redesigned XPS 15 and XPS 17
Author
Discussion

Horace Van Khute

Original Poster:

708 posts

84 months

Wednesday 13th May 2020
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This just in, 16:10 is back baby. It only took 10 years... but this is just pure sex.


MikeGTi

2,738 posts

231 months

Wednesday 13th May 2020
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I wish my 2017 XPS wasn’t doing as well as it is!

They look awesome.

fuzzymonkey

474 posts

255 months

Wednesday 13th May 2020
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They are getting some good reviews so far...

Wildfire

9,950 posts

282 months

Wednesday 13th May 2020
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I have a 2020 XPS13 and it’s great. Apart from Zoom hating the microphone.

ZesPak

26,144 posts

226 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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Wildfire said:
I have a 2020 XPS13 and it’s great. Apart from Zoom hating the microphone.
Can't really see it from the picture, but did they finally put the camera in the top bezel again?
Never used it much (use the computer at home), but when I did it really gave the least flattering view of all my chins.

I've got a 2016 something that needs to go in for repairs as the charge port is borked... once the stores are back open.

andy_s

19,856 posts

289 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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Ohhhh, mines about to give up the ghost and I was just starting to look for a replacement...

shalmaneser

6,454 posts

225 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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ZesPak said:
Wildfire said:
I have a 2020 XPS13 and it’s great. Apart from Zoom hating the microphone.
Can't really see it from the picture, but did they finally put the camera in the top bezel again?
Never used it much (use the computer at home), but when I did it really gave the least flattering view of all my chins.

I've got a 2016 something that needs to go in for repairs as the charge port is borked... once the stores are back open.
They have. One of the many complaints I have about my XPS17 (from work though, so not really my problem).

xjay1337

15,966 posts

148 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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I have an XPS15 from around 2017 and it still performs great .

Only had one issue which was a battery which expanded (spends most of it's time on charge and I had some power surges which I think buggered it)

Replaced and good as new. That was around 2 yrs old.

ZesPak

26,144 posts

226 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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Oh and I just noticed, but they put a 17" in the line-up again?

Great to see, I know people who had a MacBook or XPS 17" but all got left behind by the manufacturers.
Too bad they didn't put a numpad in, always seems like a waste of space to me to have a 17" without numpad.
Although they are not much bigger in width than a 15.6" regular laptop.



Mr Pointy

13,414 posts

189 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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It's great to see they've used a 16:10 screen. Now if we could only get back to the heady days of 4:3 that would be perfect.

I've seen lots of comments saying they should have put AMD Ryzen processors in them. I'm not up on CPUs so are the Ryzen chips that much better?

ZesPak

26,144 posts

226 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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Mr Pointy said:
I've seen lots of comments saying they should have put AMD Ryzen processors in them. I'm not up on CPUs so are the Ryzen chips that much better?
yes

AMD are on a streak.
They've blown away Intel across the board in desktops, laptops and servers.

Desktops are moving the fastest due to their flexible platform and market. Laptops will move a bit slower and I can imagine manufacturers like Intel, HP and Apple having multi million dollar deals with Intel that you just can't get out of overnight.

It's a shame really.

V8mate

45,899 posts

219 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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xjay1337 said:
I have an XPS15 from around 2017 and it still performs great .

Only had one issue which was a battery which expanded (spends most of it's time on charge and I had some power surges which I think buggered it)

Replaced and good as new. That was around 2 yrs old.
It was a known fault: the batteries were swelling. I got Dell to come out to my home to supply and fit a replacement (out of warranty) even though it wasn't exhibiting any symptoms.

Jonesy23

4,650 posts

166 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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No 'normal' USB ports though, guess they detract from the thinness. You're stuck with Type C.

Horace Van Khute

Original Poster:

708 posts

84 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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Jonesy23 said:
No 'normal' USB ports though, guess they detract from the thinness. You're stuck with Type C.
Yeah, well, it's 2020. 4 years ago it was a pain, now I'd say it's to be expected. USB-c is pretty alright.

