Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a review of the new Dell XPS 8900 with the new 6th Generation Core i7 (Skylake) chip. I purchased mine through Dell’s web site. I was inclined to purchase a Dell because I’ve had good experiences with their desktops in the past. They have tended to be reliable and easy to upgrade. This desktop is replacing a Dell XPS 410 that has been running reliably for 9 years. I wanted a reasonably fast desktop and when I compared the different XPS 8900 configurations, it seemed to be most economical to purchase a basic unit and then replace some of the components myself. That also gave me the flexibility to select the components that I wanted, as opposed to those available in a handful of configurations. It used to be that you could customize the computer the way you wanted it on Dell’s web site, but they aren’t very customizable any more. I purchased a Dell XPS 8900 with a Core i7 (Skylake) chip, 8G of memory, a 1T hard disk, and an Nvidia GeForce GT 730 graphics card. The computer can have up to 32G of memory (4 8G DDR4 2133 MHz memory sticks), so I replaced the memory at a cost of $170. According to Dell’s web site, the computer has a 460 watt power supply that supports graphics cards that use 225 watts. So it can power a decent graphics card, but may not be able to handle some of the higher end cards. I replaced the GT 730 card with a GeForce GTX 750 Ti card for $124. I understand this is a good mid-level card. Finally, the crown jewel was a 1T SSD – a Samsung 850 EVO, for $328. I don’t really understand why Dell doesn’t have the option of choosing an SSD (except for cache). It seems important to be using an SSD if you want a fast computer. I purchased a hard drive mounting kit ($13) so that this 2.5” SSD could fit in a 3.5” hard drive slot. I’m not extremely handy with computer hardware. The computer’s case can be opened by removing exactly one screw with an ordinary Phillips screwdriver. I was working on the kitchen counter, and when I removed the screw, it flew into the air (in slow motion) and dropped straight into the garbage disposal. It didn’t even hit the rim. That’s typically the kind of thing that happens to me when I work with computer hardware. But aside from that incident, I was able to install all of the components easily. So if you are handy, I’d recommend purchasing the base system and upgrading the components yourself; it’s easy to do. The computer came with Windows 10, and I won’t try to review the operating system. But coming from Windows 7, there was a change that was relevant to my hardware changes. Earlier versions of Windows used to come with product keys that you would enter when you install the operating system. This computer didn’t come with a product key and I wanted to reinstall the operating system directly on the SSD. So I called Dell to ask why there was no product key. I dreaded calling Dell because I’ve heard that their customer service has gotten really bad. However, it wasn’t horrible like I expected. I did need to speak with three different people to get my question answered, but the wait times were not too bad, and the people were friendly and helpful. However, it was a little frustrating that I had to give the same information and explain the same problem to three different people. It turns out that the computer comes with an OEM Windows 10 license, and once it is activated, a database at Microsoft associates the computer with the license. So after Windows 10 has been activated on the computer, you can reinstall the operating system from scratch and you don’t need to enter a product key. It is important that you activate your copy of Windows 10 before reinstalling it from scratch. Make sure that your computer gets registered with Microsoft. Otherwise you will have no way of activating the Windows license. Years ago, Dell computers used to come with installation media, but no longer. My intent was to create a Windows 10 DVD using Microsoft’s media creation tool, and use that to perform a fresh install. The representative at Dell told me that I should install Windows 10 using Dell’s media, and he sent me a DVD via overnight courier. I believe he said that the license wouldn’t activate if I didn’t use their media. However, I did install Windows 10 using the DVD I had created, and it activated fine. Prior to reinstalling Windows, there were several Dell processes that showed up in Task Manager. After the reinstall, there were no Dell processes. I think that’s probably a good thing. Another learning experience for me was that Windows 10 boots using something called UEFI. There is a small partition on the disk to support this. When I reinstalled Windows 10 on the new SSD, I left the old spinning hard drive in the computer. The operating system got installed on the SSD, but it continued to use the UEFI partition on the old drive to boot. I was able to find some information on the web about this and create a proper UEFI partition on the SSD. However, if you are going to install Windows on a new drive, you may want to do some research on this subject first. I suspect that if I had removed my old hard disk before I performed the installation, a UEFI partition would have gotten created on the new drive, and the system would boot from the new drive properly. But I don’t know this for certain. Now that I’ve made all those changes, I’m pretty happy with the result. The system is very fast and responsive. Programs open very quickly. I run Android Studio (for Android development), which is resource intensive. It used to take a few minutes to start up an Android emulator, and now that same task takes only a few seconds. The computer is fairly quiet (for a desktop). I’ve had the system for 10 days now and haven’t had any problems with it. I am giving this computer 4 stars instead of 5 for the following reasons: I think it should come with installation media and manuals. I think that Dell has taken a step backwards by not providing many options for customization. And while my experience with Dell’s support wasn’t bad, it could have been better. I am not deducting any stars for Dell not including this warning: “Do not open the computer near a kitchen sink.” 11/30/2015 - It was pointed out to me that you can indeed order a version of this computer with an SSD. But your options are limited. The largest SSD you can get when ordering this computer from Dell is 256G, and that requires purchasing the Special Edition version, which is quite a bit more expensive than the bare bones version.