I need some advice. I may have made a huge mistake with my new laptop.

[rayschrantz]

Thanks for clicking on my post, I really need some advice here and I can't really get it from anyone around me. You can skip the first paragraph if you don't care about the backstory for why I bought this particular laptop and the reason I need advise is at toward end.

 

So I've been getting ready to buy my first high performance laptop for literally 5 years and I was finally able to afford it just recently. For the first 4.5 of those years, the Dell XPS 15 has been the laptop that I idolized, it was everything that I wanted in a high quality portable PC. Though since it's release, the XPS 15 hasn't changed much and was only making minor improvements to the exact same design. It felt like it was falling behind in terms of it's design compared to laptops like the Surface Book, Surface Laptop, and Razer Blade 15. Up until 5 months ago, the XPS 15 was still my first choice because of the specs it offered in that price range, but then Linus did his video on the Maingear Element, and well, my jaw dropped. The Element seemed like the perfect laptop in my opinion. It had an optical-mechanical full rgb keyboard, RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics, windows hello facial recognition, thunderbolt 3, my favorite keyboard layout, and a fantastic design aesthetic in a slim chassis. The 144hz display didn't hurt either, though I had never experienced a high refresh rate display before. I was obsessed with this laptop for months, checking to make sure that the grey model was still available because I didn't want an all black laptop. 16 days ago I was finally able to afford it, but was hesitant because I was about to spend $2400 on a laptop I had never seen in person before. I spent the 2 weeks prior researching other laptops that might be better, but didn't really find anything that fit the bill. The only thing that stopped me from buying the new Razor Blade 15 is that they're notorious for dying after only 2 or so years and costed more for the specs I wanted. I went ahead and decided to purchased the laptop and I received it on May 2nd. Though I almost wasn't able to purchase it because literally two days before I decided to purchase it, the grey model was discontinued. I contacted Maingear and found out they had exactly one left in overstock after removing the model from the site, so I got lucky and was able to purchase it after trading a couple emails. I was extremely excited, but ended up feeling slightly disappointed.

 

The Maingear Element is a great laptop, the screen is fantastic, the track pad is buttery smooth, the facial recognition is so much easier than typing in a pin, and is incredibly light, which is great coming from my heavy Toshiba Satellite. Those are the good parts, now here's what disappointed me.

 

1. First, the texture. It's very matte, which makes it feel extremely dissatisfying to touch. I honestly didn't think this would matter to me, I never even considered this being problem. I almost cringe every time my skin brushes up against it. After hearing about the magnesium allow chassis in Linus's review, I was expecting something similar to anodizing, but it feels more like a cheap coating on plastic like anything could scratch it off. I'm honestly a bit worried that the slightest bump will create deep gashes in the coating. I've found a solution to this though, dbrand makes skins for the Maingear element, so I just ordered skins for the plamrest, top, and bottom.

 

2. The second thing that left me feeling pretty disappointed were the speakers. Linus made it seem like the speakers sounded great in his review, which they probably do provide great 3D audio when placed on a desk and playing a game that supports that, but in any other situation, they're absolute garbage. The Element only has downward firing speakers, so if you have the laptop sitting on your lap, the sound is all muffled. On top of that, they aren't loud at all, I found myself struggling to hear any dialogue in a movie or youtube video at max volume in a quiet room. This honestly disappoints me the most because I consume a lot of media and sometimes need to show another person a youtube video in a loud environment. To overcome this I've been connecting my Galaxy Buds, which I have on me at all times, and my Wonderboom when I'm sitting in my room, but I'm still disappointed by it every time I don't want to use my Galaxy Buds.

 

3. Finally the keyboard. It looks amazing and feels great too, but it's a bit unwieldy. I knew this ahead of time and expected that people's complaints about it weren't that big of a deal and they're not, but it is something to note. Also, while I type this on the laptop, I'm finding the palm rest area getting very toasty. I don't even have anything else open, so I'm not sure why it's getting so warm. I keep having to lift my hands off because it's making my palms sweaty. I turned the cooling fans up to maximum, so it sounds like a "silent" drone taking off. Though the fan noise doesn't bother me much at all, the palm rest is still a bit toasty.

 

I was going to stick with the Maingear Element because I put in so much work to get it and I found ways to cope with it's shortcomings. AMD's 4000 series processors weren't going to be put many devices for at least a year and there still wasn't anything out yet that made me feel jealous, until yesterday.

 

On the Short Circuit channel, Alex did an unboxing of some pre-production samples of the XPS 15 and XPS 17. I heard about these two devices getting a refresh a couple months ago, but there weren't any specs or details about the new design yet. The XPS 17 is what really stood out to me, it has a 17 inch 4k IPS display in a laptop the same size as my 15.6 inch Toshiba Satellite. The chassis is milled out of blocks of aluminum, which really stands out to me as someone with a background in engineering, and it has that textured carbon fiber palm rest that feels amazing. The cooling system is completely redone and according to Alex it performs extremely well, though it is just pre-production sample. The trackpad is massive and the keyboard layout is great, though I don't really like the half up and down arrow keys. This is what really had me jealous though, the new speakers. They're good speakers, maybe not as good in comparison to the Macbook Pro, but in comparison to my new laptop, it's 1000 times better.

 

Here's where I need advise.

 

I really want to return the Maingear Element and purchase the XPS 17. Here are the problems, the XPS 17 isn't coming out until June-July and I just got my new laptop not even 2 weeks ago. I could return it, but would be subject to a 20% restock fee, which comes out about $480. My Toshiba Satellite still works and I don't really have a need for the extra power of my new laptop has until August. Yes there are some spec differences, like the XPS 17 only has a 2060 Max-Q vs the Maingear Element has a 2070 Max-Q, but it's not that much different for my use case. Also, the larger 17 inch 4k display would be more useful to me than the 15 inch 144hz 1080p display. The three biggest reasons I want to return my new laptop of the XPS 17 are the speakers, the build quality, and the screen.

 

The question I need help with is, is it worth returning my new laptop to get the XPS 17.

 

Pros:

1. Speakers on my current laptop are so bad they're unusable, so anything else is an improvement.

2. Larger and higher resolution display.

3. Better build quality with an extremely satisfying feel to it.

4. Can charge from either side instead of only on the back, and it uses USB-C.

5. Supposedly better cooling.

6. Smaller power brick.

 

Cons:

1. I would lose $480 from returning the new laptop.

2. The XPS 17 doesn't come out for a few months, so I would have to wait, and still might not be able to get it for a month or so after that.

3. The specs that I want could potentially cost more than what I paid for the laptop that I have.

4. I have to go through the process of returning my new laptop, which includes wiping the device and shipping it back.

 

I'm honestly considering this because I find myself feeling disappointed by my new laptop fairly often, I just need a second opinion to see if it really is worth it in the end.

 

If you've read this far, I'd like to thank you again for taking the time to help me figure this out.

[Praesi]

To be honest. You are the only one who can answer those Questions.

 

You could try to sell the current Laptop to a Friend, Family Member ect. People who trust you and give you full price.

[Passe11]

The eluktronics mag-15 got a bios update that improved the audio quality by alot. And from what I could find the mag-15 and element 15 are potentially the same laptop. Worth looking into updating your audio drivers.