New Dell XPS 15

I have just received my XPS15 today.

i7 4702HQ
16gm RAM
512SSD
2gb nVidia 750M
Windows 8.1 (How the hell does this thing work?!)

First impressions are very good. Packaging is nice and secure and the laptop looks fantastic. Nice clean aluminium lid and the tactile base are very nice.

The screen is fantastic! I can't wait to watch a film on this later. The speakers seem to be very impressive as well which is a relief as there was no information about them.

I haven't done a lot with it yet, mainly because I can't work out how the hell to use W8!

Happy to answer any questions or take any photos.
 
Congrats Viper! Have you got a Wireless ac router? I would be really interested to see WiFi speeds on it, as I heard the wireless cards on the Dell XPS have a huge issue with the drivers they ship with. Either way, I recommend updating the drivers for it asap before you really test it out!

Will also be very interested to hear about battery life and how apps scale with that QHD screen, as I read that many people have scaled down the resolution to 1900*1080 due to text not scaling on many apps. :)
 
I have the same spec and am extremely happy. First one arrived with a broken screen but Dell were very quick to collect and replace. Battery life is good, about the same as my MBP at 5-6 hours general use. Windows scaling works well, I have it at 175% and everything looks insanely clear except the programs that don't support it (such as steam!).
 
weewyum said:
I have the same spec and am extremely happy. First one arrived with a broken screen but Dell were very quick to collect and replace. Battery life is good, about the same as my MBP at 5-6 hours general use. Windows scaling works well, I have it at 175% and everything looks insanely clear except the programs that don't support it (such as steam!).
Click to expand...

What other programs don't support it?

Also, have you tested wireless n/ac speeds? :)
 
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That's interesting as I have just installed Steam now and it looks ok. I just need to find something in Chrome that will automatically make every page 175% or 200%!

Wireless connection is ok at the moment but we have router issues so I won't be making any judgements on it.
 
Oohh I'll have to check steam again then. As for other programs, I only use this laptop for University and theres no issues with office and web browsing. The python IDE I use doesn't support it which makes my code hard to read but this won't affect most people.

I haven't checked the speeds myself, but on notebookcheck forums theres a huge owners thread and I'm sure the speeds have been tested. There was one person who posted low speeds but he was shot down quite fast by others who were reporting high ones. So maybe he had a faulty wireless card I'm not sure.

Editing to add, theres no problem with the wireless dropping out or low range which seemed to be the most common case with the last XPS.. I managed to connect to my grandparents wifi whilst sat outside their house in my car on the road, at the bottom of their drive, with the router sat in a wardrobe, on the other side of the house :confused:
 
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I haven't had any issues with the wifi dropping off. My Mum's Macbook keeps doing it though which I find quite amusing. I still get full signal in my bedroom as well when my desktop struggles to maintain a signal at all.

I don't have problems with needing to run chrome at 200% now either. I realised it was running in app mode. Once I switched it to desktop mode it is perfect :)
 
The mid spec of the XPS 15 says it has a 32GB mSATA and a 1GB 5200rpm HDD. What does the mSATA drive do? Is the operating system installed on it? Is it a SSD drive? And why is it so small?
 
mSATA is effectively a really, really small size ssd. The top tier uses a 500gb mSATA drive and the hdd space is taken by a larger battery.

The lower and middle spec models use the mSATA in conjuction with the HDD as a cache.

"These systems use the mSATA SSD as a cache and “see” the msATA + HDD as one contiguous drive. Systems with the mSATA SSD + HDD get the benefits and performance boost of an SSD combined with the larger storage capacity of an HDD. Systems with an optional mSATA SSD also typically support Intel® Rapid Start and Smart Response technologies."
 
weewyum said:
mSATA is effectively a really, really small size ssd. The top tier uses a 500gb mSATA drive and the hdd space is taken by a larger battery.

The lower and middle spec models use the mSATA in conjuction with the HDD as a cache.

"These systems use the mSATA SSD as a cache and “see” the msATA + HDD as one contiguous drive. Systems with the mSATA SSD + HDD get the benefits and performance boost of an SSD combined with the larger storage capacity of an HDD. Systems with an optional mSATA SSD also typically support Intel® Rapid Start and Smart Response technologies."
Click to expand...

The battery life seems good with the standard battery, better to have the extra HD option and space imo.

I also notice that the business version, the Dell Precison M3800, has an option for the quad core i7 and 1900*1080p resolution... that's the best option in my eyes!
 
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