Dell XPS 15 9570 (i7, UHD, GTX 1050 Max-Q) Laptop Review

[Henrik]

I had a HP EliteBook for 5 years without ever really thinking to much about the keyboard. But as soon as I got my new XPS 9750 I knew that the HP had a wonderful keyboard... The XPS keyboard is - in my oppinion - rather flimsy and shallow and is misses some important keys.

For normal writing it is ok. Very much like a MacBook from 3-4 years ago. But as a developer, I use the the arrows, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End extensively. The arrow keys are to little to small and the for the PgUp, PgDn, Home and End you need to use the Fn key. And this is very inconvenient for intensive use. Even now after 2 months I still hate it. So I took the consequence and remaped the keyboard, which now has separate PgUp, PgDn, Home and End keys - with little Dymo sticker on top  :p

However, Over time I'm sure I will get used to the keyboard. So I've been told.

I should note also, that I had to send it to repear just after receiving the machine due to a failing arrow key. Also I've had issue with the machine not starting (which is very annoing in the midle of a customer presentation), though I think I've fixed it with new drivers and change to the battery plan.

If money was no issue I would probably prefer the new HP Elitebook G1 og the Thinkpad X1 Extreme as they are more Pro like and have better keyboards. But the are EXPENSIVE as hell.

For the money, I still think the XPS 9570 is the best 15 inch (semi-pro) laptop out there. All in all I'm satisfied - especially because of the gorgeous screen.

/Henrik

Henrik, could you elaborate more on the keyboard? What do you miss, as a programmer?

[Jack Rabbit]

Thanks for this review guys!!

I just order an i7 8750h, FHD, with 512GB SSD from Dell outlets WITH 4 YEAR extended warranty for about 1450 USD!!

insane value for money here :)

 

[ashlol]

my comment is not directly to the dell review but i'm not sure where to put it.
Could you normalize noise values to environment ?
Because when comparing laptop I usually compute the difference over ambient to have a better value. For example if i compare this xps to Asus ZenBook Pro 15 UX580GE on idle average it is said 29.9 which is the same as the dell but for the dell it is a 0dB increase over environment but for the asus it is a 1.9dB increase over environment so one can hear noise on the asus but none on the dell. This would be much more representative in my point of view.
Same for temperature.
Or also add a 2nd display mode for noise and temperature
-display absolute values
-display relative values.
thank you

[ashlol]

If it is really coil whine but not electrical noise then this is totally unacceptable for a laptop at this price as it is avoidable by putting shielded coil instead of unshielded one. They are of course more expensive but still in the cents range. This just prove they don't give a s*** or want to make more bucks over us consumer.
Now if it is electrical noise and not coil whine (one can be mistaken and takes one for the other) then it is adjustable in the firmware of the components. But one have to compromise on pulse frequency and temperature because usually more frequency leads to more heat on components. With this said it is usually possible to put pulse frequency above 20kHz in order to be not hearable by humans.

[Browny]

In my experience, static (electrical noise) is common on windows laptops due to cheap storage controllers connected to the PCB. XPS and Latitudes definitely have both static and coil whine as the constant high-pitched noise like a mosquito buzzing in the ear is very much audible. Static on the other hand occurs during medium workload that reads from SSD such as heavy browsing and file transfer.

[Kiran]

Can the display results and power consumption vary between panels. Mine is a 4k panel from sharp.

[DanB]

In my case locally to buy Dell high spec and Dell low spec with the upgrade of the SSD for Samsung 960 pro m.2 1T and CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (2 x 16G) 260-Pin cost the same, My question is, setting the resolution from 4k to 1920x1080 should bring the performance similar to Dell low spec, am I correct?. Another question the 1T SSD (that we don't know the brand) does have the same slow reading issue as the 252gb?
Thanks

[Dav]

I have the FHD, i7 and 16gb ram version (I bought it a month ago), and I'm pretty happy. I love the display, very well calibrated out of the box and no backlight bleeding. My SSD version is a 500GB SK hynx and it's faster than the Toshiba in the review ( seq. read 2500 MB/s and seq. write is 1400 MB/s). I undervolt the CPU at -140 mV. No coil whine. Sometimes i play games like The Witcher 3, on hight/ultra without any problem. Build quality and battery life are impressive. I think the 9570 is actually the best all-purpose notebook on the market without any doubt.

