Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I got this laptop several days ago and have used it a decent bit since then. I use it primarily for internet browsing, gaming, and CAD. Thus far, it has done everything very well. The good: 1. GTX 960m is really quite good - while not the top of the line, it can play most of the games that I have at either high or ultra settings at 1080p. While gaming, the fans are remarkably quiet - I do not know the actual loudness, but at first I thought that my graphics settings were wrong and the laptop wasnt even trying. 2. Battery life is around 5 hours when simply browsing the internet. It is clear that Intel's Skylake processors are quite efficient. 3. Not much bloatware. Just McAffee, and some assorted Dell tidbits, and all the windows 10 garbage that comes with windows 10. 4. Very easy to upgrade. While the stock 1tb harddrive boots quickly, for most usage it is rather slow so I took the ssd out of my previous laptop and installed it. A single screw allows removal of the back which allows access to the 2.5" harddrive slot, the m.2 slot, the battery, the wireless card, the ram, and access to the fans for easy cleaning. 5. Build quality seems really quite good overall. It is entirely plastic, but most of the plastic feels pretty good. The biggest exception is the plastic covers on the hinges - but how often does one touch that anyways? 6.The price. $800 for a GTX960m 4gb and 6th gen i7?! Crazy good deal. The not as good 1. The keyboard is kinda pathetic. While it works fine, stroke and force required for the keys is dismal. 2. The speakers are serviceable, but definitely nothing to write home about. 3. The screen is super super dim. Since it is matte, it is just barely good enough in bright light. It really should have been much brighter. Other notes. 1. The trackpad is as good as most trackpads. It reminds me of a macbook trackpad, but the accuracy is not quite as good. Scrolling though websites sometimes is fine, other times it is jerky. 2. The wireless card is a 1x1 (but it is the newest generation that intel offers with BT 4.2) - this can be upgraded for around $30. 3. Screen colors seem OK 4. The only video output is HDMI. If I had to pick one output, it would be HDMI, but it would have been nice to have a mini Display port since it can handle a lot more data. Upgrades I have made 1. Replace hdd with a Samsung 840 EVO 256gb 2. Upgrade ram to 16 gb Crucial Ballistix Sport 3. Upgrade wireless card from Intel 3165 to Intel 7265 (2x2 antenna) Update after 2 months: I still think this is a good laptop and I have several more notes. 1. This thing is a fingerprint magnet. I have never really been super bothered by fingerprints on stuff, but they are very noticeable on this. 2. Battery life is outstanding. I get over 6 hours when streaming HD video. 3. The keyboard still is kinda sucky. 4. I have played more games on it including Shador of Mordor (high setting across the board FPS between 35 and 40), Bioshock Infinite (Ultra FPS between 45 and 60), Metro Last Light Redux (High PFS around 50). 5. Fans while gaming are not very loud, though I am playing in about 60° F Update after 7 months: I am taking a star off because of Dell's idiotic fan control. When doing very light cpu/gpu tasks such as browsing the internet, streaming video, watching video etc, the fans will come on which is understandable. But they will never turn off. I routinely watch CPU and GPU temps get down below 30°C and still the fans are on. Absolutely idiotic waste of battery and it really should be a simple fix for Dell to make. I should note that the fans did turn off when I put my laptop in the freezer, so there is some temp that they DO turn off, but it is likely close to freezing. Battery life seems to be worse than it was when I originally wrote this review. I now get at most 4 hours streaming video and usually closer to 3. But, when looking at a pdf, I got over 7 hours of screen on time with keyboard backlight mostly on. So it seems like some driver or bios update caused things to get worse when the cpu or gpu have to do literally anything. A note on the trackpad: I dont think it is that bad. It might take a decent bit of force to actually press it, but one can also tap it (though it makes a knock sound when doing so). But accuracy seems to be good. Update after 9 months: I took another star off because the fan control is making me so angry. It could have such fantastic battery life if Dell would change the fan settings to not be so stupid. I had mentioned earlier that I put my computer in the freezer to see if the fans ever turned off. I monitored this time and saw that the shutoff temp is 11°C or 52°F - a ludicrously low temperature. Also keep in mind not a single program was open during this test - it was literally just idling. It is appalling that Dell has designed such a decent computer but crippled it with such mindless software control. This is the only thing keeping it from getting 5 stars. Update after 12 months: Perhaps I was a bit harsh before. The battery and fan performance are the same as they were when it was new. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the fan and thus battery life are very dependent on the ambient temperature. At 80°F the fans will likely come on when streaming video on Chrome (Edge actually is much better for battery life). At 64°F the fans never come on and I get 6-7 hours of 1080p video streaming on battery with the screen brightness at the lowest setting. I believe that the fan control likely is still goofy with them not shutting off when CPU temps go down enough, but with lower ambient temps its not an issue.