Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Dell XPS9350-5340SLV 13.3 Inch QHD+ Touchscreen Laptop (6th Generation Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) Microsoft Signature Edition

Top positive review

A July 2016 Review

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2016

UPDATE - August 26, 2017 - I still use this laptop almost every day, though these days I'm running Ubuntu on it full-time (not dual boot). This is, hands down, the best laptop I've ever owned and one of the best purchases I've ever made. If my XPS 9350 died today, I'd consider it money well spent (I've used it 8+ hours a day, literally every single day, for over a year) and I might even consider buying another of the same model because I still feel that it is powerful enough to do everything I need it to do. (end update, read on for original review)

A little background: I am a web developer who has been on a laptop for 8 hours a day for the past 10+ years. I used to go for bulky Lenovo laptops for their power, but now that smaller/more-portable ultrabooks are catching up spec-wise, I decided to give one a shot.

This is hands-down the best laptop I've ever used. I went for the i7 model with 8gb RAM, 256gb SSD & 4k touch display. I got this laptop almost a year after it came out, in July 2016.

I won't go too in-depth with my review, but I'll touch on the basics.

Speed/power - I run Photoshop CC, PHPStorm/IntelliJ/Android Studio, and other high-CPU-cost programs without issue. I specifically chose this model for the powerful i7 and am very glad I did. I was a little concerned about the 8gb memory (16gb was over $500 more than I paid) but it's holding up well! I have not encountered a single issue, where I wished I had a more powerful laptop.

Screen - the display is GORGEOUS but be prepared to struggle a bit with some older & lower-quality apps that haven't gotten on board with high DPI displays yet. For example, I had to upgrade from Photoshop CS6 to CC because the high DPI functionality in CS6 was non-existent. But CC runs flawlessly. There are often tweaks to get things running acceptably for these older apps, but they do end up looking pixelated.

Keyboard & Touchpad - the keyboard and touchpad are both extremely nice. They feel great to use, and are very accurate. Coming from Lenovo laptops, where touchpads were always pretty dismal, it is a breath of fresh air to be able to use advanced gestures like two-finger scrolling and pinch-zooming. My only issue with the keyboard is that because of the laptop's small size, some keys are condensed into others-- for example Home/End are on the Left/Right arrows and need to be used with the Fn (function) key. Not a huge deal, but it can be a bit annoying.

Size - this thing is TINY! It's lovely! But the screen is deceptively large for how small the chassis is. I am 6'1" and nearly 200lbs (I'm a big guy) and I can picture this laptop being perfectly sized for anyone, from a kid to a person even bigger than I. There is almost no bezel either, which is very premium-feeling.

General Aesthetics - everything on this laptop feels very high quality. From the aluminum (I think?) chassis to the carbon fiber palm rests, this thing screams luxury. If you're going to be using this for 8 hours a day like I am, the luxurious feel goes a very long way. It feels so nice.

General Thoughts - I almost want to buy another one of this same laptop, just to put it under my bed for when I need another laptop. I am so in love with my XPS13, that as long as Dell doesn't completely ruin the line in the future, I'll probably always come back for more.

TIPS FOR SETTING UP - This laptop is almost a year old now, so setting it up is not as straight-forward as newer laptops. I recommend doing the following:

1. Turn on the laptop and get Windows set up generally
2. Run Windows update and reboot once they install. Once rebooted, keep trying to update windows until you get a "your system is up to date" message after a fresh reboot. This means Windows is good to go.
3. Go on Dell.com and enter your service tag on the Support/Drivers page to find the latest drivers for your laptop. Install all the drivers found, STARTING with the BIOS update and any firmware updates.

Once you do those 3 things, you'll be all set and ready to go with your beautiful new ultrabook.

I hope this helps someone, somewhere, sometime!

164 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

E. Potter

Looks great but has some serious design flaws.

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2016

I really wanted to "LOVE" this cput...

Pro's! Very nice lightweight and nice size. Fast CPU!

SSD standard that you could actually swap out for a 500Gig for 150 bucks (samsung).

Infinity screen is AWESOME!

LED lit keyboard is wonderful!

Latest gen speedy I5 skylark CPU.

Long life battery!

CONS

OK, so we were having the dreaded "SLEEP" issue, whenever you close the lid, the computer would somehow wake up and the battery half drained ... So, we were going to return it for this reason alone. After all, what good is a laptop with a dead battery.... So we followed all the suggestions from dell, like upgrading the drivers, and the bios. Still no go.... Then we started looking at what others did and gone into the video drivers and the properties of the internet and unclicked let this device wake up computer. Even did some other stuff that I can't remember. This fixed it!

So I cancelled the return and just the other day the computer is all HOT again, didn't really fix it just slowed it down. So we like this computer so much we just figure, we will shut it down and set the lid close to shut down instead of sleep.. This fixed it even tho, it's a pain with a speedy ssd to reboot and open up where you left off...

