
“The Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop is nearly perfect” - quantumtremor
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3077262/hardware/review-the-dell-xps-13-developer-edition-laptop-is-nearly-perfect.html
======
wrong_variable
Seems like a PR piece [1].

I wouldn't buy the DELL XPS 13 due to my experience with the Samsung Series 9
and seeing other people use Macbook Air.

All these classes of laptop are not really durable - they last maybe 2-3 years
with heavy use - so unless you are ready to shell out a huge amount of money
every 2 years for a laptop it it not worth getting these shiny laptops.

My current laptop - Thinkpad X1 Carbon is like a wife - durable and I can have
some garantee of failure tolerance.

# There is a reason NASA only approves thinkpads in space - ask yourself why
your laptop is not being used by astronauts ?

[1] _'.. Bryan is a writer and works as the Social Media Marketing Manager of
SUS ...'_

how does this person know this laptop is good for developers without being a
developer ? It says right there that his job is marketing ! wake up sheeps !

~~~
oarsinsync
> # There is a reason NASA only approves thinkpads in space - ask yourself why
> your laptop is not being used by astronauts ?

That's amazing, I never knew that. I loved my old Thinkpad T42, got a good 4
years out of it before the hinge on the screen broke.

I thought that was impressive too, given how poorly I treat my equipment. It
fell out of my bag numerous times but never had any problems except for the
screen hinge finally wearing down at a corner from overuse.

Then I got a 2010 MacBook Air. I'm still using it today. It's got numerous
dents on top, bottom and all corners, and a small crack at the bottom of the
screen (which strangely hasn't resulted in any dead pixels), but otherwise
it's still in full working order. I remain hugely surprised at how well it's
lasted.

Despite the general consensus of Macbooks being very well built, and Thinkpads
being built like tanks, this anecdote is definitely the opposite way around.

Now if I could get a nipple on a Macbook, or a decent trackpad on a nippled-
Thinkpad, I'd have found my perfect laptop!

~~~
wrong_variable
I think your experience was an exception, maybe you were more careful with the
MacBook Air subconsciously because you knew it couldn't withstand being thrown
around like a cheap whore ?

Also you can watch how the markets values second hand laptops, generally you
will see that second hand thinkpads retain more of its original market price
then second hand any other laptop.

Having said that thinkpads usually do not have the best screens - but even
though its slightly brutal to not have a good screen anymore, I am more
comfortable with the fact that I do not have to worry too much about my laptop
not working or overheating.

~~~
oarsinsync
> maybe you were more careful with the MacBook Air subconsciously because you
> knew it couldn't withstand being thrown around

I suspect the opposite, actually. The T42 I paid for myself and cared for like
a baby, until I heard from too many people that it was built like a tank, and
started treating it as such. The MBA was originally an employer-supplied
laptop, and thus was unloved from the start. It fell to the ground many, many
times. All the corners are dented in, and I once built a computer ontop of it
without realising (which then dented in the lid, and probably resulted in the
crack in the screen).

I powered on the T42 recently. Such a beautiful machine. Shame fixing the
screen hinges requires so much disassembly. I have very little chance of doing
it correctly, and the value of the laptop is so low now it's not worth paying
someone to do it for me.

Sadly, I'll probably end up buying a macbook pro when the next refresh comes
through. Too much friction changing platforms again.

------
JamesBaxter
I find Thunderbult quite useful (but I'm on a Mac). Not sure why this guy is
so against it, presumably there's reasonable peripheral support on other OSes
by now?

He talks about editing video on the machine, Thunderbolt should allow for high
capacity/speed external storage. I'd prefer the options Thunderbolt provides
over HDMI.

~~~
pawadu
But are there any real benefits for having Thunderbult on a PC?

I have a few expensive firewire audio equipment that I can no longer use.
Sure, they were faster than USB when I first bought them but now they are just
paperweights. So next time I am buying high-end equipment I am going to "think
different" and go with the majority (i.e. USB 3.0)...

~~~
jsjohnst
Buy a thunderbolt monitor and you'll then realize the benefits. I plug one
cable in and I have two 34" monitors running at near 4K resolution, gigabit
Ethernet, external storage, and a gamut of USB3 ports. Sure, a lot of that can
be done with USB3, but not all. Thunderbolt performance is significantly
higher too and the cable is very solid and durable.

~~~
pawadu
I think you missed my point. Firewire was also significantly faster than USB
when it was announced and see where we are now. I paid extra for a laptop with
Firewire ports and then paid extra for equipment that had firewire ports, they
are all now expensive paperweights. I am not falling into that trap again.

Also, out of curiosity, do you believe that this laptop has the horsepower to
run your 2 x 4K monitors with reasonable performance? Without the fans
spinning at max speed all the time?

~~~
jsjohnst
Not sure, but a 13" MacBook Pro w/ integrated graphics certainly does. I've
only done two cinema displays with a 13" MacBook Air so sadly can't comment on
it, will try that tonight if I get a second, but the specs of this put it more
in the MBP category anyway.

------
giovannibajo1
Technically speaking, the worst parts is that their SSD is quite slow compared
to Macs, and they ship wireless cards that don't support DFS on the 5ghz
frequency, that's getting more and more necessary for solid deploy of a 5Ghz
network. Not supporting DFS means that you can't use it on a 5Ghz DFS network.

The QHD version has a nice screen but it's hard to use it at its best in
Linux, especially when using an external monitor (you can't configure
different PPIs on the two monitors because of limitations on X; I know you can
try to use Wayland but it's not what it's being shipped; YMMV).

This said, it's obviously a very nice laptop.

