Dell XPS 15

I have been using this laptop now for about 2.5 years and should have written a review earlier. This is the best laptop I have ever used, and I’ve used a lot. This includes most of the major brands but never a Dell. I was inspired to purchase a Dell after my work laptop was changed to one and it impressed me a lot. After a horrendous… Read more

experience with my previous HP Spectre 360, this has been a dream.

The system is a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900HK, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 15.6 inch UHD+ touch screen. The laptop chassis is a nice CNC machined aluminium with a woven carbon fibre palm rest. It has 2 x Thunderbolt 4 USB-C and 1 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C ports, all with power delivery and 1 x SD card slot. It weighs 2.1 Kg which may seem heavy, but I like the robust and solid feel of it.

For general purpose home computing it suits my needs perfectly. As an engineer I have thrown some small but heavy-duty machine learning tasks at it, and it has handled them easily. Similarly for the odd home video editing and encoding tasks it performs very well. General computing tasks are effortless. It is fast to start up and very responsive. I’m not a professional creator that looks for extreme accuracy, but the screen is brilliant, and colour reproduction is without fault in my opinion. The ergonomics and general feel of using it is very nice. I enjoy the larger footprint of the 15 inch and opposed to my previous 13 inch. The larger screen is far better on the eyes too. The keypad has a nice feel with just the right amount of key firmness. They don’t rattle like on some laptops.

In summary, I really like this laptop and would recommend the Dell brand and this model. The premium look and feel combined with its flawless performance exceeded my expectations. Would I buy it again? 100% yes.

Do NOT but a dell! – Worst laptop I’ve ever come across. You might as well just go ahead and burn your money now. My husband brought one for work and study. Within a few months it was having issues and now, only 6 months on, it doesn’t even turn on. Dell customer service is terrible too, currently refusing to refund even though it’’s the customers choice not theirs when their product does not work at all. Don’t waste your time or money on them. Show details

Premium looks. Quality control questionable – It was with much anticipation that I unboxed my new 11th Gen. Dell XPS 15 in blistering arctic white. All the PC reviews championed it as the pick of the bunch and I had high hopes for the machine. The packaging was very much taken from Apple's playbook but not quite as well executed. Clearly the cleanliness of the Dell factory is sub par because… Read more

there were contaminants under the plastic wrap. A crooked intel sticker on the palm rest curling on one edge also caught my eye and whilst it may seem picky, it does speak to the overall lack of attention to detail on the assembly line. Remember this is not a bargain basement laptop and the details should be well honed in my view. The laptop itself is stunning to behold and feels well made. From the carbon fibre type interior material ( yes, you will feel inclined to stroke it as you use it) to the brushed aluminium edges and almost frameless screen. There are some nice touches, like the ability to open the screen without bracing the base on a desk although I would have liked to have seen the Dell logo illuminate like Apple, instead they have used a cheap looking reflective material. All was not well however as I fired it up for the first time. Within hours, the track pad began to fault making the cursor impossible to control and wobbling all around the screen like a blow fly twitching from a can of Raid. Next the entire computer froze and crashed and would not start again for some time. Needless to say this $3000 + computer was promptly returned and Dell sent me out a replacement unit. So far the replacement laptop has performed as it should. Overall I think Dell have invested a lot of effort into making their products look nice and have that premium feel. However, I think that there are some quality control issues buyers need to be aware of and for this reason it loses a star.

Excellent laptop – Bought i7 model with 4 K resolution a week ago. Excellent speed, great soft touch key board, very responsive v smooth large size mouse pad, Excellent sound, wi fi connection. Display is stunning but screen not totally antireflective as claimed by DEll, particularly when operating in bright light . This is the only mild negative . If you don't… Read more

mind glossy screen then I would highly recommend this laptop. I took extra warranty to 3 years after reading negative reviews about the battery. I negotiated it in the normal price .