So, the final nail in the coffin so to speak? The keyboard keys getting stuck! What the heck Dell? I mean the keyboard feels cheap, as it has a really SHORT press. But was something we could live with, but, now with stuck keys, and I go online to find this is happening to others, worse people call up dell, and say the space bar key isn't registering. With dell telling them this isn't a defect and to suck it up? NOPE! NOPE!!!! The keyboard is a joke after looking at it more. It's a really cheap --- to make the key return dell uses a foam type that will eventually break down over a few years... It's not exactly easy to replace the keyboard. So it's going back...

This was a computer for my wife, she is coming from a heavy macbook pro, that lasted her 5 years. It's sad, we can't find a "GREAT" replacement for apple because she likes windows.... But it's becoming clear that mac hardware is a step above the rest of the PC market. Maybe we will try out a Zen Book. If dell, could figure out how to fit a decent keyboard in it, and somehow make the machine sleep when it's told.... We would have kept this machine. I'd even had paid a few hundred more if there was an option upgrade for the keyboard. I'm not sure if it's dell, windows or the new intel skylark having the problems.

Bye DELL... Maybe next two or three XPS series and we can try again. I was even thinking about getting one for myself. PASS on this till the bugs are worked out. esp, with the keyboard. This is NO macbook killer. Apple has a way better keyboard.

5 people found this helpful

518 total ratings, 479 with reviews

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From the United States

Brian

A July 2016 Review

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i7Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 256 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

164 people found this helpful

Helpful

E. Potter

Looks great but has some serious design flaws.

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i5Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 128 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Fifer

Award winning for a reason - The best sub $1000 ultrabook

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i5Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 128 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

After a large amount of research I decided that the Dell XPS 13 (9350) was the ultrabook that I have been looking for - having spent the last 4 weeks using it day in day out for work & play I can tell you that this laptop is awesome; it has met or exceeded my expectations.

Firstly, lets talk about battery life - it's amazing I'm easily getting 9-10 hours of battery life during regular use (MS Office, web browsing, streaming a little music or youtube @ 1080p, 30%brightness ). Obviously this isn't a gaming laptop but I've played a Civilization V on here again @ 1080p High settings without issue - the battery life slips to around 3-4 hours, which is still pretty impressive. Something to note with the 9350 with the addition of USB type c with using the Thunderbolt 3 interface means in the future it might be possible to add an external GPU (Dependent on driver availability).

Next up design, fit, & finish. The edge to edge infinity display is impressive - people notice & make comments so be prepared. The aluminium case with the carbon fibre interior is beautiful & makes for a very high end device the only downside is fingerprints show on the carbon fibre but they do wipe off pretty easily with a microfibre cloth. The keyboard has two levels of back-lighting, & has around 1.2 mm of travel ( A little short if you are switching from a Thinkpad (1.5mm travel on my T430s) however you will get used to it pretty quickly & it is still a very nice typing experience). With the use of premium materials Dell have been really successful in building a thin, lightweight & sturdy machine - 2.6lbs makes my T430s seem like it's a small boat anchor. As for complaints as most have noted the position of the webcam is in the bottom left corner shooting up which can make for some up the nose shots however I've found that if I sit a little further back from the screen this is mostly alleviated - if it really bugs you buy a USB webcam. Something often missed when deciding on a new laptop is what is it like on your lap well I can tell you that this Dell stays cool, has very to no fan noise & the smooth underside means no sharp edges digging into your legs.

Performance is great this laptop will do everything you need to do on the go with the possible exception of editing 4K video & the latest 3D games. I opted for the Core i5 6200u with 8 GB ram, 128GB SSD & the 1080p non-touch screen. I believe this is the price / performance king - the i7 offers about a 5-10% performance gain but the extra cost coupled with having to get a 2k touch screen (Save the money - touch on a laptop is a gimmick & cost you about 35% battery life) means it's not worth the extra money. Some other reviewer have mentioned driver issues with the Wi-Fi driver - in my experience over the last month I have not had any problems except for when the Wi-Fi driver was updated & required a restart which it didn't announce as such the internet was disconnected until after the restart - Dell / Intel you can do better with these driver updates.

So whats the verdict - there's a reason this laptop has been winning awards & plaudits from reviewers, no marketing spin this is the best Ultrabook on the market & you should not hesitate to buy it.

TL:DR - Believe the hype, this laptop is awesome - great battery life, screen, keyboard. Forget the touch screen on the higher spec model is a waste of money. Go buy one now.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Nicholas U

Absolutely Great once you install updates and tweak a few settings!

