Dell XPS 12 problems

I have experienced every single issue you listed. I really thought Dell put more into their XPS line. I will certainly make sure everyone I know stays away.

That said, I do know some work arounds that can mitigate your problems.

The WiFi - if you have a N router that uses 5g band. Make xps12 use that one and make 2.4ghz secondary. Should retain solid connections.

Trackpad - Turn off gestures in the Cypress TrackPad driver. Easy way to find it is in the desktop notification area. Once you do that everything becomes old school and normal. For some reason this only shows up in desktop mode.

The screen stops functioning - Turn off the auto-rotation. Yes this will affect portrait mode but who are we kidding, this is not a real tablet. There is a button on the left side of the laptop. I have never had a freeze after disabling.

the screen dims -  turn the screen down to around 30%. 400 nit screen, so it will still be bright. The fluctuations in dimming will be les dramatic.

the fan-No answer yet. Very annoying

App crashes - Likely related to OS or App developer. Rarely will this be something Dell can fix. I suspect this is a byproduct of our early adoption of Windows 8.

Hope this helps.

Thank you both for identifying these issues and providing some answers. I have also recently purchase the top of the line XPS 12 and have been struggling to like the platform. Windows 8 aside, the hardware is performing unacceptably for the $1700 paid. The Acer equivalent at $800 looks to be a much better investment.

Glad I could help, since Dell just gives ridiculous answers like it's normal for the fan to spin loudly.  

I like you am very disappointed.  I am a long time dell customer. I usually buy the low end stuff for the kids. I was going to get a Macbook, like my wife, but Windows 8 and the XPS12 design intrigued me. My wife just laughs at me.  

I have had 2 of these issues that I can't seem to solve, and a few that I have learned to work around.

The Wifi - I'm on a college campus, so I'm switching from router to router a lot. I find that when I move, I have to go into the network and sharing wizard and take it through the steps until it resets the network adapter. That fixes my issues almost every time.

Trackpad - I've gotten quite used to the gestures and use them often. My issue is that in particular documents, pdfs in particular, scrolling is ULTRAsensitive. And generally, say, 3% of the time I try to do anything with the trackpad, it doesn't register my finger.  

The screen stops functioning - this is the reason I'm here. (By the way, I have heard of complaints that the touchscreen stops registering - this is not my issue). I often "sleep" the computer, and I invested in this i7 so I could multitask, so I sleep it with a lot running. Something like twice a week, maybe that 5% of the time I sleep it, when I go to start it back up again, the screen stays black. I know that its running because the keyboard is backlit, and when I click the screen out (into tablet mode), the keyboard dims as usual. I have waited around for hours, plugged and unplugged, and tried all kinds of things. A couple times it has kicked back on. It happens often enough now that I just force kill and reboot - most of my programs autosave as I go anyhow. Could this be a hardware issue?

The screen dims - did you remember that you have to set autodim setting separately for each power profile? Also, some of dell's software automatically screws with the dimming. It take a good deal of tinkering to stop the light show.

The fan - mine has been fine, except for the odd times where I grab it from my bag (when it's supposedly asleep), and the thing is boiling with fan on high. I had attributed this to my "sleep" issue though.

I too got my hopes up on this expensive computer, and while I realize that a lot of this is on a new OS and computer, etc. I have a lot of the same problems, which can be rather annoying at times.

#1 Wi-Fi connection - with a wireless N router, I sometimes experience some sort of connection problem too, where I click on a website and it just seems to search for a connection.  One time I counted, and it was 30 seconds to connect to Bing.

#2 Trackpad - completely annoying at times, especially when trying to copy and paste or to click inside of a form box.  The touch pad will often not respond to a tap and I have to fall back on the buttons, which sometimes can be unresponsive too.  Also, sometimes right-click will respond as a left-click.

#3 Screen dims - Sometimes, it randomly dims, and I 've even experienced it dimming right after I plug it in!  Isn't it supposed to be the other way?

#4 Touch screen freezes - I've also had the touch screen freeze at times, forcing me to put the computer to sleep and restart.

Still, given all of these things, overall I still like my computer.  I am going to get a regular mouse though as I'm tired of triple clicking all the time to do the simplest of tasks.

WOW. What an incredible difference in experience I've had with my Dell XP 12. I've got the I7, 256GB SSD version too and this little machine has made me fall in love with pc's again. Best machine I've ever had and absolutely wonderful with Windows 8.

Having said all that - came here because I was running into the problem with the screen diming issue as well. I could not find the cause of the apparently random nature of the dimmer turning on and off. When I was plugged in too. Just didn't make sense.

I think the problem is with Windows 8 in this case however. So you have the power profile which can effect this screen brightness. But apparently you can allow windows to control this feature automatically as well. From you start screen, search for bright, then select automatically allow windows to adjust brightness. Then turn that feature OFF.

Instantly resolved my issue. I hope that helps you too. And I hope you get the other problems resolved as well.

I am holding back to buy the unit mainly because of WIFI problems reported by the users. It seems you are not experiencing any problem with WIFI. Your answer will help me decide

Thanks for the reply. XPS 12 is the best in the market. I am just holding back till I am clear about the connectiv ity problem.Please update me for anything you hear frm dell

No WiFi problems here and that is the primary way I connect to work/home.

I'd hate to recommend something to you that had problems so I'd check first with Dell to find out if there are in fact known hardware/software issues.

Best wishes and good luck!

I am wondering though, if you didn't pick the XPS, what else are you in the market for?

Don't get me wrong (see comment above) these are just occasional problems.  I've gone through long stretches with no Wi-Fi or screen freezing problems, and I did adjust my screen setting by turning the dimmer off like someone suggested, so that seems to help (but still it would be nice to use that feature)

For me, the trackpad is the biggest problem. I've since gotten a USB Mouse, and it's eased my frustration.  I still like my computer, but when I spent as much as I did on this thing, I kind of expect a lot.  I hope you don't think I'm saying it's a bad computer.  There's a lot to like.

You are bringing up an excellent point about changing networks. I do not frequently do this so perhaps I'm not hitting the problem you're seeing. Normally, I do not have a problem connecting to networks but I admit that it's far less frequent for me to try than some the reports on this thread.

On a related note:

I wanted to share a picture of my work setup: skydrive.live.com/redir - I'm using the Targus universal docking station. I have two cables which I need to connect/disconnect to be mobile (power, and usb to docking stations).

I normally use this machine in the configuration you see in the picture. I do not like typing on the keyboard which comes with this laptop. I find that rest my hand too frequently which causes the mouse to jump from the current point on the screen to a few places lower. So there's another complaint about the design. This is sad since it was avoidable without comprising the form factor they gave us.

When I am out and about, I use it in tablet mode. Perhaps this is about 5% of the time. I have taken this to work to use as a tablet with no power cable. I found it was up to the task. I was able to take it to lunch room and I kept track of mail and messaging, I was able to take to a conference room for an hour meeting. I was able to go all day with general use and still had power to spare when I made it home that evening.

It's passed the road test as well. My wife's family lives about 3 hours away. The kids are able to watch two movies nearly with battery to spare.

This went to junk mail - sorry for the delay. No, I don't appear to have the problem. It's interesting that it only happens in the modern apps. That sort of eliminates the idea that it was a system wide setting. Did it ever work right?