NotebookCHECK - Notebook Forum

Title says 1050 max-q but I guess you mean 1050ti max-q.

How come a laptop with coil whine for years received a score of 90? This is a definite deal breaker.

Coil whine is not a deal breaker for everyone, more like an annoying festure which is unavoidable with miniaturisation nowadays.

Unavoidable? The only laptops I have experienced coil whine are XPS and Latitudes which are both Dell's premium lineups. No other laptop, consumer or business or gaming has had coil whine in 20 years. Except for maybe a few poorly built laptop chargers (HP and Asus). Imagine if every one your electronic devices including your mobile phone constantly produced annoyingly loud high-pitched noise, would you possibly be okay with that?

On a side note, battery life results are interesting. Users on Dell subreddit and NBR forum have been reporting on average 5-7 hours with the same i7 UHD model. What kind of dark sorcery did NBC tap into to get 9.5?

If those are the only ones you have experienced that then I think you are either lucky or didn't have much contact  to carious computer hardware. Not only laptops but desktops too can have coil whine. There is also some on my Inspiron but I got used to it and it does not bother me if I even notice it. Another thing is where it's comming from. XPS users have reported that it's usually the ssd which may come from different manufscturers. On my work latitude there is also some but usually during disc intensive tasks and it's not even noticable from 50 cm.
Coil whine in cell phones would indeed be a major drawback.

Quote from: Browny on September 19, 2018, 04:34:00
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On a side note, battery life results are interesting. Users on Dell subreddit and NBR forum have been reporting on average 5-7 hours with the same i7 UHD model. What kind of dark sorcery did NBC tap into to get 9.5?

Regarding this part, I believe Dell has a 56wh i7 too as well as they have a 97wh i5 version.

Do you live in a fridge?
looking at the game temperatures ...
My just turned on is already at 45-50 degrees celsius both cpu and gpu without doing anything (with clean installation of windows 10 and all the drivers updated) when I open programs like photoshop or something a little more powerful  temperature rises at 70-80 celsius in a moment, if I play a Sim City  the latest version, it goes up to 90. (repasted and undervolting)

If I do a stress test from windows with the Dell support program, it reaches 98 degrees celsius.

The ambient temperature goes from 24 degrees with air conditioner, to 26-27 degrees without. With the air conditioner on, the maximum reaches 93.

I bought a XPS 15 9570 with a 4K display. I spend much time considering whether to go for FHD or 4K. However, after getting the machine, the thing I absolutely like the most is the 4K display. It's simple beautiful and a constant joy to look at. It's definitely worth the extra price and lesser battery time.

Now, if only the keyboard was a little more pro like (not perfect for a programmer) I would rate it top notch.

/Henrik

77% of Adobe RGB but you don't test the laptop with its Adobe RGB mode... Wouldn't be the result different then as the laptop is supposed to be 100% Adobe RGB?

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

This 9570 has better GPU, much better CPU, double RAM, great noise level (if 40 dB is true), great UHD screen and (not only) for this screen, the battery life is awesome, but gets less points, than an entry level i5 version???

This is another very strange review!

Would you please tell us which windows version and ssd driver and mode (ahci,raid) you have been using. Obviously you had not the write performance issue so much user are complaining about.

I am very dissapointed with the UHD panel of this year. The colour deviations and lower adobe rgb % are not worth the sacrifice of a brighter screen compared to last year's model. Looks like I got to wait another year for the next XPS version. My Macbook pro 15 from 2015 should still be fine.

@John Smith he probably shares my same feelings (also have a 9570, also am a programmer) - the XPS keyboard not even close to a Thinkpad overall, and even manages to be worse than Dell's own Precisions/Latitude lines. The keyboard on the XPS 15 has been mediocre with low to no tactile feedback, short travel and very compact layout since 2015 - there's essentially enough room to accommodate MBP 15-size speakers on the sides, yet the speakers are on the bottom on the 9570... They could have fit a numeric pad or increased key size with all that space.

Lenovo manages to get keyboards which are at least twice as good in every department (and twice as tall and clicky!) on their ultra-thin X1 Carbon series. The cheapest and smallest Latitudes (e.g. 11')  have keyboards much better, and most even include a trackpoint. It's seems like it's not about having space or the 9570 lastic being more expensive - the XPS 15 team simply fails to see a need to improve design where it matters, likely because the units keep selling well as they do, still king in Windows thin and light/multimedia segment. It's a clear case of lack of competition hampering development, just like Apple's 3-4 year "design sleep" on minor refreshes before the "new" Macbook Pro design eventually comes out.

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

Quote from: John Smith on September 19, 2018, 12:51:42
Henrik, could you elaborate more on the keyboard? What do you miss, as a programmer?

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 :)

 

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Kudos for undervolting! Thank You!

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.

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?

@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.

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 ?

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.

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

It's so weird, when i first got the laptop about 3 years ago i did not immediately notice the throttling. When it started to overheat and drop performance in some games like Overwatch and Fallout 4 I tried to check what was going on with the laptop. I think it was a BIOS update or something like that, that did not let me undervolt the CPU and then the GPU would start throttling at 74C, something it did not do when i first got it. The only solution that has worked for me at the moment is disabling turbo boost on the CPU so it at least mantains 1.8 - 2.2Ghz and not throttle to 800mhz when it gets to hot when boosting. I aslo checked how my gpu was performing and anything over 700 - 800mhz would immediately get temperatures to rise and make it throttle. It is insane how it will clock up to its limit for 5 minutes and immediatly throttle down, so i have to game everything at 720p as to avoid throttiling, it is so sad having to spend this much money on a laptop for it to throttle and underperform after some years of light - mid use. I just wanna know if anyone has also had this issue? or is there any fix to that 74C throttling temperature for the GPU?