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Comment by Illniyar | Hacker News Reader

I own the new xps 15.

Best laptop I have seen yet. No complaints. Great screen, color calibration, cpu, size, weight, good keyboard when on the lap (could be better on a desk), smooth trackpad.

Battery lasts about 4 hours of programming work, 6 or so browsing.

What horror stories have you heard?

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Mostly about poor external display connectivity, poor trackpad accuracy and annoying coil whine. I saw 2-3 people mention the trackpad as a con and that was actually enough for me to keep waiting for Apple's event.

Maybe those were isolated incidents. Also there are a lot of XPS models, gotta check for a specific one I guess.

Strange feedback about the trackpad, I actually think this is the best I've ever used on a Windows laptop.

FWIW, I've read a lot about the 'coil whine' too, but neither of my XPS laptops have that problem. Not sure what to make of it.

The trackpad is pretty good for a windows laptop, maybe the best aside from the Surface Book, but still not as good as a MBP. It also has problems registering two finger right click. I had some driver issues on my XPS15 that led to dispay flicker, and also Windows is braindead when it comes to external display management, even though OSX isn't perfect either. I had no coil whine. It's not bad, but when you're coming from a MBP, the XPS15 still needs refinement. I will admit that I might just be used to all of OSX's little quirks and issues, and that the new ones seem more painful on the XPS15 just because they're new. But I don't know, I have Win10 on my desktop and it's fast and I love it, but on a laptop it's pretty annoying. I just feel more expressive on a OSX laptop. I can't get over switching from cmd-stuff with my thumb to ctrl-stuff with my pinky.

There used to be issues with external monitor flicker in the xps 15 but they were solved some time ago, the only issues I know of that remain (and they drive me crazy) is connecting external displays through a usb-c dock (such as the dell TB15) - but at least in my case it's not so bad.

Trackpad is excellent - responsive and smooth. two finger scroll, pinch to zoom and just normal delay and sensitivity is great. Not sure what more one needs (I don't use 3 or 4 fingers really).

Never had coil whine.

Only? My 2013 rMBP lasts a solid 8-9 while browsing.

Yep, Battery life is a big disadvantage.

I rarely go 3 hours without charging anyway, so this wasn't a problem for me.

The 1920x1080 version is supposed to have better battery life.

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