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Review: Dell XPS 15
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25-02-2018 04:46PM#1Following on from this thread here I decided to purchase a Dell XPS 15.
Here is the specsheet:- I7-7700HQ
- 15.6" 4K Ultra HD InfinityEdge Touch Display
- Fingerprint Reader
- 16GB DDR4, 2400Mhz
- 512GB PCIe (Not the samsung, think it's a Toshiba)
- 97WGr, 6-cell lithium Ion battery
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 - 4GB GDDR5
- Killer 1535 802.11ac 2X2 Wifi and Bluetooth
A bit of background. I've been a software developer for a good 15 years and never really had my own laptop. Gaming would have previous have been very high on the agenda and I have a decent desktop rig which is great for that purpose although it is ageing a little. My requirement was for a laptop with a good screen that could play the odd game but be mainly a good development machine.
I also needed a decent amount of RAM because I run moderately memory hungry apps all at once. Photography is a small hobby so lightroom and other apps would be used.
So, on to the laptop.
It's the perfect size for me. The screen is big but the form factor of the laptop does not feel enormous. I did toy with the idea of the 13" device but making the 175% screen scaling lets me still see things clearly whilst fitting a lot on the one screen (eclipse Java development). The screen itself is beautiful it gets nice and bright and the 4K videos do look stunning. However, I'm pretty sure a full HD screen would have done fine and been a bit better in the battery department. The screen is also highly glossy but to be honest it hasn't been that big an issue.
The keyboard travel is pretty good, it did take me a while to get used to it though. The arrow keys are disappointingly small and they didn't make use of the extra space of the 15" to put in a numeric keypad which is also a bit disappointing. The most annoying part however is no dedicated home/end or pg up/down keys. When doing development you spend a lot of time moving to end of lines and highlighting portions of code and having to hold the function key and press one of the arrow keys is not natural and I still haven't gotten used to it weeks later.
The touchpad seems to be a touchy subject on the internet with people reporting it being unresponsive or just not granular enough. Personally I think it's fine ... just fine, not spectacular and I don't really have a reference. I have a small wireless mouse that I use when the laptop is on a table and I prefer that. The gestures on the touchpad are brilliant when you remember to use them for changing apps, minimizing everything or even switching desktops.
It's such a light laptop, I think it comes in around 2Kg. My point of reference is a similar sized PC Specialist laptop in work which weighs a bloody ton. I find I can just pick this up with one hand in work and walk around the office showing people something on the screen.
The battery life is pretty good considering the 4K screen, it does drain pretty quickly if you have it in performance mode and the brightness all the way up. Most of the time it isn't necessary to have it up all the way and you will gain an extra hour or two.
Warning: 4K netflix DOES NOT work on this device. It must be some combination of the hardware parts and DRM. i was on to netflix and they said I'm the 2nd person to ever have this issue. They're looking into it but I won't hold my breath. Chrome only plays 720p but the microsoft app and Edge are supposed to support 4K but it comes up with an error when trying to play 4K recorded titles. A little disappointing.
The speakers are grand, they get good and loud but a little muffled. I have a set of Bose QC 35's that go really well with this so don't really use the speakers that oftern. However when you do need to play something it does get loud enough for multiple people in a small room to be able to hear.
I can't really comment on the laptop from a gaming point of view. I tried playing Day of Defeat, which is an old half life mod at this stage and to be honest it didn't run very well. I started Skyrim but there seemed to be quite a bit of input lag which was off putting and there is definitely a screen ghosting issue. Most people say this isn't really noticeable but I'm kind of anal about those things and it'll be the only thing I'll see! The input lag could've just been the cheapo mouse I was using but I also tried the touchpad and it didn't seem to respond in-game half the time!
The touch screen is actually great when you remember it has one. pinch zoom does not scale in Chrome, it actually zooms the website in instead which can be really handy when viewing high res images etc. It can also be handy when just touching links just like a tablet.
It's a very fast laptop, it could probably load things a little quicker if it had the faster SSD (Samsung) but mine shipped with a Toshiba which isn't as good but does the job just fine. Booting, switching users loading applications all happens within a reasonable timeframe.
The fingerprint scanner is brilliant. I have my right index finger set up for a home account where I have all my games and Adobe apps etc. Then I have my left index finger setup with my work account for all my development apps. I don't need to choose the user I'm logging in as, it knows based on the finger applied to the scanner. It's also nice and fast.
Summary
Overall I'm very happy with the laptop. Apart from bits and pieces that niggle, it's a very good device. I don't seem to be plagued by many of the other problems the people report online such as coil wine and wireless driver issues (I did have problems connecting to work wifi but that router is ****e). It works very well for my purposes, I would say don't buy this laptop if you want to game a lot.
If anyone has any specific questions, just ask and I'll try to give as much information as I can!7
Comments
-
Following on from this thread here I decided to purchase a Dell XPS 15.
