
XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available - warp
https://bartongeorge.io/2018/01/04/xps-13-developer-edition-the-7th-gen-is-here/
======
dangrossman
I regret buying a maxed out XPS 13 a year and a half ago.

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.

~~~
barton808
Dan, I apologize for your experience. If you ever run into something like this
again, besides contacting support directly, you can ping @dellcarespro on
twitter and, if its related to the developer edition or project Sputnik you
can loop me in @barton808. thanks!

~~~
crispinb
So you're on the team? Here's a perspective from a potential buyer. Apple
having truly jumped the shark on their MB Pros, I've been mulling on and off
about what to do when it's time to replace my current 13" MBP. An XPS 13 or 15
w/Ubuntu is definitely on my radar. But I am a bit scared off by reliability &
quality reports. They're only anecdotal & biased samples of course, but
there's not much else for a poor consumer to go on.

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.

~~~
bproven
If you are going Dell I think the best bet is to try the Precision 5000 series
(pretty equal to XPS 15) and 7000 series (heavier and bulkier but you can
really spec these things out). I have an XPS 15 (9550) and I really cannot
recommend them. Lots of problems.

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.

~~~
gregmac
My work laptop is an M3800, though the newer one is the 5510. Pretty solid
machines in my experience. We did after market upgrades to some very fast SSD
(sorry don't remember which).

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.

~~~
bproven
yeah "up the nose" cam is one of the more annoying features of these Dells :(
Also the non-dedicated pgup/dwn/home/end is another annoyance - I guess I got
use to it after a while

------
torgard
Max 8gb for regular display...

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.

~~~
ndesaulniers
There's no simple/easy way to disable the touchscreen in Linux distro's, too.

~~~
pritambaral
If you're okay with scripting it, you could just `xinput disable ...` the
touchscreen's input device.

------
kingosticks
My XPS 13 9350 is undoubtedly the best computer I've ever owned. I don't seem
to have this coil whine thing or I just don't notice it. The 8GB of RAM has
served me well and I'd never want to sacrifice any of the battery life for
increasing that - it's an ultrabook after all. I've always run Ubuntu and
while I did have problems with WiFi and resuming when it first came out, they
are both rock solid now. I have never tried to use the webcam, I don't even
know if it works, so I'm happy with the design choice to minimise the top
bezel. I personally see no reason to buy the new model but only because this
one is so good.

~~~
paulmd
Coil whine can easily be tested with this website (probably not a good link if
you have epilepsy or Chiari malformations)

[https://thume.ca/screentunes/](https://thume.ca/screentunes/)

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.

~~~
metaphor
To be sure, what you're hearing from that website is not _coil whine_
(inductor phenomena), but mechanical resonance caused by piezoelectric effect
on solid state MLCCs[1] charging/discharging in your monitor during frame
refresh.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_capacitor#Microphony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_capacitor#Microphony)

~~~
paulmd
In common parlance, I'm not sure there's a distinction between coil whine and
capacitor whine. That is probably not something you can distinguish without
taking apart the component in question.

~~~
metaphor
If by _common parlance_ you mean amongst _not_ electronics engineers, then I
can see where you're coming from. The miscommunication that I'm seeing is
asymptotic to the common misuse of Baud as a universal measure of bitrate...or
in programmer speak, char and uint8 as immutable equivalents. From a hardware
design perspective, qualifying the whine with _coil_ transforms the remark
from generally descriptive to technically specific with distinct implications.

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).

------
scorown
My first Dell as developer machine is XPS 15 9560 but it is in no way a
developer machine: \- The thunderbolt dock wire out and laptop USB C are on
opposite hands. I have to place my laptop on top of the dock like a giant book
resting on a brick.

\- 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

~~~
rootbear
I have a 13" 9360 and have similar concerns. I just replaced my Killer WiFi,
but Bluetooth is still broken. I think I just haven't found the right driver
yet. Did you get it working under 16.04? The touchpad is a mess, I mostly use
an external mouse. I don't know why Apple seem to be the only ones who can get
touchpads right.

