NotebookCHECK - Notebook Forum

Did you do the PWM test across the brightness range as this is the identical panel to the 9550 and that kicked in PWM below 30 or 20% and caused a lot of flicker issues.

How come you list the Apple MacBook Pro 15 2016 (2.9 GHz, 460) as a brightness of just above 400 nits when your own review lists it as having a much higher brightness than 400?

Please review this model thoroughly. I expirencied many serious hardware issues with my XPS 9550, including overheating (before I had to return it back to Dell, because they were unable to repair it). It seems that the previous model was buggy..

Please take a close look at the keyboard quality and responsiveness. I've found that many of the keys on my 9560 simply don't work if hit from an edge or corner, as demonstrated here: https://youtu.be/HAPq0vntpPk

Quote from: James McMinn on February 06, 2017, 14:24:58
Please take a close look at the keyboard quality and responsiveness. I've found that many of the keys on my 9560 simply don't work if hit from an edge or corner, as demonstrated here: https://youtu.be/HAPq0vntpPk

Try the same trick on any laptop - the keyboard will show similar behaviour. Even on Thinkpad P50, so don't worry about that bug, it is nothing serious.

Quote from: Zoro on February 07, 2017, 07:39:20
Try the same trick on any laptop - the keyboard will show similar behaviour. Even on Thinkpad P50, so don't worry about that bug, it is nothing serious.

I just tried this on my P50 at work, and I can't reproduce that issue at all. Pressing a key in the bottom right or left corner triggers a key press event every time here.

QuoteModels without a conventional hard drive can therefore use the free space for a larger battery. Corresponding configurations are equipped with 97-Wh battery.

So if I order a SSD-only model, I automatically get the 97Wh battery?

PS: Will there be a review of the i7/4K model as well?

Not sure if you get the 97Wh battery, but at least there would be space for it. Could be Dell is selling versions with the small battery and SSD only too.

I think, it is time to add tag "shitbook" and mark all the notebooks that are missing dedicated pgup/pgdown buttons with it. This move will safe a lot of time for a lot of people.

Would be great if the notebook came with a GTX 1050 Ti or a 3GB GTX 1060 (6GB even better) in it. Because I'm interested to see if a Quad Core will ever present a bottleneck to this kinda sweet spot of GPUs.

Is this review finished or still WIP? Can't find sections on battery and gaming performance. Would be interested how it runs Witcher 3 and others.

There remains a great deal of confusion about Thunderbolt 3 which I hope NotebookCheck might someday help clarify.

It's been confirmed that these XPS 15 have TB3 ports wired with just x2 lanes (16GBps vs XPS 13 with x4 lanes at 32GBps) of PCIe but no one has yet measured the actual impact this has in actual use. Based on previous PCIe bandwidth tests, eGPU performance may not be impacted much at all or maybe just in particular situations. Other PCIe over Thunderbolt 3 applications may be affected much more.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5ot8dn/dell_xps_15_9560_has_2x_on_the_tb3_port_confirmed/dclxzc5/


So with their HQ-series CPUs, these XPS 15 may still be well suited for eGPU use by college students and road warriors wanting serious gaming, etc while docked. [No one games without plugging in anyways,right?] If it can also be powered from the same Thunderbolt 3 cable, that would be good too.

I don't know if reviewers have access to eGPU enclosures like the Razer Core or Akitio Node, but I'd like to request as much insight into its x2 lane Thunderbolt 3 port and these use cases as possible.

PS: These same users would be most interested in battery life when Optimus has disabled the GTX 1050 GPU. Can NotebookCheck clarify which battery tests have the dGPU engaged given Optimus or other switching options (MShybrid)?

As always, thanks for the great reviews here!

@aquaeatrae

http://www.notebookcheck.net/updated-XPS-9350-9550-s-Thunderbolt-3-may-be-hardwired-at-TB2-speeds.189743.0.html

Of course there is some impact. Not that significant for external drives, but certainly significant for eGPUs.
---
Also, I'd like to express frustration with the fact that this is a LIVE review but not labeled as such.

Thanks @mad max. I had read that and others who believe that half the lanes = 20GBps = 50% FPS in games. This is what appears to be so confusing.

But if you look at the PCIe scaling tests mentioned there (direct link below), it suggests that framerates in games actually aren't heavily affected by lower PCIe bandwidth. Also, the technical brief helps clarify how x2 or x4 lanes of PCIe bandwidth is actually passed bidirectionally through Thunderbolt 3, combined and prioritized with other signals.

