I find your result a bit surprising. Having the XPS 13 for work and these things are - besides the massive resolution for the comparably small screen - as painless as it gets in my experience.
The XPS 13 appears to be a much better choice than the XPS 15 - standard SSDs, integrated graphics, smaller and light(er).
The 15 I have has two fans: one I presume for the CPU and another for the Nvidia GPU (which I don't use). However, once both have started neither shut off until the machine is suspended. There is a suggestion that this is due to a firmware bug related to suspend/wake and it doesn't happen from cold boot. I haven't tested it out, will give it a go next week.
I've also been used to MacBooks and so the XPS does fall short somewhat in comparison - minor flexing and creaking and much less heat dissipated via the chassis (plastic vs aluminium). I have an Intel i7 in the XPS that appears to consume quite a lot of power. I'd much rather change it for a less powerful, more frugal i5 but alas it is too late.
From comment in this thread about a Lenovo: "I ended up installing NVidia's proprietary driver which let me disable the MX150 and use the Intel video card instead. Machine seems to run a little cooler since.". Might help if you don't need nVidia?
The 15 I have has two fans: one I presume for the CPU and another for the Nvidia GPU (which I don't use). However, once both have started neither shut off until the machine is suspended. There is a suggestion that this is due to a firmware bug related to suspend/wake and it doesn't happen from cold boot. I haven't tested it out, will give it a go next week.
I've also been used to MacBooks and so the XPS does fall short somewhat in comparison - minor flexing and creaking and much less heat dissipated via the chassis (plastic vs aluminium). I have an Intel i7 in the XPS that appears to consume quite a lot of power. I'd much rather change it for a less powerful, more frugal i5 but alas it is too late.