XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available
bartongeorge.io
bartongeorge.io
My list of problems:
* Coil whine
* Noisy fans
* Heat issues
* USB-C port has a bad pin (only works in one orientation with pressure)
* Charging port inconsistently charges
* Bad cell in the battery, so it suddenly shuts off without warning when on battery
The charging issues started just around the 12 month mark, so I quickly sent to a repair center under warranty. They returned it with a note that said "mainboard replaced", but nothing had actually been replaced. Same bad pin on the USB-C port (everything I plug into it only works "upside down", and that port is part of the mainboard), same dust in the ports as when I mailed it, etc. By the time they shipped it back, the warranty had expired.
If you're going to buy one of these, I recommend buying an extended warranty. I do also recommend the touchscreen. I've heard the i5 versions have less problems, I would probably take the performance hit next time if it meant a more reliable and longer-lasting machine.
I keep contemplating a full transition to Ubuntu as my work machine, but there are still certain environment impacts (like connected devices and the need to run some Mac-only software on occasion) that has prevented it.
But if I could convince myself to take the dive and go Linux-only, I wouldn't hesitate to run with the XPS line.
Disclaimer: Absolutely none other than Barton is a great guy who helped a random stranger that once complained on Twitter.
Whenever, I see it I always assume the product is just trash by design.
It might be worth your team's while addressing these perceptions in some way. I don't know what to suggest (your job not mine!) other than chiming in now and then in places like HN, but it might merit some thought on your part.
One thing that reduces consumer risk when buying Apple is their genuinely frictionless returns policy. It really is feasible to buy if you're unsure & just return within a couple of weeks, no questions asked. I haven't looked, but imagine Dell's terms are similar. If so, this might be worth highlighting.
The problem is that a lack of accurate & reliable information can be a great incubator of unsubstantiated perceptions. I'm just suggesting that if the Dell team believe the XPS's not to have reliability problems, it's in their interests to come up with tactics to manage perceptions where possible. It's in our interests really, as we all would want a wide range of good developer-friendly laptops available.
The only thing that bothered me was adaptive brightness (CABC) that was fixed in my case with an unofficial panel firmware at some risk to brick the device. Coil whine is perceptable only if I keep ear close to the keyboard. No other problems.
If there is someone from Dell here: please fix CABC! Unofficial patch proves that it can be done. It's especially important for linux devs who switch between dark terminal windows and browser: CABC increases backlight brightness if contents of screen are light, and decreases if it's dark. So, I switch from terminal to browser, brightness jump is already unpleasant as is, but then CABC kicks in, increases brightness and burns out eyes. Switch back to terminal -- too dark, difficult to see anything. How it's even supposed to work... Another unpleasant thing happens when CABC starts to adjust brighness back and forth while I edit code, it's highly annoing when it happens.
Edit: There were also a problems with Atheros WiFi, but new firmware from Atheros's github fixes them completely for me. Works stable since June 2017.
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdet...
If you think Apple has fallen in terms of quality, you have no idea how low they would have to fall to match Dell's.
I don't. I've found Apple (hardware) to be reliable and long-lasting. It's the developer-hostile designs where I think they've gone crazy.
Pure UNIX server software was never the developers target market of neither NeXT or Apple.
UNIX compatibility was always just a means to port UNIX workstation software into their OSes, not as a means to write UNIX server software.
Just like Microsoft did in the past and is now doing it again.
Their developer target market are the ones using their sancioned languages and SDKs.
It is true, however that those developers I know who have a choice (ie. because they don't have a huge professional investment in Apple's platforms) are seeking alternatives to macbooks for their next replacement machines.
> Restocking Fees: Unless the product is defective or the return is a direct result of a Dell error, Dell may charge a restocking fee of up to 15% of the purchase price paid, plus any applicable sales tax.
http://www.dell.com/learn/au/en/aucorp1/policies-returns (Aus version as this is where I am).
That's a real problem for online purchases in my view.
At least the Precision line is the buisness line which means better support, preinstalled with Linux (so its tested well) and probably from what I have read better tested/built due to being a business line. I like supporting Dell on this venture b/c they are sticking thier neck out a little by even supporting/preinstalling Linux as a big name OEM provider.
The Lenovos are great too, but I wish they would officially support Linux and offer Linux preinstalled as an option so you don't have to pay for Windows.
The 5510 is a lot more rigid than the 3800 was, but it still isn't rigid enough. I could carry my personal 15" macbook pro all day with one hand while still being able to click the trackpad down. With that 5510, the chassis flexes too much for the trackpad to click when you hold it from one side. And don't get me started about the cheesy chargers Dell uses.
The 5510 was worlds better, I'll admit - and it does a decent enough job running Ubuntu! There's enough to like about the laptop, but not necessarily at the price they charge.
That said- I'm staying with the m3800 as long as I can. It's a few years old and my battery needs replacing, but otherwise is very capable. Some people have had docking issues on and off with the 5510 (occasional crashing, though I think it's a driver/software issue), but more importantly it has the awful "Nostril Cam" which is annoying for video meetings.
In general, fast, light, good battery (for perspective, mine lasts 2-3 hours now, vs 5-7 when I got it), useful ports. The keyboard is not the best (home/end/pgup/pgdn keys are fn+arrow instead of dedicated) but very usable. I hated the glossy screen at first, but touchscreen is surprisingly useful and I got past it. I just keep a microfiber cloth in my laptop bag now.
Finding a suitable vendor with nice specifications has been hard work...
The thing is, I'm having trouble finding a worthy replacement (this is years old now and is dying; the left hinge is on the way out, the keyboard doesn't work properly (and it's the second keyboard this laptop has had), and the power jack is ... temperamental, but that's another story).
