Goodbye Dell - XPS 17

Question

I'm writing this post out of my grief and disappointment. It is a little over 3 years I have been using my XPS 17. Bought it for work to my office in my own company. Having quite some experience in gamedev (10+ years in industry) I have already worked on Dells with luck. No wonder my next choice was Dell as well. I'm a software developer - I need a good laptop. Some of my industry friends and even employees warned me, that Dell is not what it used to be - I ignored it. Bought l702x - now I regret it. I had constant problems almost from the beginning: First I had very bad quality LCD, very grainy, I felt cheated. Dell Support replaced it for slightly better one. Next I had the common issue with falling off power cable. Again, Dell Support replaced it for the cable which still was too thick and too heavy and fallen only twice a day. After that I have realised that some (if not most) of the internal modems doesn't work with this hardware. I had 2  of them at my office. One of them was Dell branded. Both didn't work. To this day I'm not using modem with this laptop - notice, that there is a SIM card slot inside - brilliant joke. Speakers - people say it is so cool piece of hardware. Well - I don't get it! The only thing which makes this hardware sound so 'cool' is probably the piece of software delivered with it, which makes it 'sound better'. Without it, in comparsion to other brands it is really bland. Not to mention the speakers placement - right under your palm - great thinking - to hear something during work I need to use headphones or take my hands off the desk. Later 2 cursor keys lost their plastic coating due to regular basis (though frequent) use. At this point my battery started to fail - probably falling off cable caused it to malfunction. Another issue I had was quite common top cover hinge breaking off from the plastic. I had to fix it myself because I needed machine at work. What I have seen there inside made me laugh - small plastic bulbs with 3 screws had to keep all this force - you don't have to be major at physics to notice this one is going to break in probably every model. Apart from that the main issue - constant overheating. If you work in graphics department - you have a problem, when you work in gamedev department - you have a problem, when you just want to play games - you have a problem. What are temperatures? Around 100 Celsius degrees - this is a temperature of the boiling water. With such a huge case Dell engineers could easily fit there something better. So that's it. I'm saying goodbye. I'm already looking for another laptop. I will think twice before buying another Dell laptop - well actually I think I won't use anything from Dell any more. That goes to my company, employees, friends and family. I don't want to feel cheated again. Why this post? Well - maybe I have spent 3 years feeling bad and I wanted to share my frustration, maybe someone is considering buying dell and this will help with the choice, maybe you have same hardware and it starting to show its nature but still have a chance of giving it back. Good bye Dell, Disappointed user.

beaurolfe · Answer

I have experienced all the problems you highlighted, except the plastic coating is not rubbed off my cursor keys yet.  I also had to replace the DC connector, thinking that would keep the power cable stable, but that didn't even work.  Found this post researching how to keep the hinges from breaking loose from their plastic attachments on the cover.  I have already replaced the entire cover assemble once a little over a year ago and now, I am getting ready to have to do it again.  I will be looking at MSI and Asus laptops, when it come time to buy again.  I have bought many Dells over the years, but they have finally lost me as a customer.  Very disappointed!

Alaska1234 · Answer

I feel cheated on this one too. I've always bought my computers from Dell and I have never had as much trouble as I have with this and the overheating is simply amazing. I can't even keep my graphics card from crashing anymore and nothing as far as driver or bios or even windows will ever have an upgrade from Dell...not a single thing since nothing is supported. They just took the money and ran. Xps 17 l702x just seem to be kicked to the curb. Sadly

ejn63 · Answer

Given that this system is approaching six years of age -- your expectations need to be tempered.   Notebooks are designed for a 3-year lifespan -- yes, many last longer but they do age, both technologically and from use.  This system is retired -- it's not reasonable to expect top-end performance from a 6-year old system.

Kundelstein · Answer

Your answer would suggest that people are complaining about low hardware specs like slow CPU or slow GFX card. I'm perfectly fine not being able to play some games or waiting a bit longer for code compilation (I'm software developer). I cared about my laptop - pet it every day, bathed and brushed its teeth regularly so I didn't expect it to bite me.

I can't get behind the fan noise, forced use of headphones because I literally can't hear my own thoughts when the laptop is in use. Some driver bug is causing heavy CPU load when system is idle - so I have a choice: never ever update your Windows or never leave the laptop idle, unless it is winter.

Bad design is bad design. Bad drivers are just bad drivers. Discontinued support is just that.

The other funny thing is that there are newer drivers and Windows 10 support for other, older models by Dell. It is like Dell admitted: Oh well, this pancake isn't as good as others so no maple syrup for you.

Besides this unfortunate laptop I have many other older than XPS laptops in use, I don't see any reason to retire a notebook after 3 years, unless you are focusing on CPU/GFX performance:

- I'm still using 7-year old ASUS which works like a charm, has full driver support and beside having fractured cover (this is the only flaw in the series I have and I remember ASUS proposing to replace a model with never for free). Yes it is older, so I have tempered my expectations and use it for low end things.

- I'm using MacBook Pro, has equal specifications to XPS17, just smaller screen - its only 'flaw'.

- I'm using ACER which cost a fracture of DELLs price and never caused so much troubles as XPS17.

"This system is retired -- it's not reasonable to expect top-end performance from a 6-year old system." Only if top-end performance is being able to use it. After all if you are deaf, you are living in Antarctica, have a lot of glue and you are not touching a power cable - this one is perfect for you!

Locked Topics – Laptops General

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