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.

~~~
tedcrilly
The touchpad problems are well documented, e.g.
[https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197683](https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197683).
If your XPS is still under warranty you can request touchpad replacement
referring to the thread I linked to above. I'm just scheduling mine, hope it
fixes the problem.

------
dingo_bat
Where's the fucking USB ports?!? I have literally used or observed zero USB C
devices till now. I've seen newer phones but who plugs phones into computers
anymore? The main issue is flash drives, external HDDs, mice, keyboards, LTE
modems, Kindle, and so on. None of those are available in type C variants and
I don't want to be inconvenienced by my new laptop. If I wanted to hurt myself
I'd just buy from Apple!

~~~
andor
I'm really happy about USB-C. Since I got a new Macbook I only carry a single
power adapter when traveling, plus an adapter dongle for legacy devices
(Headphones, Kindle, Shaver, ...).

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.

~~~
dsego
My macbook's usb-c charger constantly loses connection, a slight tug and it
falls out.

~~~
dingo_bat
Magsafe is such a great connector. Incredibly stupid to get rid of it.

~~~
endemic
I agree.

However, I do think it's funny that the one time Apple switches to an
interoperable standard, people complain about it.

------
ascendantlogic
Only 16 gigs of RAM? Why do companies still hold that limit in 2018? I was
hoping for 32 gigs back in 2015.

~~~
examancer
Expected the new XPS to have a developer flavor soon, but also expected it to
be limited to 16GB still. Was not surprised since the Windows version has the
same limit.

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.

~~~
dijit
You could go precision though. Which is what I did. Precision 5520 has an
Ubuntu option and works flawlessly with Linux. 32-64g of DDR4 and 12h of
battery with the 9cell upgrade

I should know. I’ve been using one for nearly a year.

~~~
virtualwhys
What's the added weight of default 3 cell to 9 cell battery? Last I checked
you could only upgrade to 6 cell.

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.

------
nkkollaw
Very cool, but as an owner of the Cube Thinker/i35--which has the same exact
3000x2000 3:2 aspect ratio display as the Surface Book (but costs $500)--I
can't imagine why any developer would put up with a 16:9 display.

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.

~~~
saycheese
Not seeing a major difference between 3:2 and 16:9 aspect ratio displays, what
am I missing?

[http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-
lx100/z-lx10...](http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-
lx100/z-lx100-aspects-vs-gx7.png)

~~~
nkkollaw
Huge difference.

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.

~~~
saycheese
Did you even look at the graphic I linked to? If so, there’s no need to “go
look” at anything, since that graphic very clearly shows there’s not a major
difference.

~~~
kbutler
The graphic minimizes the apparent difference by splitting it between top and
bottom and maintaining the same diagonal size. 3:2 gives 18% more vertical
space in the same width [https://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2013-02/lets-
get-rid-...](https://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2013-02/lets-get-
rid-169-laptops-forever)

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.

~~~
darkerside
Aren't screen sizes typically based on that diagonal size (i.e. a 15" screen
is a diagonal 15")? If so, doesn't that make parent's link more accurate?

~~~
kbutler
Screen sizes are reported on the diagonal, but the makers are not constrained
to maintain the same diagonal size with different apsect ratios. For instance,
the pixel Chromebooks have 12.82" and 12.3" diagonal screens. I've never seen
a 16:9 laptop with those sizes.

And specifically for an xps 13 device, where they trim excess bezels, etc.,
the keyboard width becomes the limiting factor.

------
contingencies
Yay Dell! So far I like this series. Coming from years of Macbook laziness and
returning to my Linux desktop roots I just bought in to the Dell XPS 15 9560
on sale at Christmas. No regrets thus far, it's nice. However, I don't need
32GB RAM and as I am setting up Gentoo and ZFS root and am very busy (lost two
days to flying this week already) I have not yet completed setup, so there may
be some iceberg issues...
[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_9560](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_9560)

------
davidw
I've been using Dell's Linux computers for 10+ years, and I'm very happy with
them. It's great to get a system that ships with Linux out of the box.

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.

------
baseethrowaway
I'm a happy XPS 13 9360 (i7-8550U, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) user and have mixed
feelings about the latest XPS 13. Biggest reason why I opted for the XPS 13 is
the size -- it is literally the smallest 13.3" laptop on the market.

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.

~~~
augustl
I've been waiting for the 9370 announcement and today I bought a 9360 :)

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.

------
dsr_
I'm guessing that nobody wants to buy new CPUs until a whole new architecture
is available. Bad luck in the timing.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
I'm not sure we can call it bad luck, since Dell has a lot of control over the
timing of their product releases.

~~~
kyledrake
I doubt the people working on this knew about the embargo. Most people didn't.

