Ok, so I have an XPS 13 that is literally the best laptop ever on my eyes. It's crisp, it's beautiful. It has the 1080p "FHD" InfinityEdge display. And as long as I don't let it use too new an Intel driver or update Windows past LTSB 2015, it is simply gorgeous. I think it's the XPS 9343 model from 2015.

So (a year ago already) I ordered an XPS 15 9550, higher specced but ostensibly same/similar screen.

It was nowhere near as comfortable. My boss ordered the same one, and his was better. But his, at the time, was reimaged with LTSB 2015 (what was supported at work at the time) and mine was left running whatever shipped from Dell (which was updated to Anniversary AFAIK).

I've been ignoring it for a while, but I need to reformat it with LTSB 2015 and see if it simply was bad because of Anniversary edition or not... because other people on here seem to be ok with this machine.

The other thing I'm trying at this point is a newer Dell XPS 13 ... and retrofitting the nice screen to it. After I've determined that the laptop itself is good by using the usb-C dock to a known-good monitor, I found a very good teardown video and it seems pretty straightforward to swap the screens (the nicer one came with a 4k touchscreen).

The key factor here is that these machines HAVE to run Windows 10 - people have tried to get the 9550 working on Windows 7 with very limited success - so it'll have to be LTSB 2015 until Microsoft unfucks whatever they fucked up in Anniversary and newer versions.

I'll let everyone know how it goes.

Thoughts?

    I would just use the one that works well already. I don't feel the need to update hardware often.

    That said, if you do decide to get another one, be aware that the bios now has an option to turn CABC on and off so you could fiddle with that as well. I remember the XPS 13 when it first came out, people were annoyed because they couldn't turn CABC off.

    • JTL replied to this.

      Sunspark be aware that the bios now has an option to turn CABC on and off so you could fiddle with that as well

      Glad they fixed that. I've read about CABC and something like that would drive me nuts 😛

        Adaptive Brightness Control? Yeah, that nonsense is hideous to look at.

        It's worse than adaptive which is just a brightness sensor, it's Content Adaptive which is the displayed image. My M8 has it. If the image displayed has lighter tones it brightens, if the image has darker tones it darkens. So, with image editing software or even just watching a video, the image is shifting in brightness instead of staying constant. It doesn't cause problems for us, but it does distract or interfere with the work you're trying to do.

        Hey Gurm, thanks for the update on what's happening with you - always interested to hear about your solutions. I've been using my 9560 very comfortably with ditherig enabled on an old version of Windows until recently. Then as I felt confident and wanted to update some features on my laptop I upgraded to the Fall Creator's Update but I think it may be causing me problems now. I feel pretty stupid, broke the first rule of finding a solution in this game - NEVER CHANGE IT WHEN IT WORKS!

        So yeah, I'm going to try and live with it for a bit since for some reason the rollback option isn't working for me, but I may be looking at re-installing everything (AGAIN) and going back to an old version. Out of interest, could you kindly upload your LTSB 2015 version of Windows? I have been struggling to get a working download of it. Would be much appreciated.

        I can't upload it directly as that's a massive copyright violation, but if you ping me (gurm 4 2 @ <rhymes with WahPoo> dotcom) I can try to assist you.

        2 months later

        Any updates if the new Windows update fixes this?

        Have you tried Linux on these laptops?

        Can anyone find a laptop with Intel Processor but no Intel Integrated Graphics? I'm finding it hard to find it these days. This might: http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/new-xps-15/spd/xps-15-9570-laptop/dncwxb1656s?selectionState=eyJGUHJpY2UiOjE2OTkuOTksIk9DIjoiZG5jd3hiMTY1NnMiLCJRdHkiOjEsIk1vZHMiOlt7IklkIjo4LCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6IkdNVkhFMjMiLCJQcmljZSI6MzUwLjB9XX0seyJJZCI6NTcyLCJPcHRzIjpbeyJJZCI6IkZHMDAwMiJ9XX1dfQ%253D%253D

          ryans Can you find a different link? Dell likes to redirect the US product pages to the Dell Canada homepage for me 😐

              Seefree Might work if it's 100% AMD graphics and you would be able to disable the dithering if needed.

              Too many variables to tell.

                Seefree That's cool...it'd be nice to find an i5 or i7 with 1920x1090 screen

                  Gurm Does Intel graphics not bother you? What is the model you use comfortably?

                    Intel graphics seem to be OK, at least in certain driver configurations. The machine I use daily is a Dell XPS 13 from 2015, it's a Core i5 with Intel Graphics 550 in it.

                    4 days later

                    JTL The XPS 15 says it comes with "NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 with 4GB GDDR5" but makes no mention of Integrated graphics. So I don't know if it uses both Nvidia and Intel, or, just Nvidia.

                    • JTL replied to this.
                        25 days later

                        Is it still possible to to prevent auto updates on Windows 10 LTSB 2015 on XPS 13? Also, Which intel graphics driver is recommended for this device?

                        After following this forum for a while, I purchased a used XPS 13 9343 (2015) wiped with no operating system, and separatley bought Win10 ENT LTSB 2015 key/ISO off ebay. I booted windows to the device from USB and before establishing an internet connection selected "defer upgrades" and "notify to schedule restart" under the advanced options in windows update. Dissapointingly, after a couple reboots the computer had automatically downloaded and installed a slew of 2018 updates. Does anyone know another way to turn off updates?

                        As for the graphics driver, after the device auto updated to the 2018 version, I attempted to install 20.19.15.4483 but got the "not meet minimum requirments" window. Does anyone know another old driver that will work on this device?

                        I'm tempted to try Win 7 or linux. Currently it burns my eyes out within 5 min, but want to give it a fair trial in the correct software configuration before writing it off... and trying something else.

                        I appeciate all the work that has been done on this forum and would appreciate any suggestion!

                        • KM replied to this.

                          I honestly don't know what to tell you. The 2015 XPS13 (assuming you have the 1080p infinity edge matte screen, not the glossy one) should be ROCK solid on the first release of Windows 10. I don't have it here at work, but when I get home I can see which Intel driver I'm using, and see if I still have the installer.

                          LTSB will, by the way, get lots of updates... just none that bump up the revision level of the system. I haven't updated mine in a WHILE, I hope that they didn't sneak whatever breaks the screen into a "security" update. 🙁

                            dev