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i5Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 128 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

This review is for the XPS 9350 -1340SLV(non-touchscreen).
I've had this laptop for about a full 24 hours and its well worth the price as long as you spend the first two hours installing the updates and changing a few settings to make it more user friendly. I performed an exhaustive search on every Ultrabook out right now(mid 2016), and my finalist ended up being the XPS 13 and the Lenovo Yoga 900. I mainly chose the XPS 13 because of the lower cost.
Now onto the important parts that you need to know about this laptop. The first thing I noticed was just how thin and light this laptop is. I've owned a few laptops through my work over the years and they are bricks compared to this. Slower bricks. The next thing that struck me was the impossibly thin infinity screen. The super thin bezel is very attractive and makes the screen look futuristic.
Turning on the unit the first time was when I started to see the underwhelming aspects of this laptop.I read many reviews before purchasing and had an idea of the flaws to expect. The Touchpad seemed to skip and I randomly received a message that the video driver was restarting. What I didn't expect or see very much in other reviews was how washed out the colors seemed to appear on the screen.
So after 15 minutes of using the laptop I went on a mission to fix these 3 flaws.
Flaws(all resolved- keep reading)
1. Trackpad skipping
2. Video driver restarting
3. Screen Color Washed out.

Solutions
1. The first two flaws were resolved by going to Dells website and running their driver update tool which is actually pretty neat since it automatically identifies your laptop and installs the necessary drivers after a few clicks. *note: It failed to install 2 out of 4 updates but succeeded after a restart. This took about an hour to complete, with the most important update being the Bios update.
Here is the link: [...]

2.Once all the driver were updated the laptop OS felt much more solid and reliable. But I still wasn't happy with the performance of the touchpad. When browsing webpages, it felt like it was not picking up my scroll commands and just felt slow. So typing "mouse and touchpad" in the windows search box got me to the touchpad ,settings where I was able to adjust the setting the was causing me grief. You will see a setting for touchpad delay and its set to medium delay by default. Change this to either "short delay" or "no delay" and you will find that the touchpad is much more responsive and might I say, even enjoyable.

3.Now onto the last thing that was keeping me from really falling for this laptop..the colors. The screen colors just seemed dull and boring to me and I was having a hard time convincing myself that I could live with the colors for the next few years. I mean, I have an <$100 amazon fire tablet and a windows phone that had better color presentation than the XPS 13 out of the box! So after a quick google search I came across a reddit post that linked to the steps needed to install a color profile that will correct the bland and dull colors that ship with this laptop. It took about 10 minutes to walk though the steps required but afterwords the colors really popped. Its amazing how much a simple color profile can change the overall look. Or you can go into the color management setting in windows 10 and perform a color calibration under the advanced tab. That helped as well.

So after spending a few hours installing the updates and tweaking a few settings, I can say i'm at peace with keeping this machine and using it everyday for the next few years. I would give it 3 stars out of the box and 4 1/2 star after fixing the flaws.

As for the speed and graphics. Its what you would expect out of a 6th Gen i5 with 8 GB ram and a SSD. Takes <20 seconds to boot up from power off and doesn't miss a beat when transitioning from programs and having multiple tabs open on Chrome.I do a lot of 3D printing and manipulating and loading 3D files was no problem for this machine.
Battery: Its blows my mind to see 10 Hours left when on a fully charged battery. We've come so far in terms of mobile computing and I can't wait to take this out to coffee shops knowing that I can leave my charger at home without having any dead battery anxiety.I'm not sure what real life performance will be but this laptop has a reputation of making it 7+ hours on a single charge.

Overall I am happy with this purchase and feel the price paid for this laptop is about right.

13 people found this helpful

Helpful

Jennifer

Great laptop, getting even better with software updates

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i7Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 256 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

Pros:
* Portability. It's not quite as small or light as 11.6-inch laptops, but it's amazingly close for having a 13.3-inch display.
* Great build quality. It feels sturdy and has a comfortable palm rest. The touch models in particular have a smooth, stable screen casing.
* Great battery life. The QHD+ and 256GB SSD options do come with a battery life penalty, but even with both, this laptop should be able to last you a day of classes or travel between charges on low-brightness non-gaming use.
* Intel graphics are good enough now that almost all games should be playable (at low settings). I personally prefer Intel graphics for their low power draw and great driver support in both Windows and Linux.
* Amazon's the best place to buy this laptop. I bought the i7/8GB/QHD model in December 2015 for $1300. You can't find prices that good from Dell or Microsoft. I have my doubts whether the i5->i7 upgrade is especially significant, but when I bought it, both models had roughly the same price.
* This is the Microsoft Signature Edition, which means you can use it out-of-the-box without worrying about bloatware. Most Windows 10 users probably won't need to reinstall the OS.
* The QHD+ display looks great. The text is very crisp (for most programs), colors look great, I've had no brightness problems, and touch works fine.
* USB-C is a great port for the future. Unlike the 2015 Macbook, you're not stuck with just USB-C. It also has standard USB-A ports, an SD slot, and a separate charging port.

