Dell XPS 15 Haswell Edition: QHD+ with a Refined Design
by Jarred Walton on March 6, 2014 7:00 AM ESTDell XPS 15 Conclusion: Almost There
At the end of the day, what can be said about the XPS 15 is that it’s a great looking laptop and on paper it checks all the right boxes. In practice, I’ll be frank and state that it’s been a bit of a love/hate relationship with the XPS 15, but the hate comes more from being frustrated by my inability to get consistent results. If the system always throttled (which is what happened with the previous generation Ivy Bridge XPS 15), it would be easy to point out the problem, but that’s not the case. When it runs as it ought to, the XPS 15 offers a great blend of style, build quality, performance, battery life...and let’s not forget the awesome QHD+ display. The applications on Windows may still have issues with High-DPI right now, but long-term I’d rather have a high quality display than not, and the XPS 15 gives me exactly that.
This review is possibly one of the longest of my career, at least in terms of finishing and posting it. Originally I had planned to get the review posted ASAP, but when I started encountering issues with the GPU clocks I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what precisely was going on. I really like the laptop in general, and if I hadn’t been pounding on the system specifically running benchmarks and games and checking for throttling, maybe I could have missed that. Even with that particular issue cropping up from time to time, I still like the XPS 15 more than the vast majority of laptops I’ve tested. There was a time when performance mattered more, but these days the keyboard, touchpad, screen, and overall design end up being far more important to me, and I suspect that’s true for many of our readers.
Since the first XPS 15 rolled out several years back, Dell has clearly been trying to create a laptop – and a line of laptops – that offers a premium experience. Each generation has improved, sometimes in small ways and sometimes not. This round, the optical drive has been kicked to the curb, making way for a slimmer and lighter laptop that doesn’t have to sacrifice on battery life or performance. Everything seems to be in place for the XPS 15 to succeed, and if I were personally in the market for a new laptop the XPS 15 would certainly be high up on my list. It’s just that one item of inconsistent GPU performance that gives me pause.
If you don't care about gaming but like everything else on top, the Haswell XPS 15 a great laptop and I could easily give it an Editors' Choice award. On the other hand, until/unless the need to reboot on occasion to fix the GPU and CPU temperatures (and the resultant throttling) is addressed, those who occasionally/frequently play games might be better off waiting or looking at other options. There are quite a few laptops coming out with high-DPI displays, and some may be able to top the XPS 15. Others may be lacking in the style or build quality departments but should come with lower pricing (and a caching SSD at best). Even If Dell can fix the need to reboot on occasion to get the GPU running where it ought to be, this is a premium quality laptop with a premium price, so it’s not for everyone; it is however one of a very few options that can even think of challenging the MacBook Pro Retina.
As far as competitors go, it’s pretty simple really: if you want to run OS X, get a MacBook, but if you’re happier running Windows I don’t see much point in going that route. There really aren’t many other laptops in the same bracket right now. Razer’s Blade (and Blade Pro) is close in many ways, but it has much more of a gaming slant and a higher price tag to go with it. Otherwise, you can either wait for the upcoming spring refresh of notebooks, or you can look at some of the Ultrabooks that skip the discrete GPU entirely – Toshiba’s KIRAbook and Samsung’s ATIV Book 9 Plus might be a couple to consider. Last year’s ASUS UX51VZ is another great candidate, but it needs a refresh to Haswell (and GeForce 800M perhaps?) now. In other words, there’s very little in the way of direct competition at present.
The bottom line is that this is a laptop that has style, battery life, build quality, input devices that work well, a high-end QHD+ display, and the option for a 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM, and a discrete GPU. Fix the thermals, whatever the cause – or maybe go with Crystalwell and forego the discrete GPU – and this laptop would be golden. Instead I’m left in the uncomfortable position of really liking a laptop that has a potentially serious fly in the ointment. Hopefully we can clear that up in the coming weeks.
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jphughan - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Argh, again with not being able to edit posts. My old $5200 system was a Precision M90, and the modern-day equivalent would be the Precision M6800.fokka - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
exactly my thoughts. dozens of different lines and models, but completely gimped customization options. and i have to cringe when thinking about their website.katinavcloutier - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
hiNWBarryG - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Well done article.I bought the same configuration in December. It's - by far - the best laptop I've ever owned (and I've owned well over 30 over the years). I use it as a business laptop - mostly using Office apps and occasionally Adobe Creative Suite and some very light CAD work. Admittedly, I don't use it for gaming or any massively taxing workloads. I ran into the issue of losing mouse clicks but a driver update fixed it.
The screen is beautiful. I use my laptop for customer presentations so the screen was a major consideration for this purchase. I have never been a fan touch screens, but have to admit that when doing a customer presentation, the touch screen is pretty damn cool - especially when visualizing 3D models. The battery life is amazing. This is the first laptop that I've owned where I can travel around to meetings for an entire day and never even have to think about plugging it in. That peace of mind is amazing. It was not one of my original considerations, but now that I can get away with it, I would never give it up. Least of all, it looks cool, is incredibly light for being a 15" class notebook, and it feels good to carry around.
My only complain is that I wish the keyboard had dedicated home, end, pgup and pgdwn keys. I am getting used to not having them and it's a minor complaint. Other than that, this thing is fantastic! For what I use it for, it is perfect and would gladly have spent more. Once can always find things to complain about with any product, but for my needs, there is nothing on the market that even comes close. I did tons of research on options and have not been disappointed. For someone looking for a Windows business notebook with a 15" screen (lots of options available for notebooks with smaller screens) I don't think there is a better product available.
bloc - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
"My only complain is that I wish the keyboard had dedicated home, end, pgup and pgdwn keys. I am getting used to not having them and it's a minor complaint. Other than that, this thing is fantastic! For what I use it for, it is perfect and would gladly have spent more. "Yes I have no idea why they're making up new keyboard layouts. Developers prefer to have independent home/end/pageup/pagedown keys.
GTVic - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
If you preferred the Apple, is there any reason not to purchase that and run Windows 8.1 on it? Or will that just be a bunch of headaches.jphughan - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
That has its share of headaches. Examples are driver updates, keyboard layout not being ideal for a Windows environment, Thunderbolt ports not supporting hot-plugging in Windows (i.e. if the device isn't connected when you boot, you can't use it until you reboot), and I believe you're forced to use the NVIDIA GPU full-time on Windows, never the Intel GPU, so your battery life is far worse. Those are just off the top of my head, and I remember reading a long post on a forum about other niggles like that. Bottom line is that buying a Mac to run Windows 8.1 full-time is probably not the best idea.rish95 - Friday, March 7, 2014 - link
I don't have any problems running it on my 2012 Air. My only issue is that Apple's trackpad driver for Windows sucks. It doesn't support any Win8.1 gestures and scrolling/zooming are poorly done.Battery life is ok. I get about 5 hours in Windows and 6 in OSX.
DanD85 - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
I think your argument of paying the extra 400 for SSD is flawed because you forget that if you choose to do it yourself you still have the HDD and you can choose to flip it for some bucks back or keep it as external hard drive. A better choice in my opinion.JarredWalton - Thursday, March 6, 2014 - link
Larger batteries usually cost $100 (and you can't buy this one AFAICT), the SSD costs $350 for a Crucial or $450+ for the SM841, and the 500GB HDD is only worth $50 if you're lucky. For the ability to avoid cloning/reinstalling the OS, I'd just get things pre-configured with the 512GB SSD. It's not a great deal, but it's not raking you over the coals at least.