What's the generally hold-up with 32GB RAM being a standard option(or even possibility) in this form factor?
Edit: Looking at the specs it looks like whiskey lake did not add support for LPDDR4. [1] [2]
[1] https://ark.intel.com/products/149091/Intel-Core-i7-8565U-Pr...
[2] https://www.anandtech.com/show/13275/intel-launches-whiskey-...
But in general if you're doing heavy processing Intel doesn't usually recommend the Ultrabook class chips. They are optimized for battery life and low thermal load, not performance.
To be more specific, they don’t support LP-DDR3 with over 16gb. All laptops which support 32gb use regular DDR memory, not the low power variant. DDR4 is about the same as LP-DDR3 in power consumption under heavy load, but when not, LP-DDR3 is significantly less power usage. So while Intel is to blame for the cause of forcing a choice, ultimately the decision to prioritize battery life numbers is the reason you don’t see more 32gb laptops.
fwiw: I have a System76 ubuntu laptop with 32gb of ram. It's bulky, but the performance is good. I can't imagine making space for 32gb of ram would compromise the XPS form factor much.
I'm generally happy with it because I do data-intensive java development, and it handles that well (+ multitasking with chrome etc).
There are two cons you should be aware of: It's heavy, and the battery life isn't great at all. but if you use it like a desktop, or minimal carrying, it's good.
- only the thunderbolt dock works, all other docks have complications
- the LTE card will not work (exposed wrong, needs to be on usb)
- the webcam will not work (IR based)
otherwise it seems like a nice laptop
No, because sleep mode keeps the memory powered (albeit in idle mode which with LP-DDR3 is less than 10% of the power draw normally).
Hibernate is where the ram gets flushed to disk and the ram is powered down, which could impact startup times with more RAM, but that isn’t the issue in your case I believe. I’m guessing your case is due to an app you have running.