XPS 13 bezel

It's very nice to see Dell support actually reply (a rare event, it seems), but I do not see any friend requests or private messages. You can just email me directly at nedomacho-gmail-com, just replace the characters appropriately, and I'll send you the service tag, etc.

I am very seriously considering just returning this item, given, for the first time in years, a truly terrible experience with Dell.

Hi shurakbh,

Thank you for reaching out to us here, we request you to help us with the service tag of the system and your contact information including name, primary and secondary phone number, email address, shipping address and the best time to reach you so that we could check and assist you further. We have sent you a friend request please accept the friend request and share the details on the private message, the private message option should be found towards the right hand side of the page.

Hi Shurakbh, We have sent you a friend request again, please accept the friend request and once you accept the friend request refresh the page so that you would find the private message option towards the right hand side at the top. Hope this helps.

I am not sure I understand the purpose of all these actions, besides making it look like Dell actually replies.

I accepted your friend request and sent you a PM with requested info 24 hours ago. So far, nothing happened in response. 

Just to follow up... Since I sort of fell in love with XPS 13 (despite the Dell's horrible customer service), I'd like to give this model another try and order a new one.

Can the owners carefully look at their bezel and see that the bezel insert is nice and tight throughout? 

FYI,

I have the exact same problem you had. I could post the same picture that you posted on the original post (the bezel is affected on the right bottom side as well). Because I don't want to go through the hassle of the replacement, spend a month without laptop (and possibly end up with the same problem...), I decided to let it go. I'll find a solution. As we say in my country, "you're never better served than by yourself".

The bezel itself is plastic-made.

I just feel like my user experience will be less affected if I don't let Dell's customer support handle it.

Whats worrisome, though, is that customers need to deal with so many issues with this laptop, even if this bezel thing is the one thing that bothers me. I understand this is a new product, but a manufacturer with so much history and experience as Dells' should know better.

Hey, thanks for the reply. That's pretty sad, but at the same time this is what carbon fiber does, if no special measures are taken when machining the insert piece. It *** that for a $1000+ laptop one needs to exercise your native proverb, however wise it may be. :)

Actually, the bezel insert feels rather rubbery and quite flexible, which of course does not rule out plastic. Also, the autobrightness issue. Anandtech stated in their review that Dell admitted that currently there is no way to disable it (BIOS, graphics driver, or power options), while Dell tech support would assume that I am computer illiterate and try to fix it in the power options. 

I would be fine with this laptop overall, but my user experience was just terrible. The order took three weeks to assemble and ship. Three weeks, while I needed the laptop for a conference. The customer service then took about ten days to finally inform me that they were out of batteries, and hence the hold-up. In the past, when there was a screw-up like this, Dell customer service would immediately give you something like a $150 gift card. This time, after maybe five phone calls, it took her majesty supervisor of some sort to produce a $80 refund on the order. Then strange phone calls from people claiming they issued a refund (all would quote a different amount), all this mess and lack of internal communication.

And I understand that $80 is probably a lot of money in the country of customer service location, and a 3-week delay in shipping is not a year, but my past experience with Dell used to be vastly different. At the end, I got a survey, in which I gave Dell the lowest possible marks, and noone, absolutely noone cared to come forward and offer absolutely anything to keep me as a customer. Very disappointing. 

Just want to add to what you all said with my experience for the xps 13. I bought the laptop a week ago in a refurbished condition with no scratches what so ever and found my experience with Dell to be questionable. The laptop is perfect is every way with exception with the bezel.  Like both of you, I searched up the Internet and found 3 occurrences with problem with the bezel quality. Since its happening at the exact same spot, I was thinking it was a quality issue and called to technical support to see if anything can be done. The CSR basically said that I have basic protection and nothing can be done unless I pay for the repair/get full protection. Fair enough if I caused the damage but I am confident that it is a quality issue. I talked more about the built issue and she said if there is a problem, a recall would have been  issued.  Funny thing is that I asked if there was others having the same issue and she admitted there are but have full protection so it was fixed with no charge. To me, the story doesn't add up. But in any case, just want to write here about my case for anyone that plans to get the xps 13 (9343) or has one to look out for the bezel /get full protection or else this may happen to you.

I have been a Dell customer for almost 10 years. Even after 10 years my inspiron 640m still runs like a beauty for its age, it never had

such issues. I still use it to this day. I was looking for a upgrade that's as robust and timeless as the 640m, but I guess I'll have to look elsewhere.