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I got a Dell XPS for work a couple years ago on someone's recommendation... one of my worst-ever decisions. The touchpad sucks and routinely breaks requiring r

by brooke2k 10mo ago

I got a Dell XPS for work a couple years ago on someone's recommendation... one of my worst-ever decisions. The touchpad sucks and routinely breaks requiring restarts, constantly having driver issues (and you have to deal with the capital-N Nightmare that is SupportAssist for drivers), graphics card is busted and makes the display driver crash once a month. Power states are completely broken. Laptop will randomly turn on when it's in my bag and rev up to ten thousand degrees. Laptop will randomly, when on full battery and closed, decide to hard-shutoff leading to a windows recovery boot. Decides to do BIOS updates when it's at 3% battery in the middle of the night, then when I wake up for work the next morning it has to go through a ten-minute recovery sequence. Battery is swelling after only a couple years of use, which sometimes causes keys on the keyboard to stop working. In the middle of a slack convo I've had to type "Sorrymyspacebarstoppedworkinggottarestartmycomputer". BSODs, hard drive corruption, you name it. Never buy Dell. Not that there's many good options out there unless you're willing to drop two week's pay on a Framework - but anything is better than Dell. EDIT: Another I thought of - sound card is busted and sounds like it has a low pass filter on it. I know it's not a speaker issue because on occasion it magically fixes itself until the next restart.

rozap 10mo ago
The recent-ish Dell XPS I had for work was the worst hardware I've ever had in my entire life, full stop. The touchpad was an abomination. Like, nobody bothered to use it before it shipped. Just completely broken. I also experienced everything else you experienced with regard to power management. That fact that a team of human beings could create something so awful actually made me depressed. Very happy with my framework when I switched jobs. And my asus zenbook was also great.
- markus_zhang 10mo ago
  Does your job actually give you a Framework? Where do you work?! I’d like to join.
- gmassman 10mo ago
  I’ve been using a zenbook for about 8 years now. Hardware and battery are still surprisingly solid, although one of the hinges is starting to fail…
microtonal 10mo ago
Power states are completely broken. Laptop will randomly turn on when it's in my bag and rev up to ten thousand degrees. If it was in sleep - Dell themselves recommend completely switching off a laptop before putting it inside a backpack: https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/faq-modern-standby/647fa2d5f4ccf8a8de87e727 https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/faq-mode... For somebody who has used MacBooks the last 18 years, this is insane.
- speedgoose 10mo ago
  The laptops waking up in the backpack until the thermal security triggers or the battery is empty is a Microsoft Windows thing.
  - freehorse 10mo ago
    Ime turning windows laptops off is really hard. You tell them to shutdown and they restart for some reason, and it does not seem to be update related because it happens with laptops completely offline too. So you may think that you have shut them down, close the lid, but actually they reboot and when you get to them again they are dead. This happens with some dell laptops but I do not think it is just them. Not all the time but very randomly.
    - baiwl 10mo ago
      To shut Windows down, press Win+R to see the Run dialog and then type shutdown /s /t 0
    - vitaliyf 10mo ago
      Apparently "update and shutdown does a restart instead" was very recently finally fixed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797934
    - tmerc 10mo ago
      I haven't found a way to tell Windows 10 to hibernate other than making that the power button action in power options. Maybe because it's a laptop but it starts immediately after hibernating and your have to hold the power button to fully turn it off. This works and skips any forced updates Windows wants to do. It is very janky and I think ms does it to make skipping updates harder.
cedws 10mo ago
Yep, I had the high end "Developer Edition" a while back and it was a terrible experience. Very hot, build quality was poor, touchpad was small, speakers were terrible. I don't think I could use anything other than a MacBook now.
vunderba 10mo ago
My last decent PC laptop was a Lenovo Thinkpad T530. That thing was a chunky black brick and felt like it was made from recycled Soviet-era tanks. Super modular, easy to upgrade RAM, drives, etc. I got practically 10 years out of it. My next machine was a Dell XPS (Infinity Edge) laptop. I ordered it direct from Dell, unboxed it, turned it on and let it run the standard set of Windows updates. Came back an hour later and it was hung in a BSOD state. Rebooted and everything seemed to be working smoothly again but it was... concerning so I left it running overnight. Came back to YET ANOTHER BSOD the next morning and was like F### this. Immediately RMA and sent it back. If your QC is a hot circle of garbage for a nearly $3000 machine then I have zero faith in your company.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt 10mo ago
Got a dell xps with the 3 year onsite and accidental damage. Laptop was shit, but after a few repairs, motherboard replacement then complete unit replaced, it is working really well! Although id probably not get xps again.
pawelduda 10mo ago
Unfortunately same about my XPS, looked promising but turned to shit faster than I'd expect