------
kibwen
The hardware is lovely but the available configurations make me sad. For
compiling the projects I work on, I need an i7 and 16 GB of memory. But this
configuration only comes with the touchscreen, which is not only useless but
destroys battery life, has a far inferior viewing angle, and adds an obscene
amount to the cost. Amusingly, the config that I want _is_ available, but not
to me, because I'm not in Europe. I would buy this in a heartbeat otherwise.

~~~
contingencies
Re: touch. I just bought an XPS15 with 16GB for 1900AUD. It has touch, which I
don't use. The viewing angle is wonderful, basically 360 degrees with no
degredation and in this respect is no different to my 2013 Macbook Pro. AFAIK
from reading other people's setups (see external resources at
[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_9560](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_9560)
) you can disable touch to save power.

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).

~~~
kibwen
Thanks for the advice, glad to hear dissent about the viewing angle (I've only
seen the touchscreen in person once, and maybe the lighting was just bad in
that instance). But the cost is still a sticking point, because for me this
isn't competing with a Macbook Pro; it's competing with the older refurbished
laptop from an arbitrary manufacturer that I got for $0 from a friend and that
I currently use solely for Linux dev. I don't have a lot of income to dedicate
to Linux development, so if I'm going to upgrade at all it has to be a
compelling proposition from all angles (and it occurs to me that at this point
I might as well wait until Ubuntu 18.04 LTS arrives anyway).

~~~
contingencies
There is no reason to be poor with your knowledge. Do yourself a favour and
invest in good hardware, it's a matter of ergonomics, focus, health and
motivation not simply economics. Usually you can get a tax writeoff and it
signals to clients you invest in your own tools and professional development
as well.

------
pkilgore
My biggest problem is that with these screens Linux hiDPI support for
fractional scaling is just bad. Sure, you can hack it. And unity, for it's
failings, pretty much just works. But the rest of the space is horrendous.

~~~
jhasse
With 4K using 2x integer scaling should be fine, shouldn't it?

------
bakedbean
8GB of RAM? Seriously? That's a non starter for me as a developer that works
on multiple projects daily. At any given moment I'm running 3 or 4 backends,
an equal or greater number of front ends, test suites, a vagrant VM... I can
barely get by with 16.

~~~
megy
Um, what? You can have 16gb.

~~~
bakedbean
I see that now under the search options. When I clicked into purchase the
displayed models, it showed a static 8GB with no option to modify. My mistake.

------
cevn
Why can't I get 16gb ram and have a 1080p screen? Is the touchpad still
terrible? Does it still have coil whine?

~~~
criddell
> Why can't I get 16gb ram and have a 1080p screen?

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?

~~~
bpye
The fact that it's available in Europe but not NA is a bit odd.

------
ythn
I've had so many problems with my XPS 13 that I bought in 2016 that I will
never buy another one. Killer WiFi card was utter crap, laptop has issues
going to sleep and waking up when closing the lid (sometimes it would hang on
the the dell screen when trying to wake up and never recover), etc. Purely
anecdotal, but a hard pass for me. Lenovo is my new laptop brand of choice.

~~~
api_or_ipa
Which lenovo product would you recommend for a linux laptop?

~~~
inertial
Ubuntu on Thinkpad T series works well, e.g.

[https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201702-25371/](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).

~~~
api_or_ipa
Woah I didn't know Canonical certifies Ubuntu on certain hardware. That's
incredible, I love linux but I'm not a sysadmin and I've been burned before by
hardware manufactures publishing windows-only driver binaries.

------
foodstances
Does it still have that awful coil whine?

~~~
eliaspro
Quoting Barton George:

> 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/4613/p/20014657/21005539#21005539)

~~~
foodstances
That is from June, this is the latest from December:

[http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-
applications/f/46...](http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-
applications/f/4613/p/19992655/21038056#21038056)

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.

~~~
josephmx
This update (without motherboard change) did help by making the fans run less
often, which doesn't seem to be causing overheating issues or me

------
52804375092485
I'm optimistic about this product line but I don't think it's there yet. I
have a 13" 9360 and while the price was good, it does feel under-powered,
specifically the 8G maximum memory configuration with the non-touchscreen.

