recent Mac OSX makes me go back to windows laptops, and Linux on them, but I wonder how this one compares to Macbook Pro 15. Touchpad, and battery are important.
I have an XPS 13 and run Linux on it. The drivers for the touchpad were very rough with the version of Ubuntu it shipped with, but updating to a Kernel version > 4 fixed all my problems.
1) the touchpad never worked;
2) the keyboard still has problems;
3) some of the more important programs look just horrible on Linux, as the resolution is just too high;
4) sometimes WiFi just does not work;
It's sad to see you had trouble. With the latest version of it (9350), I had trouble at the beginning but upgrading the kernel to 4.4 solved all of them.
Also, regarding #3, I've heard Linux Mint as great HiDPI support in their last version.
Is that with the 'Infinity' screen or whatever they called it? I just got the 1080p one and don't use scaling. I had a Yoga with a hidpi screen and agree that a bunch of programs just don't work at all with scaling in Linux.
Support was terrible last May when I bought the laptop. Now everything works except the hidpi issues. But that's not laptop problem.
Overall the only problems I face is with
- GTK2 apps, they look awkward. Eg. very small icons
- Spotify, Steam, Skype will look very small
However the biggest turnoff is that whenever I connect to external display (1080p), I have to apply a weird command with scaling and panning options. This results in blurred look, a bit lag and fan spinning hard. I wish there was some option to do selective font scaling based the screen.
I've had similar experience with my ASUS N76V: it worked fine for a number of recent releases, but only with the upgrade to Ubuntu 15.10 did the touchpad start working decently (I couldn't turn on two-finger scroll before, because that resulted in phantom multi-finger gestures).
Agreed. Between my XPS and the Macbook Pro I have for work, the latter's keyboard is infinitely more annoying due to the lack of page up, page down, home, end, etc.
On a mac (which, as far as I can tell, is what started this trend) this is all less of an issue because home/end/pgup/pgdn act in ways that are generally less useful on OSX. Mac users are trained to not bother by default (much like with the maximize button).
There is no Superfish anymore, not to mention I'm running Linux anyway. Besides, rest assured you are not safe with anyone, anywhere. Everyone is spying on you, and they are all very keen to know what you're up to. Knowing that, I am happy with the Lenovo.
I had the X1 carbon 3rd gen and I have the XPS 13 9350 right now, I don't see a lot of differences in the keyboard. Why do you like the ThinkPad one better?
I almost never enter tons of numbers, so having a numpad isn't very useful for me. Especially since the fact that you have to leave home row means that there's an initial penalty to using the numpad that makes it significantly less useful for sequences of numbers <4-5 in length.
Not having a numpad means my keyboard takes up significantly less space on my desk and means mousing is more ergonomic; not having one on my laptop makes it much prettier and lets me have nice speaker grills.
I suspect that this is true of the vast majority of people, except maybe accountants, data entry folks, and some scientists. But I generally do finance, math, and programming just fine without a numpad.
You can enter many calculations quickly: 327.5 / 15.3 * 7
[enter] also means you can add type in a column on numbers quickly which is useful for setting up spreadsheets or depending on software time sheets etc. Teachers often enter lot's of grades at the same time etc etc.
The downside is wider keyboard. But, you can just use a separate USB device.
First off, a number pad is really not even in the running as something any laptop less than 17" should even have, so bringing it up is a bit silly here.
But, I would not really have an issue with there being laptops that don't have them if it weren't for the fact that it has become a near universal trait of laptops, even when there's plenty of bezel to accommodate them.
Some of us do use those keys, and having that option would be nice.
The keyboard would become more off centered. Without the extra keys, the F and J keys are already slightly off centered because of the quote key.
edit: What if this column were on the left of the keyboard to offset the quote key? Then the keyboard would be symmetric with respect to the F and J keys.
