Dell XPS9350-5340SLV 13.3 Inch QHD+ Touchscreen Laptop (6th Generation Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) Microsoft Signature Edition

Pros:* Portability. It's not quite as small or light as 11.6-inch laptops, but it's amazingly close for having a 13.3-inch display.* Great build quality. It feels sturdy and has a comfortable palm rest. The touch models in particular have a smooth, stable screen casing.* Great battery life. The QHD+ and 256GB SSD options do come with a battery life penalty, but even with both, this laptop should be able to last you a day of classes or travel between charges on low-brightness non-gaming use.* Intel graphics are good enough now that almost all games should be playable (at low settings). I personally prefer Intel graphics for their low power draw and great driver support in both Windows and Linux.* Amazon's the best place to buy this laptop. I bought the i7/8GB/QHD model in December 2015 for $1300. You can't find prices that good from Dell or Microsoft. I have my doubts whether the i5->i7 upgrade is especially significant, but when I bought it, both models had roughly the same price.* This is the Microsoft Signature Edition, which means you can use it out-of-the-box without worrying about bloatware. Most Windows 10 users probably won't need to reinstall the OS.* The QHD+ display looks great. The text is very crisp (for most programs), colors look great, I've had no brightness problems, and touch works fine.* USB-C is a great port for the future. Unlike the 2015 Macbook, you're not stuck with just USB-C. It also has standard USB-A ports, an SD slot, and a separate charging port.Cons:* Wireless card. All current models include the Broadcom 4350 (DW 1820A), which doesn't seem as great in performance or driver support as the Intel Wireless cards. Even with the latest updates (as of December 2015), its Windows 10 driver still has some issues. Thankfully, it's not too difficult to change wireless cards as long as you have the correct precision screwdriver and a prying tool. I replaced mine with a Intel 7265 IEEE 802.11ac Bluetooth 4.0 - Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Combo Adapter for Desktop Computer/Notebook 7265.NGWG.W. The upcoming Iris Pro model might use a different wireless card.* While Skylake video and chipset drivers work fine, they're still new, so make sure you install the latest updates for best results.* The BIOS/firmware at launch had some problems that were fixed with updates. Make sure you install BIOS updates as soon as you set up the laptop.* This is not a gaming laptop. If your primary intention is to play games at high quality and framerates, either use a desktop or buy a different laptop that focuses more on those features. The Iris Pro model will be a much better with games, but still not that great.* For the QHD model: although display scaling has improved a lot in recent times, you'll still probably find quite a few programs not designed for HiDPI yet. Windows 10 defaults to a 2.5x scaling (effectively 1280x720), which you can change to the much more sane 2.0x scale (effectively 1600x900). Steam is especially problematic with HiDPI: overlays are often tiny and unscaled. Using non-HiDPI external monitors might be awkward too.* This laptop has no HDMI/DisplayPort/miniDP/VGA ports built-in. Other than wireless displays (Miracast), the only video output is through the USB-C port.* Watch out for the hinge corners when you open the laptop. Opening it on your finger hurts, but probably won't injure you.USB-C and Thunderbolt 3:* Dell is an early adopter for these standards, but you'll be seeing many more devices with them in 2016, and you'll be able to share accessories between this laptop and many other upcoming PCs and phones. You can use this one port with one cable to replace multiple older connectors at the same time.* Not many monitors support USB-C yet, so you'll probably need a video adapter. Any USB-C video adapters from Dell, Google, Monoprice, and most Amazon sellers should work.* The USB-C port can fast-charge USB-C phones. My Nexus 5X charges at 15W/3A, the same as the phone's own AC adapter.* Like Chromebook Pixel, but unlike Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, this USB-C port supports full USB 3.1 speeds and video output either via DP/HDMI/VGA adapters or to USB-C monitors. With the right accessories, you can even connect to multiple monitors from this one port.* You can charge with the USB-C port, but only with high-voltage laptop chargers like the Pixel/XPS 12 chargers or Thunderbolt Dock. The included charger uses Dell's normal DC charging port instead.* There's only one USB-C port, which might be a minor inconvenience in the future when more devices use it. Some of Dell's other new devices use two USB-C ports and completely ditch the old-style DC charger port.* Thunderbolt 3 supports external GPUs, which is an interesting way to give a laptop gaming performance when docked. However, there's no confirmation whether this laptop will ever get a BIOS update for that GPU-switching functionality.* February 2016 update: I recently got Dell's new Thunderbolt 3 dock. There's enough to say about it to need a separate review, but in short, there's still a lot of software issues. This might be great with time after more OS and firmware updates, but for now I'd say regular non-Thunderbolt USB-C accessories are much more reliable and software-agnostic. I would not recommend using the Thunderbolt dock as a desktop replacement. Dell also offers a non-Thunderbolt USB-C dock.Linux:* The BIOS setting for "SATA Operation" is set to "RAID On" by default. For Windows-only users, this is fine, but for dual-boot or Linux users, you'll want to change this to "AHCI" to get the installer (as of Ubuntu 15.10) to actually recognize your SSD. Changing this setting will break the current Windows install, so you'll need to reinstall it if you want to dual-boot.* The Broadcom wireless card requires the Linux 4.4 kernel. For Ubuntu, this means you should run Ubuntu 16.04+ or install a backported kernel. Either way, I still recommend installing Intel WIreless if you can.* HiDPI scaling on GNOME seems fine to me. Users of other desktop environments are less fortunate. Unlike Windows, X11 won't upsize any programs that aren't designed for HiDPI. Steam is the only program I use with that issue, so the library menus appear super tiny.