Dell XPS 15 (9520) One Year Later - BE WARNED!
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Want a premium, unreliable, fast, extremely hot, expensive mess of a laptop that can brick at any time? Then the Dell XPS 15 may be the one for you!
Instagram: @averycheng_
→ TIMESTAMPS⏳
0:00 Intro
0:44 Performance
3:37 Battery Life
4:46 Problems and Quality Control Issues
5:27 The small, annoying problems I experienced
7:14 The more annoying problems I experienced
9:59 The BIG problem I experienced
16:34 Everything Else
18:26 Final Thoughts
Thanks for posting this... understand why I got such a good deal on a refurb as we are experiencing exactly the same issues.
Sorry to hear that you're experiencing what I experienced, but I hope it shows that you're not alone with getting a bad unit
I loved my Dell XPS 15, had to give it to my daughter who also fell in love with it, I currently have an HP Envy 16, but wish I would’ve gotten another Dell XPS 15. Sorry you couldn’t love yours, but great video.
Glad that it works well for you and your daughter!
Had my hard drive fail in a year and a half...😢
What do you think about the envy 15 and most importantly thermal management and does it heat alot?
Sounds like your fans needed a cleaning. You can also add thermal pads and paste to fix the heating issue. Reinstall your audio drivers and check for dust on the ports. XPS 15 still has one of the longest battery life on the market. Your blutooth problem might require the bios update or a driver reinstall. The hard drive issue can be fixed by changing bios settings.
Thanks for the tips, I'll definitely try some of them out to see if they work
@AveryCheng yes these laptops pack alot of power in a small chassis, so out of the box it's not consumer ready for someone who isn't mindful of the tech. But look at it as an opportunity to get to know your tool. Also look into undervolting the cpu and gpu to help with the heat and power usage. As well as battery health tips.
I'll look into those, thanks!
@@LinkLegend0 What do you think about the Dell Precision 5760 Intel Xeon W-11855M RTX A3000? I have a lot of overheating issues, is that true?
Or just get a Mac lol way better and infinite battery life
Thank you for the honest review and insights. I have been using Dell laptop and planning to make an upgrade. I'm happy I randomly check TouTube reviews and found your channel.
Glad I could help!
Hey I worked for Dell. Sounds like you have some faulty fans , and with warranty you can get those replaced. That will help that issue.
Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately, this laptop has far past warranty and I've already moved on from it
5:57 Sounds like your CPU/GPU is throttling due to inadiquate cooling. Placing the laptop on your lap will actually block the intake vents from the underside of the laptop.
8:14 DELL laptops negotiate with it's Dell charger to enable 'express charge' which is DELL's charging protocol that allows 130w over USB C. 3rd party chargers don't have this protocal, thus laptop won't charge at the full speed.
Interesting...thanks for providing your input. I actually never use the laptop on my lap (it's always on a desk), so it must be a sign that I should clean out the intake vents or something. Regarding the 130W over USB-C, I've seen other chargers on the market with 140W USB-C charging, so I'm curious to see if it would actually work with this laptop or not
@@AveryCheng In my experiecne 3d party charger don't charge at full speed with Dell systems, there's a chip inside the PSU which negotiate the maximum power it can provide to the connected device. If you like further information, there's a discussion on Dells Community about this, search "3rd party adapter"
@@AveryCheng Personally I don't use the laptop on the desk, rather have it on an arm allowing more airflow under the system. I know it's no the best choice for some folks but if you have a thunderbolt dock, this is ideal.
In the "MyDel" app, in "Power" tab, there are options to optimise the thermal management. When i'm using it to render videos, I set it "ultra performance", this boosts the fan speeds a little, helps cool the system more at the expense of slightly more noise - Also, good to vacuum the under vents from time to time, preferably with the system off.
@@AveryCheng If I'm not mistaken those 100W+ chargers use the new version of USB PD. I'm of the understanding that Dell chose to make their own proprietary charging negotiation protocol (so much for one USB-C cable, huh.) as the old PD spec topped out at 100W. Really hope the new spec will encourage laptop manufacturers to use standard protocols -- bringing non-standard protocols over to USB C feels like such a kick in the teeth.
