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Topic summary

Posted by Mirek

- October 25, 2022, 11:13:11

After using it for about one year, I have following observations:
- decent battery life
- good keyboard
- decent sound from built-in speakers

- hard to open to expand RAM

- poor SD card connector, got broken very quickly
- at some fan speeds, it produces high frequency tone. It seems like fan grill is vibrating. Placing an adhesive tape to parts of grill helped.
- does not remain closed. It slightly opens by itself in a bag, which is dangerous, as some object can get between keyboard and display.
- WiFi sensitivity and range is poor, compared to cheap plastic devices. Antenna is most probably in the base, not in the lid. The issue is worse if power adapter is connected to the left side of the computer, a bit better if connected to the right side.
- BIOS has bugs. E.g. setting of fan speed does not work as described. Cannot correctly detect resolution of a big external screens (5120x1440). Big screen works, but requires manual adjustments of available resolutions.
- bundled USB mini-port replicator (HDMI, USB-A) started to fail after about half an year of daily use.

Posted by Robert Harrison

- May 22, 2021, 10:24:28

I bought this model. Bright, solid
Battery: the worst in 25 years of using laptops. It swells to the point that the touchpa is unusable.
The infamouse "nosecame" has made me prefer to use my ipad for video conferencing.
Speakers: the worst I have ever owned.

Posted by Igor Krstevski

- February 09, 2021, 11:42:28

all these years Dell has not learned that the minimum brightness on the Display cannot be 35.9 cd/m² , it is impossible to look in the Display in the evening without Dimmer for Display :((((
compare only to the MacBook Pro or Thinkpad X1 Extreme or Zbook Studio... and from Notebookcheck I am waiting for a reaction but nothing for years :-\

Posted by c1n3ma

- October 28, 2020, 01:48:22

Quote from: bob786 on October 18, 2020, 02:40:23
Sry but no...my MBP16 is cooler and it has a AMD GPU, not a crap uhd 630 in 2020.

Umm, the UHD is for the cheapest model. The other ones have a 1650ti, similar to the 5500M in the Macbooks. Also not only does it have upgradeable ram and storage, but it has a second storage bay, is cheaper, and has a better display.

Posted by bob786

- October 18, 2020, 02:40:23

Sry but no...my MBP16 is cooler and it has a AMD GPU, not a crap uhd 630 in 2020.

Posted by William Goldman

- June 24, 2020, 04:19:01

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the awesome article. I have a somewhat neophyte question I hope you won't mind answering. I'm debating between the I5 XPS 15 9500 and the I7. Both with the FHD screen. I mostly just watch movies and browse. If I go with the I7, will the 86-watt battery provide more run time than the I5 with the 56-watt battery? Perhaps the I7 negates the bigger battery benefits to some extent? Will the fan run more on the I7 with browsing and movies? Thoughts? Thank you!

Posted by MBV

- June 09, 2020, 16:57:44

Is it just me or has Dell increased the prices overall for their whole XPS lineup?

I used to prefer XPS to Razer Blade but with this pricing I just go for the Blade... It's little bigger and used to be more expensive but faster and cooler.

If Dell even cheaps out on their cooling on the new XPS15 it's a no buy anyway...

Posted by Eric Woning

- June 02, 2020, 15:33:15

I noticed that the latency has been reduced.
I have held off with buying an XPS 15 because I'd be using it for music production reasons.
How does the latency of the XPS 15 go vs the Apple Macbook Pro 16?
Is there a way to find this?

Posted by Invert

- June 02, 2020, 10:16:14

Curious to see if one could replace the 56Wh with the bigger one from the other models. Could give spectacular battery life.

Posted by qwert

- June 01, 2020, 13:23:04

Quote from: speculatrix on May 31, 2020, 01:13:09
Quote from: qwert on May 29, 2020, 13:25:46
Hmm cooling is a bit disappointing.

At least it's better than a Mac, so in that respect it fails to be a Mac replacement >:D

This is a great example of marketing choosing specifications which cannot be achieved, thin, light, long battery, super fast cpu, lightweight. Can't have everything! The lack of cooling kills cpu sustained performance but they still fit an expensive high end cpu. The thinness kills battery life. Etc.

Yeah I really don't care if this notebook would be 30% thicker, but I understand this is what consumers demand, especially if this is supposed to be macbooks competitor. What I don't understand is why is Dell so bad at making efficient cooling solutions in their laptops, it is another dell review I have read pointing this out, yet other manufacturers are able to get lower temperatures with similar size specs.

Posted by ardevd

- June 01, 2020, 11:29:48

I'm looking for my next Linux laptop and the XPS 15 / Precision 5550 and it seems like a great machine.

However, the review should note that the SKU without the Nvidia GPU can not be specced with the larger battery, so you're stuck with the 56Wh battery. You're also forced to go with the i5 CPU. A bit of a bummer.

This laptop would be even better if I could pick a slightly better CPU and bigger battery while still opting out of the dedicated GPU.

Posted by passenger

- May 31, 2020, 16:02:05

Just some *very* personal opinions.

I just LOVE this iteration of XPS line

reasonable temperature and performance: it's 14nm, what could you expect? at least could maintain its performance in the cinebench loop.

nice battery life, even for a 56whr battery: it's a 45w CPU paired with a 15" 16:10 display. many laptops could only achieve similar results with a lower TDP processor. Not to mention it also have a 86whr version. It could definitely lasts you whole day, as long as you don't compile some large program or do heavy video editing, etc.

nice, big trackpad; good build quality; two so-dimm slots and two m.2 2280 slots, upgradable whenever you want; bright, relatively color accurate and uniform display...

AND IT'S 16:10!!! why isn't there more laptops adapting this? it's just better for any text processing work: coding, writing essays, even just browsing forums or IG or FB.

Posted by speculatrix

- May 31, 2020, 01:13:09

Quote from: qwert on May 29, 2020, 13:25:46
Hmm cooling is a bit disappointing.

At least it's better than a Mac, so in that respect it fails to be a Mac replacement >:D

This is a great example of marketing choosing specifications which cannot be achieved, thin, light, long battery, super fast cpu, lightweight. Can't have everything! The lack of cooling kills cpu sustained performance but they still fit an expensive high end cpu. The thinness kills battery life. Etc.

Posted by doa379

- May 30, 2020, 19:03:15

I guess they are hell bent on integrating the power key right above the backspace key.

Is it really so imperative to have the power key right above the backspace key??

Posted by Paulus

- May 30, 2020, 18:36:20

Quote from: Joel on May 29, 2020, 15:56:51
Any more information on keyboard replacement difficulty? I generally replace the keyboard at least once on my laptops over a 5 year span.

I am also curious with this. I've checked the service manual (it is available on Dell's website right now). Seems that in this 9500, both the keyboard and trackpad are now integrated to the palm rest assembly, which I suppose to replace the keyboard, we have to replace the whole palm rest assembly.