Products · Product
Dell XPS 13
Raised as a usability problem by 137 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2010–2025), in 104 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1
- 2
- 3Touchpad ghost-swipes unpredictablyUnreviewed
- 4
- 5
- 6Keyboard occasionally misses keystrokesUnreviewed
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
Every issue, all time, most people first
Palm rejection too sensitive, so tap-to-click fails after typingUnreviewed
20102026- Can't disable tap-to-click and palm detection is terrible2023-12-04
- Palm rejection fails, forcing awkward hand positions to avoid accidental taps2020-05-01
- Touchpad palm or touch clicks force awkward hand positioning and finger strain2020-04-12
Page-up and page-down keys sit beside arrows and get hit accidentallyUnreviewed
20102026- Half-size Enter keys, missing Page Up/Down, arrows hidden behind Fn combinations2025-12-02
- Small cursor keys and no dedicated PgUp or PgDown keys2022-07-21
- PgUp and PgDown keys are placed poorly, making the keyboard worse to use2021-11-21
Touchpad ghost-swipes unpredictablyUnreviewed
20102026- Touchpad ghost-swipes unpredictably, making the laptop frustrating to use2021-01-10
- Touchpad jittery, won't scroll, and unreliable right-clicks, ruining daily use2019-01-23
- Touchpad not smooth or usable on Linux without tuning it yourself2018-06-14
Cursor jumps when pressing down, causing accidental clicks elsewhereUnreviewed
20102026- Mouse pointer sporadically jumps and generates unintended clicks2022-03-22
- Trackpad cursor sensitivity jumps up while typing, so hands drift and misclick2019-10-20
- Cursor jumps when pressing down, causing accidental clicks on other things2018-06-09
Hard to get used to the cursor key layoutUnreviewed
20102026- Arrow keys and keyboard hard to touch-type; trackpad lacks clear borders2022-08-23
- Keyboard layout is nonsensical and the commenter can't get used to it2021-04-15
- Can't tell the new keyboard layout, so arrow and page keys are hard to locate2020-01-03
Keyboard occasionally misses keystrokesUnreviewed
20102026- Keyboard occasionally misses keystrokes2022-03-11
- Keys stick or register presses unreliably, making the keyboard unusable2019-01-23
- Keys are too small and stiff, causing typing errors and missed shift presses2018-08-01
Linux programs scale wrongly, leaving text unreadably smallUnreviewed
20102026- Trackpad acceleration feels awkward and font scaling makes text too small2020-06-23
- Many apps and system parts render wrongly or too small under high-DPI scaling on Windows2017-10-17
- Window and text sizes are inconsistent, some too large and others too small to read2017-01-28
Adaptive brightness changes when switching windows and can't be disabledUnreviewed
20102026- Screen brightness jumps to maximum before slowly dropping, and cannot be disabled2022-02-14
- Screen brightness keeps cycling up and down with on-screen content and can't be turned off2019-01-23
- Content adaptive brightness changes screen brightness when switching windows and cannot be turned off2018-01-03
Moving cursor with thumb makes two-finger scrolling misfireUnreviewed
20102026- Two-finger scrolling keeps going after lifting fingers or doesn't register at all2018-02-25
- Moving the cursor with thumb first makes two-finger scrolling misfire and scroll instead2017-01-09
- Scrolling feels wrong, scrollbar drag doesn't work, and navigation loops back to same page2012-02-28
Fn+F12 key in top-right corner is hard to hitUnreviewed
20102026- Hard to hit the Fn+F12 key in the top-right corner2022-07-21
- Fn key placed far left, shortcuts keep being hit wrong, never gets used to it2015-02-19
- Volume up/down needs two hands because the Fn key is far away2014-01-07
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
- Half-size Enter keys, missing Page Up/Down, arrows hidden behind Fn combinations2025-12-02
- Hidden screws under board make taking it apart fragile and easy to break2024-02-13