As a fun fact, the 130W USB-C charger that came with my 9520 was pretty horrid. It didn't support PD at all (so it slow charged your phone... lol), and it started emitting sparks after less than 3 months of usage; the cable was non-replaceable, so it was then e-waste. After that, I got a WD15 dock for £20 that's fared much better, is way cheaper, and acts as a USB hub. Make sure you get the one with the 180W charger though, as if you pair the dock with 130W it'll only allow the laptop to draw 95W (as the dock takes a bit of power.)
Hope this helps :)
This clears up SO MANY THINGS, thanks!! No wonder why whenever I used the Dell 130W UBC-C charger to charge my iPad Pro, it would charge RIDICULOUSLY slowly. Thanks for your insight!
I feel your pain… I had a 9510 and it was a disaster. One of the Windows Hello IR blasters was faulty out of the box, the battery expanded after two months of ownership, and most recently the trackpad ribbon cable broke and fried the motherboard connector. In the end, the display, battery, fans, trackpad, keyboard/palmrest and motherboard all had to be replaced! (I did also encounter the laptop shutting down in my bag several times and dodgy Bluetooth connections, among many other minor issues).
I ultimately ended up requesting a full refund. Luckily my country has very strong consumer protections so Dell had to provide free repairs and fully refund the purchase well beyond the return/warranty period.
Dell Support was always very helpful but yeah… I don’t think I’ll be buying anything from them again for a very long time (but I did end up having a free laptop for over two years I guess). I wish you luck with your XPS and hope your issues get solved…
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Definitely wish Canada had that strong consumer protections LOL
Very informative video, did anything else occur within the past few months?
I haven't been using it that much over the last few months because I've been using different laptops, but none of the major problems that I mentioned in the video have surfaced recently
@@AveryCheng Thanks for the fast response! You mentioned that you've been using different laptops, do you have any recommendations as an alternative to the xps? I'm entering college this fall and would like some help.
@justinqiu2525 I just unboxed the HP Spectre x360 14", and it's actually a pretty good laptop so far (full review of it coming in a few months). And my main video editing laptop is the M2 MacBook Pro 14"
@@AveryCheng Thanks for the insight!
You're welcome!
My Dell XPS 15 9500 became unusable due to overheating. However just this week I cracked the case open and cleaned the dust out of the fans and vents and replace the thermal paste u der the heat sink and it's working great again. It's a good idea also to use cooling pad. That makes big difference.
Interesting you wish you had bought a 4K model. I bought a 4K model and I wish I had bought a 1080p model instead. 4K kills the battery life. That said the screen is beautiful and I do like having a touch screen.
Thanks for your insight! I don't use this laptop anymore, but I probably could've gotten a bit more life out of it if I did what you suggested
it’s been less than 2 years since i got this laptop and omg it’s so unreliable. no way to predict when the audio would just not play at all. it’s happened in zoom meetings. camera quality is shit and the brightness gets stuck in one place as well. i can’t have this happening in job interviews man
Thanks for sharing your experiences with this laptop! I could imagine that it would be really frustrating for job interviews as someone who is currently in the job search
Maybe it depends on the countries? I mean, I have the same laptop, I'm a Mechanical Engineer too here in Italy. I really did not have problems with mine. the only problem that I had was a noisy hinge of the lid which was changed by Dell during my warranty support. the other problem is the overheating when I open CONVERGE CFD for simulations. since now it's a while i my warranty it's been expired, maybe I'll change the thermal paste.
Thanks for your input!
you think its still worth getting for software development?
Possibly, but there are better and cheaper options out there if you do your research
I am on the boat as you I cannot decide and time is running out have you find something ?
@@koussi5085 yeah, I ended up getting it and its been pretty good for me personally
Good analysis. However: Bluetooth is Bluetooth, which is an overcomplicated standard. Any combination of BT master and BT device may fail because they implement only "relevant" parts of the standard for themselves. I've seldomly have had no problems at all with any headphone set: Windows, Linux, new nor old headphones.
Interesting insight...thanks for sharing!
Hi Chenh,can you please tell me how can i download/buy that blue-orange wallpaper for my laptop ? it is amazing.I will be waiting for your reply.Thank you in advance
Downloaded it from here: basicappleguy.com/basicappleblog/sierra-blue-wallpaper
@@AveryCheng thank you so so much.i will do it right now.And surely watch more your videos
Glad to help!
