. >_<
I do not understand how people with MacBooks have been able to slam their lid shut, shove the laptop in their bag, and then walk away for 15+ years, and in 2022, it is still only Apple laptops that can do that.
That’s good, I have not experienced betting same to shut the lid on any Dell Latitudes or HP Probooks, and the last Lenovo I tried was Yoga, which also did not have it.
Perception is everything, I just do not understand why Microsoft leadership would not make such a convenient, useful, and publicly visible feature a top priority.
I really dislike Dell laptops. Nothing but bad experiences. There's that perception right there! Won't own one.
The two Apple machines I own are exemplary! One is the 2012 i7 MBP. Killer, but hot running machine. The M1 Air is crazy lean. Love it. I worry about it, hope I keep loving it. Harder to fix than the 2012... (And I generally fix my own stuff)
All, but one of my Lenovo machines have been exemplary too. Tanks. Dropped 'em, froze one (literally, it got time in a deep freeze by mistake!), travel the world, bump, clank, slide, thump for a few years kind of travel. Not a lick of trouble.
Maybe I've been lucky. However, I love Lenovo and Apple machines. For me, they work, with one gripe and that's the materials Apple uses for power bricks on the 2012. My ancient Lenovo, back from the Thinkpad days, has power devices that still look and work new! The little brick for the Apple has crapped out, damaged cable multiple times. I have an aftermarket one that looks more ugly, but so far just works.
The Lenovo machines are generally easy to service. I've a W420 that I put parts in a couple times. It never actually failed, just got noisy.
Oh, and I have an old T60p running XP. It's offline, has some dev software license or other on it that I don't want to spend for to replace and I may need. A few times a year I fire it up, and it's got a crappy fan assembly... But, the machine runs fine on passive cooling, so what I do is shoot a little air into the fan so the BIOS sees a spin. Once it boots, the fan is never commanded on again. (Or it rattles like no other) That's the machine I traveled with and really beat hard. Display is crisp and bright, keyboard worn down with no characters visible on most keys, and it's a joy to use still.
I don't know whether it's Microsoft.
One thing I've noticed on Dell and HP machines is their BIOS seems aggressive on performance, and often runs the fans hard. My W520 will do that too, if I set it, and I just don't. The other thing I've noted is the little hinge sensors are set to a hair trigger!
To anyone struggling with the machine magically turning on in your bag, consider a few layers of tape where that sensor is. Make sure it's engaged. And that's if you can see the thing. On many newer machines we can't, because it's hidden somewhere, or is inductive.
Apple tends to put a magnet there to keep the machine closed. Maybe they know something the others haven't figured out yet.
But worth a look. My T60p did the cook in bag thing to me just once. I replaced the battery, because it was cooked!! And I put a little blob of nail polish on the sensor nub, and some tape. Later, the blob broke off, and I used thicker, stiffer tape. (the blob was attached to a little point, just not much to bond with) Point being, that little sensor was hair trigger and just does not need to be.
My M1 air has a fairly aggressive lid open sensor. Only takes a degree or two and it's ON! I think it's aggressive, but not too much, but I also would make damn sure it's closed up type aggressive too. It does have a magnet, will stay closed under all but Extreme circumstances. It's probably okay.
AFAIK, the issue with hibernation, partly at least, is because they don't provide an alternative sleep method via firmware. Only the default method is available; e.g. S2idle on Linux.
I was about to link to a discussion about that, but that seems to be gone as well.
A 2015 Dell XPS 13 9343 is still running fine today. I replaced the battery twice, DIY-sourced on AliExpress. Stellar machine for the price (< 1000€ at the time)
The sleep issue is in firmware, was introduced in 2017, and any time the ability to use the correct sleep mode is introduced in firmware, it's quietly removed. The 2015 XPS is a great laptop, the 2017 and forward have significant, ongoing power management issues.
I had so much trouble buying a replacement battery for a server raid card. At the time, this was a card they were still selling! Oh man. Dell. What a mess.
Yes... there are some nice models we'd like to buy. But we are business customers of Dell, and they tell us that these have 95 working days lead time (almost 4 months). While on their regular web page for consumers it says that these are available within 3 weeks. :(
Support around the XPS is lacking when there is a hardware defect. I've even pointed out one with the bios which Dell wouldn't acknowledge or fix as my 9360 was way out of warranty by the time I'd identified it. (Random lockups on wake caused by bad i2c behaviour from trackpad, fix disable i2c and "fallback" to spi)...
Ended up with 3 motherboards though as my employer has a good warranty agreement. Shame they all suffered from coil whine and the 2nd engineer sliced a cable with a screwdriver. I genuinely could have done better myself, ended up fixing the coil wine with non conductive hot snott..
The wake from sleep issue on the XPS 15 is what killed Dell for me as a brand. I do not have this problem with any other brand. I chat with a lot of Dell XPS 15 owners and they all report the same issue.
> The computer would randomly wake up from hibernate and drain the battery till it was dead.
I had exactly the same thing on my XPS 15. I'd take it out of my bag, it'd be warm and the battery would be dead. Plus one day it suddenly decided it didn't have a TPM module (didn't even show up in BIOS) so BitLocker stopped working, and of late the CPU is constantly throtling and fans running at full blast because it's overheating even with next to no load (I've checked the fans for dust).
Then the battery. Oh the battery. The computer would randomly wake up from hibernate and drain the battery till it was dead. This also caused premature drain. Guess what? Dells batteries are rated for less cycles (half compared to apple) and this seemed to coincide with the end of my warranty period (time to buy a new one) but it doesn't even matter because their premium support only covers battery replacements for the first year!
And get this! They only sell refurbished batteries. Just everything about this company is trash.
The XPS is a nice line. It is very premium, but only skin deep