Announcing the Tom’s Guide Dell XPS Q&A and Laptop Giveaway!

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jsimenhoff

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Feb 28, 2016
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We collected the following question from our online raffle:
Will I be able to install additional SSD for Dell XPS 13? I'm planning to use Dell XPS 13 for music production. Some of the laptops have problems - they can't sound good even with headphones (you need an additional amp to make headphones sounds good). How about Dell XPS 13? Will it be good for my purpose?
 

droizs

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Feb 28, 2017
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Hi!
Why did Dell stop selling their laptops in Portugal? I really wanted to buy the new XPS 2-in-1 but unfortunately, I can't do it :(
 
I understand the need for Dell to push out newer and superior products, but where is the support for your legacy products? I have a Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505 laptop running Windows XP. It did everything I ever needed it to do (finances mostly), but there was no official support for Windows 7 (or any OS beyond that). So when Microsoft ended support for Windows XP, I either needed to accept the security risk or discard my (fully functional) system.

That system and what I would use it for, could easily run Windows 10, but now, it sits in a drawer, gathering dust, because there is no official support from Dell. You know. I get it. Support teams for all of your legacy products would probably run into the billions of dollars, but fewer products vs. better support would likely retain more loyal customers.

So aside from the obvious "Too many platforms to support" response, why does Dell (and pretty much every laptop manufacturer) abandon those of us who purchase your products?

-Wolf sends
 

Gemini Dude

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Everytime I see a new Laptop model, one thing comes to mind in an era of shorter and shorter life cycles of every new design and the rapid burst of newer technologies that come out almost every month. A Laptop is our computing gateway, and some phones are almost inching closer to full machine configurations. To still have a relevant Laptop hardware, I always imagine if designers are factoring in the ability to incorporate Hyperconverged stacks and minimalistic designs when it comes to chargers with long/think adaptors into the laptop models, where little can do more. Trying to keep my question short. I m curious about learning what are the key factors that go into designing the next generation of a laptop model @Dell besides aesthetics?
 

Lutfij

Splendid
Moderator
I've grown to appreciate that the XPS range not only caters to the die hard enthusiast in the market but to professional content creators who want something less than a Mac but more than a standard laptop. In fact they are buying more into the experience. My question is, would you guys see any need to foray into the market where XPS becomes a stand alone brand with a gaming division(or a branching therein) and have a lineup of displays that are meant for that crowd alone.

A lot of among us tend to buy Dell's Ultrasharp monitors for those who are both a gamer and content creators, is there anything in the pipeline for a gaming centric monitor from Dell+XPS?
 

DonnieOliphant

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We can’t usually discuss future products, but we are always considering all possibilities when it comes to technologies, commodities and features that enable better experiences for our customers. We did announce earlier this week that we will be offering Ryzen processors in select desktops and AIOs later this year.
 

DonnieOliphant

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Wise choice!  I personally carry the FHD model myself for the added battery life and I chose a non-touch variant which also saves two tenths of a pound in carry weight.  The 1080 resolution is the perfect resolution for a 13-inch display (in my opinion). 
 
The XPS 13 is a revolutionary product that required extensive integration.  The memory is not upgradeable, but the SSD is.  My team just checked our UK offerings and there is a new XPS 13 i5 / 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD config for £1,149.
 

DonnieOliphant

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It sounds like you are a progressive notebook user!  Over the last couple of decades, we’ve seen laptop keyboard “key stroke” or “key travel” go from full (typewriter-like) 3.5mm down to 0.5mm on some of the more aggressive designs in the industry.  Our Latitude keyboards are award-winning and praised broadly throughout the industry and amongst our user base. We use longer-travel “ISO-compliant” keyboards in most Latitude products (typically 2.5mm travel), but this has a direct correlation to how aggressive we can be on the system’s overall thickness.  XPS has landed at the edge of what we believe to be mainstream, user-friendly travel at 1.3mm. 

We have done extensive usability studies on this topic over the last 25 years and have achieved what we believe is the best optimization of user feel/comfort and typing accuracy at 1.3mm.  We recently tried to move to 1.2mm travel on a product, but the usability testing didn’t meet expectations, so we reverted back to 1.3mm.  How we support and attach the keyboard in the system also contributes to the “mushiness” you refer to.  We strive to over-engineer our products in key customer interface areas (like the keyboard) to ensure a great experience over the life of the product – whether that’s a year or five years, we want the experience to be best-in-class.
 
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