15:49 That's literally me. What's the point of having extra bells and whistles when it has performance stability issues?
Unfortunately nowadays, it feels like laptops are meant to be sold rather than to be used :(
@@AveryCheng Lol. True. Facts.
I just got mine today, and its fan is continuously running even on quiet setting. Lets see how it goes.😅
That's not a good sign out of the box 💀
Part of the issues you experienced with your ssd i suspect was caused by bitlocker that you setup. The heating up issue can be solved with replacing the thermal paste with liquid metal that alone can get the temperature down by 10 degrees
Thanks for the tips! I really appreciate it!
Is the heat sink on this model made of copper as well? Is LM really the good idea (ignoring the mostly harmless stain it makes, how long does it last before you have to start endlessly reapplying again)? Then, what about the warranty? Have anyone tried to use some hi-end thermal paste instead of LM? Does that work as well?
Should I get this 2nd hand for A$1000 with the 4k screen and 32gb ram? I plan to upgrade to 64gb of ram as soon as I notice I get close to the max ram. Just not sure about reliability and whether to go with the framework laptop instead, but that is much more expensive and worse screen other than refresh rate
I can't make that decision for you because there's a ton of things to consider that only you would know. I also haven't used the Framework laptop so I can't speak to it unfortunately
@@AveryCheng I’m going for a framework. Can’t stand unreliable companies. Plus the seller was very rude and not answering my questions; that combined with the unreliability made me let it go
Hopefully the Framework laptop suits your needs well!
Ssd problem. I have this problem with Lenovo without plug in charger it does not even boot. When plug in it boots up and work for 2 to 3 minutes only than again blue screen error. It was very hard for me to recover all data
Good to know. I might try to replace the SSD on it when I get the chance
I don't use the inbox charger with the laptop. For our company since most of us have to travel from place to place. We use the 45/60w chargers made for the smaller 13 inch models and while they don't super fast charge the device its enough slowly charge it while ur using it.
It's still kind of annoying when the laptop gives the warning that you're not using a high enough wattage power adapter. If it didn't give that, I would probably use a smaller charger
If I upgrade my XPS 9510 to this one will I still be able to use my DDR4 memory cards?
I think they should still work, as I believe this laptop still uses DDR4 RAM
I bought my Dell XPS 15 fully upgraded last year. And honestly for a laptop on which I spent $3500 Canadian dollars I am kinda not feeling good because of following. However, I still love it (mainly bcz of the design) and might use it for the next many years. But dell really needs to do something for their flagship laptops.
1. Battery only 2 to 2.5 hours ... that's it - Asked Dell support and they said it is normal for Dell... What the hell !
2. It gets very very hot .. I normally use my laptop on the lap and so my lap burns using this laptop .. Like come on
3. The mouse pad is huge and sometimes while I am typing, any part of my palm touches the mouse pad and it put cursor out of place --- this happens a lot.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! Unfortunately, it seems like the new flagship XPS 14's and 16's have taken three steps back in terms of overall product quality...
@@AveryCheng hey thanks for the comment. I was thinking about the new XPS but after your comment I think I'll keep on using my current one.
My xps15 has had screen replaced twice, and motherboard replaced twice and still has same random problem: when waking from sleep, screen stays black. Only option is to force shut down.
Oh man, that really must suck. Hopefully it gets better in the future 😢
I have 9520 12th Gen i9. This also gets hot, and the display is pasty, supposed to be OLED. I have had BT issues with the headphones. The webcam Logitech I use, randomly works. Don't get me started on the dock. Only glad it is work laptop and I didn't pay for it. :D
Glad to hear it's not just me experiencing problems 🥲
Hi I got the same laptop, what dell software did you keep on your laptop? And have you done anything to increase the battery lifespan? I'm really confused if I should have it on ac primarily or the custom plan and choose so it doesn't charge more than 80%. Do you know how the ac primarily setting works? does the battery charge slower? And how do you like it now after having it for more than a half year more?
I kept the Dell Command Update, MyDell, and Dell Support Assist applications on my laptop (and maybe a few others that I may have forgotten). To increase battery life, I enabled "Best Efficiency" in Windows Settings and made sure the GPU would always be off when on battery power. I don't know how the power settings work. I still can't rely on it because the problem of the HTTP boot menu still shows up occasionally
Got the same model/config. I still get BSD once a month. Dell replaced the motherboard. Didn’t help.