Technical Brief
https://thunderbolttechnology.net/sites/default/files/HBD16235_Thunderbolt_TB_r05.pdf

PCIe Scaling Tests for Gaming
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_PCI_Express_Scaling/24.html

Note: x2 PCIe (gen 3) was not tested but has the same bandwidth as x4 PCIe (gen 2) which was tested. The later showed just a small loss (7%) in FPS compared to having double the bandwidth. This suggests that the actual impact in games is much less than the 50% so many fear. In other words, even today's most powerful GPUs (GTX 1080) doesn't fully utilize more than x2 PCIe lanes very often. It may occur occasionally as data is loaded, but overall gameplay is only slightly affected and more than made up for with the power of a desktop GPU.

To date, these are the only relevant tests I have found on the issue. I keep watching for someone to actually connect an eGPU to an XPS 15 to show real-world results of its x2 lane implementation.

Actually, I suspect the first place we'll actually see major impacts will be with external drives ...specifically the new NVMe external drives with fast SSDs.

AquaeAtrae - The difference isn't negligible IMO - around 12% less on average over all the techpowerup benchmarks. That isn't game changing but it's enough to be meaningful I think.

Unfortunately there are no 15" laptops that have 4 TB3 PCIe lanes open, aside from the Macbook Pro. And if you're planning on gaming with an eGPU that probably isn't the best option. The HP Spectre x360 15" theoretically has 4 lanes open if there is a way to disable their dGPU, but it's very unlikely it will be possible IRL. So the only Windows options available with 4 lanes are the Spectre x360 13" and the upcoming 14" Thinkpad X1 Yoga.

I 'm leaning towards the Spectre 15" right now. I can play Civ6 and FIFA without an eGPU with that, and for other games I don't mind the 12% 2 lane eGPU hit over the 4 lane 13" Spectre. So far the Spectre looks to me like a better laptop than the XPS15 but I'll wait for notebookcheck's review.

Quote from: Matt4109 on February 09, 2017, 15:36:44
AquaeAtrae - The difference isn't negligible IMO - around 12% less on average over all the techpowerup benchmarks. That isn't game changing but it's enough to be meaningful I think.

Unfortunately there are no 15" laptops that have 4 TB3 PCIe lanes open, aside from the Macbook Pro. And if you're planning on gaming with an eGPU that probably isn't the best option. The HP Spectre x360 15" theoretically has 4 lanes open if there is a way to disable their dGPU, but it's very unlikely it will be possible IRL. So the only Windows options available with 4 lanes are the Spectre x360 13" and the upcoming 14" Thinkpad X1 Yoga.

I 'm leaning towards the Spectre 15" right now. I can play Civ6 and FIFA without an eGPU with that, and for other games I don't mind the 12% 2 lane eGPU hit over the 4 lane 13" Spectre. So far the Spectre looks to me like a better laptop than the XPS15 but I'll wait for notebookcheck's review.

Only the X1 Yoga? Any particular reason the X1 carbon (or MBP 13") wouldn't work?

Also, I have personally experienced the bottleneck of x2 PCIE with my XPS 15 + razer core. It's a very strange thing to experience... it's like using the laptop in molasses. Even the most basic game/software is unable to hit more than 45-50 FPS due to the botleneck. Anything that accesses the disk does so at a crawl. For example, when I ran firestrike on the internal display with a GTX 970 in the core, it took about 1 minute to load each test and where as the GTX 960m scored a 4100 on the internal on firestrike and the 970+core+external scored 9200 or so, the 970+core+internal gave me something like 2300.

Douglas - your experience is surprising - egpu.io 's implementation list has several successful examples of old XPS 15 & eGPUs at good frame rates. Maybe some of the hardware you had wasn't working properly?

Good catch, I'd missed the X1 Carbon. I'm leaning away from the Lenovos though, as early reports claim heating and fan noise issues, which is pretty par for the course with Lenovo.

The 13" macbook pro does have 4x lanes; I was just listing Windows machines in that sentence. The 15" Macbook is actually in 2nd place for me right now after the Spectre. The reasons I'm leaning towards the Spectre are the touchscreen, convertibility, Windows Hello, the fact that Nvidia and most game studios don't strongly support Macs, and price. I actually really like touchscreens on laptops for scrolling through articles and playing Civ 6. I never use tablet mode in convertibles but I use the tent and stand modes a lot since I'm frequently on airplanes. Windows Hello IR cameras are extremely convenient and probably the safest security implementation currently available. And of course the price is almost half of the equivalent Macbook. Still though, if the Spectre's battery life, screen quality, temperature, fan noise, speakers, and overall build quality aren't up to par I will go for the 15" Macbook which will probably be at least a little better in those aspects as well as having 4x PCIe lanes. I'm optimistic for the Spectre though since HP's strategy last year was essentially to make a straight Macbook clone and they mostly succeeded with build quality, and early reviews of the 15" are very positive.

