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I've had a number of these Dells over the years, and most have been great. This one developed a problem with the wifi system that I think must be in the HW.

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WiFi failure is common on laptops.

You can often easily replace the internal WiFi card - Intel cards were usually the best bet in my experience (especially on Linux - sometimes best to replace when you buy laptop if Linux is your main OS). I have done quite a few replacements for friends.

if just the Bluetooth craps out and you have a spare USB-A port then you can get cheap Bluetooth dongles.

Is WiFi failure something that happens? I've never seen one. I did upgrade a few cards (in one to go from B to G, in other from N to AC), and I replaced a few broadcom cards with intel ones to get better Linux support, but I don't think I ever saw a broken card.

I think the theory is that cards go out of spec and start connecting less reliably. I replaced a friend’s WiFi card the other day when they were about to throw the laptop out because connectivity was poor (Windows, and it wasn’t a driver issue). Obviously you also need a reliable access-point (that’s a much more difficult topic to address!). And don’t forget some secondary means to connect to laptop to the internet or you can’t download the driver!

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