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.

~~~
mythmon_
> The fact that you need a $100 dock to connect to external monitors is
> ridiculous

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.

------
gattr
I settled on the 13.3" form factor 6 years ago, but the lack of all dedicated
PgUp, PgDown, Home, End, Ins, Del keys puts me off (I'm very used to
copy/paste with Ctrl/Shift-Ins and whole line selection). Well, I'm sticking
with the small ProBooks and Lenovos for now.

~~~
oliwarner
Keyboards are variable beasts, even at 13.3".

My ThinkPad 13 has all those buttons.

------
megy
Selling a laptop with 4gb in this day and age is a joke, right? Especially a
developer edition? Why bother. Even the Apple Macbook (not pro) come with at
least 8gb.

~~~
pyrophane
I raised an eyebrow at that as well. I guess it was to squeak in under the $1k
mark but it seems like an odd decision for a machine being targeted at
developers

------
balladeer
I notice a design trend with these slim notebooks. First time I noticed it was
in a Asus and then in XPS - the edges of base of the laptop are shown very
thin. But that slimness is just for the visual effect and if you look at the
thickness of the base from the cross section you will realise it's actually as
thick all across as at is the hinge and the edges were chiseled out 1 inch (or
so) towards the middle on all three sides (except from the hinge) just to make
the laptop appear thinner than it actually is.

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.

------
IdontRememberIt
Why is it said to be for developpers and have a 16/9 screen?! Is Apple the
only one to understand dev needs (screen needs at least)?

~~~
strmpnk
I think these wide ratios became popular, not because of video but because of
ability to ship less screen and still claim to have a certain diagonal size.
Saying 13" at 16:9 is much less area than a 3:4 screen at the same diagonal
measurement.

------
maxxxxx
How is the trackpad on these? I still haven't seen a non-Apple laptop where
the trackpad comes even close to the Macbook.

~~~
rootbear
It's a mess. Palm rejection is terrible. I use a wireless mouse with my XPS
13.

~~~
marsRoverDev
On Ubuntu?

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.

~~~
rootbear
Yes, on Ubuntu. I should have clarified that. And yes, when typing, the
touchpad should be disabled.

------
julesallen
I can't tell you how much I would love a Linux laptop, so much has been solved
around power consumption and battery life, wifi stability, and so on. The one
show stopper continues to be spotty HiDPI support for essential apps like The
GIMP — the menu and fonts stubbornly stayed at 1x resolution and the icons
were teeny. Ugh. Had a 9360 for a short time before reluctantly returning it.

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'?

~~~
jcelerier
> The one show stopper continues to be spotty HiDPI support for essential apps
> like The GIMP — the menu and fonts stubbornly stayed at 1x resolution and
> the icons were teeny.

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](https://imgur.com/9KKhpZq.png)

~~~
bluedino
Toolbars and brushes don't scale?

------
WhyNotHugo
I'm surprised that only the touchscreen editions are UHD. I'd have guessed
developers would prefer UHD, but no touch. Am I really missing something? Do
people really prefer touch (or, FHD)?.

~~~
mixmastamyk
The other horrible part of the touch screen is that it is super glossy. To get
4k I had to buy a touch screen and put a matte film on it.

------
martin1975
It sure would be nice if someone like dell could at least insert Coreboot, or
preferably Libreboot on these babies. They probably have enough heft to make
such a change (I hope :).

------
paultopia
Interesting competitive profile. I'd guess the most direct comparison for
people who want a really small machine running a non-windows OS would be the
i5/8/256/non-touch/$1175 xps13 vs the m3/8/256/$1300 macbook. That's not bad
at all---I'd consider trading a half pound or so in weight and some display
resolution for a faster processor, bigger screen, and a hundred bucks, so long
as battery life and reliability hold.

------
jsgo
I'm confused in the color options. I went with the top spec one, Silver is
only option. I go back to New XPS 13 (non-developer) and go top spec again.
Silver and Rose Gold available. What happened to black/carbon fiber? Is it
just for lower configurations? I'm glad they added Silver (options and all),
but I like black better. Especially with the camera (I'm guessing) below the
logo.

------
olegkikin
I looked at the i7/16GB/512GB/UHD version, it's over $2K.

Why not get a Surface Book instead for $1600?

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0163GNS5S/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0163GNS5S/)

Or Gigabyte Aero?

