I Am Returning My Dell XPS 13 Plus - Here's Why

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[brucechandler]

I LOVE my Dell XPS 13 Plus!! I have the i7 1260P 16GB RAM 512GB SSD OLED 3.5K screen. No problems whatsover besides not that great battery life. The OLED display is worth the price of admission

[MadMaxx.]

I had pretty rough luck with 3 XPS 13 and 1 XPS 15 from 2015-21. QC and customer service were so disappointing. Took Dell 11 months to fully refund the last XPS 13 I returned. I'm with you the screen, though. The 4K IPS touch screen was immaculate. Everything else was problematic. Almost bought the 13 Plus, but just didn't want to take another chance with Dell. My M2 MacBook Air arrives today. My first Mac in almost 7 years. Excellent video, mate!!

[JinayDeliwala]

i had bought Dell XPS 13+ and in 5 days i had to return it, why? The battery life is pathetic, the drain was around 1%-1.5%/minute which translates to around 2-2.5 hours of battery life. This is at 720p and 30% brightness with only total of 20 minutes of casual browsing which did not include video streaming. It is really pathetic that a hardware costing this much is not able to deliver on something as basic as battery life. Those who are thinking to buy this laptop please also view One month review of XPS 13+ by Josh along with this video. No wonder Apple is winning, the once computer giant Dell i feel has now turned complacent as far as quality control is concerned and soon will be dead if they don't wake up soon. The only positives i found is display and good keyboard which honestly does not matter once the battery start showing it's true colors.

[Elijah]

I just got the XPS 13 and it is such a disappointment to go from what I had (Mac Book Pro) to this. I agree with the points you made in the video, and I want to say thank you. I needed to hear another person say they sent it back, so I could stop telling myself to work with what I've got. My personal lesson learned from this video: if something isn't aligned with my needs, I have the right to let it go and find what does.
that's real time learning right there. great reminder. I hope you have a good day and luck finds you.

[lou]

Its definitely a qc problem mine works great. I havent noticed anything too hot on my 1280p but I do feel after a few cinebench tests it does throttle. Dell performance modes really help with this machine. Running on quiet mode (almost no fan and turns down cpu power) the device stays fairly cool with just passive cooling using just aroun 1-3% of the 1280p. I have gotten around 11 hours of battery life in this mode too. Optimized mode I might run if I were in class simply cause Im a CS major and might need a little more computing power at times. Cool mode if on my lap or charging (low cpu but high fan speeds) cause its power efficient but not as much as quiet. I do have the FHD+ screen so even on optimized mode I'm getting around 8 hours of battery. Some of the problems you had I thought I had when I first got it but they all seemed to smooth out after a couple days of use (Maybe software updates).

Edit: I think the thermal throttling was fixed with a software update or something, but I tested it 3 times in a row today and the scores increased each time and on the third test I got a score of 1629 on the single core cinebench r23 test scoring higher than the m2's new average.

[shawngee]

This is normal for OLED screens on these small laptops, which imo they don't need for that screen size. Just get the FHD model.

[BlackjackYak]

About time someone reviews the laptop based on normal day usage and not strictly benchmarks. I'm returning mine as well. A technician came to replace the motherboard. The issue persists. I had an Alienware laptop from Dell last year I had to return as well. I'm not sure if Intel is to blame or Dell because of the design. But I think the problem for the XPS plus is more than a thermal issue because my issue persists when the laptop has been cool and first booted up. My laptop should not be freezing up when I'm only using MS Word and watching a YouTube video. Good thing I still have my older laptop. Far less powerful and it can handle many YouTube videos and tabs.

I really wanted to like the XPS plus. The don't like the keyboard either, but was willing to look past that issue if the rest of the laptop worked fine.

[TheCarlosMendonca]

Not sure whether you mentioned this and I missed it, but did you consider trying the new Lenovo Z13, which is very similar to the XPS 13 Plus, but with AMD instead?

[JohnCamacho]

Does it make a difference in battery life if you change your resolution in windows to 1920x1200?

[DKBoerner]

Great review, especially about the ”dark side“ of this machine. It makes my purchase decision much easier. Thank you! 🙂

[descender]

Just went through two of these over the course of the past month and both had QC issues with the video rendering. So finally sent both back in today for a full refund and am weirdly going with a Macbook Pro M1 14 inch lol.

