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Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

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Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#181

Post by JaggerFoo »

I was looking at this laptop with 32Gb RAM for development work, where I would be using multiple VirtualBox VMs to simulate (small) clusters. I also would need it to travel well and connect to foreign wifi AP's.

I have a MacBook Pro with Retina display, but I don't like it for developing - it's mostly gathering dust.

My workstation and personal laptop are running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/KDE, which I love.

I don't mind using a Windows OS as long as I can launch a VM for my development.

But I guess the Dell XPS 15 9560 may not be my best choice given the real-world problems I am reading here.

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#182

Post by virtuabhi »

blunte wrote: post #49

My experience with my 1-month-old maxed out 9560: - less precise trackpad than my 3 year old rMBP - palm-sensitive trackpad - failure that politely states that I need to reboot (if I try to use fingerprint reader to login too quickly after opening the laptop) - unplanned reboots due to updates - laggy and choppy video on a single external 4k monitor (compared to no apparent lag when the old rMBP drives 2x 4k monitors…

"Thankfully this old rMBP I use is still running well (despite the screen covering deterioration in weird spotty ways)."

Does it look similar to this - http://www.staingate.org/ https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/17/apple-mbp-ar-coating-qu... . My rMBP had the same problem and I got the screen replaced for free (outside warranty).

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#183

Post by mattthebaker »

blunte wrote: post #49

My experience with my 1-month-old maxed out 9560: - less precise trackpad than my 3 year old rMBP - palm-sensitive trackpad - failure that politely states that I need to reboot (if I try to use fingerprint reader to login too quickly after opening the laptop) - unplanned reboots due to updates - laggy and choppy video on a single external 4k monitor (compared to no apparent lag when the old rMBP drives 2x 4k monitors…

Recently picked up one of these as well.

Regarding the fans, highly recommend using an overclocking tool to undervolt the CPU and iGPU -- reduced temp under load for me by nearly 15C, runs stable with cpu at -130mV. Stops the fans from turning on as often or running as aggressively.

I too was unlucky in receiving a Toshiba as the vendor of my 1TB SSD. There is a reddit thread out there about switching from Intel RST to AHCI with OCZ drivers -- this improved my random write performance significantly.

The most annoying part of the system to me is the "coil whine" coming from the internal DC/DC converters. Lots of different pitch and erratic high frequency noises come from the laptop. My colleagues can confirm that my ears are not particularly sensitive to high frequency noise but this laptop is very audible. Just do not feel like it should have this kind of defect on such a high end machine.

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#184

Post by mi100hael »

guelo wrote: post #154
luxcem wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XPS 13 on linux (ubuntu) here, the support is very good. The HiDPI screen need some configuration but most apps will run out of the box, some need to set a parameter for pixel density. Most issues can be solve by looking in the ArchWiki ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI ). USB-C (even a dock with power, usb, sound, hdmi, display port, ethernet will run fine), WiFi, Graphic Card, touchpad, sound, event the…

They refuse to provide a XPS15 Developers Edition.

They provide a 15" Precision developer edition which is the same form-factor as the XPS and better specs.

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#185

Post by rayiner »

chimeracoder wrote: post #123
vetinari wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now I'm sitting behind 4K (Dell P2715Q) monitor connected to rMBP (13", 2015). What I'm supposed to miss? What exactly is not displaying correctly and I didn't notice? Also, exactly what applications do not use Cocoa? Apple had made extremely difficult to talk directly do display server, the two non-private-frameworks-without-stable-abi ways were Carbon and Cocoa. Carbon is already dead.

> Right now I'm sitting behind 4K (Dell P2715Q) monitor connected to rMBP (13", 2015). What I'm supposed to miss? What exactly is not displaying correctly and I didn't notice? I use the same monitor as well. Until recently, I had the 15" version of that laptop, and now I have the latest 15" Macbook Pro. Both use 2560x1440 on the external monitor even though it's capable of 3840x2160, because that's what OS X defaults…

Okay I have no idea what you're talking about either, and I've used OS X on a 4K monitor. It scales to a virtual 1920x1080p by default; everything just looks sharper. What did you expect to happen?