Cons:
* Wireless card. All current models include the Broadcom 4350 (DW 1820A), which doesn't seem as great in performance or driver support as the Intel Wireless cards. Even with the latest updates (as of December 2015), its Windows 10 driver still has some issues. Thankfully, it's not too difficult to change wireless cards as long as you have the correct precision screwdriver and a prying tool. I replaced mine with a Intel 7265 IEEE 802.11ac Bluetooth 4.0 - Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Combo Adapter for Desktop Computer/Notebook 7265.NGWG.W . The upcoming Iris Pro model might use a different wireless card.
* While Skylake video and chipset drivers work fine, they're still new, so make sure you install the latest updates for best results.
* The BIOS/firmware at launch had some problems that were fixed with updates. Make sure you install BIOS updates as soon as you set up the laptop.
* This is not a gaming laptop. If your primary intention is to play games at high quality and framerates, either use a desktop or buy a different laptop that focuses more on those features. The Iris Pro model will be a much better with games, but still not that great.
* For the QHD model: although display scaling has improved a lot in recent times, you'll still probably find quite a few programs not designed for HiDPI yet. Windows 10 defaults to a 2.5x scaling (effectively 1280x720), which you can change to the much more sane 2.0x scale (effectively 1600x900). Steam is especially problematic with HiDPI: overlays are often tiny and unscaled. Using non-HiDPI external monitors might be awkward too.
* This laptop has no HDMI/DisplayPort/miniDP/VGA ports built-in. Other than wireless displays (Miracast), the only video output is through the USB-C port.
* Watch out for the hinge corners when you open the laptop. Opening it on your finger hurts, but probably won't injure you.

USB-C and Thunderbolt 3:
* Dell is an early adopter for these standards, but you'll be seeing many more devices with them in 2016, and you'll be able to share accessories between this laptop and many other upcoming PCs and phones. You can use this one port with one cable to replace multiple older connectors at the same time.
* Not many monitors support USB-C yet, so you'll probably need a video adapter. Any USB-C video adapters from Dell, Google, Monoprice, and most Amazon sellers should work.
* The USB-C port can fast-charge USB-C phones. My Nexus 5X charges at 15W/3A, the same as the phone's own AC adapter.
* Like Chromebook Pixel, but unlike Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, this USB-C port supports full USB 3.1 speeds and video output either via DP/HDMI/VGA adapters or to USB-C monitors. With the right accessories, you can even connect to multiple monitors from this one port.
* You can charge with the USB-C port, but only with high-voltage laptop chargers like the Pixel/XPS 12 chargers or Thunderbolt Dock. The included charger uses Dell's normal DC charging port instead.
* There's only one USB-C port, which might be a minor inconvenience in the future when more devices use it. Some of Dell's other new devices use two USB-C ports and completely ditch the old-style DC charger port.
* Thunderbolt 3 supports external GPUs, which is an interesting way to give a laptop gaming performance when docked. However, there's no confirmation whether this laptop will ever get a BIOS update for that GPU-switching functionality.
* February 2016 update: I recently got Dell's new Thunderbolt 3 dock. There's enough to say about it to need a separate review, but in short, there's still a lot of software issues. This might be great with time after more OS and firmware updates, but for now I'd say regular non-Thunderbolt USB-C accessories are much more reliable and software-agnostic. I would not recommend using the Thunderbolt dock as a desktop replacement. Dell also offers a non-Thunderbolt USB-C dock.

Linux:
* The BIOS setting for "SATA Operation" is set to "RAID On" by default. For Windows-only users, this is fine, but for dual-boot or Linux users, you'll want to change this to "AHCI" to get the installer (as of Ubuntu 15.10) to actually recognize your SSD. Changing this setting will break the current Windows install, so you'll need to reinstall it if you want to dual-boot.
* The Broadcom wireless card requires the Linux 4.4 kernel. For Ubuntu, this means you should run Ubuntu 16.04+ or install a backported kernel. Either way, I still recommend installing Intel WIreless if you can.
* HiDPI scaling on GNOME seems fine to me. Users of other desktop environments are less fortunate. Unlike Windows, X11 won't upsize any programs that aren't designed for HiDPI. Steam is the only program I use with that issue, so the library menus appear super tiny.
* Thunderbolt 3 isn't supported by Linux. If you connect a TB3 dock while running Linux, at best absolutely nothing will happen (no video, no USB, no charging) and there's a fair chance your system will hang. I haven't heard any reports about the kernel getting support any time soon, but even when it does, I don't think you can interact with the BIOS settings or bootloader from a keyboard connected to a Thunderbolt dock.
* Non-Thunderbolt USB-C accessories work fine on Linux, as the hardware sees them as normal USB or DisplayPort outputs.

