- Banned
- #21
Paul Steinberg
Banned
Just an update in case anyone else was reading this and considering purchasing a Dell XPS15.
The Dell machine arrived just before the holidays but was missing the Expresscard slot. Apparently the pre sales support rep I spoke with when placing the order didn't understand the difference between SD Card slot (which it has) and Expresscard (which it doesn't). After an hour being bounced around between levels of tech support it turns out that Dell have discontinued Expresscard in their current notebook line.
It also looks like there is a serious problem with the USB3 controller for this machine. I've tried USB3 external RAID as well as a USB3 hard drive dock and the laptop causes the RAID to disconnect when writing data and the hard drive dock rapidly connects, then disconnects. The external RAID works A-OK read/write when connected via eSATA but with only one eSATA port I'll need that for the SSD reader. Looks like the USB3 issue is well known (http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19353745/19801671.aspx) but a fix isn't available.
I'll be returning this machine as it's useless in this state. Has anyone else found a good laptop for data wrangling?
The Dell machine arrived just before the holidays but was missing the Expresscard slot. Apparently the pre sales support rep I spoke with when placing the order didn't understand the difference between SD Card slot (which it has) and Expresscard (which it doesn't). After an hour being bounced around between levels of tech support it turns out that Dell have discontinued Expresscard in their current notebook line.
It also looks like there is a serious problem with the USB3 controller for this machine. I've tried USB3 external RAID as well as a USB3 hard drive dock and the laptop causes the RAID to disconnect when writing data and the hard drive dock rapidly connects, then disconnects. The external RAID works A-OK read/write when connected via eSATA but with only one eSATA port I'll need that for the SSD reader. Looks like the USB3 issue is well known (http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19353745/19801671.aspx) but a fix isn't available.
I'll be returning this machine as it's useless in this state. Has anyone else found a good laptop for data wrangling?