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Buy a laptop so expensive and then facing these serious issues is totally devastating.

You are a true hero for speaking up about the problems even though it probably means you won't get any review units from Dell anymore. Thank you sir.

The difference between you and other reviewers is that most reviewers only do a first-impression, and never follow up with what it's like to actually use it. One of those reviews helps sell laptops, the other one helps actual users find the best laptop for them.

Absolutely love how Josh tests laptops PROPERLY as a real world user.

It's sad that Dell will likely never send him a laptop again, considering the XPS 9310 was like, his favorite laptop for a while. Hope Dell takes the criticism well (and improves)

We need more tech youtubers like you who aren't afraid of highlighting serious issues down the line with new products. I was almost considering getting an XPS 13 Plus after seeing other youtuber's reviews, but now I am reconsidering. Thanks for this video

Thank you for making this video. Not many KZfaqrs call out companies for their wrong practices. Please continue making such videos!

Despite my distaste to MacOS, I went to the MacBook Pro this year after years and years of disappointing experiences with Windows laptop makers.

I initially wanted to get one but after reading about so many issues with the XPS 13 Plus, I changed my mind. Hopefully Dell would fix all those bugs ASAP bcuz I would still love to get one.

Awesome video! Waiting on my Lenovo Yoga 7 Gen 7 with a Ryzen 7 (a lot of 7's!) to come in about a month. Picking a laptop these days is a minefield, so you're doing a great job helping us navigate it all.

You are one of the best few laptop reviewers out there. Standing out and telling the truth is always appreciated. Most people cant' be fooled anymore with fake sponsored reviews. You can spot them from a mile away. Keeping the flaws for yourself in order to keep receive units helps no one, except of course the manufacturers. Dell pull it together and should keep sending you units in order to make you change your mind. Keep up the good work!!!

Absolutely brilliant, brilliant review. These scammy companies that sell broken products completely deserve to be exposed.

Thank you for your courageousness in speaking the truth about this. I was considering this computer but now its out of the running. Thank you Josh! You saved me thousands of dollars.

This was great, thank you for all the time you put into it.

Literally have this in my cart right now. You couldn't have released this at a better time. Thanks for saving me a major headache!

Actually, you can switch the storage mode from RAID to AHCI in BIOS and install Windows without any additional drivers.

"Not All Heroes Wear Capes". Thanks for bringing this issue to light. Now I'm confident I'm going to cross this out of my options list (I'm leaning towards the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro right now) Hope you do more "After the hype" content for Top End Ultrabooks!

I smashed that like button and subscribed. I just feel better having you on my side. Thankfully, I'm not dealing with this but it's because I just saw this excellent and informative video. I swear this laptop is right now in my Dell cart but I'm not going through with the purchase. Dell needs a few more months to sort all this out. Anyway, thanks a bunch for saving me the headache.

Thanks for your views and expertise, really helpful. Have 3 sons with Dell laptops and 2 of them are getting issues in different ways. I appreciate the time and effort that goes into this review, thanks

Appreciate your additional words on this product. Would be interesting to see what happens if you run Dell's driver updater and see if the problems re-surface. Also, because you didn't mention it, you can switch the system drive out of RAID mode to not need the additional storage driver when re-loading Windows.

I am honestly not surprised, ever since they released the XPS 13 and 15 redesigns in 2015, their quality has been taking a nosedive ever since. Apple, Microsoft and other brands from Taiwan and America have better quality control than Dell.

Wow. I feel like I don’t ever see reviewers ever talk about this kind of stuff. Thanks so much for putting the word out there when no one else will. Well done.

Thank you for doing this follow-up review! I almost purchased this laptop until I saw your comment about about the throttling issues so I waited for this video to come out. I’m so glad I waited. I love the look of the form factor but I don’t have the patience to deal with doing a clean Windows install so I will look into other laptops to buy now. Thanks for this honest review, Josh! I enjoy all your videos!

Your honesty is essential. If you had to go through this process to fix your laptop, what would I, a novice, have been able to do. I have a heavy workload ahead and I wouldn’t have had the time or computer knowledge to get through it. I have a quote for this laptop in my inbox. Will definitely not be purchasing this laptop. You have literally saved my sanity by alerting me about this issue.

Were the problems with this laptop resolved in some software update? Im looking to buy it but after this video im concerned

I’ve been following this channel for quite some time but never got around to subscribing until now. Thank you Josh for going beyond the initial review and telling us how it feels to use in long term! 🙌🏽👏🏽

Thanks Josh for bringing this to our attention. Actually, I've had the same thing happen on my 2-week-old Lenovo Flex 5 7th Gen (Flex 570 AMD in Japan). It takes a full restart to get the videos playing again, so it could be a Windows 11 thing. After contacting Lenovo, I was instructed to do a 10-second power off, restart, power off, restart procedure that seems to have fixed it for now. I guess time will tell. Keep up the good work!

