Dell XPS 15 2016 (9550) InfinityEdge Notebook Review

[MikeYo]

There is a new firmware that fixes all the reported issues this model had.
Can you please update your review with your findings after applying to the latest firmware? Especially the points regarding battery life, power usage and throttling, all should be fixed now.

[Tony Brown]

How many screws to swap out the battery? Really?  Oh well, at least they didn't glue it in like Apple.

[Tony Brown]

Mine just arrived, trackpad completely unresponsive, can't even enter windows details. Returned for refund

[MattB]

How can you rate this in your top ten multimedia laptops when it only scored 63% on audio.  I am tired of reviews skimming over sound quality as if its a nice-to-have when its surely as important as video quality for watching movies etc.

This seems to be a common theme on notebookcheck.

[Alex M]

I have had mine for about two and a half months. I was very wary as well after reading the very many comments about quality control.

I would recommend to anyone seriously interested to purchase it from the Microsoft Store as opposed to the Dell website. I believe they quality control the units themselves as they do fresh re-installs of the OS and strip them from all the bloatware from Dell. I expressed my concerns to the Microsoft representative and he said that in two months of selling it they had no returns (obviously he could have been making it up, but still)... Whereas the Dell website is full of complaints. Also, the MS units ship from Germany as opposed to China, so they arrive very quickly (mine arrived in 3 days).

I must say that after installing all the driver updates I can't think of any major issues that would make me want to return it. The machine is fast, powerful and I can play 2016 games on it (Rise of the Tomb Raider at 1080p). It runs a lot quieter and cooler than every other laptop I have had. I don't recall having any blue screen of death, it probably just froze once. The audio is not terrible after installing the new drivers, it's quite powerful, the annoying thing is that the speakers point downward and therefore the sound is often muffled by your lap. The main nuisance I found was the webcam, the positioning of it makes it very very weird to video call people as they are seeing up your nose, and you need to be looking on the bottom left corner of the screen to feel like you are making eye contact. Terrible. Otherwise I really love the machine and I do believe that at the moment it is one of the very few light and portable powerhouses that are sleek looking while also being extra powerful.

[Vlad]

Hi everybody!
I'm correct understand that HDD+SSD will be shown only as one storage? And upgrade of ssd may increase only cache? This is not controls by BIOS?

Thanks.

[ugly guy]

I bought the last XPS. Battery sucks.

[Boggmeister]

I returned my XPS15 9550 today after fighting it for 2 weeks. I expected a $1700 laptop to perform essentially flawlessly out of the box. The XPS 15 was the worst PC I have purchased and I have been purchasing PCs since 1983! It is a great concept but simply poorly executed. I don't have time to spend weeks updating every driver just to make the thing work. Perhaps in another 6 months they will have the bugs worked out. I would wait a while and keep checking the internet before purchasing one.

[nekolife]

I just bought one of these without doing enough research it seems.
The response time on the FHD LCD is intolerable for gaming.
I am looking for reasons not to send it back but the ghosting is so extreme it's hard not to be disgusted constantly.

I have to set the Distance to 80+ at this motion test: http://testufo.com/#test=chase

[PetrRH]

Great review.
I'm choosing between Dell Latitude 7480 and XPS 15.
I'm after a very good display for outdoor use as I often work on a south-oriented terrace (although with a marquise).
Based on this review and comparing the figures for brightness and contrast, XPS 15 FHD matt would be a clear choice over Latitude 7480 FHD matt.
However, looking at best notebook displays table, Latitude 7480 is the only Dell's representant: https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Best-Notebook-Displays-As-Reviewed-By-Notebookcheck.120541.0.html
Am I missing something?

My second line of thought is that I've been told that I can't get a built-in WWAN
port with the XPS as it has a metal body. Is it true?
I'm reluctant to imagine a 3G/4G stick attached to the XPS :-\.

Many thanks.
Petr