This laptop can hold up to 4 SO-DIMMs (8GB each), 2x 2.5" HDDs, 2x M.2 2242/2280 SSDs, has 4 USB 3.0 ports (one of which is also an eSATAp port), 2 DisplayPorts, an HDMI port, a SIM card slot, SD card reader, gigabit wired Ethernet, 3 audio jacks (headphones/microphone/line-out), a Core i7-4720HQ and a 15.6" 1080p IPS matte display. It also has a GeForce GTX965M but I don't use that (it's always powered off).
I'm in the United Kingdom, and I'm having difficulty finding something that can even come close to that, without going back to Eurocom (which I may end up doing). The most important aspect to me is the large memory support (I can barely get by with 16GB for all the development work I do, so 32GB is really nice) and storage (both HDDs are in a RAID-1 for /home, and both SSDs are in a RAID-1 for / -- which was handy, because one of the SSDs failed a few months ago, and I didn't have to do anything). Avoiding the Microsoft Tax would also be a bonus.
To compare to the laptop this thread is about: I only see an option for 1 drive instead of 4 and it doesn't even go to 1TB, there's no wired Ethernet and no HDMI/DisplayPort connectivity.
The only reason I'm hesitant to go with Eurocom again is their long lead time & shipping charges (they're in North America), and their laptop keyboards don't seem to last...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13943966
I now own a Lenovo T470 and it's been without a hitch since receipt and running Linux. Hopefully the new XPS 13 isn't the 7th generation Fiero that many of us assume it will be.
I've always heard about coil whine but maybe I just can't hear it (I'm 43). As long as the Linux support remains strong I will keep buying the Precision line.
The machine was not really usable for professional work.
I now have a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 5th gen. It has no major issues and works reliably, even with Linux as the primary OS. Granted, it was more expensive, but well worth the purchase price.
Thinkpad also appears to use long lasting batteries that hold charge well. I've had 2 think pads, each 6+ years. They still hold battery for hours and hours.
The XPS had failed with ridiculous reason, I try to access the BIOS/UEFI with some key while boot up. After some tries, the machine never boot again. It founds that by pushing F8 in the wrong timing/combination while booting can cause the machine to brick forever. This is beyond the expectation of how any computer should work !
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/...
I paid $500 less for my X1C5, bought during the Black Friday sale. It doesn't have a dGPU (that I didn't want anyhow); but does have a WQHD display, WWAN, and a 1 TB Samsung SSD instead of a 512 GB Toshiba. No issues with Linux or OpenBSD, and the keyboard is better than both the current XPS 15/Precision 5520 and my 2013 rMBP 13". (Let's not even think about how hard the current MBPs suck.)
Care to share your usecase(s) that drive why you'd recommend the touchscreen?
On the plus side, I would imagine higher resolution translates to crisper text.
But, at the moment, I couldn't justify it to myself for several reasons:
1. Perceived negative impact on battery uptime
2. Screen wobble and fingerprints on touch
3. $350 premium over equivalent non-touch spec
the screen cannot be folded backward so touch screen cannot be used as tablet and thus wasting my money
hi-def screen is is useless on 15" display
other than that, my laptop is working fine with no HW issues
That's why I intermediately returned the one I bought.
An extended warranty would not have helped in my case. That would have just extend the pain.
- Coil whine
- noisy fans
- Computer doesn't shut down(or go to sleep) about 50% of the time. The screen turns off, but the fan stays on and the only way to wake it up again is to hold the power button down. Apparently it's a common issue with them and there's loads of threads about it on the internet with no solution anywhere.
I don't need the touchscreen, but it's the only way to get 16GB of RAM in the US. Really, Dell, this is totally your doing. Same with that coil whine. I thought you had sorted that out after the Latitude I bought fifteen years ago.
I bought it used, from the outlet, on a lark. This was the consumer version, not even dev.
The damn thing's been the laptop equivalent of a Kabar knife. Deleted the Windows install and tossed Ubuntu on there. Then drops, generally rough treatment, and it's still running happily. No coil whine at all.
The only complaints I have were that the SSD was the Samsung model with serious degradation issues (solved via replacement), and the mouse was finicky until some patched drivers made it upstream.
I feel like quality control issues are a fact of life nowadays. (Aside from LG, because seriously, #&@$ that company for the 5x bootloop handling)
Damn it Dell, fix this shit.
It existed on my HSW XPS 13 developer edition, and this "non-developer edition" KBL XPS 13 I just purchased.
I can totally sympathize with problems like this that surface, but I have no sympathy for a company that seems to ignore this issue for several generations. My next development laptop will probably not be an XPS, and will probably not be a Dell.
I can't hear any coil whine. Maybe my hearing isn't what it used to be or our office isn't that quiet, but the only thing I hear from this laptop is the fan when it's running at full speed (and that comes up very rarely in my experience so far).
* Upgrading from win 8.1 to win 10 causes frequent bluescreens unless speedstep is disabled, which leads to massive heat issues. There havn't been any driver updates since, so Dell seem to have no interest in fixing this.
* Random electric shocks where my arms touch the front of the unit while typing. Happens whether plugged in or not. Super annoying.
Overall I honestly can't recommend these. Reasonably good specs and sleek design but flaky construction and too many issues to be worth it. I'll probably get an HP next.
Unfortunately the level of service also dropped significantly. When I bought XPS 12 6 years ago it was stellar making me a loyal customer but now... some things can be blamed on Intel (broken Thunderbolt, and the TB15 fiasco) but not all...
I mean, who uses touch screens for development? I can't really imagine a scenario where it would be helpful for me. Maybe when doing work in Illustrator and Photoshop, but I usually use a different machine for that anyhow, because of Adobe's lack of Linux support.