- Can't disable tap-to-click and palm detection is terrible2023-12-04
- Second monitor never worked satisfactorily; scaling issues despite trying every suggested fix2023-04-29
- Lacks USB-A and headphone jack, forcing reliance on easily lost adapters2023-02-06
- Laptop became unusable after suspend due to kernel deadlock, forcing user to disable suspend2022-12-30
- Newer model's touch bar and removed headphone jack make it worse to use2022-10-26
- Bluetooth causes random CPU lockups, so the user had to disable it2022-08-29
- Keyboard is unpleasant to type on and hard to live with2022-08-29
- Fingerprint sensor needs fiddling and Bluetooth causes lockups on Linux2022-08-23
- Laptop takes about 10 minutes before it will boot on an empty battery, making the user late2022-08-23
- Arrow keys and keyboard hard to touch-type; trackpad lacks clear borders2022-08-23
- Can't tell where the trackpad starts and ends; clicking is finicky2022-08-23
- Capacitive escape key is hard to use for developers who need a physical key2022-08-23
- Hard to hit the Fn+F12 key in the top-right corner2022-07-21
- Small cursor keys and no dedicated PgUp or PgDown keys2022-07-21
- Removing physical Esc and function keys makes the laptop harder to use2022-07-19
- Bluetooth often won't turn on after reboot, needing about five reboots2022-04-20
- Webcam below the display makes video calls awkward for the user2022-03-22
- Mouse pointer sporadically jumps and generates unintended clicks2022-03-22
- Keyboard occasionally misses keystrokes2022-03-11
- Screen brightness jumps to maximum before slowly dropping, and cannot be disabled2022-02-14
- Laptop fails to wake from sleep reliably under Linux, needing a hard reset2022-02-07
- Capacitive function keys are hard to use and find, adding no useful functionality2022-01-12
- Keeps hitting the volume control by accident with touch controls2022-01-06
- F1-F12 labels are hidden, so users can't tell they need Fn to use them2022-01-06
- PgUp and PgDown keys are placed poorly, making the keyboard worse to use2021-11-21
- Laptop gets stuck in suspend, needing a 10-second power button hold almost daily2021-11-09
- Laptop stays partly on after shutdown, draining battery overnight despite user settings2021-09-24
- Small scroll movements don't scroll in non-modern apps like Task Manager2021-06-15
- Arrow and page keys placement makes typing accidentally jump around the page2021-04-17
- Keyboard layout is nonsensical and the commenter can't get used to it2021-04-15
- Touchscreen randomly re-enables itself, so corner touches close the active app2021-04-15
- Touchpad was horrible to use on the laptop2021-04-09
- Screen randomly flickers and dims, and fails to start after sleep2021-03-06
- Touchpad ghost-swipes unpredictably, making the laptop frustrating to use2021-01-10
- Replacing the wireless chip is fiddly, with many tiny soft screws2020-12-14
- Page up/down keys crammed above arrow keys cause frequent mistakes, making it unusable2020-11-14
- Touchpad is horrendous, making the laptop awful to use2020-11-10
- Multiple external monitors look poor when laptop is HiDPI and monitors aren't2020-08-28
- Trackpad acceleration feels awkward and font scaling makes text too small2020-06-23
- Palm rejection fails, forcing awkward hand positions to avoid accidental taps2020-05-01
- Has to be tweaked extensively just to sleep properly, so the user gave up and hibernates it instead2020-04-16
- Touchpad palm or touch clicks force awkward hand positioning and finger strain2020-04-12
- Trackpad is hard to get used to, took weeks to adapt2020-02-05
- Screen goes black several times a day, forcing restarts2020-02-05
- Installer can't see SSD until FastBoot and BitLocker are disabled2020-02-05
- Dell updates fail through the system update UI with permissions errors, forcing command-line upgrades2020-02-05
- Page-up and page-down keys sit beside arrow keys, so users accidentally hit them while reaching for arrows2020-01-03
- Imprecise pointer movement and accidental clicks from palm contact2020-01-03