Discount Dell XPS XPS15-9062sLV 15-Inch Laptop

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $1,515.00
Sale Price: $1,399.98
Today's Bonus: 8% Off

I want to like this laptop, I really do. The build quality is overall good, it looks and feels like a premium machine. But it has some serious hardware issues that have been plaguing the XPS line for many years now.

PROS:

-The best looking laptop I have ever used. Everything from the gorilla-glass coated FHD screen, to the machined aluminum body and carbon fiber base oozes quality.

-Keyboard has excellent travel and adjustable levels of back-lighting, ambient light sensor detects when keyboard should be illuminated.

-Excellent port selection, gotta love the slot-loading blu-ray drive.

-Thinner than a Macbook Pro, and more powerful too.

CONS:

-One fan disperses heat from both the i7 processor and dedicated graphics cardpoorly. Throttling IS present in this model.

-Heat dispersed by the fan is directed towards the display panel, over time this causes discoloration in the screen (ESP. visible in dark scenes in games and movies)

-Wireless card is improved over the previous version of the l521x, range is improved, but the card still under-performs.

Throttling and heat dispersion issues have plagued the XPS line for years and while a simple cooling fan remedies most cooling concerns, I beg to question why Dell is incapable of developing an adequate cooling mechanism for their top tier consumer systems. I am waiting for Amazon to send a replacement so I can confirm if these issues are as widespread as the support community says they are.

**03/23/2013 UPDATE**

Replacement came with scratches on the bottom lid. Replacement is exhibiting same throttling issues, with even worse WiFi connectivity than the model it is replacing. Extremely disappointed. Dell needs to fire the idiot engineer in charge of designing the thermal systems for these laptops.

How can something look so promising yet have such issues with basic functionality? This model has been out for over a year now, how is it these problems have not been ironed out yet? Is it any wonder Dell is losing so much money? It really is beyond me at this point. Both are going back.

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In case Dell wants to create a top-of-the-line laptop, the XPS15 is decent start. My suggestions for for further refinement:

1. The keyboard is about a 7.5 on the scale of 1 – 10 (10 being the best).

As far as available space goes on a 15 inch laptop, this keyboard could have easily been made larger.

Just a little more key responsiveness would also help.

The biggest drawback from my personal point of view is combining the arrow keys with PageUp/PageDown and the Home/End keys. Unless one is a real good typist, pressing Fn in order to do PageUp or End is not at all user friendly.

Another example: Shift+End or Shift+Home is a very efficient way to select text while editing (MS Word or otherwise). With this keyboard layout, one needs to press 3 buttons to do it. … why ?? there is tons of space for 4 more keys ….!

2. The wireless receiver is the worst I have ever experienced. I have photos to prove that my XPS15 is unable to ‘see' / connect to Wi-Fi networks in various locations (even counties) where my age-old Sony or new Samsung Series 7 Slate Tablet gets over 7 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload speed.

I sincerely that this is a curable, short term problem, otherwise the portability of this device becomes a big problem. More and more places around the world only offer Wi-Fi connection, cable is no longer available.

Having said all of the above, this is a beautiful, very well made case. I sincerely hope Dell will be able to cure problem 2 above and we will just learn to live problem 1.

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I got this PC against my better judgement. I figured I would have better luck than others since Dell is using a different wireless adapter from the units that had problems this summer. Well, I can confirm that the problem might be slightly improved but there is a ways to go in terms of making this unit what it should be.

The range as the story goes on this unit is terrible. I have tested it out in a few different areas in my house and it drops connections in areas that a 12 year old Dell beater I took from work stays connected in.

Currently, I have this positioned right next to my 2008 Inspiron ten feet from my router and am running tests at speedtest.net on both of them..The Inpsiron is pulling down 25 Mbps whereas the XPS no lie is pulling down 1 Mbps.

I should just return the unit but I am going to hold out hope that they resolve this problem because I do really like the form factor of the XPS.

I will update as I get more info.

Honest reviews on Dell XPS XPS15-9062sLV 15-Inch Laptop

everything works good so far.

WiFi dual band work fine

some old router speed test its no the same as those new dual band routers

i notice some light bleed on the screen but i can live with that

i recommend this laptop

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Overall the laptop is nice; however, one glaring exception is the wifi card. The Dell 1901 card that comes with this is horrible. I have two iPads (2nd and 3rd gen), a Windows Phone, a Lenovo, a MacBook Pro and a MacBook which all connect to the router without issue at twice the distance from the router. While the Dell can only see my router, the rest of the devices finds 5-10 other routers in the area. If I'm more than 10' from the router, the Dell constantly drops the connection. Even if it can connect, then it's horribly slow. Totally unusable. I had to get a USB wifi adapter to make it even usable. And again, it can connect at twice the distance.

Dell replaced the card (the next day service turned into next week service, since I had to wait for the part to ship to the subcontractor and then the subcontractor to make an appointment with me). Unfortunately, they replaced it with the same model card, with obviously the same results.

I even replaced my trusty Linksys WRT54G (running Tomato) with a new Asus RT-AC66U router. Still no joy in Dell-ville.

Googled the issue and tons of people are having the same problem with this card. So, obviously it's a known issue. The fact that they're still using this card, especially considering how much I've paid for the laptop, is inexcusable.

Finally I got fed up with the phone tag and replaced the card myself with an Intel Centrino 6235. Works great. Sitting in the same spot (about 30' from the router) where the Dell 1901 would only get 1 or 2 bars (10-20% signal strength) and constantly drop connection, if it connected at all, now I get 4-5 bars (80-99%) and it's solid.

My next laptop definitely won't be another Dell.