I don't want to pay for something I won't use.
I am otherwise actively looking for a laptop. System76 does not have European keyboard layouts, otherwise I would go with them.
Co-workers are less likely to touch it and leave marks, that's the only upside I see.
> I am otherwise actively looking for a laptop.
I got a X1 Carbon a few days ago. I'm pretty content so far.
Their i7 only had 4GB of memory, so I got the i5 version with 8. Unfortunately - or actually, fortunately - there was a bulge in the chassis that tech couldn't get out so ended up returning the unit, and by that time the i7/8/256 was just around the corner so arranged for that to be the replacement.
Unit still works today, and I'm very glad I got the i7 CPU now. Much snappier than the i5, even though battery life took a big hit. On top of that, battery is worn out. I am probably going to look for another replacement battery soon, and am keen on a 2018 upgrade, but anyway for short development stints including Docker it is great. Keyboard is top of the class, so is the track pointer (which I love).
The upcoming 2018 version (8th Gen Intels) is expected to have 4/8c which will be fantastic. Sadly only 16gb memory, but Docker has kind of shifted my requirements there vs Virtualbox. (Perhaps I'll wait for a version where Intel has sorted their Meltdown issue.)
What do you mean by "4/8c"?
I use i3, which would (edit:) not benefit from the touch screen from the get-go. Maybe I could configure it to react to touch events in a cool manner, like moving windowed stuff around with touch. Resizing with two fingers.
That might actually be pretty cool
Not touch screens per se, but I was considering the XPS on the basis that the screen is sure to be more rugged than a regular one.
My problem is that every laptop I had eventually developed these white pressure spots on the screen.
I do! While the kids were watching TV, I was sitting next to them coding a personal project. As I was scrolling through documentation on the web, sometimes it was just easier to use the touch screen than to use the trackpad. I remember thinking to myself, "Whoa, I didn't think I'd use the touchscreen on this laptop".
If I had my quiet space with an actual keyboard and a mouse, I would not use the touch screen. But I no longer have that luxury and I found myself appreciating the touchscreen on my laptop.
With my laptop in my lap, I typically have to be leaning back to comfortably use the keyboard. Sitting up or slightly leaning forward, it's more comfortable to grasp and scroll with the screen itself, maybe bent a little further back than typical usage. It's a more comfortable resting position.
Although sometimes I just flip my yoga into a tablet and that's just swell
more than a page turn?
I find the continual swiping distracting. And it's a much more complex motion (akin to a page turn) and must be done more frequently than paing. A tap of the space bar is about the simplest motion, and (except in cases of bad page design) gives a clean "start at top for next page" rather than trying to figure out where on the screen your next line is.
Preferences vary, obviously.
Yes, a page turn with a book gives you a very specific place to continue. Spacebar or page down doesn't.
> i7 | 16GB | 512GB | FHD non-touch (1920 x 1080)
But only US layouts. European, specifically scandinavian and UK layouts, have 1 additional button, so labels cannot fix it either
Edit: ohhhh! You want non-touch but 4k. Now I see! But if it's paying for unwanted touch functionality vs a US keyboard layout (not to mention the vastly inferior design and size) then I know what I'm picking.
I dislike most laptop manufacturers of this day, because they all either:
* Only make touch-screens in 4K
* Don't let you upgrade your RAM.
* Only sell with Windows bundled. Not paying for Windows, no thanks
Dell satisfied only one of those criteria. They are very high in my book. In fact, I am using one of their 4K monitors right now.
I agree with you on System76 though. I am in the process of being a Galago Pro, but I really wish they'd open up or partner with a reliable distributor in the EU to lower shipping costs, provide localised keyboard layouts, and avoid having to pay VAT at the door.
But yeah I'm getting sold more and more on the touch screen, honestly. I think gestures and such have the potential to be neat, and could optimize my workflow.
Being able to move and resize windowed stuff in i3, something I have bound to mouse keys at the moment, would be really neat with a touch screen. Makes the desktop seem tactile and real. It is a pain to move them with key presses, so I usually move my hand to the mouse anyhow.
Gestures, like some tap or something to move a window out of the scratchpad, and back to tiling mode or whatever. Neat. Though the keyboard combination I use now would probably be faster.
In addition, as Someone1234 pointed out, native touch events would be really nice to have when doing web dev. I for one constantly use the Chrome mobile emulator. Native would be better.
Web developers who want to test using real touch input events rather than the quirky emulation found in a few browsers.
If you're developing for touch, in particular things like drag & drop, you want a real device.
Even if you have an iPad or smartphone test device too, it is nice to have that ability on your main development machine rather than jumping around.
Typically testing using Chrome on Windows using a touch screen gives you a reasonable frame of reference for how iOS and Android behave since all are WebKit-like (at least until fine tuning, when you're of course testing on real devices).
> xinput list
Then:
> xinput set-prop <device-id-here> "Device Enabled" 0
Can add it to .bashrc
It's sorta unfortunate that folks consider touch screens to be a useless luxury. I suspect if folks didn't, a lot of small X11 utilities would be easier to write.
FWIW, I do. My current XPS 13 has a touchscreen which I would disable even if it didn't have so many downsides (battery, glare, etc). I'm pretty damn efficient with a keyboard and occasional mouse usage, and I don't really find a desktop touch screen to be at all desirable.
1) Both chargers failed after less than a year
2) Wi-Fi and suspend have been a consistent problem (even on the Developer edition that came with Linux! Did nobody at Dell try connecting to the internet or suspending? It's a fucking laptop!)
3) Their "premium support" was worse than useless (I ended up spelunking through dmesg and firmware files and fixing it myself)
4) constant coil whine
5) a TouchPad that loses its mind a few times a day....