Just based on the photo showing the two models, it looks like a case of corporate synergy. It looks like they just dropped the 13" keyboard into the 15" tray, saving mechanical, electrical and software engineering effort.
For me personally a centred keyboard is much more important than a separate number block. When touch typing I don't need the number block, but typing text on a left-aligned keyboard "hurts". For me it was even the criteria for having bought a 14" laptop instead of a 15" (ThinkPad). But then I have special requirements.
I can understand that for people using arrow keys a lot or entering tons of numbers the extra number block is important. I have seen several times that accountants bought external number blocks because their laptops didn't have it (and I think because in France entering numbers is extra difficult due to the AZERTY layout - you have to press SHIFT for the digits).
So it's really about ergonomy due to habits. I think the best would be if vendors would provide several keyboard options - centred, with or without trackpoint, different layouts even in non-US countries (this is something that Lenovo provides for ThinkPads and I am very happy about).
I would probably get a Thinkpad T460s before this laptop, especially since the new T460s is even thinner than it used to be (closer to the X1 carbon). What do people find so attractive about this laptop? I'm thinking about getting one this upcoming year and neither the XPS' touchpad nor the keyboard seem very good.
Thank you for the answer. Very much appreciated. What do you think about the keyboard? It doesn't seem to have much key travel. It's always been my main concern about this laptop. The keyboard is probably the thing I put the most importance on. I just can't find laptops with good keyboards. It seems like the Dell Latitude has a good keyboard; I was considering it, but the price is similar to (or even higher than) a Thinkpad.
I love Thinkpads, but the thing that really annoys me is just how much Lenovo charge for upgrades. I end up having to buy with the smallest memory and storage they have, and then separately upgrading them. The Lenovo prices are often up to ten times the market rate for the same items.
Yes, being able to upgrade is great. But I do get annoyed at how much they charge. For example getting an additional 16GB of memory for the T450s is $309 at Lenovo (on big sale from the usual $430), while the same from Crucial is $180. A 512GB SATA SSD for that model is $430 (on sale from $580) while a comparable model from Crucial is $180, or a Samsung 850 Pro for $220 on Amazon.
As a consequence I have a collection of unused 500GB laptop hard drives since you have to order with some storage and that is the cheapest Lenovo do. I immediately replace them, but this is wasteful and silly. If their prices were far closer to normal then I'd just get Lenovo to do it, and they'd make more money. Instead they see me getting the lowest specs, instead of what I actually use.
It only has one ram slot (the other has 4GB soldered in) so you can't use a kit - you need a single 16GB sodimm. Retail prices are around $150 everywhere.
If Lenovo charged an amount substantially similar (or better) than regular retail, then I'd gladly pay them for the upgrades. But at multiples of the retail price it makes no sense.
It's true. The T530 has a socketed CPU. I upgraded mine with the highest performance i7 that was 35W (same as the one I removed) for very little money (net, after I sell the i5).
Personally I'm wondering if/when they'll expand the sleek Latitude 7000 series to 15". After being disappointed by where Lenovo took ThinkPad, I've been really happy with my 15" 6540 (c. 2013) and would happily buy a 15" machine from Dell again.
As someone who has been buying MacBooks since 2006, I'm starting to feel envious of the various PC laptops out there - in particular the XPS 13 and the Surface Book. With OS X not proving itself to be a fantastic OS in recent revisions I'm wondering how long it'll be before I give into temptation.
Maybe when someone finally gets a trackpad that's as good as the Macbook. Almost every PC laptop I've tried has paled in comparison.
I tried a friend's Surface the other day and got blown away by how smoothly everything ran and how quick Edge was compared to Safari. No hang-ups, no "This application was forced to quit," no opening iTerm and having to kill a process by hand, better memory management, and pretty decent battery life. Of course, the trackpad and keyboard were still not as good as the ones on the MBP; there's some weird Apple magic going on there and while OEMs are catching up I wonder how much longer it'll take to actually match the performance of Apple's input devices.