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MY2YYKB/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MY2YYKB/)

~~~
jasonlotito
I know for my part, I wanted a Gigabyte Aero earlier in the year, but went
with something else. The reason was the Gigabyte Aero wasn't available. I
guess it had sold out fairly quickly.

------
irl_zebra
Very happy with my 6th gen dev edition. Only issue is the basically unusable
camera, but that looks like it's been partially mitigated.

------
mleonhard
Did DELL finally put some resources into their Linux software team? I bought a
2015 XPS 13 Developer edition and had a very bad experience with the software.
The setup program crashed. And the drivers were bad: wifi slow, suspend/resume
sometimes crashed, touchpad would register clicks while I typed, video
playback randomly stopped working. I spent about 8 hours researching and
finally got it usable. The remaining issues went away gradually over 6 months.
After that experience, I believe that DELL doesn't care enough about making a
great product to hire good software people, or is incapable of selecting good
software people, or doesn't allocate enough money to hire enough software
people.

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.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Anyone know what WiFi cards they're using this time? The original ones used
Broadcom, which sucked on Linux. The DE versions briefly switched to Intel
cards, which were great, and have built-in support in the Linux kernel. Then
they switched to some off-brand wifi cards called Killer for the later lines.

~~~
abrowne
The announcements I read said Killer and Intel. Not sure who gets which.
Killer is Qualcomm FWIW.

------
toddkazakov
I regret buying the 9560. Changed the screen under warranty 4 times and it
either had a pink tint (twice), uneven backlight or backlight bleed. In the
end I was just tired and decided to keep it as it is. My girlfriend got a MBP
recently. This is when I realized how spending $2100 on XPS was not very
smart.

------
RRRA
The XPS13 9350 is nice, I had no issue except that I swapped the Wi-Fi card
for an Intel as it was badly supported when I first got it (Self installed
Ubuntu before any Dell Linux support).

I fried the headphone port because the office wasn't grounded and had a shock,
but everything else works well after 2+ years.

------
saycheese
Why does the XPS keep putting the camera at the base the screen instead the
top of where it is on most laptops?

~~~
JohnTHaller
To have a smaller bezel at the top because most of their target audience
doesn't use the webcam anyway.

~~~
jandrese
Business folks have to put tape over the camera half of the time anyway so
Dell puts only minimal effort into it.

------
KirinDave
I've never had anything but bad experiences with these sputnik machines.
They're underpowered, the one I had required custom drivers that were always
awful to get into any distribution but Ubuntu, and I've never been a fan of
the keyboard.

But people seem to love them. I don't really get it.

~~~
superquest
+1 on the keyboard. Keyboards are so harsh ... so little travel.

------
pjmlp
> As of today, the new XPS 13 developer edition is available online in Europe
> in the following countries:

> 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.

~~~
bpye
> Beyond the thirteen countries above, there is a much longer list of
> countries where the 9370 is available offline. (I’ll be posting this list in
> the next few days.)

~~~
pjmlp
Yes I saw that, but I don't expect it to be any different from earlier models,
meaning I still won't see it on sale.

------
sprt
How's high DPI support on Ubuntu nowadays? My last experience (2 years ago?),
everything was super small and when I tried changing the scaling it wasn't
pixel-perfect. Literally had to return the laptop and get the 1366x768
version.

~~~
pyrophane
It was better before the switch to wayland/gnome in 17.10. In 17.04 they
actually appeared to have fractional scaling working pretty seamlessly in
Unity (not sure exactly what they did to accomplish that), but with the most
recent version they are back to integer only.

That being said, gnome is expected to have factional scaling support under
wayland for 3.28, scheduled for, iirc, March.

------
crimsonalucard
Should I hold off on buying a computer until this spectre and meltdown issues
are fixed?

~~~
bhouston
That will take a year no?

~~~
jerf
A year would be a fairly aggressive timeline. Ultimately SPECTRE et al are
just exemplars of a class of exploit that I'm not sure anybody has seriously
thought about how to deal with systematically. I've done the "daydream off for
five minutes and try to solve the problem" a couple of times and I generally
get to "let's design a new CPU from the ground up, using an entirely new set
of formalisms"[1] pretty quickly, which is, ah, let's say, not a one-year
effort to get it into customer hands. Timing attacks _suck_.