I have tons of issues with an older model of xps 13 and dealing with their warranty department was ridiculous. All they wanted to do was blame everything on me when the issue was clearly a design fault, covered by warranty and well within the warranty period. I expected much better considering how much I spent on tricking out the specs. The only thing they saved was a few bucks but lost any potential purchases by me for the rest of my life.

Always love the honest review josh 👍

Thank you for this, Dell's quality control is an absolute nightmare and more people need to know it. Got an XPS 15 in 2019 with a 4 year warranty, and I've had to get 4 system exchanges to a brand new one, and 10-15 replaced parts total. All before getting past the third year of the warranty. Always breaks within months each time it gets fixed. One time after a motherboard replacement, they sent it back from the factory with a broken fan controller that was always on full blast straight out of the box, this immediately showed up on the bios diagnostic, *They did not even check the bios diagnostic before sending it back*, they do not have the most basic quality control measures.

Outstanding review and thanks for sharing your experience

I love the XPS design, but I knew this would be riddled with issues as with my previous XPS. I'm using the new MacBook air and couldn't be happier.

Hi Josh, thank you for this helpful video. I have this problem with my Dell XPS 13 Plus (32 gig RAM, no OLED display, and 1260P). The problem (throttling to 0.4Ghz) only occurs when using the internal speakers. No issues when using Bluetooth speakers. I have reported this problem to Dell support, and after completing all the steps they suggested, the problem still persists. They will escalate this problem to the engineers, but honestly, I don't trust that they will find a solution. I have also realized that the problem disappears by using ThrottleStop 6.5 and activating SeepShift to 32 (no disable turbo option), and the overall performance is greatly improved. The clock is always at full speed when using A/C. I have not tested this solution when using the battery, but I would need to adapt the battery profile to reduce battery consumption. In any case, I will provide more info from my side or from Dell's engineers. Thank you for your channel.

Great video, I had an XPS 13" a couple years ago, same issues you're explaining. Even my Asus M16 (fresh install of windows) has a glitch where the iGPU on the 12900H downclocks itself (not due to heat). So I'll see 70% usage while watching KZfaq and have to restart to fix it. This usually happens after the laptop has been in sleep mode, or I've used it on battery and then plug it back in, but it's more random than anything else.

Thank you so much for the warning and standing-up! I benefit from it

My Dell XPS 9310 was also my worst laptop purchase of my life. Never again. I'm switching to Mac soon. I have never hated a laptop so much. The performance of this relatively new laptop is so damn bad. Software, hardware, performance, just so many issues.

Thank you for bringing up this every day issue that most users will actually experience, imangine buying a laptop at this price running windows native and this happens. id expect this maybe from a low end 1k budget laptop but not a top of the line windows ultra book considering its oriented towards bussiness. Running a 2016 macbook pro 15 my self prenatally with windows 10 boot camp and its been flawless

Hey Josh, Thanks for your "After the Hype" Videos. And a 2nd Thanks for bringing these so many issues with This wonderfully designed machine. I was leaning towards this -vs- the MacBook Air m1 (or maybe m2) but now atleast I am dead sure it is NOT going to be Dell. Dell should have a dedicated media+review team to watch such videos like yours here so that they can put back some sane sense and logical reasoning back to their QC/QA teams who (I dunno) maybe test the efficiency of these machines doing what? Playing Solitaire Card game and MSpaint and Notepad stuff? Gosh, I really want your channel to hit 200,000 subscribers with such amazing videos and NoNonSense, StraightToTheDagger reviews. I am a Data Analyst (working extensively on Microsoft MSSQL Database along with BizIntelligence tools like Tableau and Heavy Excel too). I am glad you bring this up on the plate As a stern warning else it was all moneyDownTheDrain for so many chaps like us. And Hey, Say my Namaste 🙏 to your Lovely Mom. One last thing... Have you also compared the MBA M2 vs the MBP M2 as well? Do take very good care of yourself Gentleman. 🤜🤛 Cheers and e-peace...

Made me a subscriber We need more follow-up honest reviews living with these machines

Haha this has a similar tone to the first few mins of my upcoming Dell G15 review, I guess it runs in the Dell family 🤔

I bought a regular dell xps 13 back in 2020 and had to return it. THREE TIMES. Quality control for consumers at Dell is abhorrent, and I'm never seeing myself buying another Dell product in the future, no matter the fancy looks and reviews.

thanks for the heads-up. I'm looking at one of these for my next machine (replacing a Book 2). I actually don't mind doing Windows re-installs so if that fixes the issue, I am okay with it. Are the issues you faced back between when you made this video and now?