Thanks all

I too have seem last year's XPS 15s run with good framerates via eGPUs.
https://egpu.io/external-gpu-implementations-table/

There are other options available now (including 15") and some are definitely wired at x4 lanes (e.g. ASUS UX501VW). I'd recommend watching this crowd-sourced listing for updates.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12G1VTFWkTL5tb8nxUAtnDHwTLyya9I3Vw-OXXrIN4e4/edit?usp=sharing

Much of the testing and reports are coming from https://egpu.io/

I'm not sure if your 12% figure is comparing x2 lanes vs x16 lanes maybe. On FHD resolutions, the difference between 16GTps (PCIe x4 gen 2.0) and 32GTps (PCI x4 gen 3.0) was about half that. The difference was even less at 4K resolutions. Plus, PCIe 3.0 reduced overhead from 20% to 1.5% so these comparisons should be conservative. On the other hand, Thunderbolt 3 itself adds about 5% overhead to the overall affect but that's true of x4 lane implementations as well. Regardless, its always a matter of opinion how much more powerful eGPU you'd need to buy to make this laptop worthwhile. I can certainly respect that.

My only point is that those expecting a 50% loss of performance given half as many lanes would be pleasantly surprised ...assuming other issues weren't affecting their game.

Also, many report that feeding video back into the internal screen has a notable impact, and perhaps more so with just x2 lanes. External displays show the best performance. But since Thunderbolt's bandwidth is 40Gbps upstream plus a separate 40GBps down, I remain curious to see this tested in detail and/or explained.

PS: We are seeing the first attempts to connect these new XPS 15s with eGPUs. Unfortunately, he may have received a defective ASUS XG Station 2, but we're still looking into it.

AquaeAtrae - I was getting the 12% figure from this imgur post of a fellow who had rolled up all the scores. Looks accurate to me? http://imgur.com/a/y0pSm

For the 15" x4 options I'm really only looking at the Ultrabook class, so something like the Asus with 6hrs of battery life won't do for me unfortunately. However, I don't know how I stupid enough to miss it, but I did miss the Razer Blade Spectre as another 14" option.

Very interesting point on the external display. And good point on techpowerup's scores being conservative with the reduced overhead.

Quote from: Matt4109 on February 09, 2017, 19:48:53
Douglas - your experience is surprising - egpu.io 's implementation list has several successful examples of old XPS 15 & eGPUs at good frame rates. Maybe some of the hardware you had wasn't working properly?

Good catch, I'd missed the X1 Carbon. I'm leaning away from the Lenovos though, as early reports claim heating and fan noise issues, which is pretty par for the course with Lenovo.

The 13" macbook pro does have 4x lanes; I was just listing Windows machines in that sentence. The 15" Macbook is actually in 2nd place for me right now after the Spectre. The reasons I'm leaning towards the Spectre are the touchscreen, convertibility, Windows Hello, the fact that Nvidia and most game studios don't strongly support Macs, and price. I actually really like touchscreens on laptops for scrolling through articles and playing Civ 6. I never use tablet mode in convertibles but I use the tent and stand modes a lot since I'm frequently on airplanes. Windows Hello IR cameras are extremely convenient and probably the safest security implementation currently available. And of course the price is almost half of the equivalent Macbook. Still though, if the Spectre's battery life, screen quality, temperature, fan noise, speakers, and overall build quality aren't up to par I will go for the 15" Macbook which will probably be at least a little better in those aspects as well as having 4x PCIe lanes. I'm optimistic for the Spectre though since HP's strategy last year was essentially to make a straight Macbook clone and they mostly succeeded with build quality, and early reviews of the 15" are very positive.

It's because the actual data link is 32Gbps for 4 lanes and 16Gbps for two. 8Gbps is reserved for DisplayPort. So you've got 16Gbps upstream, which works OK, but when you double that by sending data back to the internal screen, it's completely choked. That's my understanding of why, anyway.

Lack of touch is a good reason not to buy the MBPs. I like the spectre 13 and 15 but I just want a 15W dual core CPU. It isn't good enough.