[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_.

~~~
mort96
My day dream for fixing Spectre is as follows: Basically double the amount of
L1 cache (where the second half doesn't need to be as fast as actual L1
cache), make only the first half usable as cache. When an instruction the CPU
speculatively executes an instruction which would replace the content in its
L1 cache, first copy the existing content to the second, usually unused, half,
and _then_ replace the content of the first half with the new data. Then, if
the CPU decides that the branch was correct, just do nothing; if the CPU
decides that the branch was incorrect, just copy back the "backup" of the
original cache. Copying the cache to and from the "backup" would obviously
have to be done really quickly with dedicated hardware, and not be done by
going through each byte and copying it, but that should be possible.

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.

------
neuromancer2701
Maybe next years we can get one of the Zen APUs.

------
KerrickStaley
Excited to see them shipping this with a quad core processor (and with 8 MB
cache!). My previous-gen XPS 13 9360 has a dual core w/ 3 MB cache (I don't
think quad core was offered?) and it has painfully poor performance.

------
neslinesli93
Did they solve the not-so-well-known problem of Content Adaptive Brightness
Controll (CABC) not being disableable for FHD models? People do not speak very
much about this, but for me it's actually a game changer. I was so close to
buy one of those new xps 13" during holiday sales, but when I read that they
do not simply allow you to disable the CABC option on FHD models (whereas you
can on QHD models by updating the BIOS), I completely changed my mind on Dell
models - actually, CABC was just part of the reason, the others being coil
whine, quality control issues, no sane ports...

~~~
kasperlewau
There appears to be an official Dell tool to disable CABC on the FHD now. I'm
happy about that. Going to give it a run in the morning.

[https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2#issuecomme...](https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2#issuecomment-356363099)

[http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdet...](http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=312K3)

------
PopsiclePete
I'm really worried about the Killer (seriously?) WiFi card in this one. I have
the 9350 with the Intel card, and although it's perhaps not as super-fast when
playing Call Of Medal Of Honor 17 online....well, this is a _developer_
machine, dammit. I want reliability, not an extra 0.00001 packet per second or
whatever they're claiming. They might as well overclock the video card,
because that's what gamers want. Seriously, Dell, what the triple fuck? What
was wrong with Intel cards that .... _worked_?

------
wazoox
I have the 1st gen XPS 13 developer and I'm happy with it. The build quality
isn't as good as Apple, particularly the touchpad is notably inferior, and the
right speaker died a long time ago. From time to time, I need to open it to
remove dirt from the fan, and that's about it. 5 years later, works perfectly.

A coworker recently got the 6th generation model. No problem. Slightly better
build. Excellent battery life and performance.

These are definitely reliable workhorses.

------
dontbuyanxps
I bought an XPS 13 with Ubuntu preinstalled. Had trouble with a loud fan as
well as the headphone jack not functioning correctly when using any headphones
with a headset. Spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting with tech support
and was ultimately told, otr, that the computers are shoddily manufactured and
I'd be better off with a Latitude. Switched, still not thrilled about the
battery but it works well otherwise!

~~~
flatfilefan
the support is clueless, loud fan and headphone jack can be fixed.

------
darren0
I've seen quite a few developers buy and use these with mixed results. One key
thing I've seen that people have really struggled with is multiple external
monitors. For that to work you usually need some USB C dock which is a
nightmare.

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.

------
tbrock
Dell is doing a great thing here by leading the charge on Linux laptops but
I’m so glad others realize what utter pieces of shit their laptops are quality
wise.

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.

------
herman5
Still no support for 32gb of ram?

------
devnill
Why do the euro models feature completely different (and arguably better)
configurations?

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.

------
mikeokner
Congrats to the team! I love that this project has been so successful. My
M5510 DE has been my daily driver for almost two years now.

------
blitmap
I really wanted an XPS 13 with a 3840x2160 screen. Now that it's available
I've been turned off by the meager performance gains for casual gaming on an
integrated Intel GPU. And then there's Meltdown/Spectre.

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.

------
claar
Comments on this thread say that less memory helps battery life.

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..

~~~
megy
Having more of the same type of memory would not make a lot of difference.

Using different types or ram (such as you have to do to get 32gb) which is not
low power will make a difference.

------
maxk42
Love my XPS 13 but hate Ubuntu. I've never tried replacing it with Fedora or
something different because of all the custom firmware. Has anyone had any
experience with this? Was it a pain?

------
tajen
I’m kind of blocked from buying an Ubuntu laptop because I want to do video
editing for Youtube too. iMovie is free on the Mac, is there even a $300
software on Ubuntu that would be suitable?