Hi Josh, I wish I had also waited to see QC issues get resolved before diving into this device. The issues I have had so far is that the right side of the trackpad started clicking much louder than the normal sound. Also, I can no longer use enhanced audio since updating windows. Would you mind sharing a guide on how to do a fresh install on this machine? I'd like to give it a try to see if audio can be fixed. Trackpad issues have subsided when downgrading my BIOS to an older version.

Thank you for the video! I recently purchased a new laptop and I seriously considered the Dell xps plus. This confirms that my choice to buy a thinkpad was a good idea.

It seems I lucked out when I bought my XPS 13 9343 back in 2015. It's still going today without issues, though it is showing its age now. It feels like over the last several years I've only seen bad and worse when it comes to Dell quality control.

Thank you for this. I really thought I was alone in having a really bad experience with Dell's XPS laptops. My last Dell was an XPS 9510. I had pretty similar driver issues. The keyboard deck wasn't flush with the side of the frame, and the edges were sharp enough to papercut me just from handling and I had to sand them down. Reinstalling windows cleanly didn't fix the driver issues I had, so I had to use Dell's windows image for it (ugh). On the third try over the course of months my laptop finally won't crash when plugged in with the lid closed. It will still crash with certain USB ethernet adapters. Audio drivers and maxxaudio are complete garbage and can't be removed. Horrid experience trying to use an audio interface (and disabling microphone noise reduction on every individual input) until it was fixed recently. This thing came out more than a year ago and it's still this bad. I'm still using it, but Dell has really soured how I feel about their long term support and hardware quality for sure.

Long term reviews are very important. Thanks.

Thanks for always saying the truth Josh. Others never have the courage to say truth in fear of making the companies unhappy.

2mins into the review and it is already so helpful, thanks for this Josh! Unlike other reviewers, this long term video review is helping me make a better informed decision. Edit: I am thinking of this or the M2 Air, when you mention it in this video I can't wait to see your comparison come out!

My XPS 15 from 2017 had the same problems. All fixed by a clean install. Works still today

I respect you for making this video, Josh. Thank you.

Thanks for being honest, Josh! That’s why I love your channel. Now I realize it’s a true gem in the world of selfish KZfaq laptop reviewers who praise literally every laptop just to get review units for free.

Dell should’ve spent the money they did unnecessarily creating the XPS 13 Plus on better QC for existing models. The 9300 was a great refresh to bring it into the 2020s, just stick with that design for 4 years. We didn’t need the 13 Plus, spend that money on making the 13 perfect. They need all the help they can get anyway, anyone who can use macOS is gonna go Apple Silicon for proper battery life and thermals, or AMD if they need Windows. It’s a more competitive market these past couple years, they need substance and reliability beyond good design.

@justJosh - a few month on, how is the XPS 13 going after your refresh?

I’m glad you posted this video, had a lot of problems with my xps from a few years ago, especially the trackpad issue. I’ll probably never touch a Dell laptop ever again which is a shame because they make such good looking devices

DISPLAY FALLING OUT (Update): Hey, I went into Best Buy yesterday (Wednesday, 08-17-2022) and the second thing I did after trying out the keyboard/trackpad, was close the unit to hold and feel the laptop. When I opened up the laptop, the display completely fell out of the enclosure. Unless this was the same Best Buy, this happened to another display unit as well.

This is such a good, honest review. I was considering which laptop to buy last year and I’m so glad I never went with Dell.. honestly it’s almost offensive to have to deal with these many issues after spending over 1k on a laptop

Truly, Josh, you are the man. Great to have you posting more regularly again and kicking ass!

Look, I'm probably never going to get a review unit from Dell after this video! That's a really bold statement, Josh! This will make your mother and the entire community very happy!❤

It doesn't have enough cooling capacity to house Intel alder flame

Something to add: Dell likes to set their SATA configuration to RAID instead of the normal AHCI/NVMe Switching it to AHCI should allow you to reinstall without needing the Intel Rapid Storage driver

I have this exact same issue. Thank you so much for bringing light to this. It is extremely frustrating after paying nearly $3000 to have these basic issues that my 4 year old laptop could handle. Dell doesn't seem to have a fix for this yet; What I don't know is if it's worth getting a replacement unit - does it solve the issue? The clean install could be a solution but would take days of work (to backup, reinstall)...