Misc:
* I also have the Dell Premier Sleeve (S), which is quite nice and fits this laptop perfectly, but it's somewhat overpriced. This laptop can fit in any 13.3-inch laptop sleeve, but it might be a bit loose. Most 11.6-inch laptop sleeves won't fit.
* The outer metal shell is sturdy and premium-feeling, but it's not quite to my taste. It's cold to the touch.
* When you look up any info about this laptop, make sure you're looking for the right model. This was the second version of XPS 13 that released in 2015 and they both look almost identical at a glance and both feature Dell's tiny-bezel "infinity display". This 9350 model has a 6th-generation Intel processor (Skylake), Thunderbolt 3, and other more subtle updates over the early-2015 9343 model which has 5th-generation Intel processors (Broadwell).
* I upgraded to this from a Chromebook (C720). It's hard to beat ChromeOS in battery life, but this is of course much more capable with the much-higher display resolution, RAM, CPU power, and SSD capacity. I almost considered a Chromebook Pixel instead, but I like the tiny bezels, bigger SSD, and the option to sometimes run Windows.

Summary:
This laptop is small, premium, and overall great and pleasant to use. Make sure to install updates and buy the accessories you need. While budget laptops keep getting better, pricier ultrabooks and premium laptops need to be really special to be worth the extra price. I believe this laptop succeeds at standing out in a good way.

Update 02/03/2016: Added some information about Dell's new docks and Iris Pro model

23 people found this helpful

Helpful

mark

Bugs render the device useless. Disappointing experience.

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i5Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 128 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

Like many other reviewers, I was initially excited to receive this product. It was light, had a gorgeous display and decent specs. I read multiple reviews and looked up many "top laptops of 2016" lists on well-known sites, which led me to settle on this laptop for purchase. This was after an extremely unsatisfying experience after purchasing a different laptop that required return secondary to glitches in the display that rendered the device entirely useless. The Dell laptop performed as expected initially, however this was not to last.

Within a day of purchase, the display, for lack of a better description, began to glitch, like the previous laptop I had to return as described above. Frustrated that the glitches continued, I started to google the problem I was experiencing. I learned that this was a fairly common problem with certain laptops that used windows 10. I looked up many different fixes (no fix was provided by Dell) and executed many of them. This resolved the glitching problem, however there continued to have a random, intermittent, but hourly screen flickering problem with the display. I again consulted google and performed more fixes that never fixed the problem. Despite loving the aesthetics and hating the return process, I cleared the system of my personal information and started the return process.

Thankfully, the return was approved and the shipping was pre-paid and I shipped the product back via UPS. This was a smooth process and I received my refund fairly quickly, which I appreciate.

Despite being a loyal microsoft patron, with multiple windows devices in my past, and even a Dell desktop that is very functional and running well for the last 5 years, these two laptop failures led me to seek a different option. I researched more expensive devices, including the Surface, however these devices were still plagued by the above windows flickering problem. There does not seem to be an official response by any of the major companies regarding this defect and I felt betrayed. I therefore made the decision to get the only laptop that I found to be consistently rated highly on amazon, the macbook. I have been strongly against macbooks in the past, not liking the operating system and the limitations of mac products. However, I needed a reliable product that was functional out of the box and did not have the same issues that the windows products had. I received my macbook air and have been very satisfied with the product, despite my frustrations with the unintuitive apple operating system. I would recommend the macbook for stability purposes; that is, until Microsoft can get it together enough to provide a functional operating system that isn't plagued by bugs that render these expensive and necessary products useless.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

An honest review from someone who likes to customize.

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i5Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 128 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

I bought the Dell XPS 9350 with the i5, 128 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM, and non-touch screen for ~$900. I bought one from Dell and one from Amazon. They both have the same cons listed. I have owned this laptop for about 2 months as of this writing.

Pros:
-Very lightweight
-Very portable
-Powerful enough
-Pretty
-Decent touchpad (catches some of my right palm when typing)
-Simple keyboard layout
-Customizable/replaceable SSD
-Easy enough to take apart (just need to buy some things ahead of time)

Cons:
-Constant electronic/static buzzing noise during screen movement (can only be heard in quiet rooms, and I have sensitive ears, so maybe I'm just picky)
-Touchpad needs to have different drivers installed (factory drivers work poorly)
-Fails to read SSD sometimes on start-up. This occurrs with stock SSDs too, and seems to be a somewhat common problem. Requires finicking with BIOS for about 5 mins to fix every time it happens (occurs roughly once every 10 cold-starts).
-Dell has horrendous customer service; I will never buy directly from them again (buying through Amazon was A-OK)

Custom Mods:
I replaced the stock SSD with a 512 GB SSD because, as of this writing, the only 512 GB SSD offered by Dell costs roughly $1k more, which is crazy. So I bought a Plextor M6e Series 512GB M.2 PCIe Internal Solid State Drive (PX-G512M6e) (Don't confuse PCIe with SATA! PCIe is what you need here). I bought this one because it was the same exact pin-pattern as the stock SSD (three groups of pins), but I am pretty sure the other pin pattern would work just fine upon further inspection (two groups of pins). The tools you will need to do this include a T5 Torx socket, a very small Phillips screwdriver, Windows bootable media (either bootable usb or DVD + external optical drive), and a thumb-drive to install the wireless drivers onto. There are guides that tell you how to take off the back panel of a Dell XPS 13 (youtube and/or google ifixit’s awesome guide). I recommend starting at the back and working both rear corners off either with your fingers or a prying tool, and then working around the edge and just ripping it off one you can get your fingers in there. Be careful not to insert your prying tool too far into the laptop around the edge as you could damage the insides. To install Windows on the new SSD you will need to follow the guide on reddit by “Lancer_Pants” titled Windows 10 – Clean Install Guide. I would not recommend installing any of the Windows bloatware, only what it necessary. Installing all of the Windows updates pretty much sets you up perfectly.