[Collinormous]

I have this laptop and I'm honestly heart broken because it has sooo much potential - I have the 1260p and it doesn't throttle *as bad* but it still throttle. My biggest issue is the trackpad - one of the touchpad haptic feedback components came loose and its super loud and doesn't give feedback anymore. Its such a beautiful laptop but I've already got my return label printed.

[buttercat]

The sweet-spot resolution for a 13 inch should be 2.5k or 1440/1600p (maybe 2.8K 1800p at max), anything above that absolutely does not worth the trade on battery life because people can’t discern that extra sharpness. 1200p is kinda still borderline acceptable, while 3.5k are 4k are just overkill.

[Evan-uwhw]

So glad I bought a Dell XPS. It was the final sign I needed to ensure switching to macOS was a good thing. But seriously. I’m paying macbook money, and my $1500 premium grade laptop goes kaput after only a couple of years? Total bullshit. This thing is on par with chrome books in terms of long term real world performance. It took me 2 Dell laptops before I learned my lesson and got a MacBook. I don’t even want windows laptops in general I’ve had such an awful experience. Stick to desktop if you want a windows machine.

[steffenbuettner]

I think Alder lake will always throttle, i’ve seen the Dell XPS13 Plus run at 40W processor power sustained in a review, which is already much more than TDP. What you’re seeing is kind of concerning. I want to buy this laptop but idk if it’s such a good idea in the end… i want an x86 machine otherwise I would have gotten the 14” MacBook already.

[jamesey]

I don't even need cinebench to make it throttle. I can get it down to 0.4ghz by opening a word document and spotify at the same time. I think the thermal throttle is a big engineering flaw.

[adequatequality]

All valid and completely understandable points. I was so excited to see the Intel 13th gen refresh on the XPS 13 Plus so I picked up a fully spec'd out version and my oh my how disappointing it was after getting past the honeymoon phase. It's a super modern and sleek looking device but the thermal throttling, the fan noise, and the dodgy QC stories I've heard made me return this. I know that the second I would've gotten past my return window, some trackpad or touchbar issue would've plagued my computer and I'd be down $2K.

[KumarChalla]

Very good review. Basically 90% of my experience on the common parts of the configs we both have.


Haptic Touchpad: Agreed, at times I catch myself thinking there is a real button there.

Thermals: Yeah, it runs hot. Even on my I5

Keyboard: Agreed again, good keyboard

Screen: Even my FHD panel is good. I run it at 125% as at this size any lower is way too small for my 40 year old eyes.

CPU: Even my I5 runs hot. I have not done benchmarks. I am using mine for photoshop and other photo editing apps out in the field. I don't play any games so I can't comment on it. For my purposes the performance is ok but I am kind of disappointed in how hot the bottom gets.

Battery: I do wish my i5+fhd lasted more than 6 hours. If I do absolutely nothing it may last longer but if that's the case, I would've bought an ipad and keyboard. If I use my photo editing software, I can kill the thing in 3-4 hours without even going into rendering on it.

Overall: If you keep your expectations in line of what it is, it can work for you. I needed portability for travel so I think it works for my use case. And oh, I like the aesthetics.

[Tanya_Vu]

The battery life is absolutely horrible, it’s depressing because it just ruins the entire laptop. I returned this exact same laptop with the same screen and bought a Hp victus desktop with an Rtx 3060 and an intel core i7 for only $1000

[dawnespino]

I know this is an older video, but I'll also add that the overall quality control on this unit is poor.
I bought one to run my small business, no gaming and no high-end graphics. I wanted it for the processor. I primarily use it to run Microsoft products and Adobe Pro. When docked, I need it to run 3 monitors and offer reliable streaming.
Out of the box, the fans were defective and I had to have them replaced. It also had Bluetooth connectivity issues where any Bluetooth device would randomly stop working even though they showed connected. After screwing around with Dell "support" for 2 months, they agreed to replace the unit. The REPLACEMENT unit had a defective keyboard, like half the keys wouldn't activate.
Dell itself has slipped from my preferred tech provider to the bottom and I have switched to a different brand. That was easily $2K down the toilet because they have denied my request for a refund and I'm still fighting with them to get a "replacement" for the "replacement."

So, buyer beware. Dell product quality control is non-existent and their customer service/support team talks a lot but doesn't get much done. I have spent hours on the phone with them with no resolution in sight.