I had all of these problems on BOTH machines. The design is so good that it's _almost_ worth it, but I'm pretty confident I will never buy a Dell product again. Back to the X1 carbon for me.
Touch screen is very helpful if you do not plug a mouse. Not just for web/mobile apps.
For scrolling the console lines / codes, it gives you a better feeling than finding the correct Fn-key combination and location of the PageUp/Down keys. The scrolling using a touch screen is definitively not comparable with the two-finger gestures on the touch pad.
Selecting a window / moving window around is also more comfortable with a touchscreen than using the keyboard or touchpad.
In my experience virtually all LCD displays have it to some degree, you just don't notice it except with certain patterns (like that one) that interact with the scanout mechanism.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_capacitor#Microphony
Disassembly may not be required to trace root cause with high probability depending on the type of hardware exhibiting the issue, e.g. on a laptop, manifests upon affixing power adapter (as some have described) or tracks display pattern (as parent link).
I put 32GB of ram and (now) Fedora 27 on it. I love everything about it. LOVE!
The comment I get the most is "that screen is incredible" from mac users.
* https://www.ultrabookreview.com/14875-fix-throttling-xps-15/ (PS, unlike a mac this is something you can do. Which is part of the beauty). To get the gpu dynamic switching working "right" with bumblebee you need to compile a custom kernel with CFG_ACPI_REV_OVERRIDE. See https://xps13.landweg.nl/
Why couldn't you? [0][1].
[0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Image/meta/6JoCTCytFZE4gSOU
[1]: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function...
I noticed that the 9370 went from 3200x1800 to 3840x2160. Not sure if that's something worth doing at 13.3"
Then I got a Thinkpad Carbon X1 and I like it, but not as much as I liked my XPS.
Both are great dev machines, but XPS is somehow nicer to use in my experience (and I know all the Thinkpad fans will kill me for saying that :))
- Awful coil whine on the power adapter.
- Touchpad is annoying to use when clicking moves the finger resulting in wrong place click.
- Had to replace Killer wifi card with Intel's, Dell's support was top notch here.
- If you don't have nails, opening lid can be an unusual experience, especially when laptop is sitting on top of the dock.
Coming from Thinkpad W530 and miss it but our company switched from Lenovo to Dell
But even with the above, I do like my XPS and would buy it again. The compact size and light weight are great, much lighter and more compact than my 15" Macbook Pro, which mostly sits on my desk in a dock.
However, I would probably steer people to the Precision 5520 instead if you are going 15" and Dell. Comes with Linux and is business class which hopefully means less stupid QA issues and better tech support
Same for use in the office: a single cable connects you to power, an external display, Ethernet, etc.
It's true that most external devices are still USB-A, but that's not Dell's or Apple's problem. It's a chicken-and-egg situation and somebody needs to start.
USB-C is the superior connector: longer lasting, reversible, works for charging, alternate modes, etc.
...2.4GHz radio interference leading to wifi dropout on many devices when USBC peripherals are plugged in...
Ok, it's not the connector's fault, but still. USB 3 has not been a problem-free advancement.
2013+ Macbook Pros had that problem simply using external monitors in some cases
However, I do think it's funny that the one time Apple switches to an interoperable standard, people complain about it.
I still need to carry some dongles to get HDMI and LAN ports... but i don't need those all the time.
I only carry a power adaptor when traveling. No dongle at all.
> Same for use in the office
I have a dock on my desk. I place my laptop on it and press a button. No dongles, no wires, instantly transforms my laptop into a desktop with two screens, Ethernet, keyboard and mouse.
> USB-C is the superior connector
Agreed. But keeping one or two legacy ports around for convenience is good. Specially when all common peripherals still use it.
Eh? How do I transfer my music to my phone?
Yes, moving forward to a new format can be painful.
Went ahead and purchased a 32GB System76 Galaga Pro last week with the same i7-8550U available on the XPS. It's a slightly larger 13", but feels a lot closer to my 5th gen XPS 13 than the MacBook Pro the Galaga replaces. Comes with a retina-like matte IPS 3200x1800 screen that is a joy to use. No touch, for better or worse. Keyboard layout is actually superior to the XPS for development with dedicated home/end/pgup/pgdn buttons. Pop!OS is nice and worth a spin, plus it has XPS levels of support under Ubuntu 16.04 which is available pre-loaded. Camera is in a much more useful place than on the XPS. It's also cheaper at most configurations.
Downsides are a smaller battery (probably to make room for both an M.2 SSD and a 7mm 2.5" drive bay) and a touchpad that while multitouch and decent isn't as good as the XPS touchpad. Also, while the screen hinge feels more solid than the XPS's, it doesn't go back as far as I would expect. XPS uses better materials in spots, like soft touch carbon fiber in palm.
So far I'm extremely happy with the Galaga Pro and would recommend to anyone who wants a small powerful laptop like the XPS 13, but is turned off by its 16GB limitation.
I should know. I’ve been using one for nearly a year.
Holding out for next generation of Intel (or, now, AMD) CPUs before picking up another Precision. Great, beastly powerful machines, have been running Fedora since 2010 on Precision line.
Pros: - Gorgeous screen, lightweight, Ubuntu 16 feels snappy. - System76 customer service is amazing. - Sub $2000 machine with 32GB RAM and i7. (Mine was $1850 after shipping & tax.) - Lots of ports! The fold-out ethernet port is especially nice, for those rare times when you need one.