I also replaced the stock drivers for the touchpad because it has an annoying delay in its movement speed. The Synaptics touchpad driver has some drawbacks, but it is a far-better driver overall because it eliminates this touchpad delay. A guide can be found by googling "Dell Touchpad Drivers - The Unofficial Windows 10 Reinstallation Guide" (it's fully of step by step pictures so you can't mess it up). Make sure you do this mod after installing all Windows updates, because this driver will be replaced during one of the major win10 service pack updates.

Not really a mod, but you can buy a USB 3.1 adapter and hook this laptop up to your TV and watch movies/videos via an HDMI cable.

Elaborating on the Cons:

There is a constant electrical/static-y buzzing noise that can be quite annoying when the laptop is used in a quiet setting. Both 9350 laptops I owned had this problem. It seems that whenever the screen has any sort of movement this noise occurs. If you have poor hearing or rarely use the laptop in quiet settings, then you will probably never even notice it. It seems to be a common complaint, and it was present in both machines I had, so I can only assume this is a standard noise. It’s hard to put into words what it sounds like… maybe about as loud as a non-digital car radio on volume 1 with some inherent static.

The touchpad has a slight delay, even after supposedly removing the delay in mouse settings. I have already explained how to fix this.

Sometimes the computer will fail to detect the hard drive during a cold boot. This occurs on the stock SSD too, and it occurs on both of my 9350s. The only way I know how to fix this issue when it occurs is to press F2 or F12 or DEL at boot and enter BIOS settings. Set the boot mode to SATA instead of Raid. Boot (it will fail). Turn off. Re-start, pressing F2 to enter BIOS. Set boot mode back to RAID. System will boot fine now. I installed the major updates, so maybe it’s a firmware update I need to do on the SSD. I will look into this soon.

Finally, the customer service at Dell is terrible. This does not apply to Amazon, but if you are wavering between buying from Amazon or direct from Dell, then here is a tale of frustration. First off, Dell does not save the order in your recent orders page for some reason when you make an account; you have to manually copy/paste your Customer # and Order # every time you want to look up the order status. Anyway, after placing my order at Dell on business Day 1, they had an estimated arrival of business Day 7. Day 7 came, and my order was not here. I call them up on business Day 7 to find out the order status, and they say it has been shipped, giving me a tracking number. They say the new estimate for arrival is Day 8, tomorrow. Cool. Day 8 comes, and the item does not arrive. Further, the tracking # now says there is no estimated day of arrival, as if FedEx has not even received it. I call Dell at the end of business Day 9 to find out why there is still no shipping info. Apparently the item has to ship from China before FedEx can even have shipping info. Business day 10 comes and FedEx finally receives the item from China; tracking info updated. Day 12, the item finally arrives. I honestly would not have had any problem with shipping if Dell would just be up-front and honest about how it takes roughly 2 weeks to produce and ship their laptops, but by giving me these constant unrealistic estimates, I am forced to call them and ask for updates manually every time. They should tell you from the start that they will not list real shipping info until the item arrives from China. Anyway, after all of this headache, I receive a unit that I thought was defective (I thought that static noise was a problem specific to my unit, but I guess not). Anyway, when I contact customer service to request a return, the representative says “if I gave you $50 would you keep it?” What an unprofessional thing to say. Needless to say, I will not recommend Dell’s customer service to anyone, even if they make a decent product.

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Francois Ross

The benchmark ultrabook that offers awesome performance

Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i5Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 256 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

I am an engineering student and needed an upgrade. After doing some research, I came across the Dell XPS 13 and I am loving it so far. This thing is FAST.

The model I have has the Skylake i5, 256 GB SSD, and 8 GB ram. This comes with a quad HD glossy touchscreen.

Design:
The brushed metal on the outside of the laptop feels scratch resistant and durable. When the laptop is opened, one can't help but stare in awe at the Infinity Edge display. The small bezel around the screen is barely noticeable, and adds quality to the user experience.

Display:
The quad HD display is amazing whenever viewing media. The brightness and viewing angles are great and more improved than the past models by Dell. There is a little glare because the screen is glossy, but colors are more vibrant on this screen.

Battery:
The battery life is not as great as Dell presents it to be. I am getting around 7 to 8 hours of use out of the battery, which is sufficient for me.

