As nice as it may look, the XPS 17 is missing a few quality-of-life features that many less expensive laptops already integrate. We'd love to see these addressed on the inevitable successor.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Here-are-5-super-simple-ways-we-would-improve-the-Dell-XPS-17.481389.0.html
A webcam shutter? What for? So that no one can see you are not working remotely? Worry about the data you put on facebook not whether someone can samehow hack your webcam.. or is there another reason?
Quote from: Lucas on July 18, 2020, 06:24:56
A webcam shutter? What for? So that no one can see you are not working remotely? Worry about the data you put on facebook not whether someone can samehow hack your webcam.. or is there another reason?
More secure is better, right? You will have option to use when you need it, and cover it while not being used and prevent some hacks.
@Anhar
Then disable it in the device manager. Why would you want to cover the webcam? What is there to see anyway? The user's face is easier to get using social media..
If security is such a concern then maybe there should be a verison without webcam, microphone and all ports locked as usb devices may also hack the device. The next step would be disabling the Internet entirely because of "security". We should get back to writing on paper and mail pigeons as they won't be tracked so easily..
6) Add proper touchpad with proper mouse buttons
7) Put in a real keyboard, why is a 17 inch laptop have a 12 inch laptop keyboard in there? Even if you don't want a numberpad at least dedicated home, end and page up and page down buttons on the side.
8) Proper thermal management, 52C on UHD graphics? How do they even manage that?
- Improve the cooling to allow for better GPU performance
- Offer an AMD 4900H option for improved multi thread performance, heat and battery performance
- Change power management so that full charging is achieved while gaming without the need to draw power from the battery while the Laptop is plugged in by fixing issue, quote "The trigger for the 30 watt deficit bug seems to be the 2060 / 3000 GPU and its inclusion in the power requirement request through the USB PD controller."
see UgleCowboy's post on the cause of this issue:
"Dell has responded to our inquiry saying that the XPS 17 "can pull more than 130 W" due to the onboard Core i7 CPU and RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU even though its PSU is rated to deliver 130 W. "
Dell completely misunderstood the bug. The "130 watt" adapter is only providing 100 watts max. This is absolutely a USB PD negotiation bug. The XPS 17, with 1650 Ti, has been measured to pull about 130 watts from adapter. It is not capped at ~100 watts like the 2060 / 3000 trims. The trigger for the 30 watt deficit bug seems to be the 2060 / 3000 GPU and its inclusion in the power requirement request through the USB PD controller.
What Dell thinks you are asking is whether we see battery drain when adapter is providing the proper 130 watts at the wall and XPS 17 is consuming more than 130 watts. In this normal case we would expect the battery to run down. However, this is not the issue we are talking about here.
If this issue is not clearly articulated to Dell it will never be fixed. For some reason this problem is confusing people. Even within the reddit community many people misunderstand and incorrectly interpret the problem the way Dell does. Even reading the comments on this article here shows a clear misunderstanding of the issue. Please push back Allen.
Make Fn+Left/Right = Home/End.
WQHD and FHD touchscreen options
- They can put 2 M.2 slots but solder the WiFi card
- AMD CPU would be better, but there will be no Thunderbolt
- 120Hz display as high refresh rate isn't only about gaming
- Needs more quality control
"Super simple"
It shows that you never designed a laptop. None of these things can come without drawbacks that will make this laptop worse...
There is always room for improvement, but it's never "super simple". :)
Quote from: Lucas on July 18, 2020, 08:20:53
Then disable it in the device manager. Why would you want to cover the webcam? What is there to see anyway? The user's face is easier to get using social media..
If security is such a concern then maybe there should be a verison without webcam, microphone and all ports locked as usb devices may also hack the device. The next step would be disabling the Internet entirely because of "security". We should get back to writing on paper and mail pigeons as they won't be tracked so easily..
From information leakage perspective, microphone is a bigger problem. But cameras have a big psychological impact. It's an invasion of privacy. Few people would choose to broadcast what they do even if they just sit around and read a book. It's unlikely someone would do this en masse because it takes too many resources to process the data. Voice is much more feasible. But those cameras can catch a lot. Back in high school, a couple people amused themselves by spying on their classmates via their webcams. It was pretty trivial. And some interesting videos resulted from that. That was before webcams got integrated into laptops and when almost everyone was using desktops. This is mainly about embarrassment. Video typically adds the least value. Unless you want to blackmail. Then it can yield interesting material. Disabling the device in a device manager just makes it a little harder; all you need are high enough privileges to enable it again. There is no way to move a manual physical shutter from the OS. For example, how would you feel about some pedophile watching your child live?
Some companies go to great lengths. And while they typically won't disable networking altogether, they might require you to connect via company VPN and disable direct access to the Internet. Which is a good idea as local networks can be very unfriendly. Even my private laptops are set-up like that and connect via my home network.
Just improve the thermal design
16:10, I see...I suppose they rightfully ask a fortune for that.
Quote from: Anhar on July 18, 2020, 10:45:57
- They can put 2 M.2 slots but solder the WiFi card
- AMD CPU would be better, but there will be no Thunderbolt
- 120Hz display as high refresh rate isn't only about gaming
- Needs more quality control
there would have been thunderbolt 3 with amd cpus if they would get Asrock or other desktop motherboard manufacturers to make their laptop motherboards. Amd ryzen + tb3 has been around since well over 1 year. Take a loot at the x570 motherboards.
Keyboard is total failure. Numpad isn't necessary, but that should be usef wisely. Separate home, page up/down, home, end, pause, break are efficient and boost productivity. REMOVE the power key far away from backspace and delete for gods sake! Who design keyboards at Dell? Make them work on them for a while please.
Quote from: Milan Oparnica on July 19, 2020, 21:39:37
Keyboard is total failure. Numpad isn't necessary, but that should be usef wisely. Separate home, page up/down, home, end, pause, break are efficient and boost productivity. REMOVE the power key far away from backspace and delete for gods sake! Who design keyboards at Dell? Make them work on them for a while please.
Uh, I have one of their latest keyboards and my current issue is that the space bar failed, for some reason it's mushy, it's supposed to be maglev which means it should always bounce back, now for some reason the space bar is mushy...but the power key is fine IMO, it has too high a trigger force to turn off the computer accidentally.
Many reviews of laptops emphasize the presence, or lack of, SD card slots. Me, I'm more interested in having an RJ45 gigabit Ethernet port.
When a laptop, or phone, becomes so thin that you need external adaptor dongles, I class that as a failure.
If thin is your obsession, then dump the physical keyboard, and buy a tablet.