I think it's most likely an SSD issue, but I could be completely wrong. Don't even know where to start with diagnosing the problem
not that i'd be able to afford the laptop but at least I know its one to avoid 😅 great video as always!
Yep, definitely don't make my mistake 😂
@@AveryChengwhat about the xps 15 - 9530? Would u recommend it for an engineering student?
It's pretty much the exact same thing except with more power and heat stuffed into the same chassis, so probably wouldn't recommend it
@@AveryChengwhat would u recommend for a student with a budget of £1500 then?
I have the same laptop but 16gb of ram and agree, Dell quite literally charges apple prices for hp build quality...
If you think this is bad, look at the prices of the new XPS 14 and XPS 16 👀
@@AveryCheng I seem to have lucked out with mine, it's been working wonderfully for a while now (nearly 2 years):
- the heat has not been an issue, typically is sitting at 47C(not plugged in)(balanced mode) & 53C (plugged in)(ultra performance mode) and peaks at 60-65C under extreme load.
- the build quality was perfect, it feels and looks premium.
- when it does blue screen it is usually my fault anyway, but that's very rare,
- I average a minimum of 8 hours to often 12 of the screen time, with a heavy load for several hours at a time.
- battery health is still the same as when I got it
-When the laptop is on sale, which is very often on their website, it honestly is a very good value, at least in my opinion.
Specs:
12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H
16.0 GB RAM, which I plan to upgrade to 32
GPU: 3050 4GB (8 GB shared memory)
512 GB SSD + an additional 2 TB SSD both with heatsinks
Setup:
- check one of my community posts on my channel to see it.
Interesting! Well, I'm glad that someone able to use it without many issues
just got 9500 ,GPU failed similar like MSIs do ,can imagine manufactured on same line. luckily had warranty and Dell changed the MB.
That's unfortunate, but at least you had the warranty. The problems are still persisting on my laptop today and I'm almost a year past warranty
@@AveryCheng sold the 9500 and got a Precision 5560 since ,much better quality ,faster cpu and did cost same
Nice!
You use laptops in engineering exams nowadays? You kids have it so easy! When I was doing my mech eng degree we had to solve complex systems of equations, optimization problems and other things like that on paper during 3 hour exams! Sorry to hear about your XPS, mine just died after 4-5 years, most likely needs motherboard replacement. Oh well, it was good while it lasted and it"s really annoying as the thing still looks and feels pristine (and worked great just until a couple of weeks ago). My sin? I will likely buy another one now and hope for the best:)
We do use our laptops for some of our exams that involve coding and also for one of my circuit analysis courses in electrical engineering. But I can imagine that it must've been difficult without a laptop for those calculations!
totally agree. mine is completely done after 1,5 yeas work! :(
Damn, that's really unfortunate. What happened to it?
What do you think about the Dell Precision 5760 Intel Xeon W-11855M RTX A3000? I have a lot of overheating issues, is that true?
I actually haven't heard of that laptop model before, so I don't know much about it unfortunately. Maybe try seeing if there are other reviews of it elsewhere
@@AveryCheng okey, thank you
This laptop really sucks. As an architecture major, I had this laptop blue screen on me every now and then causing me to redo parts of my projects. And yeah, I also had to press the power button on and off again to get out of the stupid bitlocker and repair tool screen. Just two weeks ago, my XPS decided to bootloop before turning into a complete black screen. I tried retrieving my files but apparently they all disappeared. The worst part was, this was happening during the day in which my assignment was due. So, I ended up losing a year's worth of data, 4 weeks worth of work and I came into class with nothing to show for. I tried explaining my situation to my instructor but he tells me that "This is an excuse that people who are already behind make. You don't have your prints - you don't have your model. I can make a fucking model without a computer. You failed this assignment - you already failed this class. Go, do what you need to do..." So I spend the whole day trying to fix this junk of a laptop, but I ended up having to factory reset it. By then, I realised that it was too late to catch up on work, my excuse is invalid, and I lost everything. So, I decided to drop my studio class, but I couldn't drop it without dropping it's other two corequisites. So now, I'm a year behind from graduating. Imagine, a laptop that literally decides your fate. Lucky, I still have my warranty. I believe it's about time I should use it given the amount of pain this laptop caused me.