Cons: - I dislike the keyboard layout quite a lot, but I'm hoping I get used to it. The right-hand column of home/end/etc gets hit quite a lot by accident when I'm trying to hit enter, tab, etc. Also, the center of my space bar has a dead spot unless pressed very hard. - Battery life is bad. If you're just browsing, you get maybe 4 hours. Anything intensive will run the battery down in under an hour. I mostly use it at home so this isn't a big problem for me. - As stated above, the touch pad feels unresponsive, esp. if you're used to a macbook pro. Not sure whether this is a hardware or software issue. - They charge you $77 (after shipping & tax) for a second charger. (It also seems to be a nonstandard size, so good luck finding one from an OEM.)
The reason is Intel. Intel chipsets don’t support >16gb of ram with the LP variants of DIMMS virtually all laptop makers use.
Because laptops don't need server levels of RAM. What are you doing that needs that much RAM that couldn't better be done on a remote desktop/server than on a developer laptop?
Specially if you have "developer" in your product name, why can't they figure out that 16:9 is not the best aspect ratio for everyone?
I write code the whole day, not watch movies. That huge extra vertical space _does_ make a difference.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-lx100/z-lx10...
If you're in a country where they sell the Surface Book, go take a look and you'll immediately notice that there is a _lot_ more vertical space.
If you're doing primarily vertical tasks (coding, web pages, etc.), the taller aspect ratio can be really helpful.
That said, I've mostly made my peace with 16:9. Write shorter functions (that's good anyway) and throw bars over to the side instead of top and bottom.
And specifically for an xps 13 device, where they trim excess bezels, etc., the keyboard width becomes the limiting factor.
Here's a better image though, rather than a really weird bunch of lines for camera sensors: https://wolfcrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/43169aspectc...
It's about 20% more vertical space, as you can see (and you have to put together the top and bottom, which is a lot more impressive).
I'm all for people using the tools that suit them, but you seem to indicate that 3:2 is just flat out better and 16:9 has no advantages and it's just not the case. I like being able to do more things side by side.
It's personal preference like anything else. The reason 16:9 displays are now common is not because of movies. When they came on the scene most people said "Wow this is nice."
What era was that?
What's so nice about them (besides of course for movies)? Most content consumed on computers is textual (websites?), so why would you have something wider than taller?
- I don't need more vertical space, it won't alleviate the need to scroll.
- I can put two nicely sized windows side by side and say, watch a scrolling log file while writing code or working in a terminal.
- My desk is wide, having wide monitors makes good use of the space available without needing as many monitors. If I had square monitors I would need 3 of them, instead I only need two 27" monitors to make good use of my desk space.
I switch between apps and I often keep windows almost maximized.
I also only do web work, so I look at webpages all day.
Typically, a 16:9 screen doesn't have nearly as many vertical pixels as a 3:2 screen. Sure, a 27" screen fixes that (1440 pixels), but that just masks the problem.
Anyway is about personal choice and currently there isn't much choice for 3:2 laptops for reasonable price/specs
You could see it that way, but you could also say that you gain horizontal space ;)
That said, this is of course a very small computer, and I purchased it knowing I had an external monitor to use with it as well (same aspect ratio, for what it's worth). 13" is adequate but not ideal for me; I feel like this size machine is best paired with an external monitor back at your main desk, with the internal display used less frequently. If I did not have another monitor, I likely would have stepped up to the XPS 15 instead.
it's not the ratio that gives you "extra space".
I don't like having the camera in the lower left corner, but I don't use it much so it's not that big a deal.
My 2 cents based on the stuff I read online:
- The new one is even smaller and lighter, a big plus in my book.
- USB-C exclusively seems good and bad at the same time. Three USB ports on 9360 all charge my phone at different speeds (two USB-A, one USB-C): Android reports "charging slowly", "charging" and "charging rapidly" depending on the port, and I _love_ having the option of charging my phone slowly, as the battery loses less capacity over time that way (due to reduced stress and heat). I don't mind having USB-C dongles around, but it would be great if all peripherals moved to USB-C, therefore having a USB-A port would be convenient, despite USB-C being progressive and pushing the market to switch. I see it as a good intent on Dell's part.
- Dislike microSD port. SD cards are faster and cheaper compared to microSD and with the new laptop one physically can't fit an SD card in it. So one would have to use an SD -> USB adapter, which most likely has USB-A on the other end, plus a USB-A -> USB-C dongle. Ugh.
- 4K screen not really needed. Not a big difference on 13.3", uses more power and QHD+ on 9360 can use nice 2X integer scaling -- shady fractional not needed.
- Equivalent configuration of my 9360 costs more than 2000 USD, tax excluded. I paid ~1400 USD for mine with the tax included, a non-refurbished model.
The bigger battery is nice, USB-A is nice. The weight is the same. Don't care about placement or camera. And the slower RAM doesn't bother me.
I got the updated version with an 8th gen that has win10 pre-installed, since the 9360 with 8th gen is pnly with win10. That's OK, was planning on setting up dual boot anyway.
This isn't to say anything bad about Dell Developer XPS, Sputnik, or Barton at all with their great work here. It is just indeed awful timing for a new release.
Re: cost. Macbook Pro in similar power range is like 3500AUD. So I'm not complaining.
Re: grunt. I also compile stuff sometimes (Gentoo user!) but generally don't need so much RAM. If you really need fast high power compilation consider a decent CI setup with on-demand cloud instances instead... means you don't need to pay over the top for occasionally used local grunt. Also works for others on the same project and enforces clean operations patterns (continuous deployment / effective build documentation).
I'm guessing there isn't much demand for lo res screens on high end laptops. I think that's probably especially true for machines that are mostly about working with text. Who wants to look at jagged type?
I'd rather get a laptop with no branding at all, but the Alienware logo is at least really small. (And the keyboard on the Alienware 13 is good, my brother has one.)
I'm still looking for the perfect replacement for a MacBook Pro. Hopefully when the 2018 XPS 15 comes out...
