Ask HN: Dell pricing of XPS 13 developer notebooks

4 points by infocollector 10y ago ↗ HN

I am not sure how many people know this, but Dell's pricing is a little skewed when it comes to Ubuntu XPS 13 laptops. The highest end hardware you can buy is roughly >= $2000 but exactly the same hardware with Windows 10 is selling for $1450 at Adorama. Does anyone know why this discrepancy in price?

4 comments

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thecolorblue 10y ago ↗

Just looking at the dell website, it looks like the xps 13 developer edition still needs to be updated. The updated 13" xps has the 6th generation intel and better pricing. It could be they just have not updated their website, which is not surprising to me from Dell. There is also the possibility Adorama is getting a deal from Dell to sell their laptops for less than dell.com. Maybe they have un-bundled some services, or added some bloat-ware.

softinio 10y ago ↗

I know a friend who got the windows version and had a lot of trouble getting Linux on it. I think like the other poster said there is a difference in the hardware. Seems the screen is different.

I looked at them. Not very good value for money. Better to get a macbook or a lenovo/asus and install ubuntu on it.

boards2x 10y ago ↗

I agree. I now have NixOS on an older (2011) MacBook, which seems to work flawlessly. There's an issue with iSight built-in camera, and sound, but I didn't spend time trying to figure it out. Installation was a breeze and everything works out of the box.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago ↗

They're overly expensive and out of date.

But you're buying a niche product aimed at a tiny demographic. The regular XPS 13 is extremely popular and I'm sure they sell in the hundreds of thousand (given how many businesses/governments buy, not to mention private consumer sales). So as a private consumer buyer you're benefiting from the economies of scale when you buy a Win10 XPS 13.

Unfortunately someone has to pay for the Ubuntu install/testing/drivers and Dell ProSupport who has support staff who can help with Ubuntu (unlike regular support who only do Windows).

PS - ProSupport is an enterprise support product. The regular XPS 13 comes with "Premium Support" which is a consumer product, it is essentially normal support but they'll also help you with networking equipment, and popular third party [Windows] software. With Premium Support you have to buy SupportAssist to get any on-site support, ProSupport has it out of the box (as well as next day turnaround on parts).