rozap 10mo ago

The recent-ish Dell XPS I had for work was the worst hardware I've ever had in my entire life, full stop. The touchpad was an abomination. Like, nobody bothered to use it before it shipped. Just completely broken. I also experienced everything else you experienced with regard to power management. That fact that a team of human beings could create something so awful actually made me depressed. Very happy with my framework when I switched jobs. And my asus zenbook was also great.

markus_zhang 10mo ago
Does your job actually give you a Framework? Where do you work?! I’d like to join.
gmassman 10mo ago
I’ve been using a zenbook for about 8 years now. Hardware and battery are still surprisingly solid, although one of the hinges is starting to fail…

microtonal 10mo ago

Power states are completely broken. Laptop will randomly turn on when it's in my bag and rev up to ten thousand degrees. If it was in sleep - Dell themselves recommend completely switching off a laptop before putting it inside a backpack: https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/faq-modern-standby/647fa2d5f4ccf8a8de87e727 https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/faq-mode... For somebody who has used MacBooks the last 18 years, this is insane.

speedgoose 10mo ago
The laptops waking up in the backpack until the thermal security triggers or the battery is empty is a Microsoft Windows thing.
- freehorse 10mo ago
  Ime turning windows laptops off is really hard. You tell them to shutdown and they restart for some reason, and it does not seem to be update related because it happens with laptops completely offline too. So you may think that you have shut them down, close the lid, but actually they reboot and when you get to them again they are dead. This happens with some dell laptops but I do not think it is just them. Not all the time but very randomly.
  - baiwl 10mo ago
    To shut Windows down, press Win+R to see the Run dialog and then type shutdown /s /t 0
  - vitaliyf 10mo ago
    Apparently "update and shutdown does a restart instead" was very recently finally fixed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797934 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45797934
  - tmerc 10mo ago
    I haven't found a way to tell Windows 10 to hibernate other than making that the power button action in power options. Maybe because it's a laptop but it starts immediately after hibernating and your have to hold the power button to fully turn it off. This works and skips any forced updates Windows wants to do. It is very janky and I think ms does it to make skipping updates harder.

cedws 10mo ago

Yep, I had the high end "Developer Edition" a while back and it was a terrible experience. Very hot, build quality was poor, touchpad was small, speakers were terrible. I don't think I could use anything other than a MacBook now.

vunderba 10mo ago

My last decent PC laptop was a Lenovo Thinkpad T530. That thing was a chunky black brick and felt like it was made from recycled Soviet-era tanks. Super modular, easy to upgrade RAM, drives, etc. I got practically 10 years out of it. My next machine was a Dell XPS (Infinity Edge) laptop. I ordered it direct from Dell, unboxed it, turned it on and let it run the standard set of Windows updates. Came back an hour later and it was hung in a BSOD state. Rebooted and everything seemed to be working smoothly again but it was... concerning so I left it running overnight. Came back to YET ANOTHER BSOD the next morning and was like F### this. Immediately RMA and sent it back. If your QC is a hot circle of garbage for a nearly $3000 machine then I have zero faith in your company.

nrhrjrjrjtntbt 10mo ago

Got a dell xps with the 3 year onsite and accidental damage. Laptop was shit, but after a few repairs, motherboard replacement then complete unit replaced, it is working really well! Although id probably not get xps again.

pawelduda 10mo ago

Unfortunately same about my XPS, looked promising but turned to shit faster than I'd expect