My Dell XPS 15 UHD experience

Written by elwood

After I’ve spent a couple of weeks tuning this laptop I can make some notes about troubles that you can have if you deal with this laptop model.

Initially there was a Windows 10 Home Single Language edition installed in UEFI boot mode. I wanted to apply dual-boot setup (the second system I want was Ubuntu 16.04). So, I needed to reinstall Windows in Legacy boot mode and then add the second system.

Here is the list of issues I have faced with.

1. Display flickering. A Very common issue. After some googling I reverted my BIOS firmware to older version, 1.0.0 (instead of initial 1.0.12). This fixed the bug. (UPDATE: in 1.2.18 version this bug has been fixed again, thank Godness!)

2. Laptop doesn’t wake up from sleep when charging cable is plugged in. Fixed as previous.

3. Preinstalled Windows is full of shitty software and works very slowly. The only way I have found was reinstalling it from scratch. Fortunately, the Windows was smart and I had no troubles with reactivation. All of these things worked automatically.

4. Random BSODs caused incorrect standard Windows SSD driver. Look at this and this. Fixed by manual installing SSD driver from samsung web-site.

5. Sound system leaves much to be desired. That’s all I could say about that.

6. The camera is placed under the screen and it is very uncomfortable. Microphone is placed in front of keyboard. So your interlocutor will hear the rustle of your belly. Keyboard layout is like Macs, and (IMHO) it is not the best choice (for programming, for example).

7. Not all the programs can work in high DPI mode. But the whole situation with this was much better than I supposed !

Nevertheless, for me the 4K screen with great view angles compensates all suffering that I had tuning this laptop. And I’m very happy to know that my eyesight will not deteriorate because of a bad screen anymore.

Next time I will write about tuning the Ubuntu with modern awesome wm on 4K. Stay tuned !