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> Nowadays, the base of the laptop has bowed, causing the trackpad to unglue and jut out at an angle.

I don't think that's coming from the laptop sagging. They're pretty rigid. I think your battery has swollen.

But fret not, it's "factory-replaceable".

There's another modern trend with what appears to be no justification.

I suspect you are absolutely right!

It's really not hard to replace the battery yourself, no need to send it back to factory.

But you do have the option if you don't want to do it yourself nor go to a repair shop

I had the exact same issue (base of the laptop bowing because the battery is swollen, the trackpad was almost coming out) : it's actually pretty straightforward to replace the battery yourself.

Unscrew something like 8 standard screw, replace the battery, rescrew.

If you don't have any tools at home and are not sure what battery to buy : https://eustore.ifixit.com/products/dell-xps-15-9550-and-551...

> the push a while back to rebrand laptops as "notebooks" - because many laptops (esp Dell XPS) are not built with a strong enough backbone to keep their own weight from sagging in the middle, and because they get hot enough to cause damage to legs.

This wasn't a rebranding, it was a category of laptop. Cheap, small, and light, designed for people who intended to offload many local functions to the cloud. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook

Faded away as a term once this became the default thing to do.

Afraid Netbook and Notebook are two very different categories.

Had a couple of netbooks in my time, they were pretty good for what they were.

But no, I'm talking about full-blown 15-17 inch laptops that were so poorly built that if you tried to rest them on your lap, the trackpad would stop working, or keys on the keyboard would randomly press, and repeated lap-use would make it worse over time.

Sorry, I'd completely missed that you wrote "notebook"!

Dells were the only laptops I ever encountered that you could bend. It’s amazing anyone other then starving college kids ever used them.

I have Thinkpad (x230 iirc) that reliably crashes if you lift it up from one side only.

My X240 started to crash a year ago when i lift it up from left side only, right side is ok

If was certainly the norm for laptops in the €500-700 range from the late 00s to at least a few years ago. Happened to the Acer laptop I used in my college days

Older Siemens-Fujitsu ones did, too. Consumer grade ones, so. The main reason I went to the "professional" ones over a decade ago. Hell, who doesn't carry around his open laptop on one corner from time to time?

> I know what laptop I'm getting next. And it won't be a dell.

Tell me about these greener pastures!

I think I'm gonna go for one of these: https://frame.work

Pretty unproven pastures, but have heard nothing but good reports. Worst thing I've seen said is the audio bass was a bit underwhelming!