Dell XPS 13 9360

I'm going to give an anti-recommendation for the Dell XPS 13. It was considered the top Macbook alternative back in 2017-2018. The design is good, but the parts are flimsy and the customer service is poor. My wife and I both bought one: me a 9360 and later her a 9370. Around a year into using my laptop, the power button started to occasionally get stuck behind the case and turn off the computer. After 3 years, it's gotten so bad that this happens any time I close, open, or adjust the angle of the laptop screen. The screws that hold the bottom of the case together tend to get loose, but the root cause of this problem is a crack in a metal part of the internals of the laptop that's probably been there since day 1. Currently, I'm using KDE Neon since Plasma gives a good warning when the power button is pressed. Additionally, I had to replace the battery since after 2-3 years just outside of warranty, it went down from 10 hours to 45 minutes. Dell Support refused to fix either of the issues. You might think this is just a case of getting a lemon, but my wife's 9370 had problems too. The computer came with several keyboard keys not working. Dell Support took over a month to ship a new one, and I spent forever on the phone with them figuring out why the repair was still "processing". Now after 2 years, the battery has started to swell and has cracked the outside of the case a little. No luck from Dell Support getting this issue fixed. Unless you buy a good support plan like

Thank you. I'm glad to hear someone saying this. I had a battery in an XPS 13 9360 which became swollen. After much support pain, denial of fault, and internal escalation, they agreed to send me a replacement battery where I "just" had to pay for the engineer's time (the machine came with home call-out service for hardware replacements). Within weeks the replacement battery started to swell. For a supposed enthusiast laptop, I really feel they don't understand that enthusiasts expect premium customer relations. I actually feel for the designers and engineers behind the XPS line. They seem like a bunch of super passionate and invested folks, but the support story for what was clearly a safety issue has really put me off buying from Dell in the future.

I also had a 9360 that ran into issues (the motherboard died) but I had bought several years of support and the issue was resolved (they sent someone over to fix it). Perhaps the support is worth buying, and the cost considered should not just be the price of the laptop, but include the cost of support.

I'm optimistic about this product line but I don't think it's there yet. I have a 13" 9360 and while the price was good, it does feel under-powered, specifically the 8G maximum memory configuration with the non-touchscreen. Mine does have the "coil whine" thing, although it doesn't really bother me since I'm usually wearing headphones when I use it. But overall, the build quality is just pathetic compared to my Macbook, and this is supposed to be a competitor. The touchpad is way worse, the carbon fiber thing is cheesy, the awkwardly fat bezel at the bottom of the display is silly, the fact that you need a $100 dock to connect to external monitors is ridiculous, the webcam is weirdly placed in the bottom left of the display, there are just a bunch of strange/bad design choices. That was all the bad things - otherwise it's better than any non-Macbook I've used. It's lightweight, small, gets the "little notebook you can take anywhere" niche fairly well. I hope they listen to feedback and iterate, but I can't say I'd eagerly recommend it.