Performance:
As an engineering student, I need to run programs and software like Matlab. I have Matlab downloaded on my XPS 13, and I am able to run all sorts of code that I can think of. I am able to multitask and have many windows of different programs open at once, and this computer still runs fast.

As for gaming, I have only tried playing Mass Effect 2 on this so far. I can play the game in 1080p which bloom, dynamic shadows, and everything except for film grain on and still get up to 40 fps. When I bring this down to 720p and keep all of the other graphic effects on, I am getting 60 fps. When I bring the resolution up to 1440p, I get a mere 15 fps, which is not playable.

Audio:
Ultrabooks nowadays don't have the greatest speakers built into them. Although these speakers sound trebly, Dell does a great job of putting decent laptop speakers in the XPS 13. I hate listening to music through the laptop speakers, but when I have no choice, the XPS 13 speakers get loud enough for me when on the go.

Keyboard & Trackpad:
The keyboard is very easy to type on. The backlight has adjustable brightness so that battery can be saved if needed. The keystrokes are soft, but I am used to a Dell keyboard like this. The trackpad has many gestures that can be performed easily and has a satisfying click.

This was a recent buy, so I will update my review in a few months to see if I come across any problems using the XPS.

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RICH D

Update -- Recent updates have made it much better

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2016

CPU: Intel Core i7Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 256 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

It is close to being a good computer, but I think it needs one more generation to work the kinks out. First off, let me say that I am a professional software engineer and computer expert, so my experience likely isn't user error. So with that said, this is what I think. Any one of these items probably would not be enough to disqualify the laptop, but all combined, it is not an experience up to my expectations.
- When I first got the laptop about three weeks ago, it wouldn't recognize the wifi card. All I had done to that point is go through the Windows setup screens and set the timezone, my user name, etc. So literally 5 minutes into the experience. I had to go into the system properties, disable the wifi card, and then re-enable it. Very strange. It has worked fine since then but it was not a great start.
- A couple of times during system reboots for Windows updates, software installs, or whatever, there is a BIOS message saying the hard drive couldn't be found. It does proceed to boot up normally, but again -- no warm and fuzzies from the messages.
- The screen resolution is super high, which could be a good thing. Unlike MacBook Retinas, you can put the laptop into "native" resolution without third party utilities. Of course, on a screen of this size, using native resolution isn't very desirable unless you have terrific eyes. The reason I mention this is because instead of just changing the laptop to different resolutions, it seems to want you to leave it at native resolution and just adjust the text size percentage (to 130% instead of 100% or whatever). If you change actual screen resolutions, it gives a warning message and doesn't look so great. This may be a Windows 10 "feature" instead of an issue with the laptop. It's just a little weird and hard to find the right setting.
- The battery life is inconsistent. I have very few applications installed, have just a few open, and use it 100% for programming, so just text editors and browser open. I don't keep the screen at 100% brightness. Sometimes the battery will last for 7 or 8 hours, and other times it will last for just 4 or 5. Again -- not sure if Windows 10 or Dell issue, but I shouldn't have to spend time researching and trying to figure it out. It should just work.
- The touchpad is nice but inconsistent. Sometimes two finger scrolling works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes tapping on the touch pad works for clicking, other times I have to do a full press of the touch pad to register a click. Is it Windows or Dell? Not sure.
- The standby mode is horrible. This is the final straw for me deciding to return it. I should be able to close the lid and have it go to sleep. Then when I come back, it should wake up right where I left off with minimal battery drain. Preface this with the fact that I did ensure that my settings for closing the lid and power button are set correctly in the control panel. At first, the behavior was wildly inconsistent. I would shut the lid and sometimes it would sleep, sometimes it would appear that it had rebooted, and another time the battery was completely dead as if it never went to sleep. So I modified my own behavior to press the power button, watch it go to sleep, and then shut the lid. I could have lived with this inconvenience, but it didn't really help. I started to encounter these issues:
* When the computer comes back from sleep, all of my windows get stacked in the upper left of the desktop. I have to resize and drag them all back into place every time I wake it up. Annoying. I did Google this and it could be Windows 10. It might be resetting the resolution every time it wakes up, which moves the windows to the upper left.
* Standby is not instantaneous to come back on. It first spins on the Dell BIOS screen for several seconds. When it does come back, sometimes as many as 15 seconds later (this doesn't sound like a lot but it is if you are sitting there and expecting it to come back from standby), sometimes all of my windows will be gone as if it rebooted without telling me.
* The battery life is really bad in standby. I have a 4 year old Vaio Z this is supposed to be replacing, and it could go for days in standby. This computer sucks 50% a day. Today was the worst -- it's a Monday as I write this review. I had the laptop plugged in, asleep and fully charged on Saturday. I unplugged it and put it directly into my bag. I did not use it Sunday. This morning I went to turn it on and it's stone dead out of power and my charger is at home so it's a brick for the day.