Oh goodness, that sounds absolutely terrible and I can definitely imagine how you must be feeling. It really sucks when the things we rely on the most don't work as intended and, as you said, can literally decide your fate.
'They' can be cruel. Go on with it!
A year off to work in the profession or intern or such, perhaps? Then return being almost already a professional?
You probably are still young *if you are even in your mid 20s into 30s. Time is on your side even if it does not feel like it.
I did not graduate from architecture program in the 1970s. Calculus. A particular teacher and an advisor so greatly discouraged me and I had no one to speak to it seemed. My grades were only so-so.
Pre- PCs, no CAD.
I am using xps 15 9570 and Heating problem is real pain in all of that .. I even Clean my laptop and apply paste on CPUz GPU but it drop like 5° only... Except this issue this is one of the best laptop for me . i am planning to buy huawei mateX pro What's your thoughts on that..
Haven't really heard much about or been interested in Huawei laptops, mostly because of its availability is certain regions and security concerns with the brand itself, so I can't really speak much about them
Try to disable Hyperthreading in BIOS. Helps immensely with thermals.
In your first year? Yeah u got a lemon.
My XPS15 (2020) suffered a slow death in its 4th year (right after warranty’s over 😢). Over 1 month, I need 2 tries to successfully boot, then 5, 10, 20… until it just got stuck on Dell logo.
Luckily I had a great repair guy who troubleshooted with me along the way, and ultimately determined I had to replace the motherboard for S$900 💸
On the bright side, now it’s a 2021 motherboard living in a 2020 chassis. For all its shortcomings, it’s pretty repairable if you know the right guy :^)
Thanks for sharing your insights!
Btw I just watched a few more of your tech reviews & backpack vid, which reminds me a lot of my own uni life. Having picked up a surface pro 9 to tide over my dead XPS, I do think a it will do you very well if you are used to a note-taking tablet.
They deprecate like windows laptops so u might be able to pick up a 2ndhand low-end SP9 + keyboard pen for couple hundreds. The base spec with 8GB ram can get really cheap - try it out for a taste of that full fat windows tablet experience. Then, sell it off if you don’t like it.
Essentially your note-taking tablet would be a full laptop, if u know what I mean. The latest x86 is SP10, but battery life remains lousier than iPad.
I’d keep an eye out if surface pro eventually offers in those power efficient Intel ultra 200 chips. You’d get full app compatibility with great battery life, and you’d ditch your laptop at home in no time.
I already have an iPad Pro as my notetaking tablet, and it works very well for it!
For that sole purpose… yeah it’s pretty darn good. Hope it translates into grades 😆
I got a similar laptop with an RTX 4070 for half the price 💀
1:44 thin and lightweight laptops are always known for being super hot, its the tradeoff for portability. The alternative is a giant ass brick 😂
Damn that's a pretty good deal
The upside is that I basically have a personal heater with me during the winter with this laptop 😂
Also, with the battery, try turning down the refresh rate of the display and disabling the 3050 Ti (if you can, some laptops let you)
High refresh rates and GPUs suck power
For the laptop turning itself off, check the power profile in windows. You may have the laptop set to "hibernate when lid is closed"
I didn't listen to you, bought the laptop and now I have the same problem 😀
NOOOOOOOOO return it ASAP!!!
I have the highest spec, 3.5k display, 64gb ram, 12900hk, Nvidia 3050Ti and 2TB
Damn the battery isn't that strong compared to b4, and i could hardly squeeze 6 hours on light use
2ndly.. the heat and fan noise when gaming or emulating
Lastly, some bugs might just pop in, and you would not be able to use your wifi or Bluetooth until you restart your p.c, and if you do, it will stay on restart screen untill you force to power off by holding on to the power butting... Anyway, I still enjoy using my xps 15,and I have up to 2027 until my warranty expires
Emulating games on it will make you cry sometimes 😂😂
Thanks for sharing your experiences! I never knew game emulations were so intensive LOL
@AveryCheng that was what I thought.. Any dedicated pc games work well even if they are high graphical games.
All you'll do is lower the resolution for better fps, but Ps3 emulation!! The little boy will crash, drop frames, stutter, and at a point, I was scared it might blow up my pc cause of the heat and fan noise
That trackpad looks so unnecessarily big
Never found it an issue, and it's just more room for my finger to glide around!