Here is the specsheet:- I7-7700HQ
- 15.6" 4K Ultra HD InfinityEdge Touch Display
- Fingerprint Reader
- 16GB DDR4, 2400Mhz
- 512GB PCIe (Not the samsung, think it's a Toshiba)
- 97WGr, 6-cell lithium Ion battery
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 - 4GB GDDR5
- Killer 1535 802.11ac 2X2 Wifi and Bluetooth
A bit of background. I've been a software developer for a good 15 years and never really had my own laptop. Gaming would have previous have been very high on the agenda and I have a decent desktop rig which is great for that purpose although it is ageing a little. My requirement was for a laptop with a good screen that could play the odd game but be mainly a good development machine.
I also needed a decent amount of RAM because I run moderately memory hungry apps all at once. Photography is a small hobby so lightroom and other apps would be used.
So, on to the laptop.
It's the perfect size for me. The screen is big but the form factor of the laptop does not feel enormous. I did toy with the idea of the 13" device but making the 175% screen scaling lets me still see things clearly whilst fitting a lot on the one screen (eclipse Java development). The screen itself is beautiful it gets nice and bright and the 4K videos do look stunning. However, I'm pretty sure a full HD screen would have done fine and been a bit better in the battery department. The screen is also highly glossy but to be honest it hasn't been that big an issue.
The keyboard travel is pretty good, it did take me a while to get used to it though. The arrow keys are disappointingly small and they didn't make use of the extra space of the 15" to put in a numeric keypad which is also a bit disappointing. The most annoying part however is no dedicated home/end or pg up/down keys. When doing development you spend a lot of time moving to end of lines and highlighting portions of code and having to hold the function key and press one of the arrow keys is not natural and I still haven't gotten used to it weeks later.
The touchpad seems to be a touchy subject on the internet with people reporting it being unresponsive or just not granular enough. Personally I think it's fine ... just fine, not spectacular and I don't really have a reference. I have a small wireless mouse that I use when the laptop is on a table and I prefer that. The gestures on the touchpad are brilliant when you remember to use them for changing apps, minimizing everything or even switching desktops.
It's such a light laptop, I think it comes in around 2Kg. My point of reference is a similar sized PC Specialist laptop in work which weighs a bloody ton. I find I can just pick this up with one hand in work and walk around the office showing people something on the screen.
The battery life is pretty good considering the 4K screen, it does drain pretty quickly if you have it in performance mode and the brightness all the way up. Most of the time it isn't necessary to have it up all the way and you will gain an extra hour or two.
Warning: 4K netflix DOES NOT work on this device. It must be some combination of the hardware parts and DRM. i was on to netflix and they said I'm the 2nd person to ever have this issue. They're looking into it but I won't hold my breath. Chrome only plays 720p but the microsoft app and Edge are supposed to support 4K but it comes up with an error when trying to play 4K recorded titles. A little disappointing.
The speakers are grand, they get good and loud but a little muffled. I have a set of Bose QC 35's that go really well with this so don't really use the speakers that oftern. However when you do need to play something it does get loud enough for multiple people in a small room to be able to hear.
I can't really comment on the laptop from a gaming point of view. I tried playing Day of Defeat, which is an old half life mod at this stage and to be honest it didn't run very well. I started Skyrim but there seemed to be quite a bit of input lag which was off putting and there is definitely a screen ghosting issue. Most people say this isn't really noticeable but I'm kind of anal about those things and it'll be the only thing I'll see! The input lag could've just been the cheapo mouse I was using but I also tried the touchpad and it didn't seem to respond in-game half the time!
The touch screen is actually great when you remember it has one. pinch zoom does not scale in Chrome, it actually zooms the website in instead which can be really handy when viewing high res images etc. It can also be handy when just touching links just like a tablet.
It's a very fast laptop, it could probably load things a little quicker if it had the faster SSD (Samsung) but mine shipped with a Toshiba which isn't as good but does the job just fine. Booting, switching users loading applications all happens within a reasonable timeframe.
The fingerprint scanner is brilliant. I have my right index finger set up for a home account where I have all my games and Adobe apps etc. Then I have my left index finger setup with my work account for all my development apps. I don't need to choose the user I'm logging in as, it knows based on the finger applied to the scanner. It's also nice and fast.
Summary
Overall I'm very happy with the laptop. Apart from bits and pieces that niggle, it's a very good device. I don't seem to be plagued by many of the other problems the people report online such as coil wine and wireless driver issues (I did have problems connecting to work wifi but that router is ****e). It works very well for my purposes, I would say don't buy this laptop if you want to game a lot.
If anyone has any specific questions, just ask and I'll try to give as much information as I can!
Top review Slaanesh,
My main use for this is graphic design (Adobe heavy) and some football manager. Its actually FM thats stopping me from getting a MacBook as it doesnt run well. Currently I have i5 5500U so I do think i7 7700HQ is a huge difference. I dont plan on using it for heavy graphic gaming more processor and ram gaming. Would you recommend it for the price? Literally going to pull the trigger tonight0 -
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