Dell XPS 15 L501 Thread

[bluescrn]

Mine arrived an hour or so ago... First impressions...

Good points:

- Screen - the 1080 screen is lovely. Very happy with it. It comes configured with 125% font sizes, which I've turned down to something like 115%, which suits my eyes.

- Appearance - Pleasantly surprised. It looks nicer than the photos make it look. It's a bit chunky, but not ugly by any means.

- Quiet when under light load. (Not silent, slight fan noise, not enough to be annoying)

- Not too much crapware to uninstall. I don't feel the need for a format+fresh install.

- Touchpad. After a fair bit of settings tweaking, this behaves quite well (even for a Macbook user, it's acceptable, once you've got 2-finger scrolling configured sensibly)

- As expected, speakers are better than average

Not so good:

- No backlit keyboard (UK)

- Heat - It definitely kicks out a fair bit of warm air when under load. A few minutes in WoW had the fan up to full speed, and it was blasting very warm air out of the main vent. But the heat was limited to that area, the palm rests stayed cool, so maybe the cooling system is doing it's job OK? But it was only running for a few minutes under load.

- Power cord - Very chunky cable, straight connector (why not right-angled?...), and a bit short. Not a big deal, though

Undecided/Don't Know yet:

- Keyboard. Will take some getting used to. Coming from a Macbook, it's obviously got a very different feel. It 'rattles' and does have a little bit of flex - but I wouldn't call it bad, and I think I'll get used to it. Glad to have a proper PC keyboard layout again (with a Del key...) after using the Macbook.

- GPU performance/performance in general. Only tried WoW so far, and it isn't really the best test, as it does a lot of disc thrashing (was in Dalaran...), and is fairly CPU dependent too (certainly looks playable at native 1080 res and fairly high settings, just not super-smooth). Need to try some more games later.

[ninja2000]

@ huntergreenall - Very nice, you are 10c lower than me. I wonder if its because you have the 9cell which lifts your laptops rear end!

[ninja2000]

@ bluescrn - do you really think the heat is a negative? you have a quadcore and gpu pushing out 100w of heat, I think it manages it very well. Yes it pushes hot air out of the side, but the laptop remains cool on the palm rest and keyboard.
The sxps I had pushed the air out of the rear and was clocked by the screen and the palm rest and keyboard got so hot I couldnt game on it.

[euph_CF]

Thats a bit better for temps...

[huntergreenall]

@ huntergreenall - Very nice, you are 10c lower than me. I wonder if its because you have the 9cell which lifts your laptops rear end!

Quite possible. It is also friggin FREEZING in my room (Student :P)

[ninja2000]

Quite possible. It is also friggin FREEZING in my room (Student :P)

lol best do some gaming then to keep yourself warm

[bluescrn]

@ bluescrn - do you really think the heat is a negative? you have a quadcore and gpu pushing out 100w of heat, I think it manages it very well. Yes it pushes hot air out of the side, but the laptop remains cool on the palm rest and keyboard.

Yeah, maybe that's being a bit harsh - but I was surprised how quickly it heated up - I only tested it for about 5mins under load - and there was some serious warmth coming out of it. But as long as it stays that way during a longer gaming session (without too much heat spreading to the front of the machine), I'll be happy with it.

[ninja2000]

Yeah, maybe that's being a bit harsh - but I was surprised how quickly it heated up - I only tested it for about 5mins under load - and there was some serious warmth coming out of it. But as long as it stays that way during a longer gaming session (without too much heat spreading to the front of the machine), I'll be happy with it.

Well I have had an hour on BFBC2 earlier with the gfx card @ 800/1600/1000 and the laptop didnt get hot so I am really pleased with the cooling solution. Hoping I can get the internal temps down a bit too with some MX-3

[sheikhstone]

can some of u guys with the fhd screen post their display model name? i have the "AUO17ED" which is a different panel than the one that anandtech had, but i guess its nonetheless pretty good, anyways just curious ;D

[ninja2000]

I have the same mate