Switched to an XPS 15 and have been very happy. Love the build quality, specs are good enough. Battery life is much better even on Linux.
YMMV!
I had a number of issues with the Thinkpad that were all relatively minor in and of themselves, but overall, I ended up switching back to the XPS 13, and I plan on sticking with this line.
The Killer wifi has been reliable for me, IMO atheros or intel is always a good choice for wifi on linux
https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201702-25371/
They are rugged and have a good keyboard. You can find a brand new at 70% of a Dell XPS price (at Lenovo's outlet / eBay / BHPhotovideo).
Coil whine, stability and WiFi (terrible at first) have improved after some BIOS updates this year. Also my trackpad has stopped rattling, probably dirt got into the gap and plugged it.
Dell customer service experience was also poor when buying. Next laptop I'll be going back to Lenovo.
I won't be buying a Dell next time.
> We are definitely looking into the coil whine issue, this has senior management visibility, and pursuing several avenues for the current system as well as solutions going forward.
Source: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/46...
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/46...
A motherboard change and a BIOS update (2.4.2) are supposed to lower the noise as much as they can, while still deeming it "working within specification". Users report the 2.4.2 update didn't help much or even made it worse.
Mine does have the "coil whine" thing, although it doesn't really bother me since I'm usually wearing headphones when I use it. But overall, the build quality is just pathetic compared to my Macbook, and this is supposed to be a competitor. The touchpad is way worse, the carbon fiber thing is cheesy, the awkwardly fat bezel at the bottom of the display is silly, the fact that you need a $100 dock to connect to external monitors is ridiculous, the webcam is weirdly placed in the bottom left of the display, there are just a bunch of strange/bad design choices.
That was all the bad things - otherwise it's better than any non-Macbook I've used. It's lightweight, small, gets the "little notebook you can take anywhere" niche fairly well. I hope they listen to feedback and iterate, but I can't say I'd eagerly recommend it.
I think you're overselling this a bit.
I've got a USB-C dongle that with USB-A, HDMI, Network, and VGA, and a USB-C to DisplayPort cable that is entirely passive. I don't remember how much I paid for them, but it was much less than $100 combined.
My ThinkPad 13 has all those buttons.
XPS is a great laptop, I have briefly used it at work, but this tactic (marketing design tactic?), at least to me, feels sometime like deceiving. Kinda off-putting. I have also used Thinkpad Carbon in the past and if I remember correctly it was as slim as it looked.
16:9 monitors are also more marketing-friendly, because the standard measure of monitor size is the diagonal. A 13" 16:10 monitor has a fair bit more area than a 16:9 one, but both are advertised as 13".
I dual boot with windows and while your statement is 100% factual with Ubuntu, it seems to be better handled on windows. This appears to be a software issue; admittedly one which I think that they should be dealing with as a matter of urgency.
At least disable the thing while typing, Dell.
There are random clicks while typing.
Clicking small targets can be difficult because sometimes the cursor will decide to move 50px further than you expect
Attempting to move the cursor diagonally result in erratic stepping where the cursor moves horizontally, then vertically, then horizontally, etc.
Sometimes the cursor randomly jumps half way across the screen.
Clicks often register as drags.
And so on. I'm not alone, everyone in office has either switched to a Macbook or disabled the trackpad entirely.
I think the trackpad is great, comparable to my Air 13 although slightly wanting in tap to click. No palm detection issues. I guess you just need to give it a try yourself.
Reviews i read before buying it said the trackpad is great. And since they've said similar things for all Windows laptops i've had in the past--and the trackpads have always been bad, i wouldn't count on this one being good.
Palm rejection isn't really a thing I notice though, on any computer. I've had people tell me it is objectively terrible on trackpads I've had no trouble with.
So for me it's a Samsung Pro Chromebook as a daily driver and a 2015 Macbook Pro for development and graphics work.
How are things six months forward? Any better to completely working vs. 'closer and it'll be done soon'?
I do believe the unstable 2.9 series introduced an easy way to increase icon sizes, though, so that should be in 2.10 at... some point.
Could always go for the mere "full HD" screen where such things aren't as necessary.
just put Xft.dpi: 144 (or more) in your .Xresources. (at least for menus & fonts)
Here's how it looks for me at 192: https://imgur.com/9KKhpZq.png
Why not get a Surface Book instead for $1600?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0163GNS5S/
Or Gigabyte Aero?
Another problem is that all of the CPUs are 15W TDP. That means they have 1/3 the CPU power of a desktop. They are unsuitable for running heavy VM-based integration tests, video editing, and other things I want to do with my primary computer.
I fried the headphone port because the office wasn't grounded and had a shock, but everything else works well after 2+ years.
But people seem to love them. I don't really get it.
> UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland (French and German), Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark
Yet another company that doesn't want my money.
I've been using Elementary (an Ubuntu Gnome fork) which delivers a slightly better out of the box ui.
That being said, gnome is expected to have factional scaling support under wayland for 3.28, scheduled for, iirc, March.
[1]: By this I mean that in general, our formal systems dump time as a consideration as quickly as they can. The systems designing the CPUs themselves don't, of course, because time is a big deal in making a modern CPU work at all, but otherwise, we dump it as a consideration as quickly as we can, for lots of reasons, like not overspecifying a system and overconstraining it, and because it's really, really hard to keep track of time, and generally doesn't bring value commensurate with that complexity. Having built our stack of software and formalisms without very much thought about tracking time precisely, we generally only once at the very end recapture some time information, when we care, via O() analysis, and generally via the use of a whole crapton of explicitly-approximated values, which for what we care about is almost always good enough.... until timing attacks. Timing attacks suck. I think we're just barely beginning to come to grips with how much they suck.