So happy you posted this, I am going for the Lenovo P14 Gen 4!

Josh is not happy guys I love Josh

hats off, Josh 🙌🏻

Thank you so much for your honesty Josh. I subscribed to you for that reason alone!

I like your honesty, which is not provided by many other reviewers on KZfaq

I've had nothing but QC issues with Dell in the last six months. Especially with the Latitudes with end users, the last only running for 48 hours and the drive died because it was put in crooked from factory. Out of 200 units we've had 40 have the motherboard go out.

I commented on that XPS 13 Plus -v- MB Air M2 video that choosing the XPS was an eyebrow raising conclusion. I was onside if the keyboard on the Mac was not objectively working for you, but choosing the XPS was not something I expected. The reason was my own research suggested that the XPS 13 Plus was a hot mess on the internet. Where as the MB M2 256GB drive issue was a storm in a tea cup, lots of buyers were having bad times with the XPS; real and present. In all the M2 reviews on YT everyone was making much of the SSD, yet the XPS 13 Plus reviews never mentioned the many known issues. I suspected that the YT cabal was at it again and it is nice to see this mentioned now. People can still buy the XPS 13 Plus, but these QC problems are worth being told about. So my suggestion is that do not buy the XPS until the problems are resolved, and let us be honest, W11 (MS) has still been unable to optimise the little cores in the 12th-gen, so all in all, it may be worth giving this gen a wide-berth. In fact, I bought a SP8 (11th-gen) instead of the 12th gen mess for a big discount (£400 off new).

Hi Josh, this video caught my eye because I just finally pulled the trigger on a new machine (long overdue) and this is coming in two days. Question for you, would it be sufficient to uninstall the Dell bloatware, or does the solution have to be a fresh Windows install? I have the technical ability to do that should it be necessary, but really don't want to, nor should I have to for such an expensive new machine. My purchase was a toss up between this and the new macbook air, but I didn't want to switch to a new OS.

Glad I saw this coming and went with a Mac instead for university. I've heard a lot of reports online that even if you actually are within warranty, the process can take weeks if they honor it at all. Although your issues seem to be mostly software related, which Dell shouldn't have messed up in the first place.

Not a Dell (never had one, mostly ThinkPads and for past year an EliteBooks) user but most likely these are software/drivers realted with Windows 10/11, which may be the end culprit. The speaker may be the hardware issue easily. Dell should do QC on their drivers/Windows compatibility before releasing it via their website on Windows update.

A few years ago, my office purchase a Dell AIO desktop PC. Thousands of units. After several days and weeks after the installation was completed by the vendor, around 30 units (as far as I know) was dead. It was unusable. They had to replace the unit with the new one. Many complaints about the on board webcam and mic not working. Some even come with a dead hard drive and loose USB port. And the damn PC is painfully slow. To the point where you can’t do almost anything with it. I won’t buy anything Dell.

Thanks for the video ! Real quick. The video playback issue was specific to your XPS13+ or is generic issue with all XPS just like battery performance ? I am asking this question because I am so frustrated with my Mac pro , am thinking about switching to Dell

I have a Dell XPS 17 2021. I love this laptop, but I bought two and returned one. The first one had issues, and the packages on the INSIDE was dirty. Now I have backlight issues, and random restarts. These laptops will turn on and shutdown randomly when closed and in your backpack. Dell has good support, but their repairs don't address the issues, and the quality control is absolute trash. I'm so glad you said something because Dell does not deserve their reputation on reliability they seem to have. I have had the most issues with Dells over the last 8 years. More than any other brand.

Been watching your reviews for a while now. The consistency I've noticed is that Dell always has issues with something... The last issue I remember was their mechanical trackpad was very unreliable. And the overheating of their laptop models is unacceptable. I will never buy a Dell.

Most of these issues look like software issues, could be hardware issues too, but could be fun if you can install Linux and see how it performs.

Thank you for this video. I bought an XPS 13 9360 in early 2017, as I planned to use it for class. I ended up only using it for a little over a year (2 semesters) before I stopped using it in early 2019. In that time, I had the bottom cover replaced due to extremely poor fit & finish with the keyboard deck (the replacement still left a sharp edge, I think the deck was too far out), a loose screw/serial number cover that would shift with every step (factory worker forgot to peel off the adhesive backing to adhere the cover to the inside of the cover), a factory install of W10 that nuked itself after I tried to update it, and there was a big enough gap between the display and bezel where crud would embed itself. That’s without mentioning the issues that plague all 9360’s (coil whine, speaker hiss, intermittent USB-C, all that jazz). Then 2020 hit, and I needed a laptop to use. Mid 2021, I started using the 13 again. 2 weeks later, the screen fails and the bottom half now only displays pink, rendering the laptop unusable unless I connect to an external display. After only 1y1m2w of use + 2y of sitting on my shelf, dead in the water. I was hoping to use it for 5+ years. What was even more confusing was everywhere I saw, the media praised Dell’s reliability and repairability. Meanwhile, the 13’s 1080p non-touch screen was only being sold by sketchy websites for $300+ USD, and I could not find a service manual on Dell’s website. It’s a shame their latest models still have similar quality control issues, laptops shouldn’t be this disposable.