[undervolter0x0309]

Kudos for undervolting! Thank You!

[Traveller Mike]

I'm testing an XPS 15 9570 (i7, UHD) bought from a friend of mine.
I borrowed a datacolor spyder 4 and the results after calibration are totally different from those in the review: the adobe rgb coverage in my test is 95% while in the review is 71% (I can't post the screenshot due to forum limitations).
I don't know how to measure the colour deviations, the other big problem emerged from the review.
Since I would like to buy this pc to use it with Lightroom / Photoshop, after reading this review I'm concerned about the display quality.
Of course, I don't have all the instruments and knowledge of Notebookcheck, but the difference in the results are huge, can anyone help me to understand?
I like the compactness of this XPS and can't find a 4K 15" laptop small and thin like this, but I would not make a mistake.
Thanks.

[splus]

Great review as always!
I see one very interesting thing - the fan in XPS is pretty quiet and slow at its max, compared to other laptops.
So, could the max performance under load improve even more if the max fan speed is faster under load, and therefore dissipate the heat faster?

[splus]

@notebookcheck
Have you checked the option in Intel graphic panel, in color settings to disable the color accuracy?
This option is turned on by default and it makes the display have much narrower scope of colors, and could have affected your measurement of Adobe RGB color space considerably.

Also, this laptop supports fast charging - it charges to 50% in just half an hour and to around 75% in 1 hour. The last 25% takes over 1 hour to complete, which is common.

[Jin]

I have the exact same model as in the review. I had no coil whine at all for a few months, but since a couple of days after a hardware troubleshoot in Win 10 Pro it is suddenly pretty bad. its both on CPU and HD activity.

The reason i did the troubleshoot because there was a problem with the USB 3 port (this was a recommended fix on several forums and it worked).

Any idea what can cause this and if i can undo it somehow ?

[AliceN]

Nightmare. It is the worst laptop I owned (and the most expensive one). I bought it for photo/video editing mostly but well... so far it's been just troubleshooting every time I turn it on instead of working.
It is super raw. Nothing works with anything. Drivers, Windows 10, software...
"Gorgeous" screen has insane banding and it needs few seconds for any gradient to settle down and stop playing and changing shades. On top of that heavy graphic software keeps flickering - PH when you press mouse or tablet pen, Davinci Resolve - just at random times. Forums agree that it's Intel Graphics (or its communication with NVIDIA) but there is no solution so far and dell doesn't address the issue even if complains go quite back in time. On top of that Davinci complains that "Your GPU is full" even when I'm working with short 30 seconds (4K though) files and don't do that much of editing (however, this might be Davinci issue, not sure so far).
Plus, right after unboxing I had to deal with overheating, BIOS updating seemed to improve situation, but now after one months it again heats up to 98 while rendering and crashes while playing Diablo 3 (which isn't anyhow a demanding game).
Dell's support if the worst I've dealt with (though, never had that many issues neither with Acer, no MSI). Eventually even online tech support is available ONLY if you are in the country where you bought the laptop (USA for me and I currently on a business trip overseas), since when asking for information from online support is equals to requesting reparation service under warranty... well, maybe I'm missing smt but MSI keeps answering me online to my questions even if laptop's warranty expired 3 years back (slow though and not always to the point, have to admit).
So, I do regret that I just checked reviews according to which Dell XPS 15 9570 is just awesome and not forums where people discussing what aren't working on their XPS 15.
Mediocre machine, horrible support, nothing but pain to deal with this laptop.

[Teodor Hirš]

Not worth of that money. Screen is best I had, but other than that, It just does not meet the expectation. I have 32Gb Version which I use in development, battery life is average, fan is constantly running and making noise, I have some troubles with the speakers on which I don't want to spent my time (probably membrane needs to be replaced because it's making wired noise), camera is positioned on the bottom of the screen which always focuses my neck instead of my eyes, Docking over USB-C is bad ( when connecting multiple monitors, it stacks regularly), always some upgrades which makes it together with windows updates irritating. All in all, UX is on my experience bad and the fact that we bought 8 of this and all of the guys had the same experience in randomized order, I would not suggest to buy this PC