Another solution I've thought of, which should probably be easier and/or cheaper: When speculatively executing an instruction, just don't write to cache at all. This would potentially make the speculatively executed instructions slower, but I can't imagine it would have a big effect.
Of course, both of those solutions would just mitigate this specific attack. You're probably exactly correct that timing attacks are going to continue to be a big problem.
It might also seem like just getting an AMD CPU instead of an Intel one would let you avoid the Meltdown performance hit, because AMD claims their CPU is not vulnerable to it, and the Meltdown paper says that they didn't get it to work with AMD CPUs, though the people behind the paper didn't seem to be 100% sure that there is no way to do a similar attack on AMD CPUs.
Spectre is a different beast. I imagine that one will take significantly longer to fix; from what I understand, the issue is pretty fundamental to branch prediction and speculative execution, which is a big reason why CPUs are fast. Also, since that issue applies to everyone and not just Intel, I imagine Intel will be less focused on fixing it since there's less bad PR directed specifically at Intel for that. I personally wouldn't expect it to be fixed within some years.
I'd love if someone more knowledgable about CPU design would correct me if I'm wrong or clarify something.
https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2#issuecomme...
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdet...
A coworker recently got the 6th generation model. No problem. Slightly better build. Excellent battery life and performance.
These are definitely reliable workhorses.
Personally I've had much better results with Lenovo T and X series because they typically have more conservative hardware that is better supported by upstream Linux. Also their dock is not USB C.
Just because dell finally made a laptop that looks decent and wasn’t built to be 15lbs doesn’t mean the quality has improved here. Their desktops are fine.
I’ve also never dealt with a worse company with regards to repairs and service.
Do yourself a favor and buy an X1 Carbon, the 5th gen rocks and the 6th is coming soon.
I have one of these from a couple generations back and absolutely love it. My only regret is getting the high end model with the touch screen and high-res screen. I've heard 1080p has better battery life and I've spent more time I'm proud to admit dealing with the hell of configuring apps to not look like garbage on a high-res screen.
AMD isn't safe either but I'm looking at the new HP Envy x360 15" with Ryzen inside.
Someday, maybe - RISC-V and less disappointments.
Are there motherboards that would allow the OS to power-save memory modules at times, and power them back up at others (perhaps user-configured)? If not, I wonder why..
Using different types or ram (such as you have to do to get 32gb) which is not low power will make a difference.
I was so confident that we had moved past it being this hard to buy a linux laptop, in 2013, but I guess not.
All of my friends made fun of me for trying to buy a linux laptop. I ended up failing as hard as possible, being out thousands of dollars while I waited for the refund. Eventually I gave in and got Mac from the store, which I'm still using today. I desperately wish I could have got an XPS 13, but they took my money and gave me the wrong product. It's too risky to try it again.
It's not the installation by the vendor that makes the Ubuntu support novel, it's the hardware selection and official support, right?
You also do not get their professional support this way, which was the primary reason I was attempting to purchase the computer in the first place.
That shouldn't be the case: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/44...
> You also do not get their professional support this way
Why not? How do they know you got one with Windows if your invoice says Linux?
Item number 1 is not going to be: reformat the computer, risking the warranty, reinstalling the OS, removing the professional support that I have wanted my whole life but never received, and spend weekends getting WiFi to work with an external card since there's no way the WiFi would work on the Ubuntu install on the Windows machine, I was told. I called their support and they clarified for me that I would not be able to get WiFi or their professional support once I changed the OS. I got 10 minutes of use out of the first paid professional support I ever got in my life, and they told me that there was no solution to my problem and that I would not be allowed to call them again if I proceeded.
It's insane that I'm expected to do all of that to a machine that should have been productive for me on day 1. It would have been weeks of work to get ready to work. Not the plan.
I bought a machine to use professionally for work and Dell screwed me by giving me the wrong product, taking my money, and refusing to return it for about two weeks.
The whole thing was an absolute disaster and I will never buy a Dell again.
I also don't think it would void support - then no one could re-install. And how would they know you re-installed anyway?
Honestly Linux might be a pain for you to use day-to-day if installing from scratch seems like a big chore; either that OR you're misreading how Dell support would react. The third possibility is that Dell support is disastrously bad, and fragile, and no one should buy Dells. I'm slightly skeptical of option 3.
EDIT: Talked to support and they said the ram is soldered to the board.
Anyone has a link to the 16GB version 9370 dev ed.?
Dell you see wont give you an indication of cost, instead you must send the laptop back at a cost of £40.
Stupidly I thought they'd be fair, but no they came back with a quote for £626. They had no interest in offering a discount - so I told them to send it back and get shoved.
£40 was the cost of my laziness. Now I'll just DIY for significantly less.
Worth baring in mind if you're not confident repairing the machine yourself.
Long story short, the quickest, easiest fix is to replace the entire display + chassis.
In Singapore I was quoted $500sgd but I wasn't sure how long I was hanging around for so I didn't want to risk it.
I've a 5+ year old ThinkPad that has had 32 GB in it since the day I got it.
It's 2018 and all of us, including manufacturers, are locked with 16GB of RAM and those upgrades look like a joke. Within last month I noticed myötähäpeä when someone asks me for laptop advice.
Hopefully this situation will make enough professionals pissed off so both them and manufacturers would look into RISC. It's going to get worse before it gets better.
Maybe I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist but I wouldn't at all be surprised if DRAM manufacturers weren't colluding to limit supply to inflate prices rather than competing with one another on the open market.
I think the same of Flash prices too.
Most software is still 32 bit and can't take advantage of the added memory. Even apps that can still don't really need that much. Workloads requiring gobs are RAM are niche and 8GBs works well for most people.