@@AveryCheng yeah it's one of those things that doesn't matter unless it's too small.
I have the exact same problem with my xps 15. Total trash. Mine is only 3 months old. What's even worse is the support which is from India I either can't understand what they are saying or they are just reading from a generic book that is totally useless.
I feel you, dude. They really need to step up the quality control on this laptop
I JUST RANDOMLY REMEMBERED YOU TODAY, i am so glad you are still goin g.
Thanks!
I was looking for new laptop because I will enter University. So I was planning to get the XPS 15 or XPS 17. Seeing this issues I’m a bit worried. I shall look for other brands. Btw bro, which windows laptop would you recommend? I will use it for University stuffs, entertainment, and some small AI training projects.
I'd definitely recommend the Asus ZenBook 14 or 14X right now. They're pretty solid laptops overall and for the price, they're extremely competitive in terms of price-to-performance ratio
Microsoft Surface Pro 7 or 8 bro.
@@AveryCheng Lets see reviews of it.
Lmao I am broke af so I can't review it personally, but here's a good review that I trust: ruclips.net/video/6ZJFciRzxBI/видео.htmlsi=JzePXgCMlOWQXQY9
@@AveryCheng I am writing from an Asus Zenbook (my gf"s) as my XPS died, calling the Zenbook solid may give the wrong impression. It may be solid as an offer, but this thing creaks like crazy,! It feels like it`s about to break at any moment, absolutely the opposite from the XPS which is as sturdy and premium as they come. Funny thing is the Zenbook is advertised as "military grade"!
Did you find yourself a portable windows option, preferably within the m2 mba 16g price range? I've been a lifelong windows user looking to shift to a portable machine now (after my HP Omen just gave out) but it looks like there's just nothing better than the m2 mba in that price range.
Great content btw! Keep up the honest reviews.
Thanks for watching! I'm considering the Asus ZenBook 14x, which is somewhat around the M2 MacBook Air price range but is still quite powerful and decent quality
I have had bad experiences with Asus
dell error codes giving me ptsd
Definitely very scary 💀
This is also my main laptop and I want so badly to love it but it’s sucks :( so disappointing
Same :(( I really wanted to like using it, but there are just so many problems that shouldn't be problems
The blue screen happened to me
Oh noooooooo 😭
Thanks for your thoughts. I'm always stumped by reviews that put Dell's XPS on par with something like a MacBook. Ya, no! It's a good laptop but overpriced and always feels like playing the lottery when booting it up. It mostly works but it's far from flawless. I can only say that about my 16" M1 Pro. I currently own this year's 9530 with i9 and RTX 4070. I've noticed improvements on the quality control side of things. Yay, Dell! But it's still only months old. I worry. My experiences with earlier iterations, 7590 and 9500, taught me that skill: worrying. What do you plan to pick up next? Lenovo's Legion line piques my interest, although my company will never subsidize a gaming laptop.
Thanks for watching! I recently did pick up a new 14" M2 MacBook Pro just for video editing, while my XPS 15 will now be my school laptop for engineering. If it does brick in the future (which will most likely happen), I'm keeping my eye on the Asus ZenBook 14X, as it seems like a pretty solid laptop for the money
@@AveryChengYes, Zenbook is another!
Nvm gonna buy a Mac...ig?
All up to you 🤷🏻♂️
Is the Apple MacBook Air not an option?
There are certain programs in my engineering studies that only work on Windows; otherwise, I'd most likely be using a MacBook Pro
@@AveryCheng Makes sense, Thank you!
My only concern is the fanless design of the air. I think the longevity of the laptop can be affected by that
Good point, that could be a factor to consider
🔥🔥🔥🔥
🔥 is the best emoji to describe my XPS (a hot mess)
Ayo almost 90% of your video is valid but the laptop issue that you had to return is a Windows issues
From some of the comments to this video, others have had this issue as well. And regardless of whether it's a laptop issue or a software issue, it's still an issue nonetheless and Dell should be responsible for it
@@AveryCheng agree and disagree agree cause dell should have checked that ssd better and windows for not being able to build a is in 2024 to support better Bluetooth
Agreed; it shouldn't have been a problem in the first place