So the bottom line is I own the old Vaio Z and a 15" Macbook Pro Retina (almost 3 years old). I don't want to compare too much to the Mac for fear of being labeled some kind of Mac fanboy. But the experience with this particular computer isn't even close to the Vaio -- even in its old age -- never mind the Mac. I will be keeping the Vaio for a while longer and waiting for something better to come along.

-- UPDATE Feb 2016 --
I updated the BIOS and the drivers. There were also some Windows 10 updates that came out. The laptop is working much better, including the standby battery life being mostly fixed, so I upped my rating to four stars and have decided to keep it. It's too bad these updates weren't available for launch.

-- UPDATE Aug 2016 --
The laptop overall is good, not great. It's definitely worlds better than when I bought it, but there is still funky behavior with the standby mode (it takes many seconds and shows the BIOS screen to come out of standby instead of just turning on). There have also been times when it seems to turn itself back on even with the lid closed inside of the sleeve/case, so it gets burning hot and the battery drains. I spent too long trying to research this one and turned off every possible setting it could be. This hasn't happened in a couple of months so maybe they have fixed it.

So overall a 4 star rating.

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rommel villagomez

Buyers beware, use at your own risk!

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2017

CPU: Intel Core i5Capacity: 8 GB RAM / 256 GB SSDStyle: Laptop OnlyVerified Purchase

This was the worst purchase since George C. Parker last sold the Brooklyn Bridge. I ordered this computer new (not refurbished) from Amazon after my daughter, who is in college, reported that her old computer was too slow and the battery didn’t last enough. I picked this specific model from Dell after searching the web for the best laptops for college kids. I drove to her school on a weekend to help her setup the computer, and a printer I had bought for her. What I thought was going to be an seamless installation turned out to be a 2 hour ordeal. The initial setup was mostly OK. I did a get a message: “No Hard drive was found” during the install, but the laptop rebooted and continued on. However, once Windows started we realized that there was no indication of a wireless connection even though we knew Wifi was available. To compound the problems the default installation for this model was of Windows 10, so we were not familiar at all with any of the menus, and could not find what the problem was. We rebooted more than a couple times but nothing happened. Once we figured that something was wrong with the wireless card, we browsed the web (using our phones of course) and found that issues with the wireless cards in Dell computers were very common and prevalent in multiple models. If you don’t believe me just type in Google: “Dell wireless card problems” and Google will tell you that there are over 1,230,000 results. That’s right, over a million pages of posts for Dell wireless card problems. That’s more results than people living in all of Montana. We scrambled for what seemed like an eternity, I could not tell you what we did, or how we did it, as we tried so many things, but somehow we got the wireless to work.

I drove back home that night (300 miles), thinking that I was not going to hear about the problem anymore. But first thing the next day my daughter let me know, by her use of acronyms and four letter words, that the wireless was once more not working. I was not going to drive back to help her out, but because she sounded desperate enough I took a long shot and decided to purchase a USB WiFi Adapter. It sounds stupid to have an Adapter connected to a brand new computer, but I didn’t know what else to try. Of course that didn’t work, she was not able to make the WiFi adapter work because Windows didn’t have the drivers, there was no Internet connection to download the drivers, and the laptop didn’t have a CD/DVD player, so the installation CD that came with the Adapter was useless.

Somehow one of her Engineer friends was able to make the wireless work on a spasmodic fashion, which put a temporary solution to the problem. Of course I was still getting daily texts from her about Michael Dell and how he should’ve been in the business of making hot dogs instead of computers.

Finally, this weekend my daughter was at home for her fall break, and I decided to tackle the problem once in for all. So I logged into the Dell support page, downloaded a program that scans your computer and determines all the firmware upgrades needed for your system. In my case the program detected 6 firmware updates, including one for the wireless card. It also determined that my system needed a BIOS update. Specifically it told me that I needed to go from version 1.0.0 to 1.0.0 of my BIOS. That is correct, it told me not only that I needed to go from one version, to the same one. It also told me that I was going to be installing most likely a Beta version of the software (a 0.0 version). It didn’t give me any option to select my upgrades so I had to go with the bundle. The upgrade went surprisingly smooth, and there were no issues to report, until….

Today, at seven in the morning I get a text from my daughter from the other room telling me that the computer would not start. Sure enough we pressed the Power button for several seconds, we disconnected the power, we let the computer charge, and nothing. The computer would not even boot up. It was more likely that Beta(Alpha?) version of the BIOS. At that point both my daughter and I sighed in relief, because we knew that we would not have to deal with the laptop anymore. We were finally going to go and get a good working laptop. We were first in line in BestBuy, and bought a Lenovo. The installation went smooth and my daughter was up and running in less than 20 minutes. My daughter was happy and that was the most important thing to me.

For some people things have gone well with their Dell computers, but I cannot say the same for me. My recommendation is that you go the safe route and avoid Dell computers.

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