My personal server with 16GB of RAM runs at around 48% utilization hosting 16 sites, multiple databases, a transcoding media server, and a transcoding DVR. My work issued laptop with 8GB of RAM is running under 75% utilization. My development VM with 6GB of RAM is only running at 75% utilization.
Apart from video editing or data analysis, what sort of workloads would a user be running on a laptop that demand every ounce of RAM you can give them?
What sort of workloads are you running on your VMs? My VMs are typically provisioned for 512-2048MBs of RAM and given 16GB of RAM that's more VMs then I'll ever need running at once.
A typical example of a workload that would use more RAM would be a bunch of big Excel documents open, a couple Chrome windows each with a bunch of tabs, Outlook and a chat app running in the background, and a profession-specific app like Visual Studio, Labview, Photoshop, Quickbooks, Solidworks, or whatever your specific job requires. Which represents just about every use case there is. This results in a consistent 70% usage on the 16 GB desktops across our office...and also about 90% usage on the older 8 GB machines.
Like Parkinson's Law for computers, apps expand to use the computing power available to them. And if you want this machine to be usable 2-4 years down the road, you should desire the possibility of increasing to 32 GB.
Labview, Photoshop, and Solidworks are not typical applications, they're highly specialized and the only apps on your list that require 64 bit. I would expect anyone using them to have a high spec machine.
Quickbooks and Visual Studio are 32 bit only apps and typically very memory efficient. I currently have Visual Studio open with a 17 project solution running the Interactive Debugger and it's only using 450 MBs.
Office comes in a 64 bit flavor but Microsoft recommends you use the 32 bit version. They only recommend 64 Bit if you're using exceptionally large datasets or handling large image assets. Office Apps are very memory efficient and typically use less than 200 MBs each unless opening exceptionally large documents.
The biggest memory hogs these days tend to be browsers and even then you have to open a lot of tabs.
That being said, on Windows you need to look at Available Memory and not Free memory when calculating utilization, I believe it was Windows 8/2012 where they hid Free memory and only display Available Memory because Free Memory is a misleading metric. Windows will also always page certain things to disk even if you have plenty of Free/Available memory.
Boosting Disk I/O and CPU speed is where a user will see the biggest benefits these days.
What are you doing on an Ultrabook that actually needs 32GB of RAM? Even on my work laptop (Macbook Pro, 16GB), I pretty much never have issues that would be addressed by having 32GB of RAM.
(Note: Just because toph/htop/etc. show >16GB of data in memory, that doesn't necessarily mean your workload would be noticeably impacted if you were limited to 16GB of RAM.)
I realize that my setup is not common but I'd appreciate to have an option. (Mind you, I'm primarily talking in Mac perspective because work laptop has strict platform requirements.)
Edit: Disclaimer: currently using MacBook Pro 15".
Sure, but any Ultrabook is going to struggle running all of that, and more RAM isn't going to help by itself. You can run all of that on a Macbook Pro, but not a Macbook Air; the XPS 13 is intended to be comparable to the Macbook Air.
I have an X1 Carbon with 16G. I rarely use 4G memory with a full KDE (+ KMail with hundreds of thousands of emails stored locally), a few atom based apps (Slack, Spotify) and a browser that is always open.
My browser usually has only a few tabs open and I understand that people have browsers with hundreds of windows and full fledged IDE's (I tend to prefer editors).
But 16G, I wouldn't know how to use that much memory. Even with an IDE and possibly a Windows VM.
I have a build that when done from scratch calls upon the linker in such a way, it needs about 12G working set, and it's much faster if that's RAM. It took 'overnight' when I had 8G and if I was present, I could barely do anything else.
'Else' including the previously commendable Lenovo Thinkpad lineup: Today, they announced that the x280 (either that or the previously lighter and thinner X1 Carbon being the equivalent of Dell's XPS 13) will feature:
- 16 GB max of soldered-on RAM. :(
- Removed RJ45 Ethernet port. :(
- Reduced battery capacity by 40%. :(
- Removed external hot-swappable battery. :(
- Removed 2.5mm SATA drive bay. :(
- 2.5mm thinner and 0.21 kg lighter! Hooray...I guess.
However, I'm not clear on how RISC would salvage the situation. It seems there's an obvious dilemma in play: Consumers are not rational, and businesses optimize to win these irrational decisions rather than focusing on long-term, difficult to define items like quality, repair/upgrade ability, and reliability.
But there are only so many of those left and they get older every year :/
6.5 years without a DRAM increase for 15" laptops is bonkers.
It was $1500 for the laptop, it wasn't even crazy expensive back then.
On top of that it even supported 32GB. All in a rather sleek 15" form factor. (6.2 pounds vs 2018 XPS 15 4.6 pounds).
Sources: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-P-and-W-Series-Mobile/...
Also, if you're going to be talking about the form factor and weight, you should probably mention the power adapter...The XPS takes a 45W, 0.2 pound little USB C device. The W520 requires you to lug around a 1.7 lbs, 170W beast that definitely qualifies as a brick. That and a lack of support for the latest NVMe drives are some of the only shortcomings, IMO.
Including the AC adapter, the XPS 15 is 40% lighter than the W520 for roughly equal performance and similar battery life. Not too bad.
It's still a bit sad though. After 5.5 years I moved to a macbook pro 13" 2016 and the performance was a drastic downgrade from it (the w520 finally broke...).
Moore's "law" is clearly, finally, gone.
In the end I got a MBP and have no regrets, OS X is easy to use and Apple has always gotten the physical aspects of the MBP right. I'll consider XPS again in the future (~2-3 years) but doubt they'll be able to get to the craftmanship level of Apple.