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#186

Post by mustacheemperor »

dmamills wrote: post #42
post_break wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the hell is the acceptable ugh.

5-10 minutes every 72-96 hours. Behold the unwieldy struggles of the modern man!

For $1500 I don't want to regularly spend 5-10 minutes fixing my trackpad, and the anguish of that task relative to the turning of the cosmos is irrelevant.

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#187

Post by cnahr »

sametmax wrote: post #139

I have had a XPS 15 9550 as my main machine for almost a year now, and I can say I'm disatisfied. It needs a very specific combinations of driver update and bio flashing to work, charging using USB-C sometimes just stops, making it work with a dock took me a good month to figure out, the battery last only a few hours, the webcam is weirdly placed. Worst of all, the sound has suddenly started to act wildly and is now…

I've had serious reliability issues with every Dell or Alienware product I've bought. Yes, the specifications look great and they seem to work fine at first, but quality is simply ridiculously bad for such expensive products.

Case reports: http://news.kynosarges.org/2017/04/23/dell-alienware-reliabi...

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#188

Post by chimeracoder »

rayiner wrote: post #185
chimeracoder wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now I'm sitting behind 4K (Dell P2715Q) monitor connected to rMBP (13", 2015). What I'm supposed to miss? What exactly is not displaying correctly and I didn't notice? I use the same monitor as well. Until recently, I had the 15" version of that laptop, and now I have the latest 15" Macbook Pro. Both use 2560x1440 on the external monitor even though it's capable of 3840x2160, because that's what OS X defaults…

Okay I have no idea what you're talking about either, and I've used OS X on a 4K monitor. It scales to a virtual 1920x1080p by default; everything just looks sharper. What did you expect to happen?

> Okay I have no idea what you're talking about either, and I've used OS X on a 4K monitor. It scales to a virtual 1920x1080p by default; everything just looks sharper. What did you expect to happen?

If it's scaling to 1080p for you, that's because either your monitor or your cable doesn't support 2560x1440 at 60Hz. If it does, it should default to 1440, assuming you're on an rMBP.

In terms of "what I expected to happen" - well, I expected an actual 4K resolution (like 3840x2160) to work. Maybe not by default, but at least when I enable it, it should be able to auto-scale the appropriate parts of the system and application UI in a consistent manner. That means that I'd be able to actually view a 3840x2160 image at its full intended resolution (not 1080p or 1440p) without scrolling, while also not having to squint in order to read the system bar or do anything else on the OS.

That works pretty much out-of-the-box on Linux with Unity. Even with tweaking configuration everywhere, I can't find any way to do that on OS X and have it look halfway decent.

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#189

Post by pbhjpbhj »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #133
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They couldn't be uninstalled or upgraded in safe mode // Isn't this entirely broken, surely no one designed it so you couldn't fix applications in safe-mode?

You can enable and disable drivers and startup functionality in safe mode. You can't install or uninstall any apps or drivers that utilize Windows Installer as the service isn't running, rendering the install/uninstall/modify abilities of those apps and drivers useless. You can still install and uninstall apps and drivers that use proper installers like NSIS, etc.

OK, so "Windows Installer" is a third party app? Why's it a service; surely it only needs to run when initiated as part of an install/upgrade/uninstall rather than perpetually?

Re: Dell XPS 15 9560 Review

#190

Post by yarrel »

luxcem wrote: post #111
wslh wrote: post #5

If you want to buy one you should extend your analysis beyond the hardware specs because the software and operating systems are not ready yet. I can give the example of the latest XPS 13 2-1 where Office applications like Outlook cannot recognize a monitor with a different resolution and the fonts are blurred. Look for example at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Office-apps-appear-... high DPI is a whole issu…

XPS 13 on linux (ubuntu) here, the support is very good. The HiDPI screen need some configuration but most apps will run out of the box, some need to set a parameter for pixel density. Most issues can be solve by looking in the ArchWiki ( https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI ). USB-C (even a dock with power, usb, sound, hdmi, display port, ethernet will run fine), WiFi, Graphic Card, touchpad, sound, event the…

I'm using XPS 13 with Debian Stretch.

Eveything except HDMI out from the USB-C dock works. I think that's a kernel patch merge away.

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