A few teething issues – First up I will say that performance and looks wise, this computer was a good option for the price. It performs as expected, it looks good, screen is good and build quality feels up to scratch with what I would expect from a premium PC. That said, I did encounter a few teething issues along the way which were not what I would expect from an… Read more

established product line purchased towards the end of the generation. I will say that for hardware issues Dell was appropriately communicative and prompt in resolving issues though. Issues were: - Out of the box, the computer would blue-screen with a hardware fault about once a day. With a fairly lengthy back and forwards process with Dell where they formatted & reinstated windows several times over a month or so, they finally agreed with me that it was a hardware issue (one well documented online I might add, which is why I suggested it to them). Turns out the NVMe drive in the PC had issues with the MB. Service tech came out and replaced with with a fresh one, problem resolved. - Product recall for faulty batteries. I opted to remove & replace myself; Dell send a replacement & return mail free of charge. - BIOS update destroyed compatibility with my Dell TB16 thunderbolt dock. Update one day at Dell's recommendation and my Keyboard (plugged into the dock) just stopped working. Took about a month or 2 for the faulty BIOS to be updated again and resolve the issue

Other than the above, it's been smooth sailing and I am happy with the PC.

Full of Bloatware, difficult to format, really bad support – DONT GET IT... Full of Bloatware and a real headache to format. Last XPS15 the processor would be running 100% all the time when the laptop isn't being used (Exact same thing happened to my business partner's). I just bought another one because the last one was getting old. I thought I'd just format it with a clean copy of windows to remove the… Read more

bloatware (McAfee and Dell bloatware).

Nope! I've spent 8 hours so far with Dell tech support just trying to get a driver installed and I'm getting exactly nowhere. (3.5 hours on the phone and the rest following instructions from their support team.) Call 1 (1 hour): Hdd is broken we'll send you a replacement. Call 2 (1 hour): Me: "Hdd put in", same issue. Dell employee: "Sorry my shift ended please call again". Call 3 (1.5 hours): "Me: It tells me there's a missing network adapter same as last time. Are you 100% sure I can skip the step and we've missed something... I've been going through this for 7 hours at this point? Dell: "Yep." Me: "Didn't work". Dell: "Oh wait no you're right you can't skip it. Please send pics through, we still can't send a tech.

This is completely ****'d. I've never spent ANYWHERE near this long trying to get a new laptop to work and I used to own an IT company. I'm still going through the support process so I'll update this if there's a positive outcome.

Slow machine, Terrible WIFI, Battery runs out quick – Bought this Dell XPS 15 from JB hifi in Melbourne in June 2020. Wifi is really poor compared to most other laptops ive used in recent years, including 2 previous Lenovo X1 thinkpad Yogas. Big solid build, strong feel about the machine, hard to damage which is good, but costs a lot of battery to run. Runs out real quick. Weird graphics, screen… Read more

flickers, poor interaction with external monitors even though connection through genuine Dell docking stations.

Not real happy over all. I dont normally write reviews but felt i had to this time.

Doesnt work as advertised – On paper, this seemed like the perfect laptop supported by positive reviews. After 3 years with the XPS 15 9570 I can tell you I'm very disappointed with my purchase. 1. The speakers are far too quiet. This is because they are mounted on the bottom side of the laptop and also because they are junk. If you play with the equalizer in MaxxAudio, it… Read more

does get louder but also becomes extremely buzzy like there is a loose piece of metal inside the casing. I've had the laptop replaced for this reason and the replacement had the same symptoms.

2. The battery is advertised as lasting up to 20hrs on the FHD version. I've never been able to get more than 6hrs on Battery saver mode with light web browsing.

3. The laptop is equipped with a 1650 Ti graphics card (for gaming?) but any decent game will cause the CPU to become overworked and thermal throttle long before the graphics card is tapped out.

4. The preinstalled Dell software is slow and always causes issues. Whenever there is a BIOS update, some negative side effect usually follows. Like for example the fans being stuck on full blast regardless of the state of the PC, or the Sleep mode becoming broken to where if you close the display, the laptop will keep running (without any fans on) and when you come back to it after a few hours it is very hot.

These are all things that I don't think should be tolerated for $3500.