------
gentooinstall
No USB A ports?

------
a3n
With Meltdown and Spectre, and CERT's statement that only replacement of CPU
will solve those, it's hard to think about buying any computer for the next
little while.

------
cryptoz
I ordered a Dell XPS 13 Developer edition in 2013. I picked Ubuntu Linux and
the email confirmation said Ubuntu on it. Wait a week, it arrives, it runs
Windows. Ugh.

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.

~~~
mancerayder
Maybe I'm missing something, but if they sent you an Ubuntu-compatible laptop
and just forgot to install Ubuntu on it, can't you do that yourself?

It's not the installation by the vendor that makes the Ubuntu support novel,
it's the hardware selection and official support, right?

~~~
cryptoz
This voids the warranty of the machine.

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.

~~~
jhasse
> This voids the warranty of the machine.

That shouldn't be the case: [http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-
applications/f/44...](http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-
applications/f/4457/t/19585015)

> 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?

~~~
cryptoz
I purchased the computer as my first computer to do work on for my startup.

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.

~~~
mancerayder
I understand the frustration but it seemed like you're overreacting: it's not
hard to install Ubuntu, in fact it's preferable (if you ask me) so you can
choose packages.

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.

------
merpnderp
Anyone know if the ram is replaceable or if it is soldered to the board?

EDIT: Talked to support and they said the ram is soldered to the board.

------
RRRA
The link on the page bounce me back to the generic dell page? Are they
blocking by country?

Anyone has a link to the 16GB version 9370 dev ed.?

------
TeamMCS
My newly found issue with Dell and the XPS 13 9360 series is their insane
costs.

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.

~~~
1123581321
It's hard to evaluate this without context. What was wrong? What were
independent repair shops offering?

~~~
TeamMCS
The LCD panel had cracked, digitizer was fine.

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.

------
edelsohn
I regret buying my XPS 13. The battery dangerously expanded, warped the
keyboard, and Dell refuses to fix it.

~~~
hortonew
I had the same issue with the XPS 15 9550, but they replaced it out of
warranty.

~~~
edelsohn
The XPS 15 had a "known issue". Dell refuses to admit an issue with the XPS
13, so it refuses to replace the battery out of warranty, despite the safety
concern.

------
potatocannon
But did they fix the key repeat issues ?

~~~
favadi
Still have this problem on my Dell Precision 5510. Latest BIOS update somewhat
made it happen alot less often though.

------
randyrand
Why do they only offer 1080p and 4k? Something in the middle makes much better
sense.

~~~
bluedino
They used to offer 3200x1800 which was nice. 2x @ 135ppi iirc

------
SomeHacker44
Add an nVidia GTX 1050, 32GB RAM and you would have had me at XPS.

------
biehl
Awesome! Any timeline for the XPS15 (or precision)?

------
danharaj
Still has a nosecam

~~~
dsego
You mean chincam?

------
jlgaddis
The RAM is soldered on and you can't get more than 16 GB of it? This sounds
like a MBP, I guess I'll pass.

I've a 5+ year old ThinkPad that has had 32 GB in it since the day I got it.

~~~
touristtam
Can't replace the HDD either in those. And forget about a proper docking
station a la TP.

------
tracker1
SSD maxes out at 512GB, Ram at 16GB... no go.

------
stuaxo
I was kind of hoping for a Ryzen version...

------
martyvis
Spammy popup for mobile at this site

------
abiox
i really wish there was a 15".

------
FBISurveillance
IMO, it does not make sense to buy any of those new models: whether it's Dell,
HP, or else--before we see models with 32Gb of RAM. It's been told here over
and over since 2016 when first Touchbar MacBook got released.

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.

~~~
cptskippy
Most vendors are looking to prolong battery life and increasing RAM will do
the exact opposite.

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?

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Two 32-bit apps on a 64 bit operating system (and everyone is running a 64-bit
OS now) can each use 4 GB of physical RAM. They're each in virtualized address
spaces.

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.

~~~
cptskippy
I think you're describing very atypical usage.

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.

------
40acres
Last year I was in the market for a new laptop for the first time since 2011.
I really wanted an XPS 13 because it was Linux first and cheaper than a MBP.
Generally what put me off was various issues relating to coil whine and
general "lack of craftmanship" expressed by reviewers. The dell xps subreddit
was a nightmare to read.

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.