~~~
NhanH
You can configure two different PPIs, but you need a WM that supports it.
Basically you start two X servers with two different PPIs. Not specifically to
the laptop but last time I used awesome (the tiling VM) with a 4k and a 1080
monitors.

~~~
oarsinsync
Can you then move windows between screens / X server instances?

~~~
NhanH
No, in fact for a couple of programs (Chrome to be the prominent one), if you
want to change X server instances you have to make sure it's really close.
Also I think copy and paste doesn't work.

------
wolfgke
Come on: Calling it "Developer Edition" and not having an ethernet port?

~~~
random778
This.

------
Bromskloss
> I ended up needing to lower the resolution by half for desktop environments
> that just weren't built for such high DPI displays.

About that, what should one do if one wants to run Linux on a computer with a
high-resolution screen? For example, does it work well on the Ubuntu that this
computer comes with?

~~~
SEMW
I have a high-res XPS 13. I can't speak for unity, I use Xfce on it. After a
bit of setup (set Xft/DPI, panel size, fonts), most things work pretty well.
There's a few special snowflake apps that need custom setup - firefox ignores
system dpi, but has its own layout.css.devPixelsPerPx setting that works well.
Rarely there'll be an app that ignores dpi and doesn't have its own settings,
which you can use xfwm's full-screen-zoom feature to make usable.

The main problem comes when you connect to a (normal-resolution) external
monitor, because in X, different monitors (which are just views onto the same
underlying X screen) can't have different DPIs. To solve that I set the system
dpi correct for the external monitor, and use xrandr screen scaling, ie
`xrandr --output eDP1 --scale 0.5x0.5`. (Which means I'm not taking advantage
of the high res then, but when I'm using my giant external monitor, it and my
laptop are pretty far from my eyes, so I don't care so much. I use a fork of
xrandr which uses exact pixel quadrupling when you set a scale of 0.5x0.5, by
default it blurs to antialias everything even when it doesn't need to, ie
reciprocal-integer scaling values). I have a pair of scripts[0] that run when
I plug and unplug my external monitor that make the change reasonably seamless
(except for having to restart firefox).

[0]
[https://github.com/SimonWoolf/dotfiles/blob/master/.useHighD...](https://github.com/SimonWoolf/dotfiles/blob/master/.useHighDpi.sh)
and
[https://github.com/SimonWoolf/dotfiles/blob/master/.useScree...](https://github.com/SimonWoolf/dotfiles/blob/master/.useScreenScaling.sh)

~~~
Bromskloss
> firefox ignores system dpi, but has its own layout.css.devPixelsPerPx
> setting

I found that this affected only the rendering of pages, not buttons and stuff
belonging to the Firefox UI. Did I do it wrong?

~~~
SEMW
It does change the ui, but you need to restart firefox for that to take effect

------
me_bx
Oh, if only things like this came with a trackpoint (a decent one).

I live in the anxiety of Thinkpads getting not worth the investment anymore,
and having to opt for another machine without this so efficient
keyboard/trackpoint combination...

~~~
bgamari
Give the Latitude E7470 a shot. I recently switched to one with very similar
specs to the XPS 13 and have been very happy with it: Great screen, solid
keyboard, 7 hour battery life, and built like a tank.

~~~
TurboHaskal
I think the Latitude 7370 would be a better comparison. It's basically an
sturdier version of the XPS 13, same tiny bezels and all.

------
cburgas
Do any of you have experience in using the QHD Display in this version of the
XPS13?

I read somewhere that is a lot glossier than the Full HD non-Developer Edition
and is nearly useless with a lot of light in the room or outside.

~~~
Bromskloss
That's my fear as well. A matte screen is the most important property of a
computer, in my opinion. It's like rear-wheel drive on a car: it's not worth
having one without it.

------
lmm
Would be nice to see a comparison with the Surface Book - I've fallen in love
with mine, and I understand there's a substantial community for running linux
on them.

------
douche
Still, 13". That's too small for serious work, even if it super high
resolution - that's only 1/4 of the surface area of a decent monitor.

~~~
bruce_one
All a matter of personal preference :-)

(I've been 100% on a 12.6" screen for the last year; and was 11" for 3+ years
before that (and only moved to the 12.6 because I couldn't find anything
smaller that was as powerful as I wanted).)

I'm always hoping for more A4-paper-sized (or smaller) powerful laptops (and I
think this is the best option at the moment (just over, but close enough :-)
)).

~~~
pawadu
But how can you comfortably code on 11"?

I mean, sure it is doable but is it worth the shoulder and back ache it will
eventually give you?

~~~
combatentropy
11.6" is a good size when the laptop is in your lap, especially in bed. The
screen is less than two feet away.

~~~
pawadu
But we are talking "developer edition". Do you code laying down in bed?

(not that what you suggest is very ergonomic anyways)

------
sethish
I hope you don't program on a back monitor. The display turns down the
brightness when you're looking at dark things, and up when you're looking at
bright things. The only way to disable it is to install windows...

