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It really is incredible how far Dell has come. Their flagship consumer XPS line seems to be plagued with issues at every release. A relative of mine has an XPS

It really is incredible how far Dell has come. Their flagship consumer XPS line seems to be plagued with issues at every release. A relative of mine has an XPS 15 9550 which has had several issues, the worst of which was the battery swelling and beginning to bend the frame. This apparently was a widespread issue and replacement batteries were never available, and the model was never recalled despite this incredibly dangerous fault. This relative of mine still uses that same computer to this day, with the battery removed, so it's functionally a very sleek desktop, but still plagued with random issues for which I have to be on constant tech support.

Manneveru 4y ago
plonk 4y ago
I really liked the XPS 15 9560 until I realised its design and support were trash. It features: - a system that shut down when I gamed for two minutes, it lasted for months and the support closed my ticket with "this laptop is not meant for gaming, it's your fault" (someone on reddit later found that downgrading a driver fixed it), - a reasonably powerful GTX 1050 that you can't use because the thermals are awful and 10 minutes of gaming turn the system into a slideshow, - a good Core i7 that gets throttled at 800MHz for no reason (I was stuck with a potato laptop for years before I figured out what was happening and fixed it with CPU-Z), - a TPM that randomly failed to unlock my BitLocker drive, the motherboard was replaced twice with no effect, a BIOS update a year later seems to have fixed it, - a power button that randomly stops working for a minute or two. I hope they made an effort on the latest ones. That XPS truly is the worst disaster I've ever used.
SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
Crazy! Circa 2005-2008 I had a Latitude that was nigh indestructible. Somewhat infamously I hadn’t zipped my bag all the way on campus and it fell out onto the sidewalk. Aside from a few cosmetic scratches it worked perfectly fine. Logged probably 1000 hours easily on World of Warcraft on that thing - there was even somewhat disgustingly a section where the left palm of my hand had worn off all of the paint due to sitting there for so many hours.
- trog 4y ago
  From talking to people in more enterprise IT roles, the Latitudes are what you buy if you want Dell stuff that works properly. I have an XPS 15 which I bought 3 years ago and it's one of the worst PCs I've ever owned. This is actually my third XPS - the first two were really awesome, but I'm massively disappointed in this latest one. I've started buying Latitudes at work and they definitely seem like a big improvement but still checking them out.
  - kyriakos 4y ago
    I can't vouch for latitude either. Not sure if they improved but my 4 year old model overheats and instead of throttling just turns off. Very frustrating when you are trying to get serious work done. Build is good though and feels tough.
beanaroo 4y ago
I have a 9550 and I remember the battery recall. They called me, explained the issue, and offered to either pay for shipping them my laptop or to ship me a battery with instructions on how to swap it it out myself, warranty preserved. Maybe it's because I purchased it from their site and they had my contact details. I was hoping this would eliminate the coil whine and random ticking I had since day one which they claimed was to be expected. Sadly, I still live with it. The soft touch coating on the palm rest has now also started to degrade and go tacky.
- static_motion 4y ago
  I never knew it did get recalled, interesting. I guess it might be because I'm from a small country in Europe, recall programs rarely seem to reach too far outside the US and Canada unfortunately.

Manneveru 4y ago

plonk 4y ago

I really liked the XPS 15 9560 until I realised its design and support were trash. It features: - a system that shut down when I gamed for two minutes, it lasted for months and the support closed my ticket with "this laptop is not meant for gaming, it's your fault" (someone on reddit later found that downgrading a driver fixed it), - a reasonably powerful GTX 1050 that you can't use because the thermals are awful and 10 minutes of gaming turn the system into a slideshow, - a good Core i7 that gets throttled at 800MHz for no reason (I was stuck with a potato laptop for years before I figured out what was happening and fixed it with CPU-Z), - a TPM that randomly failed to unlock my BitLocker drive, the motherboard was replaced twice with no effect, a BIOS update a year later seems to have fixed it, - a power button that randomly stops working for a minute or two. I hope they made an effort on the latest ones. That XPS truly is the worst disaster I've ever used.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago

Crazy! Circa 2005-2008 I had a Latitude that was nigh indestructible. Somewhat infamously I hadn’t zipped my bag all the way on campus and it fell out onto the sidewalk. Aside from a few cosmetic scratches it worked perfectly fine. Logged probably 1000 hours easily on World of Warcraft on that thing - there was even somewhat disgustingly a section where the left palm of my hand had worn off all of the paint due to sitting there for so many hours.

trog 4y ago
From talking to people in more enterprise IT roles, the Latitudes are what you buy if you want Dell stuff that works properly. I have an XPS 15 which I bought 3 years ago and it's one of the worst PCs I've ever owned. This is actually my third XPS - the first two were really awesome, but I'm massively disappointed in this latest one. I've started buying Latitudes at work and they definitely seem like a big improvement but still checking them out.
- kyriakos 4y ago
  I can't vouch for latitude either. Not sure if they improved but my 4 year old model overheats and instead of throttling just turns off. Very frustrating when you are trying to get serious work done. Build is good though and feels tough.

beanaroo 4y ago

I have a 9550 and I remember the battery recall. They called me, explained the issue, and offered to either pay for shipping them my laptop or to ship me a battery with instructions on how to swap it it out myself, warranty preserved. Maybe it's because I purchased it from their site and they had my contact details. I was hoping this would eliminate the coil whine and random ticking I had since day one which they claimed was to be expected. Sadly, I still live with it. The soft touch coating on the palm rest has now also started to degrade and go tacky.

static_motion 4y ago
I never knew it did get recalled, interesting. I guess it might be because I'm from a small country in Europe, recall programs rarely seem to reach too far outside the US and Canada unfortunately.