Of the quad cores under 200lba we've got...

Alienware 13 r3 - too large a footprint for a 13" screen.
Razer Blade - poor screen (touch), ugly logo, bad QC and support
Gs43vr - ugly and cheap feeling
XPS 15 - can't run eGPU on internal screen
MBP - grossly expensive, poor thermals, Windows bootcamp will not let you use the iGPU, no touch
Aorus x5 v7 - just too large and with poor battery life for me

(All just my subjective opinions and do not represent a notebookcheck review whatsoever)

I think that's basically all of them right now. Thus, I'm just going to wait.

So.... Who's genius idea at Notebookcheck's HQ was it to review the I5, 1080p with smaller battery version of the XPS 15 2017 edition? Are you guys going to review the I7, 97WHR, UHD version too????

Quote from: Iguana Divergent on February 10, 2017, 07:12:38
So.... Who's genius idea at Notebookcheck's HQ was it to review the I5, 1080p with smaller battery version of the XPS 15 2017 edition? Are you guys going to review the I7, 97WHR, UHD version too????

I don't see why we wouldn't have an i7/UHD review in the near future, just as we did with the 9550. :)

Hi guys, we will review the high-end spec as well. The test model (4K, 512 GB PCIe-SSD, i7-7700HQ) should arrive in a couple of days.

Could you please test the 3D performance on battery, I find it remarkable that the whole point of a laptop is to compute on the move and yet all gaming laptop reviews never test gaming performance on battery.
You are the only site I've every found that even does a little in this regard in providing 3DMark 11 results on battery. (FPS) on games would be better. But I notice this and some other recent reviews don't have this, please can you add it to this and the upcoming UHD review. Would be very helpful.

Sorry but... where are the conclusions and, where is the icc file??  ;D

Quote from: Matt4109 on February 09, 2017, 22:47:29
AquaeAtrae - I was getting the 12% figure from this imgur post of a fellow who had rolled up all the scores. Looks accurate to me? http://imgur.com/a/y0pSm

For the 15" x4 options I'm really only looking at the Ultrabook class, so something like the Asus with 6hrs of battery life won't do for me unfortunately. However, I don't know how I stupid enough to miss it, but I did miss the Razer Blade Spectre as another 14" option.

The biggest loss I see there is in Battlefield 1 (1080p) where 140.9 FPS drops to 128.8 when restricted from 32GTps to just 16GTps (like x2 PCIe lanes). Other resolutions and games weren't that much.

Like you, I'm looking for long battery life. I was very interested in ultrabooks until I realized the impact those dual-core CPUs had on specific games I play (e.g. 40% loss in Battlefield 1 regardless of the GPU). It's not so bad with all games, but something to be aware of. Here's a good review comparing the Razer Blade Stealth (dual core) vs full quad-core performance.
https://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/laptops/2016/11/10/razer-blade-stealth-and-core-review/4

If the battery life wasn't so poor (very misadvertised), I had been keen to try an ASUS Transformer 3 Pro 2-in-1 with the new XG Station 2 eGPU. But alas, just 3.7 hours despite the low power components.

There was also rumor of a new low-power 18W Kaby Lake with quad-core HQ performance. That with an eGPU would have made the perfect 2-in-1! But all indications suggest that idea never came to market. :(

AquaeAtrae - Wow I had not seen that dual core impact. That changes things...

So what are your thoughts on the best options are now and in the next few months? Does anything look promising for the kind of laptop we are looking for?

Well, I'm actually still leaning toward the XPS 15 + XG Station 2 + GTX 1080 for mobile productivity and intense gaming when docked. Admittedly, I was hoping for a bit more than the 5 hours battery life reported here. And it may be a while 'til eGPU support is actually benchmarked much less fully developed.

https://twitter.com/AzorFrank/status/829719350961696768

I'm also keeping an eye on the Latitude 5580, Gigabyte Saber 15, and Aorus X5 v7. If I can't realize the eGPU dream this year, I may fall back to lugging a 7lb Alienware 15 and its power brick ...or just wait it out another year with my 6 year old XPS 17 L702x.

With the new Thunderbolt 3 eGPU options and Nvidia's Pascal efficiency, these should be good days for a new laptop. But it's still very early in the game. These reviews are just now coming in.

I am looking forward to the battery life reports on the 4k/i7 version.
I use idle battery life reports via the windows battery icon on the taskbar as a quick check on the 'baseline', knowing it will never be better under use.

