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Comment by trzeci | Hacker News Reader

I have "old" one 9550 i7, 4K, 32GB - as a device for this money I wouldn't expect that I will have:

- unaligned Jack socket, so that only one channel plays

- Flickering backlight, where only one rescue is to downgrade BIOS: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3519/t/...

- random freezes: Whole computer hangs, there is no error in Windows log, it's not related to nVidia card, it's not related to load.

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Precision 5510 user here. Basically the "business version" of the same laptop. We bought a batch of them. All were plagued with BSODs that would not write any logs or do any memory dumps. We eventually got the systems stable by putting them in UEFI mode with Secure Boot on (this is not how they came from the factory). Some were picky about NVME drivers, the Samsung drives that came in a lot of them were slightly different from the retail 960s, and the drivers were hidden on some forum post...

We worked with Dell for months, and after we gave them our findings, they released about 5 BIOS updates week after week. The BIOS updates didn't really fix anything though... $3200 we were paying for these things. Very disappointed.

I returned my two XPS 9550 because of build issues. On my first unit there was "coil whine" on the AC adapter (strange noises coming from the AC adapter when I scrolled in Chrome) and the other unit wouldn't wake up from sleep. Don't think I'll buy one again.

Are people actually trying to make the comment invisible..?

The flickering and freezes I thought are well known problems with the XPS15. Have those been finally fixed with the latest updates?

I'm currently running the 9550 with ubuntu 16.04 and can confirm #2 on your list. It's pretty annoying. Bumping the brightness up helps a lot, but when on battery and/or late at night that's a terrible compromise.

It's a bug in the Intel drivers. Windows suffered from the same problem, for what it is worth.

"Suffered" because if you have updated your BIOS Intel has automagically updated their driver, so Windows is good now. Debian testing and Ubuntu 16.10 are also good now. Ubuntu 16.10 is a recent thing, but Debian testing was good well before Windows.

Your problems are therefore caused by:

a. Intel issuing shitty Skylake GPU drivers for something like 12 months. This obviously effected everyone, not just Dell. But Dell released Skylake CPU's before most so they were hit hardest. Apple worked around the problem by simply not updating their Mac Book pro line.

b. Ubuntu not updating 16.04 LTS. The 4.8 Kernel plus bug fixes, plus new Intel X drivers, plus new GPU firmware is what is required.

I've owned a 9550 for about a year now, and it's been a world of pain. There is plenty of blame to share around, but Dell is right down my list. The only thing I blame them for is the shitty Mac Book like keyboard.

Interesting, thanks for the insight there.

I'm not in a rush to upgrade to 16.10, but I'm also not opposed to it in the slightest. Maybe I'll give that a shot over the holidays here. Thanks again, cheers!

I went ahead with a clean install of 16.10, and, coupled with the following firmware update (http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER04078627M/1/XPS_9550_1.2.18....) seems to have resolved the Intel graphics flickering. Thanks a lot for that nudge in the right direction!

This just confirmed my belief of the state of choosing a non Apple computer for work. Even with all the shortcomings and all the fat profit margins, Apple sure does make dependable machines. Now, computers do fail. But, the fact that I can take my Mac into any Apple store and claim warranty easily to get it fixed/replaced without Waiting for weeks in despair makes Apple worthy of getting my money. Would be happy to be proven wrong by some company that provides such quality and after sales service.

Yeah, it kinda sucks, but after doing a bunch of research I still end up with a Macbook (Pro) for my next machine.

There are quite a few decent alternatives that are hundreds of euros cheaper for at least as much 'machine', but Time Machine and the ability to just go to the Apple store if something is wrong (especially with Apple Care) is probably worth that difference to me.

What seals the deal (again, probably, not 100% sure yet) is vendor lock-in, a great touchpad, iOS development, and a whole bunch of miscellaneous little things.

But I will say my next Mac upgrade will not be a happy one, which is a first for me. I hope it doesn't stay this way.

That's why things you buy usually come with warranties.

Time to wait five weeks until it's "repaired", just to have it randomly freeze again all the time.

Yes, you're totally right. Unfortunately I have two obstacles: - This is my device for work, just setting up environment on different PC is problematic, and extra time of waiting for it being repaired. - I bought it in a different country that currently I'm living. Frankly I don't know if I can use local support, guys from DellSweden didn't reply my question yet.

Problem is that, when you spend pretty decent amount of money for a device, you do have an expectation in terms of quality, partially you're paying for that.

Cloning a Windows laptop takes less than an hour, given you have a USB 3.0 hard drive. The imaging tool is part of Windows. Also included in the installer so you can restore on a clean HDD.

This is my experience too, when buying a high-end laptop, I expect it to just work. If my time was worth dealing with shitty QA, I'd buy a low end laptop.

That high-end / low-end thing is mostly a marketing BS invented to maximize manufacturer’s profits. Works OK in the sense their profit is fine, but if you’re a consumer, you better rely on the specs only and ignore the marketing.

Or you could buy Apple and deal with all the inherent drawbacks but enjoy how it usually just works. And compared to Windows or Linux laptops it does mostly just work.

Of course the list of drawbacks gets longer and longer…

Specs dont matter much anymore. Any dual core laptop can do what most people need.

What matters is the build quality, QA, battery life, screen, heat dissipation. All things you cant infer solely based on specs.

On modern laptops, build quality and QA are more or less OK (or “equally bad” if you’re a pessimist). Because warranty returns are expensive, and also because competition.

If you buy a laptop to watch youtube and read e-mails, sure, any dual core will do, but for a professional, performance matters. Speaking of performance, I wouldn’t buy this dell because the CPU has no L4 cache. Some tasks, like compiling C++, benefit a lot from that 64-128 MB on-chip DRAM found in some previous-generation CPUs.

Specs still matter. Battery life is measured in hours; screens are measured in pixels, inches and percentage of Adobe RGB.

This new firmware update fixed the flickering for me: http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER04078627M/1/XPS_9550_1.2.18....

Might be worth a try?

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