My laptop has 20Gb of RAM, 2x 1Tb SSDs, and 10 hours battery life, with 1 hot swap batteries pushing me to 18 hours battery life if I want it. Total cost: ~$900 with tax and shipping
IMO best track pad outside of Apple + best laptop keyboard
No fan noise
The only other complaint I have is that palm rejection for the track pad is poor, I eventually disabled the track pad entirely. I prefer the track point anyway, but I know a lot of people hate using them. Keyboard is excellent, IMO better than a MacBook. I would be curious, perhaps the OP used 2 500gb SSDs, you can get drive caddys to replace the DVD drive (I kept it, as I still need to read disks relatively often).
synclient TouchpadOff=1
I'd have trouble recommending it to anyone these days unless they were looking for something really cheap.
It is a great laptop and cost effective for the 9570 right now, $1699 CAD right now with the coupon code: http://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-laptops-netbooks-and-tab... I have a larger SSD and memory sitting around the office, so I don't count that in the cost.
I think it varies a lot between models.
Yeah, we can blame Dell a bit for this, but Wifi drivers are a problem for a lot of systems.
Replacing the fan may be worth a try, too. Google for the service manual for your system which will give you a step-by-step instruction guide with pictures, and the parts are easy to come by.
Still can't help with the coil whine or the trackpad, though. (Though generally I've heard people say it's the best trackpad outside of Apple. I can't speak to that, my standards for trackpads seem to be relatively low compared to a lot of people's, because I've been content with a lot of trackpads that the consensus says are bad.)
The trackpad is a nightmare. The bluetooth adapter randomly dies and I'm forced to restart. About 10% of the time when I close the lid the laptop doesn't actually go to sleep, but instead gets extremely hot, which is worrying when I take it out of my bag only to realize the thing has run down the battery and nearly melted. The list of issues goes on and on.
Does chromebook support virtual machines well (never used it)? If it doesn't I would call that a deal breaker for myself at least.
1. The keyboard. It's apparently not so bad once you get used to it, but compared to typing on my Thinkpad I find myself unhappy with it; it feels spongier in comparison, and the key travel is pretty short (though not nearly as bad as the Apple butterfly switches.)
2. The docking situation. Thunderbolt 3 docks are not really that appealing to me because it becomes difficult to drive many displays at 60 FPS with them. In all fairness, the Thinkpad workstation dock can also only drive 2 displays 60hz 1080p OR 30hz 4k, but at least it's reliable, and my Thunderbolt port is still free if I want more displays at the cost of convenience.
3. Linux support is actually really awful. The XPS 13 developer edition is supposedly an exception, but I have heard that it's really only well supported with the exact version of Ubuntu it ships with, and that updates have occasionally broke the system. Admittedly, the same can be said for some Lenovo laptops. My P51 is pretty bad under Linux (though it's gotten to the point of being usable, thankfully.)
4. Reliability. A coworker has replaced his XPS like 2 or 3 times now, and one of the chargers also died. I hope that's the exception. Obviously even Thinkpads are not as rock solid as they used to be, but even though I found this level of failure to be pretty extreme, it lines up with what I've witnessed with other Dell laptops and is one of the primary reasons I've never owned one.
Honestly, the choice of laptop comes down a lot to priority, but I feel like XPS exceeds mostly in the categories of portability and style, two things that I do not value nearly as much as robustness and performance.
More than anything, the most important thing you can do is research the crap out of any option you're considering buying. I've found that Arch Linux wiki pages about laptops are quite useful, with the caveat that you have to be careful to not assume two similar models will perform similarly since that is often not the case.
I think I may be more sensitive to this than most, but the keyboard is absolutely not okay. I had the Dell XPS 13 for over a year, and I could not actually use it as a laptop because the keys brought my fingers such excruciating pain. I could only use it with an external keyboard attached. Previously I had the old generation Macbook air which caused me pain in only one finger (pinky, I think from hitting Ctrl too much), and currently I have a Razer Blade which is a bit uncomfortable on all of my fingers, but not even CLOSE to how bad the XPS 13 was.
I also own a Dell Chromebook 13 and have zero finger pain when using it, the keyboard is a dream. Had some coworkers with Thinkpads, and their keyboards also felt fine to type on (better than the Air, worse than the chromebook)
Having worked on an original IBM Model M keyboard in the 90s and as touch typist, I'm as much as a keyboard snob as could be, and I think the keyboard on the XPS 13 is excellent for what it is. I had the opportunity to compare an X1 Carbon keyboard (or was it another high end Lenovo?) against the XPS 13 in a shop where they had both on display, and preferred the XPS 13 subjectively. The Lenovo, certainly a high end part, had more key travel, and was also quite a bit wider; both facts combined made the outer left and outer right keys "block"/"skew" because they weren't hit straight from the top. Also, the keys were a bit too loose/clacky and felt more like a cheap desktop keyboard. I can't imagine typing on that thing as fast as I can on the Dell. The Lenovo also was quite a bit more expensive than the Dell, but had an atrocious 14" TN display (manufactured to 10+ year old standards) next to the Dell's.
> Linux support is actually really awful ... [XPS] only well supported with the exact version of Ubuntu it ships with
That's not been my experience at all. I'm running the XPS 13 for over two years now and everything works out of the box on my non-Developer Edition model (with the occasional glitch, like once every other month, of WLAN reconnect failure and power management switching into a really slow mode when waking up/opening the lid).
Fully agree with Arch Linux wiki pages; used them as resource to get Ubuntu running on the Dell XPS when this wasn't yet possible out of the box.
It sounds like budget is not your problem, but I thought I'd just mention this for any students etc. passing by.
x220 keyboards are a bit hard to source for a good price, though.
(Also if anyone knows of a model that's got more of a focus on battery life for someone who is SSHing into external machines for most CPU intensive tasks I'd be all ears)
I guess battery mileage is mostly a function of the O/S and drivers, and your power settings and what you actually do on the notebook.
- you have a recent kernel? Also, 4.17 should bring battery-related improvements
- did you install TLP[0]?
[0] http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-man...
This is insane to me. My XPS 13 caused me excruciating pain to type on. I try to warn people every chance I get. Hurt my fingers more than any laptop I've ever used, to the point where I could not even use the laptop keyboard, I would only use it with an external keyboard.
Best keyboards I've used was my Dell Chromebook 13, followed by coworkers thinkpads.