New Dell XPS 15 9500 - Numerous Issues / Just wanted to hear what everyone else has been embracing?

1. The trackpad on both laptops was not perfect but I suppose manageable, not really many misclicks and unintentional clicks but the trackpad was slightly looser to the bottom half on both units.

2. Backlight bleed on the second replacement

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I have the smaller XPS-13 (9300) but will try to answer.

1. Yes, apparently, some of these early ones had trackpad issues. If still not satisfactory, you will have to contact Dell. Can't really say more as I was not involved in the beta-testing of this particular model.

2. Not sure about this "test video". However, a little backlight-bleed is usually the price we pay for the better colors, brightness, and viewing angles of these newer LCD-panels. Remember, they are meant to used "bright" (so you can see them).  

I took two replacements for me to get an XPS 15 that is ok.

The first unit had the rattling touchpad issue and additionally a very visible gap on the upper edge of the display between camera and metal frame.

The second device had the touchpad problem (not so bad than the first one) and the gap (not so bad than the first one) and additionaly the lower part stands out minimally, which makes it a little difficult to open. And when pressing gently on the back in the area of the ventilation slots, there was a crackling noise.

But the third unit was simply perfect! It has none of the issues mentioned above!

Also, with the last firmware update battery life improved massively.

Dells support was very helpful and quick and did not use false excuses!! They simply said that they know they currently had quality issues and that they were working on it. 

Currently the only problem I have is, that the fans are on frequently as soon as the device is plugged in. The are almost never on when on battery, only with heavy CPU load. But when plugged in, the device gets warm and fans become loud even with 5-10% CPU load. I hope I can solve that.

All in all I'm very satisfied!

First device had a broken webcam/windows hello ir sensor. Took a month for a second laptop after refusing repairs. Second laptop has track pad issue. They sent a tech this time. The tech reassembled the device wrong. My wifi hardly works. 1 bar sitting g beside my 450 dollar router, gaps between the two sides of the laptop have rendered my left usb ports unusable, track pad still wobbles. 

Still trying to get the laptop replaced. If I wanted a half broken computer I would have bought used on ebay.

Service had been atrocious. Many hours talking to different people.

I am in the same position... debating on sending back for refund and purchasing a new one (I am still within my 30 day window).

My track pad has play in the bottom left and right. It will even make a faint plastic click sound when just lightly tapping (on occasion). Issues are more noticeable if not on a flat surface.

@Andischi Is your track pad completely solid, no play/wiggle or "clicks"?

If it is a possibility to have a solid/no issue track pad then I am going to return. Otherwise I am thinking about just doing the tape trick to try to fix it. I don't want to sent this one back and get one that is even worse. I love the laptop and hate to be picky but for the price I feel like I have to be.

I have a 9500 and it has been a bit of adventure.  I really love the laptop with the display, display ratio, size, keyboard, sound, trackpad, design, and all that.  But as we all know it has problems and quirks and I will describe a bit my experience so far:

1. Build variations: I am on my third XPS 9500 (i7+16GB+1TB+4K).  I am fortunate to be living by a local store that has a bunch of 9500s in stock.  I have gone through 3 9500s and they are all slightly different in respect of their trackpads and their keyboards.  Yes, keyboards too.  They all have built date of July, but I think they were built by different sub-contracted manufacturers.  I noticed this when I opened the bottom panel, I noticed quite different milling patterns of the bottom aluminum panel, different material thickness.  The better / thicker panel has much nicer and tidier milling marks.  Also noticed slightly different apparent quality of connectors, plastic cast of palmrest (that I can see), imprecise palmrest profile making the aluminum bottom protruding slightly over the palmrest, screws being loose, etc.,  but what immediately and practically noticeable to me was the keyboard and trackpad.  On the apparently better quality palm rest part, the keyboard feels firmer and smoother; the trackpad is mounted perfectly center, and its surface is just slightly recessed at the same depth all around.  On the worse quality palm rest assembly, the keyboard is rather more loose, "clacky" or "clicky", and the trackpad is not mounted perfectly center, or one side of the trackpad would be higher than the other, almost higher than the palm rest's surface.  I guess this could explain the loose feeling of some 9500 trackpads.  Fortunately it is the last (third) 9500 that has these better characteristics in my case.
2. Display uniformity issue.  The display of the 4K 9500 is great, however, display uniformity was a big issue for me.  I am sensitive to display uniformities.  All 3 9500s that I experienced have very similar display issue:  dim/dark patch of vertical band towards the right of display.  You can see this when especially when displaying all white.  The first one wasn't so bad, but it had the trackpad issue.  The second one had better trackpad but, that dim vertical band was much more pronounced, and it has bad backlight bleeds (on black screen).  So the third one has the best keyboard/trackpad/build, but the display's white uniformity was in between the first one and the second (but no backlight bleeding on black screen).  Before, I had massaged the screen on the second one to try maybe readjusting the backlight medium or whatnot to no success.  However, fortunately, on the third 9500, a light massage towards the right edge of the screen somehow "popped" something "back in" and the dim band suddenly disappeared (well not totally but is much more difficult to see now).  So I am now happy with the screen.
3. Heat issue.  The 9500 will be a great winter laptop.  This is because a lot of heat is radiated through the keyboard panel, especially on the left side.  Unfortunately we can't undervolt this CPU generation anymore, so I am using ThrottleStop to limit CPU speed and lowering the processor state in power options.  After doing this, the laptop is much more comfortable to use, runs cooler with no fan noise, and still snappy enough for light duties.  If you need to do a lot of CPU / GPU intensive tasks all the time, this may not be the laptop for you.  I think Dell need to improve cooling on these laptops, but I understand it is difficult to cool these high-performance parts in such a small frame.  I also blame Intel a bit for failing to catch up with AMD with their 7nm lithography in 2020.
4. Freezing issue.  I'm not sure why this is the case, but the laptop occasionally freezes for a few seconds before I disabled all the power savings settings in Intel Graphics Command Center.  I guess it would use more battery but nothing obvious that I noticed.

So the conclusion is if you want this laptop, get ready for a little adventure.  If you get a good one, I think you will like this laptop.  Who knows, you might get lucky.

I have quite a few problems with mine too, and I'm debating on weather sending it back too, since ive only had it for like 2 weeks,  so far the first time my display would be laggy, so I deicded to reinstall windows and it was fixed, yay~ but not so fast, after resetting windows I noticed I lost half of original software from Dell the laptop came with (even though I chose keep personal files option and selected reinstall software deivce came with), and my brightness also stopped wroking on the screen, so I had to install them manually again but it definatly isnt the same as it was orignally, and the battry life is drastically changed too for some reason, before resetting the battery would say 6-7 sometimes 8 hours too, but now it literally just says upto 3.5 hours from full charge..

Before all this restting windows stuff, I was also nitpicking about my laptop and with mine I have the trackpad issue, buttom right and left are wobbley they said they will send someone out to fix it for me, so im still waiting on that, they were supposed to come today but would you look at that, no one came. After the trackpad, I noticed the little light at the bottom of the laptop which comes on while charging was pushed in on one side too much, after that also noticed the "coil whine" issue as people called it on the lineup before these new XPS's, I constatly hear this wining noise and its actually driving me crazy now, its a high pitch current type of noise and very notciable in person in a quiet room which is how I normally am because im a university student. The speakers start crackeling at certain volumes, not sure if thats a normal thing but I noticed that too. Contacted dell support about the coil whine and these were the replies I got "We cannot hear anything wrong" , "It is normal noise just the fans" I also sent a Video example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGPBzzxDFfE) and the consultant said, it doesnt apply to you since thats another model and I was thinking  "ITS LITERALLY THE SAME ISSUE I HAVE HOW CAN YOU SAY IT DOESNT MATTER" ~ anyways so yhe.. thats been my experience so far... and I have absolutely hated it, and I really just want to send this back and want to get a replacement at this point since I've only had this laptop for barely 2 weeks now. I spend over £2k on this and it so far (I just mean the issues, the specs are amazing and everything).

the Specs I have is the 9500,

I7 10th Gen 

16GB Ram

1TB M.2 

GTX 1650TI 

and the 4K touch display.

The XPS 15’s only real non-Apple competitor is the ThinkPad X1 Extreme, which I ended up getting. If anyone is curious, I wrote up a post here explaining why the XPS 15 9500 is a disappointment to me compared to the X1E just from a design/positioning standpoint, even before considering build quality and reliability issues that seem to be affecting all of the XPS 9x00 models to some extent (XPS 13, 15, and 17).

