A smooth experience with an excellent machine
One Month Update 07/10/2017: Everything still running very smoothly with this machine. Battery life just as good as when I first booted it up. Spotty wireless here and there is the only complaint I have for now. Still an excellent purchase. Let me start by saying I was almost scared off of buying this laptop due to the abundance of bad reviews on the product page. I was in the market for a reasonably thin, lightweight and good looking laptop, one that didn't scream: "look at me with my excessive red trim! I'm a gaming laptop and I want to make sure everyone knows it!" That being said, it needed to be able to play some of the latest titles on at least medium-low settings at 1080p. I needed something that would be equally at home in class taking notes and playing Battlefield 1 while I was shirking my responsibilities. After a lot of research, I just couldn't find any other laptop that hit that sweet spot between good looks, portability, and performance. And that's why I decided to pull the trigger on this one. I was expecting some headaches with it, but the fact that I'd bought it from Amazon and had legendary customer service available to me in the event of a less than optimal experience, I decided it'd be worth it. The first thing I did as soon as I received the laptop was install all the latest drivers and remove some of the very minimal Dell bloatware that comes with the Signature Edition which I was lucky to receive. The device came with a fingerprint scanner which was also a nice surprise. Now I've been using this laptop quite heavily for 3 days, playing Netflix, playing some Battlefield 1, running some benchmark tests and it's been performing as smoothly as I'd expect from a device at this price point. There have been no crashes or flickering at all, not while using Google Chrome or anything else. To me, that might be due to one or more of three reasons: 1) I got lucky and received one of the good products (unlikely, I have terrible luck) 2) Dell has sharpened up their game somewhat when it comes to QA (slightly more likely) 3) Some of the most common problems noted for this device have been due to driver issues that I resolved when I immediately installed the latest drivers available from Dell (most likely in my mind since it's been completely smooth sailing for me) Now on to the actual review itself: 1) Build Quality: This laptop is supremely well built. You can feel the quality as soon as you take it out of the box. The laptop is sturdy and extremely well put together. It doesn’t quite match the build quality of the laptops Apple puts out, but for a Windows laptop, this, in my opinion, is the best you’re going to get. It looks beautiful all around, the thing bezels look even better in real life, and the carbon fiber on the inside is a nice touch. It’s a unique choice that works out well, feels smooth to the touch and looks quite good. The hinge is stiff and sturdy, and wobbles very little when using the touchscreen, which in my mind is another hallmark of excellent build quality. 2) Keyboard: The keyboard is perhaps the weakest part of this laptop. That’s not to say it isn’t good, but it’s not something that you particularly enjoy using. It gets the job done but no more. Perhaps regularly using a mechanical keyboard has spoiled me, but even as I’m writing this review on the XPS 15, I’m yearning to write it on my desktop with my mechanical keyboard instead. 3) Touchpad: The touchpad is good. If I’ve been spoiled in the past by using mechanical keyboards, the touchpad is the opposite situation. I had an ASUS N550J before this, and the touchpad on that meant you always needed to carry around an external mouse to use. With this, I feel no such need. It gets the job done, again not as good as the touchpad on a Mac, but for a Windows laptop, I’d place it somewhere along the top. The gestures are useful and you get used to utilizing them to get around quicker. It’s got a nice smooth feel to it with just a little bit of friction. 4) Audio: The audio as pointed out by many users is sub-par. I was expecting it to be absolutely horrible, but since I use headphones all the time anyway, I didn’t feel like it’d be a big deal. I was pleasantly surprised however. The audio quality, the bass, the mids the highs are actually quite decent. What’s bad is the actual volume. It doesn’t get very loud at all. Unless you’re in a quiet room, you’ll need to plug in some headphones. 5) The Screen: Absolutely gorgeous. The bezels somehow make it even better. This is my first 4k screen and it’s something you might take for granted once you’ve used it a bit, but as soon as I use the 1080p screen on my desktop, I immediately feel like something is missing. My desktop monitor has a 120Hz refresh rate and that’s awesome for gaming, a 4k screen is awesome for everything else. Both features are ones that you stop noticing after a while, until you use something that’s missing them, and then you realize how good you’ve had it. The color accuracy is spot on as well and is one of the minor reasons I bought this laptop. 6) Wireless: One word: “Meh” I haven’t had any of the catastrophic problems some other reviewers have been reporting, but I wish the wireless were a little bit better. I’ll probably end up swapping out the Killer Wireless card for another one in the future, but it’s not a deal breaker by any means. Using the internet while paired with a Bluetooth device is a big no no. The internet slows to a crawl, interestingly I’ve had a similar problem with my old ASUS laptop as well. If that’s something that’s important to you, you might want to have an alternative wireless card ready to go before you get this laptop. Opening up the laptop is fairly easy, I’ve done it myself just to see if I could and changing out the wireless card shouldn’t be too much of a hassle, but for a device at this price point, really Dell should be doing much better. 7) Performance: Getting to the main reason you’d buy this instead of a MacBook. It is fast. If you’ve never used an SSD before, this will be a whole new world of fast for you. Some people have received a Samsung PCIe SSD, I only got a Toshiba PCIe SSD. This is apparently due to some supply issues and most people should assume that it’s the Toshiba SSD they’ll be getting, which is no slacker but not as good as the Samsung SSD. This is the main reason I bought the 256GB model, because I’ll end up getting the Samsung 960 Evo in the near future. Day to day operations run very smooth, it’s pretty snappy and doesn’t give me any issues with web browsing, Netflix, word processing or any other meager task you throw at it. For gaming, don’t expect it to run The Witcher 3 at Ultra, it won’t do that. What it will do is run most games at a smooth 60FPS on medium-low or sometimes even high settings at 1080p. Here’s some of my gaming experiences: 1) Overwatch: 60FPS at High 2) Battlefield: 60FPS at Medium. Occasional dips below 60FPS. 3) Battlefront: 60 FPS at Medium, some dips below 60 on High 4) FIFA 17: 50-60 FPS at 4k with everything maxed out. 8) Heat and Noise: With normal use, the fans won’t come on and it’ll be as silent and as cool as you’d like. I suspect it’s the Kaby Lake processors I can thank for that. While doing some gaming, the fans do ramp up, but it’s nothing too distracting, at least not for me. Heat seems to be dissipated quite well and I have no problem using it as a “laptop” while wearing shorts. 9) Battery Life: With a 4k screen at a comfortable brightness of around 40% brightness in a well-lit room, with the keyboard backlight on, I’m getting around 6-7 hours of non-gaming use. That includes web browsing, word processing and playing a bit of music now and again. That is not something I would have imagined getting 3 years ago from a laptop as powerful as this one. All in all I have to say, this is an excellent computer. It’s got everything I, and I suspect most college students need and then some. It’s just a shame that some people will be put off it reading about some of the easily fixable issues that really should have been addressed from the start. I can only speak for my own experience, but I haven’t had any of the issues people have been describing. I will be updating my review in a month or so, or sooner if something pops up that forces me to lower the rating on this review. Read more