It's amazing how the tables have turned; I can't imagine myself saying anything like this 5-6 years ago.
but what situation will you find yourself in that you need a laptop that weighs 2lb instead of 3.3lb? i just find it hard to believe that the extra lb will prevent you from getting any work done, or prevent you from fitting your laptop somewhere.
I recently put Windows 10 on a now six-year-old laptop with i3 in it. It's surprisingly snappy, definitely more pleasant to use than the Windows 7 that was on it. This is not usually what happens when you put the latest Windows on hardware old enough to have shipped with Windows three major versions back. Apple better watch itself, Microsoft seems to be caring a lot more about the little things.
(This message is just about the OS; yes, yes, privacy etc., and there's still yet more stuff yet to fix up like battery life, etc. I only game in Windows so honestly I don't much worry about it. I'm just saying, it's much slicker than I've ever seen Windows be even on new hardware, let alone 6-year-old hardware.)
It would help if Mac OS properly implemented the track pad for people who use tap-to-drag. You cannot disable that tap-to-drag drag-release delay, which makes dragging behave wrong compared to Windows, Linux and Chrome OS. You need a third party app (BetterTouchTool) to make it work properly.
Just another third party app you need to make MacOs behave like a normal operating system (on top of the one that enables proper tabbing, oh and one that makes the alt key work properly in the terminal).
Ha - I first thought you meant that it's normal that on Mac OS you need third party tools to change basic operating system behaviors. But you're really just telling me I'm 'holding it wrong' ;-)
I'm not sure I'd call the XPS 13 the best PC laptop. The keyboard is pretty terrible, and the touchpad is so wide that my palms will rest on it and cause the cursor to move around while I'm typing. There's also some bounce on the spacebar which results in sometimes registering double spaces (the latest BIOS alleviates the problem, but not completely).
The DPI of the screen is really high and doesn't scale well under XFCE, but I'm not sure if that's really a fault of the laptop.
Yeah. DPI story on Linux desktops are not very good. A few of them handles 200% scaling pretty well, but with something like 150% scaling, it fails pretty terribly.
I had some success modifying things like border width, font sizes manually.
I currently run Debian Jessie on an XPS 13 - GNOME 3 handles high DPI with minimal configuration. I'm sure KDE could manage as well, but I did not have a magnifying glass available to navigate the miniscule menus. I've run into more issues with apps that don't scale - some games and the Arduino IDE being the biggest offenders I've come across.
I agree with regard to the touchpad size/palm sensitivity - accidental clicks are a big problem.
For me the main issue with XPS touchpad is lack of physical buttons. With Vostro I was able to press left and right button simultaneously (middle click on Linux), now with XPS it's impossible. Also sound is annoying :)
Given the strength of Intel's latest integrated GPUs, it just doesn't make sense any more to add weak dedicated GPUs to laptops. As the author said, "this isn't a gaming laptop". I'd claim that the whole category of gaming laptop no longer has relevance.
So my mac laptop draws into 5120x2880 buffer, then scales that down to 4k to display on my external 4k monitor. It’s also still driving the internal retina display with a different scaling.
I hope that higher-res screens become standard in the 13-15in line of PC laptops. I have an XPS13 that I love, but there are still many programs (even certain interfaces inside Windows itself!) that do not behave well with hi-DPI displays.
The problem with these 4K laptops where you need to set your font as 250% is that if you RDP to a HyperV Windows 7 VDI machine at the higher resolution, you see nothing because you cannot change font size or resolution on the remote machine.
So before you RDP, you need to change the local resolution to something compatible with normal font size (100%) and 15". It is such an annoyance to change resolutions back and forth that you end up configuring the lower resolution permanently.
> Unfortunately, even with this 84Wh battery, the battery life of the XPS 15 wasn't tremendous. The blame for this lies almost certainly with that large screen. Dell's own battery life estimates (which are in the same ballpark as ours, given some differences in testing methodology) suggest that swapping out the 4K panel for the 1080p one would extend battery life in similar workloads by 60 percent or more.
