Products · Product
Dell laptops
Raised as a usability problem by 81 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 75 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Palm rejection worse than a Mac, so accidental touches happenUnreviewed
20092026- Cursor jumps around the document when palms come near the trackpad while typing2025-08-26
- Palm rejection fails, so touchpad is unusable without disabling it after key presses2022-03-11
- Touchpad palm rejection is slightly worse than on a Mac, so accidental touches happen2020-05-05
Keyboard keeps making the user hit the wrong keyUnreviewed
20092026- Keeps making the user hit the wrong key while typing2022-06-28
- Characters sometimes appear twice when typing on the built-in keyboard2016-11-16
- Keys double-press when typing fast with moderate pressure2015-04-25
Setup needs many manual steps to remove bloatware and trial appsUnreviewed
20092026- Setup requires many manual steps to remove bloatware, trial offers, and stub apps2025-12-28
- Preinstalled bloatware makes the new business machines unusable without custom imaging2022-10-24
- Setup takes ages, with many demo pop-ups to dismiss and bloatware to uninstall2022-01-18
Sleep failures are hard to debug and drain battery or heatUnreviewed
20092026- Laptop stays awake and monitor stays lit overnight, and freezes when battery is low2025-10-29
- Hard to debug sleep issues; components drain battery or heat when sleep fails2024-09-04
- Takes minutes to wake from sleep, sluggish and battery drains fast2023-06-12
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Touchpad without physical buttons makes CAD software like OnShape painful to use2026-11-02
- Takes over 15 minutes to restart and 10 more for apps to open2026-03-27
- Too many SKUs and models make it hard to tell how laptops differ2026-03-11
- Too many models and SKUs, hard to tell how two laptops differ2026-03-11
- Too many SKUs and models make it hard to tell laptops apart2026-03-11
- Too many confusingly similar model names make it hard to tell laptops apart2026-03-11
- Too many SKUs make it hard to tell how models differ2026-03-11
- Setup requires many manual steps to remove bloatware, trial offers, and stub apps2025-12-28
- Laptop stays awake and monitor stays lit overnight, and freezes when battery is low2025-10-29
- Replacing a dying keyboard meant disassembling and rebuilding the entire laptop2025-09-15
- Text is unreadably small at 100% scale on the laptop screen2025-08-31
- Cursor jumps around the document when palms come near the trackpad while typing2025-08-26
- Touchscreen randomly registers clicks about once a month2025-07-11
- Trackpad too sensitive, clicks with the slightest touch2025-07-04
- Webcam works on Ubuntu 22.04 but not on 24.042025-04-24
- Back panel tears off easily and reassembly is a nightmare, requiring repeated replacements2025-02-13
- Built-in restore tools fail, reverting to broken state; recovery USB builder is broken2025-01-03
- Hard to debug sleep issues; components drain battery or heat when sleep fails2024-09-04
- Trackpad is abysmal, and Dell laptops haven't improved in years2024-03-15
- Requires excessive force to click, right-click is clumsy, and it feels imprecise to drag2023-07-06
- Takes minutes to wake from sleep, sluggish and battery drains fast2023-06-12
- Battery meter isn't trustworthy, so the user can't tell when the laptop might shut down2023-05-07
- Trackpad registers accidental touches and misclicks while typing2023-02-25
- BIOS blocks boot with a charger-wattage warning after automatic update reboots, needing a hidden setting2022-12-03
- Everything feels laggy, like hidden friction slows every action compared to a MacBook2022-12-01
- Wi-Fi antenna cable tears from lid movement and is nearly impossible to repair2022-10-26
- Screen reader use triggers kernel memory leak, making the computer unusable for blind users2022-10-26
- Preinstalled bloatware makes the new business machines unusable without custom imaging2022-10-24
- Keeps making the user hit the wrong key while typing2022-06-28
- 16:9 screen makes onscreen keyboard awkward; most tasks still need non-touch interface2022-06-07
- Display switching and Nvidia Optimus need restarts and workarounds on Linux2022-04-20
- Palm rejection fails, so touchpad is unusable without disabling it after key presses2022-03-11
- Default behaviour is unintuitive, so users don't realise it isn't doing what they expect2022-02-14
- Setup takes ages, with many demo pop-ups to dismiss and bloatware to uninstall2022-01-18
- Boots slowly, launches programs slowly and has delays switching windows2022-01-10
- Serious audio driver problems on work-issued Dell laptops requiring reboots and fixes2021-11-10
- Home, End, Page Up and Page Down now require the Fn key2021-08-18
- Buying a PC is confusing for normal people, with cryptic technical jargon2021-04-27
- Touchpad palm rejection is slightly worse than on a Mac, so accidental touches happen2020-05-05
- Incredibly slow to interact with, even in guest mode2020-01-03
- Trackpad registers accidental input and disrupts typing, forcing user to disable it2019-10-20
- Touchscreen mouse drifts randomly and becomes unusable when hot and humid2019-08-06
- Opening lid one-handed makes the base rise, forcing two-handed or awkward prying2019-06-06
- UK buyers can only get a US keyboard layout by buying in the USA2019-03-31
- Middle-button scrolling requires an awkward press-then-scroll sequence that is frustrating to perform2019-02-27
- Newer Latitude keyboards are nearly unusable because of the flat island-style keys2019-01-23
- Projector output needs random function-key mashing and repeated replug before display appears2019-01-11
- The Dell's pointing nipple is entirely unusable for the commenter2018-07-17
- Trackpad friction is wrong, taps not registered, palm gets in the way2018-06-14
- Touchpad annoys the user enough that they need to use a mouse2018-06-14