Thank you for sharing this, I will read your post and deicde myself too, for if I should really stick to the Dell XPS or get the ThinkPad instead since I have heard it is a very good laptop and indeed another competitor to Apple

@Karanz  Of course it will depend on what you do during the day and how many hours of the day you spend actively using your laptop, but I definitely would NOT consider the X1E an all-day battery system. I might get 3-4 hours under typical usage. But I also recently got a RAVPower 20,000 mAh power bank that can deliver up to 60W output via USB-C, so that can be used to extend battery life on the go. The X1E works fine on a 60W source for basic productivity tasks. It probably won’t charge the battery very fast if you’re using the system while the power bank is connected, so you shouldn’t wait until the battery is nearly dead to connect it, but it will at least keep the battery from draining. And if you connect the power bank while the laptop is off or asleep (in your backpack, for example) a 60W source is enough to charge the battery. Here is a link to the power bank. You can find it for less on Amazon if you’re in the US.

@Karanz  Happy to help. Note that since I wrote that, Lenovo released the X1E Gen 3, which includes newer CPUs and GPUs, offers a configuration that does NOT include an NVIDIA GPU if you don’t need/want it, and offers integrated LTE. The battery size still isn’t as large as the XPS 15, and I have to say battery life isn’t great, but that’s just not a priority for me. The port selection, keyboard layout and overall design, and the fact that the NVIDIA GPU has direct control of the display outputs are more important to me.

I finally was able to have the laptop replaced. Jumped through many hoops and kept getting "escalated" 3 or 4 total times. I was offered a return/refund or a replacement, with the caveat that if I took a replacement I would not be able to return later. I did end up taking a replacement, which I somewhat regret granted new models are only going to be about six months away, but after multiple months I just wanted a working device, and do think the XPS a good computer, when it's actually functioning well. My new device is pretty much in perfect shape, there's the slightest bit of trackpad wobble on the bottom right, but it's not noticeable with regular use.

@jphughan Yhe, i saw quite a few reivews of the newer models, thing is battery life is a big issue for me since I'm also a university student but if it can last throughtout the day no problem, thats good for me.

@jphughan Thanks for the help and intel, will have to conduct some research later on lol. 

I have been using my 9500 daily for a while now, about 5-6 weeks, and it has been working great for me.  I dont have the issues that you are having.  I did have some sort of coil whine on my first one (I'm on my third).  So if you still want to own a 9500 I would return it and get another.  What I did though, is once I'm happy with the hardware, I did a complete reinstall of Windows from scratch, wiping the SSD.  I always do this for any new laptops at my workplace (I setup laptops for the company).  This provides the cleanest setup.  I did not care for any extra software that Dell provides, except the Dell Power Manager which we can download from Dell website.  If you really need all the software, you can download the Dell Update application.  It would automatically download all applicable Dell stuff to your laptop.  I use ThrottleStop to help control power output.  So if I am in long meetings or away trips I would drop performance all the way down.  But even then in my usage I could only do about 7 hours tops, so if you need truly all day for school (8+ hours?) it may still be a problem for you.

I agree that X1 Extreme is a great competitor especially in regards to all the display connectivity issue as mentioned already.  I also like that it is a bit lighter / portable than the XPS 9500.  However I fell in love with the 9500 screen's ratio, it is my primary reason as I am often left with just the laptop screen to work with.  Also similar reason the trackpad is wonderful on the road.  If I have the opportunity to dock to a desk I only have one large non-hdr 4K monitor to worry about, so the issue does not affect me much.  And it is beautiful! 

So your mileage may vary.  Good luck!

I'm sorry you had the issue with customer support.  I had an issue with display image retention several years past with a 9Q33 (XPS 12).  There was a big forum about it here, and Dell customer service through the forum and private messages helped me with multiple replacements (brand new ones), and when the issue still persists, they upgraded me with a brand new top of the line 9333.  The 9333 is still working, 6 years later.  I'm not sure if support has gone downhill or not, but I would suggest asking here on the forums maybe they would help you better.

I hope your new 9500 will serve you well.

Regards