So I guess it's necessary that I write this up, as my previous reviews of this laptop were relatively positive, despite the PITA-ish ness of using it with Linux and the coil-whine of the power supply, and the latest issue makes it a "stay the hell away" recommendation.

Background:

A few months ago my trackpad stopped allowing easy "clicks", weird, but a minor annoyance. Over time it got more and more resistant to clicking until finally it just wasn't possible at all. Oh well, KDE reconfigured to no longer need actual clicks so I can get back to work. There was also a lot of heat under the palm rest which I'd thought due to processor or GPU heat.

Cue trip to Italy (where I am now). Get off the plane and the bottom of the trackpad is sitting 5-6mm out of the hand-rest/chassis. Now it is obvious that something is WRONG in Dell XPS land. Lookup this symptom in Dell community support forums... Apparently Dell XPS 15 9550 (2016) batteries have a habit of swelling and bursting (potentially into flame)... love-fraking-ly. Cue ordering torx screwdriver set from Amazon and pulling out the battery to prevent it damaging the machine.

Dell support can't/won't even tell me if this problem is fixed in replacement batteries, or how to go about disposing of the potentially explosive battery without calling the North American off-support line (from Italy). I was already pretty pissed at Dell for the hardware being substandard for the (crazy-expensive) price, but refusing to answer questions about known hardware issues with their product is just p*ssing me off.

I spent the ridiculous amount of money for an XPS because it was supposed to be a premium/professional product from a company that was somewhat Linux friendly, but this is the last straw for me. I think that desktop was the last Dell I buy or recommend people buy.