One of the best and honest laptop reviews I have seen in a while, keep up the good work....🙌🙂

This would never happen with a MacBook Pro. Dell QC really need to improve

To viewers watching this video, I just got the Dell XPS 13 Plus yesterday with display gap issues, a dead pixel, fans scraping against the bottom chassis, a high-pitched coil whine (to the point of hurting my ears), graphics driver glitches, and speaker popping. This is after the same exact Windows UFD reinstall that Josh did. If you think the reinstall of Windows could fix most of the software bugs, think again! For me, it did not work, and hardware quality control is still a problem. My recommendation is to avoid this laptop at all costs.

Hi josh, i just purchased my xps 13 plus and im already having these audio issues. I am also having random trackpad issues aswell at times due to the trackpad being extremely sensitive. I am within the warranty but i do not want to have to deal with the pain of a full reinstall of windows as i do not even know how to do one. Should i return it and purchase something more suitable like a macbook air m2 that is well revered among all tech reviewers and seems to not have any quality control issues?

You are so pure heart man i am glad that i have subscribed honest man channel

Truth hurts, right dell? Well done Josh for being honest with your viewers. I salute you 👏

I had a Dell one time several years ago with several issues. I wiped it and didn't use any drivers or anything from Dell and it worked better too. Doesn't seem like anything new, Dell is Dell

Hi, how has the windows reinstall hold up to fixing the video lagging issues? Is it still happening? Idk if I'ma keep this.

Great video thanks so much was about to drop alot of money on this laptop and glad I found your video

Windows laptop makers and Intel should calm down and understand that they haven't attained Apple's level of mastery in 'thin & light' and 'fast' laptops. Instead they should just choose between them or find a happy medium. Also, this new design would still be great if the laptop were a bit thicker.

It's not a surprise at all, Dell is a disaster, notably the XPS series. I don't know a single person, in the laboratory where I work, who doesn't have a problem with their XPS 13 or 15. Mine has a 8th gen i7 and it's impressive how hot it gets when browsing or watching a youtube video. Moreover, the trackpad doesn't work anymore and Intel Support Assistant doesn't work properly neither, since several months it can't find any driver or display any information about the PC. My girlfriend's XPS 13 7th gen i7 has also problems with heating and with external devices. I wouldn't recommend buying a Dell XPS to anyone, they're an absolutely catastrophe.

A rare gem on KZfaq. Hadn't known you, now you have one more subscriber! :D

This is why I've subscribed to Just Josh. Your video are the best

It's weird to see your last review (MacBook Air M2) end with basically saying "It's great, but I"m going to stick with my Dell XPS 13+ 9320" and then follow it up with the XPS 13+ long term review that starts with "I am NOT happy!" That was literally the first thing that came to mind 10 seconds into this video. Guess I'll watch the rest for the details.

Sometimes looks kill. Definitely the most aesthetically pleasing laptop to behold with its futuristic and compact design. Too bad it is a furnace. Thanks for the vid because I really wanted this laptop. My OMEN laptop is running like a champ. That is all that matters!

Thanks for this. Helped with my buying decision.

Hi, my XPS 13 Plus overheats very quickly, just like you said. Even when I'm just web browsing, my trackpad sometimes does a double touch. Some people recommended turning off Turbo Boost in the BIOS. I tried it, and it helped with the heat and eliminated the high-speed fan, but I'm not sure if it's good for the laptop."

Respect! Salute for calling a spade a spade. Dell has been, for some time now, relying more on its brand value than on the quality of its products. To be honest Lenovo has been making much better (read reliable) products than Dell. Now, I have to share this video with the Dell fanboys. Thanks for making this video.

Appreciate your honesty. Really wish there was a windows laptop on par with the ARM MBPs.

Awesome work dude!!!

Hello Josh! Thank you for this video. Problem you have described happened to me years ago with my Dell Inspiron. I fixed it by deleting dell's pre-installed application. I don't remember which one exactly caused the problem but I clearly remember that it wasn't a driver.