I've had my XPS 16 DA16260 for about two weeks and so far it has not been a very good experience.

The day I got it, I was having random blue screens and watchdog timer errors where the system would crash. I figured it was because I was messing with the registry from trying to disable all the AI microslop in windows so I re-imaged the entire system, and installed/updated all the bios and drivers.

After the re-image, I was still getting random crashes and instability issues that looked like static glitches on the screen. Usually they would be small patches or a few lines but would go away. I figured it was a graphics driver problem until a week in, the same issue happened while booting on the BIOS screen where there were a few patches of static and a few thick while horizontal lines on the XPS splash screen.

A day later, I had a hard crash where the system would refuse to boot at all after experiencing a WDT error. I got the 6 white + 1 amber blinking LED on the power button.

I immediately called into support and had a relatively terrible experience. The CS agent asked me to return it and reorder the laptop at the $1200 higher price as the price had changed since ordering in April which is absurd. After pushing back, they finally went and submitted a request for an advanced exchange which would likely take 2-4 weeks based on the fact that they have no stock and are producing them as fast as they sell. Today, I finally got an estimated date I would get a replacement which is another two weeks.

As for the laptop, it still would not boot but I let it drain the battery to zero as the keyboard backlight stayed on and the system seemed to be powered up with no display (or output to external display), with the fans running.

I was able to boot it a couple hours later and went ahead and forced a BIOS reflash. It didn't seem to help my issues at all.

Today, I encountered a new issue. While using the laptop on my lap editing photos using the touchpad, the entire screen became a static mess.

It was the same static I encountered before, just on the entire screen instead of a small patch or lines (ignore the slanted bands, that's rolling shutter from my phone). I could not interact with the system so I had to force power off the system with the power button. I was able to reproduce the problem only once by pressing down on the touchpad/keyboard areas and snapped that photo above. I'm assuming there is something not soldered on correctly as using the touchpad on a lap might cause the mainboard to flex just enough for something to be briefly disconnected. This is the craziest hardware issue I have ever seen on a brand new laptop.

My system is already being exchanged for a new device, so this post is more to serve as documentation for Dell or any owners having the same issues. I did buy two identical systems with the X7 with the only difference being the display options so I'm hoping the other one won't develop the same issue as its being used by a family member for business.

Also for the CS team, do better. Asking your customer, who has been buying Dell products for over a decade for themselves and friends/family, to return a brand new device and repurchase the same device at a $1200 higher price is a good way to discourage future purchases if dealing with CS is going to be such a pain.