Some positive things; Display is nice, colours are vivid Good amount of IO (SD card, USB-A port, USB-C / thunderbolt port) Attractive form factor with robust metal chassis

bad choice – bouth 15'' 9570 in 2019 october and only less then 15 months fan start making noise and today i cant connect my online class because of it keep froze, it was embracing. paid something like 2.700 aud to this.. good on you.. and there is no technical support. because there is no service in melbourne to go there and fix it.

Worst quality "premium" laptop - don't waste your money – I bought this premium $2600 XPS 15 9570 laptop from JB Hifi in Dec 2018 as a work machine. The first problems with audio and HMDI output not working started about a month later. Since then I've had technicians replace the motherboard twice, the SSD twice, I personally had to re-install Windows and all my apps 5 times now (not mentioning the hours… Read more

I spent troubleshooting, installing drivers etc). Its now just out of warranty, the pc keeps crashing with "video scheduler error" during business zoom calls. I'd give Dell a 1/2 star rating for this laptop for the screen (which is 4k and excellent) but doesn't help having a great display on a pc that keeps on crashing. Hands down the worst tech I've ever bought.

Dell issued an update - no warning that it would take an hour!!! – I use a dell XPS and this morning I logged on for a meeting in one hour’s time to do some prep, To be faced with an update that has now been running for an hour!! I HATE DELL Show details

Burnt motherboard – Fantastic laptop in terms of performance if it didn’t blue screen on a daily basis. After just 12 months the motherboard fried killing the laptop. This unfortunately isn’t a one off, as this happened to several Xps 15s within my uni cohort  Show details

Dell XPS 9550 – I've never had so much trouble with a laptop. In 2009, i bought my first Dell laptop. That laptop still runs today! However, I bought a Dell XPS 15 9550 in 2016, and I really regret this decision. Firstly, 3 months after I bought the laptop, I had to update the BIOS (Dell updates). It wouldn't restart and Dell sent someone out to replace the… Read more

motherboard.

2 years later, the track-pad started to pop out. Being out of warranty, the I took the laptop to a local PC Doctor - they replaced the battery and showed me the old one - it was "swelling" and they told me that it could've exploded.

As we're working from home during the corona-virus crisis, I though that I'd invest in a Samsung 4K U28E590D monitor. There's an extreme lagging - mouse jumps or "ghosting" around. I've updated all my drivers, tried high-speed HDMI cables, USB-C to DP, etc. nothing works. The USB-C cable doesn't even pick up the monitor.

I will not recommend dell and will definitely not purchase any Dell products again.

Not worth it, get a macbook pro instead – - Fragile - Finger print detection doesn't work half the time, for instance trying to get the computer out of sleep by touching it more often shuts down the computer (no I'm not holding it down). - Flimsy keyboard with lack of tactile feedback - Poor brightness compared to a macbook pro Overall not worth the money. Show details

Show pony – Year before last my student son decided to get a new laptop, replacing his MacBook Pro who has come of age. He had cast his eyes on a Dell XPS 15 9560. I was happy to fork out the amount for the basic model, however with all the bells and whistles my son wanted the laptop to come with, the amount almost doubled - the difference in price he had to… Read more

come up for. Long story short - not even two years on, the laptop is malfunctioning. Battery broken, touchpad no longer working. No matter how glowing the reviews about the screen resolution and other specifications, if a laptop of this price does not even survive two years - with normal usage and handling - it is not worth the money. Built in obsolescence to the extreme. It is back to Apple I guess.

Dell XPS 9570 - AVOID DELL AT ALL COSTS – I wish I didn't drop $3000AUD on this lemon laptop. This Dell XPS 9570 has been trouble from day 1. Skipping keys, terrible audio, way too many firmware updates. It still has both the audio and keyboard problems despite all the updates too. AND ... the computer suddenly stopped detecting the AC adapter about 1 month before the warranty (aka it… Read more

was going to go flat and not boot at all). Diagnosed as a mother board issue, the "new" (later found out to be second-hand) mother board had a fault too, they came out again, put another secondhand motherboard, with the technician identifying missing heat sink parts thanks for the first technician, and they they had to come out AGAIN to rectify that. It was all drawn out and very time confusing and inconvenient.

