Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It is close to being a good computer, but I think it needs one more generation to work the kinks out. First off, let me say that I am a professional software engineer and computer expert, so my experience likely isn't user error. So with that said, this is what I think. Any one of these items probably would not be enough to disqualify the laptop, but all combined, it is not an experience up to my expectations. - When I first got the laptop about three weeks ago, it wouldn't recognize the wifi card. All I had done to that point is go through the Windows setup screens and set the timezone, my user name, etc. So literally 5 minutes into the experience. I had to go into the system properties, disable the wifi card, and then re-enable it. Very strange. It has worked fine since then but it was not a great start. - A couple of times during system reboots for Windows updates, software installs, or whatever, there is a BIOS message saying the hard drive couldn't be found. It does proceed to boot up normally, but again -- no warm and fuzzies from the messages. - The screen resolution is super high, which could be a good thing. Unlike MacBook Retinas, you can put the laptop into "native" resolution without third party utilities. Of course, on a screen of this size, using native resolution isn't very desirable unless you have terrific eyes. The reason I mention this is because instead of just changing the laptop to different resolutions, it seems to want you to leave it at native resolution and just adjust the text size percentage (to 130% instead of 100% or whatever). If you change actual screen resolutions, it gives a warning message and doesn't look so great. This may be a Windows 10 "feature" instead of an issue with the laptop. It's just a little weird and hard to find the right setting. - The battery life is inconsistent. I have very few applications installed, have just a few open, and use it 100% for programming, so just text editors and browser open. I don't keep the screen at 100% brightness. Sometimes the battery will last for 7 or 8 hours, and other times it will last for just 4 or 5. Again -- not sure if Windows 10 or Dell issue, but I shouldn't have to spend time researching and trying to figure it out. It should just work. - The touchpad is nice but inconsistent. Sometimes two finger scrolling works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes tapping on the touch pad works for clicking, other times I have to do a full press of the touch pad to register a click. Is it Windows or Dell? Not sure. - The standby mode is horrible. This is the final straw for me deciding to return it. I should be able to close the lid and have it go to sleep. Then when I come back, it should wake up right where I left off with minimal battery drain. Preface this with the fact that I did ensure that my settings for closing the lid and power button are set correctly in the control panel. At first, the behavior was wildly inconsistent. I would shut the lid and sometimes it would sleep, sometimes it would appear that it had rebooted, and another time the battery was completely dead as if it never went to sleep. So I modified my own behavior to press the power button, watch it go to sleep, and then shut the lid. I could have lived with this inconvenience, but it didn't really help. I started to encounter these issues: * When the computer comes back from sleep, all of my windows get stacked in the upper left of the desktop. I have to resize and drag them all back into place every time I wake it up. Annoying. I did Google this and it could be Windows 10. It might be resetting the resolution every time it wakes up, which moves the windows to the upper left. * Standby is not instantaneous to come back on. It first spins on the Dell BIOS screen for several seconds. When it does come back, sometimes as many as 15 seconds later (this doesn't sound like a lot but it is if you are sitting there and expecting it to come back from standby), sometimes all of my windows will be gone as if it rebooted without telling me. * The battery life is really bad in standby. I have a 4 year old Vaio Z this is supposed to be replacing, and it could go for days in standby. This computer sucks 50% a day. Today was the worst -- it's a Monday as I write this review. I had the laptop plugged in, asleep and fully charged on Saturday. I unplugged it and put it directly into my bag. I did not use it Sunday. This morning I went to turn it on and it's stone dead out of power and my charger is at home so it's a brick for the day. So the bottom line is I own the old Vaio Z and a 15" Macbook Pro Retina (almost 3 years old). I don't want to compare too much to the Mac for fear of being labeled some kind of Mac fanboy. But the experience with this particular computer isn't even close to the Vaio -- even in its old age -- never mind the Mac. I will be keeping the Vaio for a while longer and waiting for something better to come along. -- UPDATE Feb 2016 -- I updated the BIOS and the drivers. There were also some Windows 10 updates that came out. The laptop is working much better, including the standby battery life being mostly fixed, so I upped my rating to four stars and have decided to keep it. It's too bad these updates weren't available for launch. -- UPDATE Aug 2016 -- The laptop overall is good, not great. It's definitely worlds better than when I bought it, but there is still funky behavior with the standby mode (it takes many seconds and shows the BIOS screen to come out of standby instead of just turning on). There have also been times when it seems to turn itself back on even with the lid closed inside of the sleeve/case, so it gets burning hot and the battery drains. I spent too long trying to research this one and turned off every possible setting it could be. This hasn't happened in a couple of months so maybe they have fixed it. So overall a 4 star rating.