REVIEWS / LAPTOPS / OWNER INSIGHTS
🦉 WE READ 744 OWNER COMMENTS
Dell XPS: what owners actually say
Owners love the screen and Linux support but coil whine, touchpad failures, and thermal throttling are persistent multi-generation problems
What owners complain about
- Coil whine COMMON
Multiple 9360 owners report audible coil whine under load — one returned the laptop because it was audible over music playing from the laptop's own speakers. Another owner reports it alongside thermal and keyboard issues on the same model.
- Touchpad failures COMMON
Owners describe the touchpad as 'garbage compared to MBP,' with play/rattle, jittery scrolling, and unreliable right-clicks. One owner sent a 2016 XPS 13 in for repair three times before giving up entirely and switching to a trackball.
- Thermal throttling SOME
An XPS 13 9360 owner reports the i7 hits 100°C under light load, triggering CPU throttling — attributed to poor heatsink design.
- BIOS update bricking boot times FEW
After the 1.6.x BIOS update on a 9370, POST takes multiple minutes on every boot; the first boot after update took nearly 15 minutes. Downgrading, factory resets, and firmware reinstalls did not resolve it.
- Build quality vs. expectations SOME
A long-time Thinkpad user switched for the screen but reports 'tons of issues around build quality and support.' An IT professional says recent XPS units given to execs were 'pretty bad' and Latitudes held up better.
What owners love
- Screen quality
The display is repeatedly cited as the reason people bought the laptop — 'the screen was just so pretty' drew a Thinkpad loyalist away. The 4K option is praised for readability.
- Linux out of the box
Dell has shipped XPS 13 with Ubuntu pre-installed for over a decade. Owners report Linux works well with easily-findable tweaks, and the hardware is identical to the Windows version so manual installs work fine.
- Weight and portability
The XPS 13 comes in at 2.7 lbs / 1.23 kg — owners note it's lighter than a MacBook Air while pricing closer to MBP territory in some markets.
- Price advantage vs. Apple
German pricing cited shows XPS 13 Ubuntu at 1599€ vs. MBA at 2089€ and MBP at 2489€ for comparable specs, making it a value play in Europe.
Surprising patterns
- The coil whine on the 9360 was severe enough to drive returns, but the successor 9370 apparently resolved it — suggesting Dell acknowledged the issue silently rather than publicly.
- An IT professional found Dell Latitudes — the cheaper business line — more durable than XPS, despite XPS being positioned as the premium flagship.
- A keyboard firmware bug causes the 'w' key to register as stuck even when physically released — a niche but repeated complaint from one owner who observed it across multiple units.
WHO SHOULD SKIP IT
Anyone who needs a reliable touchpad, a cool-running machine under sustained load, or swappable RAM/SSD — and IT buyers may find Latitudes better built for the same money.
Synthesised from 744 real owner comments across 5 platforms. Every point is grounded in the comments — no marketing, no AI guessing. How we do it →