The skipping keys issue is driving me nuts. Drastically reduces my productivity while trying to do my work! Any crappy $300 laptop wouldn't have such a stupid issue!

I don't care what these other fools say. Don't buy a Dell unless you enjoy wasting your money on half-baked products accompanied with very sub-standard service.

Do Not Buy!!! – Ok let's put it simply, 2 repairs in warranty including sending the laptop back to Dell for motherboard replacement. Outside of warranty 3 (yes 3!) Mother board replacements! After the 3rd replacement the laptop went for a month then hit a problem that Dell couldn't diagnose, so they send a technician, state that the laptop was in a terrible state… Read more

so they did another mother board replacement, full CPU replacement, full screen replacement. Then 3 weeks later (after the technician had repaired the laptop) the laptop is overheating and the touch pad is rising out of the computer. Dell inform me there is a battery swelling issue and I need to replace the battery, the touch pad and some other component. The great thing is in they want to charge me $480 for the repair (sic), even though they just repaired it 3 weeks ago without any mention of this or diagnosis of the problem at all.

Well I said i'd put it simply... NEVER BUY FROM DELL, EVER!!! worst experience of my life and I work in IT!

Literal piece of junk, Dell are a joke – Sounds like a jet engine, audio failures, pixels dying within a year of use, keyboard leaves scratches on the screen after closing the lid. DO NOT BUY DELL PRODUCTS. Horrible customer services as well. S*** house company. Show details

Abysmal quality and service- I will never buy Dell again – I bough a brand new Dell XPS 15 in January for my son. I had to chase them for three weeks to get delivery in the first place. Audio failed in the first month- they sent a technician, it failed again the next day- they sent another technician to replace the component. Over the next few months, the audio has continually failed, the computer screen… Read more

has reverted to factory settings and a blue screen of gobbledegook, heated up alarmingly, frozen on a simple application and then the on/off button got stuck in one position frequently, making it often unusable. Multiple calls to the tech support who promised to send someone out- when one issue was fixed, another one failed. The last round of tech support promised a technician and they failed to turn up three times in a row. Three whole days of work wasted, waiting for people to turn up. Today I contacted Dell to complain and ask for a replacement laptop or a refund. They claim that they will 'escalate' the request and it may take 4- 6 weeks!! This is for a product that's still in it's warranty period. It feels like they're stalling and hoping they don't have to do anything. The last technician that managed to turn up told me that it costs Dell more to replace a product than repair it, so they're clearly trying their hardest to avoid proper remediation. I am about to contact Consumer Affairs to report that this product is not fit for purpose and the manufacturer has failed abysmally in it's duty to customers. Do yourselves a favour and don't buy Dell- the quality is abysmal and so is the supposed service.

Dell XPS15 = Last Dell I purchase – Bought new, top specs but a horrible machine, SSD failed within 1 year Replaced to find the battery had given out Replaced the battery to find the Motherboard had busted Fixed the motherboard with a technician, (couldnt source new motherboard where I was based) Left unplugged for a week while overseas and it never has booted up since. Software… Read more

conflicts galore, wifi adaptor sometimes would disappear.

Really wanted to like it, but this was the worst investment I have ever made! No more Dell, this was such a shoddy machine for the price tag.

Had terrible problems with this laptop and Dell refused me warranty cover! Caveat Emptor! – Dell XPS 15 (9550) Laptop I7-6700hq 16gb Gtx960m 512gb PCIe SSD 4k Touch Display My Dell XPS 15 9550 is now 2 1/2 years old and I've had lots of problems with it: 1) Blue screens of death that no-one could diagnose. Went through Dell trouble-shooting instructions and gave up when Dell suggested a complete re-image of the machine, which would… Read more

lose all my data. It turned out to be the SSD failing. I need my laptop for work so I couldn't afford the time without it to argue with Dell so I took it to a third party to fix.

2) Overheating caused by "sleep" mode waking up the laptop overnight in its bag to do a Windows update, then unable to shut itself down afterwards. It was incredibly hot in the bag the next morning! It started doing this after about a year after one particular update. Appeared to cause Screen flickering and speaker damage for about 6 weeks afterwards.