Horace Van Khute

Original Poster:

708 posts

84 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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One thing that is slight meh is the keyboard.

Two things I noticed, things that tend to make keyboards less nice:
1) keys are slightly larger and there's less space between them, this usually tends to lead to typing errors, you hit two keys at the same time
2) the arrow keys, they did the opposite to what Apple did with latest gen MBP, Apple went back to reverse T layout, Dell got rid of the reverse T. Me personally with reverse T I get close to 100% accuracy operating cursor keys when touch typing, with blocky cursor keys I tend to hesitate and either slow down or look.

Ehhh, there's always next gen I guess!

Chris Hinds

497 posts

195 months

Thursday 14th May 2020
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If I were Apple I'd be a bit worried. I'm using a MBP 2018 currently, primarily because it was the only laptop with a 16:10 screen at the time. That being said I spend a significant proportion of my "working" time in Bootcamp or VMs running Windows/Linux. I generally find myself more productive on Windows whether that's Server management or Office apps. Partly familiarity and partly because the graphic movements you think are all smooth and natural when you use MacOS for the first time in ages become irritating and slow. The first thing I notice on Windows is how "snappy" it feels by comparison.

Now you can have a legacy-free Windows laptop that in the USA can be upgraded to 64GB RAM and 2TB of NVMe SSD storage. Thank you very much that will be the next portable VM host then. If Apple do indeed leave X86 for ARM next revision of MBP you could easily see their market share drop, as a big pull of a MBP for IT Pros is running Windows/Mac/Linux all on one box.

Wildfire

9,950 posts

282 months

Saturday 16th May 2020
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ZesPak said:
Can't really see it from the picture, but did they finally put the camera in the top bezel again?
Never used it much (use the computer at home), but when I did it really gave the least flattering view of all my chins.

I've got a 2016 something that needs to go in for repairs as the charge port is borked... once the stores are back open.
Yep. A while back I think. It does make a lot of sense
M

guitarcarfanatic

1,995 posts

165 months

Saturday 16th May 2020
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ZesPak said:
yes

AMD are on a streak.
They've blown away Intel across the board in desktops, laptops and servers.

Desktops are moving the fastest due to their flexible platform and market. Laptops will move a bit slower and I can imagine manufacturers like Intel, HP and Apple having multi million dollar deals with Intel that you just can't get out of overnight.

It's a shame really.
Have AMD sorted the laptop processors? I got a Surface Laptop 3 last year and the AMD's benched less and tanked the battery compared to the Intels.

Hopefully they have sorted the coil whine on the new models - I sent 2 XPS 13's back in September as both whined like crazy (particularly on charge). Shame as had the same issues with the previous model as well for work. This led me to the Surface Laptop which has been awesome.

Horace Van Khute

Original Poster:

708 posts

84 months

Saturday 16th May 2020
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guitarcarfanatic said:
Have AMD sorted the laptop processors? I got a Surface Laptop 3 last year and the AMD's benched less and tanked the battery compared to the Intels.

Hopefully they have sorted the coil whine on the new models - I sent 2 XPS 13's back in September as both whined like crazy (particularly on charge). Shame as had the same issues with the previous model as well for work. This led me to the Surface Laptop which has been awesome.
Apparently the latest gen AMD laptop CPU's is the bees knees and everyone is hoping that next year more manufacturers will incorporate AMD platform in their models, now that they know that AMD is so good.

As for the coil whine, I keep hearing this about Dell's and XPS especially. And it's been like this every year since they launched this style of XPS line up. I couldn't live with any type of whine personally.

MikeGTi

2,738 posts

231 months

Saturday 16th May 2020
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Jonesy23 said:
No 'normal' USB ports though, guess they detract from the thinness. You're stuck with Type C.
Dell include a USB A-C adaptor in the box, which is handy.