The first BIOS version of the 9550/4k ran about 9.5hrs@min screen brightness and about 5.5hrs at max. That was a known BIOS bug, but took a few BIOS versions to sort out.

Currently, on my 9550 I get about 16hrs at min screen idle (apprx 5.25W) and 6.5hrs at max (apprx 13W). Compared to min screen brightness, +4 notches (out of the 10) adds about 2 watts to the screen power. As the numbers show, the screen takes an additional 8 or so watts going from min to max brightness.

Running Netflix (not 4k content) at +4 brightness provides about 6hrs total battery life according to the taskbar.

Running W10 on 'balanced' power profile.

Same coil whine
Same issues with crackling speakers (often left)
Same issue with keyboard presses not being recognized
Same issues with overhetaing (padly applied TIM) on some units
= in general same QC issues and same hit-and-miss replace-fix policy
PASS!

It's in my hand right now. I haven't had the previous version and so i can't compare it with the 9550 but, the first impression, is really good after a fresh installation. No coil whine but i think i need more time to test it. For now the bad is that there isn't a network connector to use a lan cable. My Asus UX303LN (previus machine) have two connector in the pack. And, about the review... i can't find the icc file. Where is it??

Quote from: Andreas Osthoff on February 10, 2017, 13:36:25
Hi guys, we will review the high-end spec as well. The test model (4K, 512 GB PCIe-SSD, i7-7700HQ) should arrive in a couple of days.

Glad to hear this, looking to purchase this exact model, but want to see if there are any updates/improvements on battery life and coil whine. Does anyone know if the bluetooth/wifi conflict issues from the earlier versions were resolved?

Thanks in advance.

Regarding the gaming on battery question, I think it's a valid use case for those that want to game on their commute etc. I have seen 100s of Laptop reviews on YouTube and the Internet of gaming laptops and no one ever ever ever ever reports on 3D performance on battery! Surely a core use case for a portable gaming computer. I applaud you for providing some small information in this area. My personal use is 100% gaming on battery (during commute) as you may have been able to tell. So, it is impossible to ascertain what performance I can expect from every other reviewer I've EVER seen other than yourselves!

I think you will find it interesting if you test 3D Mark and Witcher 3 on battery as standard in all your reviews. From your previous reviews it appears that it is almost immaterial which GPU you have, a 1050 is throttled back a little bit, but a 1070 is throttled back massively. For example you reported a 22% drop in FireStrike for the XPS 15, but when you reported on the Asus GL502VS, it dropped by 57%. I've looked at your reviews of everything from 970Ms to 1070s, and they all seem to throttle to around 6000-7000 on 3D Mark 11 on battery. Consequently on battery you get almost no benefit of a 1070 over a 1050. It would be very interesting to see if any manufacturer manages to engineer a battery subsystem that allows less agressive throttling of more powerful GPUs. Such a machine would be a clear winner for mobile gaming and practical given that many laptops ship with 99Whr batteries.

(Missed this intro in above post)
Thank you so much for adding the 3D Mark and Witcher fps scores for gaming on battery, much appreciated. I assume it's the Fire Strike score of 5458 that is reduced by 22%? Sometimes you report on the overall 3dMark11 score on battery, sometimes firestrike. Could you stick to one so that it's possible to compare Laptop scores?

You have THE most thorough and consistent reviews of laptops and GPU chipsets anywhere on the Internet, great work.

Quote from: kbuhagiar on February 17, 2017, 20:23:37

Quote from: Andreas Osthoff on February 10, 2017, 13:36:25
Hi guys, we will review the high-end spec as well. The test model (4K, 512 GB PCIe-SSD, i7-7700HQ) should arrive in a couple of days.

Glad to hear this, looking to purchase this exact model, but want to see if there are any updates/improvements on battery life and coil whine. Does anyone know if the bluetooth/wifi conflict issues from the earlier versions were resolved?

Thanks in advance.

I'm looking to purchase this exact model as well, and am very interested to hear how it compares to the lower-end model and the older higher-end model.

Any update on when the higher-end model review might be published? The Dell store (US, at least) is already 2 days into a 7-day 10% off deal for XPS's, including the new XPS 15. It would be wonderful to be able to see this review and make an informed purchase (or not if something is horribly wrong!) before this deal ends.

If you don't think the review will be ready in the next few days, though, that would be nice to know as well. In that case, I would probably just pray that nothing is horribly wrong and buy it before the 10% off deal ends.

Thanks!

Hi, we are currently still waiting for the test sample, so it will probably take a couple of days before we have any information.