3) Original battery barely gave me 1 hour of life. However, got down to 20 mins after 2 1/2 years so I've just replaced it and now I get 4 hours of life.

4) I hate the "home" and "end" keys requiring the "Fn" key to access them. It needs 4 fingers to press Ctrl, Shift, Fn and Home to select text, etc. I'm a software developer tech lead and this is REALLY annoying.

5) Diagnosing problems is almost impossible. For the blue-screens of death, the error-code I was supposed to record is not mentioned anywhere in Microsoft or Dell websites. The official sites and even the Dell support centre just suggest installing new drivers at random, rebooting and, as I mentioned, completely wiping everything and re-installing everything, a huge inconvenience.

Another colleague with the same model has also experienced similar dire problems.

However, in the 2 1/2 years time, Dell has fixed up their system-health-check app and there no longer seems to be a battle between Dell and Windows driver and bios updates so most of the problems have gone away. (I did have to stop using "sleep" mode, though. Hibernate is slower to start but doesn't allow midnight wake-ups).

Apart from the software and hardware reliability issues, belligerent warranty cover, it has been a fast and capable machine, although 16GB is starting to become insufficient for the software I run.

I'm now needing a second laptop for work but I don't know what to buy. I'm VERY hesitant to get a Dell again. I've put off about 7 or 8 colleagues and clients from getting XPS laptops so far.

Worst laptop ever owned – Got this laptop looking at impressive specs. 16gb ram 7th generation intel, graphics card. Man oh man is this computer slow. Wifi drops all the time. Bluetooth drops all the time (I have to downgrade my bluetooth driver). Cant even run 1 tab of chrome properly without having crashes. I have used computer half less specs with no problems. But this… Read more

computer regardless the high specs, its horrible absolutely. Contacted the support centre and they ran diagnostic and said everything was fine and was pretty snappy fast!!! When 1 internet page took 10 secs to load on 50mbs cable internet. And another app/program took good 30 secs to open. I think they are aware of this and all they did was shut down thumbnails preview and others to make it bit faster. But doesnt solve the underlying issue of bad computing maybe cause of design..

The worst purchase I have ever made – Horrible random sleep and hibernate wakeups and blackouts were not what I expected with a 2000 dollar product. My battery almost exploded and I've never knows a day of peace with this product. I have sent it in for support three times. I should have used my warranty. Garbage product. Dell should be ashamed for putting it to market. Never buy a… Read more

dell product if you want to enjoy life. It's 1 am and I'm pondering once more whether I should just put my glorified paper weight into a wood chipper after it arbitrarily decided it felt like hibernating again then suffered a boot error that forces it to hang on the Dell logo as if to mock me for ever believing I could have something good in my life.

XPS15 (L502x) – I have had this laptop for over 6 years and its been rock solid. Now running Windows 10 and all the standard drivers still compatible with XPS15. Since purchade I have upgraded the HDD to SSD and memory to 16GB its given a new lease of life. Only needed to replace dead power supply during this time.  Show details

XPS 15 9560 4K i7 32GB 1TB GTX 1050 4GB – NO Issues. Used for photo processing and editing. Excellent 4k touch screen. Could be a bit brighter but completely usable. Good battery life as long as you set up battery saver power options correctly. Laptop gets hot if you block the underside inlet fan vents. Sit it on a hard flat surface and it runs great. This is a professionals laptop and… Read more

not for kiddies. If you want a gaming PC this is not it. Looks professional and my clients always look twice.

Update. 11 months of use, BSOD twice a day, random full system freezes, always running hot. Motherboard replaced, SSD replaced, RAM replaced, keyboard replaced. Now out of warranty.