* Thunderbolt 3 isn't supported by Linux. If you connect a TB3 dock while running Linux, at best absolutely nothing will happen (no video, no USB, no charging) and there's a fair chance your system will hang. I haven't heard any reports about the kernel getting support any time soon, but even when it does, I don't think you can interact with the BIOS settings or bootloader from a keyboard connected to a Thunderbolt dock.* Non-Thunderbolt USB-C accessories work fine on Linux, as the hardware sees them as normal USB or DisplayPort outputs.Misc:* I also have the Dell Premier Sleeve (S), which is quite nice and fits this laptop perfectly, but it's somewhat overpriced. This laptop can fit in any 13.3-inch laptop sleeve, but it might be a bit loose. Most 11.6-inch laptop sleeves won't fit.* The outer metal shell is sturdy and premium-feeling, but it's not quite to my taste. It's cold to the touch.* When you look up any info about this laptop, make sure you're looking for the right model. This was the second version of XPS 13 that released in 2015 and they both look almost identical at a glance and both feature Dell's tiny-bezel "infinity display". This 9350 model has a 6th-generation Intel processor (Skylake), Thunderbolt 3, and other more subtle updates over the early-2015 9343 model which has 5th-generation Intel processors (Broadwell).* I upgraded to this from a Chromebook (C720). It's hard to beat ChromeOS in battery life, but this is of course much more capable with the much-higher display resolution, RAM, CPU power, and SSD capacity. I almost considered a Chromebook Pixel instead, but I like the tiny bezels, bigger SSD, and the option to sometimes run Windows.Summary:This laptop is small, premium, and overall great and pleasant to use. Make sure to install updates and buy the accessories you need. While budget laptops keep getting better, pricier ultrabooks and premium laptops need to be really special to be worth the extra price. I believe this laptop succeeds at standing out in a good way.Update 02/03/2016: Added some information about Dell's new docks and Iris Pro model

This was the worst purchase since George C. Parker last sold the Brooklyn Bridge. I ordered this computer new (not refurbished) from Amazon after my daughter, who is in college, reported that her old computer was too slow and the battery didn’t last enough. I picked this specific model from Dell after searching the web for the best laptops for college kids. I drove to her school on a weekend to help her setup the computer, and a printer I had bought for her. What I thought was going to be an seamless installation turned out to be a 2 hour ordeal. The initial setup was mostly OK. I did a get a message: “No Hard drive was found” during the install, but the laptop rebooted and continued on. However, once Windows started we realized that there was no indication of a wireless connection even though we knew Wifi was available. To compound the problems the default installation for this model was of Windows 10, so we were not familiar at all with any of the menus, and could not find what the problem was. We rebooted more than a couple times but nothing happened. Once we figured that something was wrong with the wireless card, we browsed the web (using our phones of course) and found that issues with the wireless cards in Dell computers were very common and prevalent in multiple models. If you don’t believe me just type in Google: “Dell wireless card problems” and Google will tell you that there are over 1,230,000 results. That’s right, over a million pages of posts for Dell wireless card problems. That’s more results than people living in all of Montana. We scrambled for what seemed like an eternity, I could not tell you what we did, or how we did it, as we tried so many things, but somehow we got the wireless to work.I drove back home that night (300 miles), thinking that I was not going to hear about the problem anymore. But first thing the next day my daughter let me know, by her use of acronyms and four letter words, that the wireless was once more not working. I was not going to drive back to help her out, but because she sounded desperate enough I took a long shot and decided to purchase a USB WiFi Adapter. It sounds stupid to have an Adapter connected to a brand new computer, but I didn’t know what else to try. Of course that didn’t work, she was not able to make the WiFi adapter work because Windows didn’t have the drivers, there was no Internet connection to download the drivers, and the laptop didn’t have a CD/DVD player, so the installation CD that came with the Adapter was useless.Somehow one of her Engineer friends was able to make the wireless work on a spasmodic fashion, which put a temporary solution to the problem. Of course I was still getting daily texts from her about Michael Dell and how he should’ve been in the business of making hot dogs instead of computers.Finally, this weekend my daughter was at home for her fall break, and I decided to tackle the problem once in for all. So I logged into the Dell support page, downloaded a program that scans your computer and determines all the firmware upgrades needed for your system. In my case the program detected 6 firmware updates, including one for the wireless card. It also determined that my system needed a BIOS update. Specifically it told me that I needed to go from version 1.0.0 to 1.0.0 of my BIOS. That is correct, it told me not only that I needed to go from one version, to the same one. It also told me that I was going to be installing most likely a Beta version of the software (a 0.0 version). It didn’t give me any option to select my upgrades so I had to go with the bundle. The upgrade went surprisingly smooth, and there were no issues to report, until….Today, at seven in the morning I get a text from my daughter from the other room telling me that the computer would not start. Sure enough we pressed the Power button for several seconds, we disconnected the power, we let the computer charge, and nothing. The computer would not even boot up. It was more likely that Beta(Alpha?) version of the BIOS. At that point both my daughter and I sighed in relief, because we knew that we would not have to deal with the laptop anymore. We were finally going to go and get a good working laptop. We were first in line in BestBuy, and bought a Lenovo. The installation went smooth and my daughter was up and running in less than 20 minutes. My daughter was happy and that was the most important thing to me.For some people things have gone well with their Dell computers, but I cannot say the same for me. My recommendation is that you go the safe route and avoid Dell computers.