Quote from: Andreas Osthoff on February 18, 2017, 11:08:18
Hi, we are currently still waiting for the test sample, so it will probably take a couple of days before we have any information.

Thanks for the update. I guess I'll trust that the high-end model is of good quality as well and purchase it from the Dell store before the 10% off deal ends.

Do you also experience that the fans start up whenever a USB plug is in or charger cord are in (even if it is fully charged), Dell Adapter | USB Type-C to HDMI / VGA / Ethernet / USB 3.0 and TB 16 of the XPS 15 9560?

Will the computer still work if you disconnect the battery connector to the motherboard? (If used more as a desktop PC)?

Before 2/10, I noticed the weight in the specifications was 1.8 kg, but it changed into 1.95kg after the final update. I'd like to ask whether 1.95 is a number actully measured by NBC and whether all reviews of NBC actually measure the weight of notebooks. If not, since the weight might be the only inexact (there can be a big difference between the number officially announced and actually measured) number in the specifications, I suggest that the review can point out where the number comes from, which maybe helpful for the readers.
Anyway, thanks for the elaborate and detailed reviews!

Where is the review of the I7, 4k, 97WHR battery version  >:( :p

Still waiting for the 4k review. What's the holdup? I thought you guys got the laptop a week ago.

Quote from: Andreas Osthoff on February 18, 2017, 11:08:18
Hi, we are currently still waiting for the test sample, so it will probably take a couple of days before we have any information.

Any update on this please? :)
Thanks

Hello, any more informations on eGPU TB3 tests promised on this review ?

Can you provide some information about linux compatibility for this model? Thanks!

I've just buy this XPS!

Can you suggest me a docking station or something else for connect pc with dual display (hdmi and vga)?.

Or just an adamptor for video proiector (hdmi or vga)?

Thank you!

LOL Looks like Dell really doesn't want anybody playing games on this thing. Oh well, seeing as Alienwares are overpriced pieces of junk, it's either Gigabyte or Aorus this year, as always.

Are you not gonna review the higher spec models?

Quote from: apq on March 13, 2017, 10:54:05
Are you not gonna review the higher spec models?

Check the German version of the site - it's already reviewed, needs to be translated.

Here's the first actual implementation details of the XPS 15 along with benchmarks.

https://egpu.io/forums/implementation-guides/dell-xps-15-9560-asus-rog-xg-station-2-gtx1080-windows-10-jackeyjoe/

After testing Rise of the Tomb Raider fully maxed out...
"For my use case (4k external) this puts me 5-7 FPS behind what reviewers are getting online..., which is acceptable losses for me." - jackeyjoe

Use of the internal display is also tested with the x2 bi-directional PCIe lanes.

Where can i find the color calibration file?

When will you review the i7, 16 GB memory, 512 GB SSD, Full HD, 97 Whr battery model?

For years, we've had problems getting the Dell XPS line to work with our corporate enterprise WiFi.  We don't use anything exotic, but we do use 802.1x authentication, and WPA2 Enterprise (with a DYNAMIC key, not a pre-shared key (PSK)).  We have multiple buildings and the WiFi is configured to let employees roam between buildings and not have to know SSIDs and PSKs for the WiFi.  I've complained to Dell, but it's fallen on deaf ears.  I don't know why they use a different WiFi architecture (WiFi chip, etc.) on the XPS line.  Dell Latitudes work just fine in our infrastructure and so do other vendor's laptops.  Very frustrating!!!  Therefore, the IT department PROHIBITS the use of Dell XPS laptops with our network.

My wife and I were about to buy 2 of the XPS 15 16Gb of ram 1tb ssd yesterday... so, after reading some issues with the battery folks were having with this and the 9550 I thought before I bought a $2400 notebook I want to know what the replacement cost of the 97 watt battery was... and I have to say, I was floored.... According to both models web pages on Dell under accessories they state the battery is no longer Available... then I went to amazon... Product Discontinued... What the heck do you do with a $2500 Laptop when the battery is dead and not available anywhere... It becomes a $2500 anchor for you next boat... I Cancelled orders for 2 of the machines immediately.... That is CRAZY that Dell has discontinued selling the replacement batteries.. I'm sure glad I found out before we took delivery.. By the way, the Battery is Not Warrantied by Dell Either so your screwed.

I can't do it on Firefox, and I have pop-ups enabled and have cleared my cache. I have to switch over to Chrome to like or reply to other posts. This needs to be debugged.