$3400 dollars for crackling audio issue that Dell recognises is a known fault and can't fix – Do not waste your money. I tried this laptop after years with Apple and have learned my lesson - definitely now an Apple customer for life. At least when they recognise faults they fully refund or give an entirely new one (in this case I would decline a new one, as this is truly a terrible laptop!)  Show details

Died after 1.5 years - very poor support - STAY AWAY FROM DELL – Terrible laptop! After a year and a half stopped working due to mother board not working. The laptop was used for work - Microsoft office and internet and suddenly died without warning. Dell support refused to help or assess why it happened since it is over a year regardless whether it is faulty laptop. $2,000 went down the drain. Conclusion - stay away from Dell.  Show details

Extremely bad performance, worst value for the money – I cannot believe I paid for this my machine almost $3,000. The performance is frustratingly bad, it takes several seconds to open Word or any other Office app. Playing videogames is impossible, I purchased Oddword New n Tasty and the framerate is so bad, I only tried once. I installed a Playstation 1 emulator and it runs slower than in my Mac… Read more

Book Pro 2011 (!!!??).

The laptop inexplicably limits the CPU speed to 0.71 MHz and I have had to reinstall to the original factory configuration more than once, managing to get it to full speed, though the performance continues to be mediocre.

The screen flickers sometimes, and I'm getting strange colors in the images displayed in the browser. The pad is the worst I have ever tried, sometimes three finger gestures are triggered while scrolling with two fingers.

Configuration:

Intel i7

16 Gb RAM

512 Gb solid state disk

4k Screen

VERDICT:

The laptop is not properly designed to maximize the performance of the different components (CPU, RAM, GPU, Solid state disk, etc) resulting in lackluster performance which equals any machine in the range of the $1,000.

Avoid like the plague.

Occasional Shut downs, Support prompt but didn't help – I got the laptop due to all the popular reviews online. Even now the reviews gives it a rating of 4.5 out of 5, which is extremely misleading. 1. Good points: * The processing speed is good, coupled with SSD hard disk, it's very quick to load up. * It's very light weight to carry around, though it fails to measure up to a few fundamental… Read more

things laptops should meet.

2. Failed basic laptop requirements

* Occasional blue screens. I would have a browser open surfing the web not doing any intensive work, and all of a sudden a blue screen comes up and I'll need to shutdown the computer.

* Random restarts, sometimes when I have the laptop on sleep in my bag for some reason it'll restart, and I only realise when I start feeling alot of heat from my bag, taking out a steaming hot laptop, good thing it still run after it cooled...

3. Good support, though the results were only so so.

I've dealt with support alot as the laptop had problems since I took it out of the package. You would leave your number and they would call you back, running through issues with you.

* Heavy screen flickering when I first bought it, gave me a headache, called support they replaced whole screen, now the screen is not an issue anymore.

* Occasional, sometimes continuous blue screens of death. I dealt with them a number of times regarding this, from running system diagnosis, doing factory resets and OS reinstalls, to replacing mother boards, and replacing hard drives. All of it was extremely time consuming and draining. I bought a laptop, I just want it to work with out all this hassle at least when I first take it out of the box brand new...

They also refused to give me a replacement and just wanted to keep trying different things.

At the end I still have the blue screen problem not fixed, but my 1 year warranty support ran out so I was left with a defective laptop.

4. Conclusion:

I wouldn't recommend buying this laptop.

While it's got high specs and very light weight, I've been very scared to use it for many important things due to the fear that it'll suddenly turn off when I'm in the middle of unsaved work, or it'll stop working one day and all the files on the laptop would be inaccessible/corrupt.

I also think twice before putting it in my bag, because the incidents where it restarts and heats up in my bag was very dangerous.

The warranty was not bad, though I expected a working product when I got it, and didn't want to spend all this time time and hassle fixing something that I just bought brand new.

Just buy something else – it has been 15 months since I bought it. - Motherboard replaced 2 times - Graphic Card and Cooling System replaced once. Graphic Card failed again a few days ago, just buy sth else, I think it has some design issues. the laptop keeps over-heating even in simple games like Dota2 and burning components. One good thing about this laptop is… Read more

1-year Dell Premium Customer Service, they have changed the parts coming to home; but i prefer some product that no need for parts to be replaced.

Now Premium Dell warranty is over, JB Hi-Fi provides one more year of warranty but I had to drop the laptop for JB warranty and will get back in 2 weeks, you can probably guess the frustration..