Why is Apple the only one that can build a 15" retina laptop with 9-10 hours of battery life?
It’s definitely the OS. Battery life on a Macbook Pro in Windows via Boot Camp tanks.
One could make the argument that substandard drivers for the Apple hardware is to blame here, so perhaps battery benchmarks on a Hackintosh vs the same hardware in Windows would settle the debate, but that's some tinfoil hat shit… Apple has been vocal about battery life as a top priority for the company going all the way back to the PowerPC/Intel switch.
I'm not so sure it's the OS. The new Pixel has even better battery life than the latest Macbooks, in a similar form factor, and it's all Linux underneath the hood. IMO it's more of a commitment to tweaking whatever OS you have, not necessarily to writing the whole thing.
Ha! Sitting here with 15.10 running Gnome 3 on a 2013 Macbook Pro Retina. The battery life is noticeably worse than under OS X. I'd say I get about 2.5-3 hours of out it, unless I drop the screen brightness all the way down. But then how do I appreciate the beautiful screen? :)
> Why is Apple the only one that can build a 15" retina laptop with 9-10 hours of battery life?
The XPS 15 has better than a Retina display:
- Reina: 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch.
- 4K: 3840-by-2160 resolution at 282 pixels per inch (60% more pixels).
So you're comparing apples and oranges (minor pun intended). It is unsurprising that a display which literally has more work to do will consume more battery in the process.
Are you going to notice the 60 extra ppi more or less than the several hours of battery life? If the answer is less, than that sounds like Dell just made a bad engineering trade-off.
I'm going to notice that you're shifting your argument.
You argued that Apple was the only company able to engineer laptops with good screens, when it was pointed out that in fact it was Dell that had the better screen, you're now using that point to argue that Apple is still superior.
So I guess your only point is that "Apple is superior" and you'll massage the facts to support that notion.
- Earlier argument: Worse screen = Apple is superior.
- Latest argument: Better screen = Apple is superior.
No, I asked: "Why is Apple the only one that can build a 15" retina laptop with 9-10 hours of battery life?" Both are retina laptops, but the Dell does not meet the battery life criteria. You're not refuting my point, just explaining why Dell doesn't meet the battery life criteria.
The displays are not the same. Period. If you don't understand that "Retina" is a marketing term, and that the only way to truly differentiate between display size is DPI then i truly have no idea what to say to you.
So you're buying a house, and decide you're willing to downgrade to a school district where 85% of kids meet the testing standards because the kind of house you want is $100k cheaper than in the district where 93% of kids meet the testing standards. "Going with that logic," are you willing to downgrade to the inner-city district where the house is $200k cheaper but only 45% of kids meet the testing standards? Do you see why your point doesn't make any sense?
> Why is Apple the only one that can build a 15" retina laptop with 9-10 hours of battery life
Because "retina" in the context of displays is an Apple-trademarked marketing term, which is why Apple is the only one who can build a "retina laptop", irrespective of size or battery life.
More to the point, another manufacturing aping Apple's tradeoffs means the two end up competing on price, which neither wants to. So, naturally, other competitors who are interested in claiming some segment of the price-insensitive market by competing on something other than price make different trade-offs -- in this case, better DPI and shorter battery life. For lots of laptop usage patterns, this is a superior tradeoff; for others, its not.
I'm not sure why people are having so much trouble with this question, which can easily be restated as "why can't someone build a laptop that has at least as good a display as what Apple calls a 'retina' display while having the same battery life as an rMBP?"
An easy answer to that question would be to submit for consideration some non-Apple laptop that accomplishes that. I'm sure it must exist, and that would be a good thing to know about.
That there is some random Dell laptop with better resolution than a retina display and worse battery life is simply not responsive to the question.
> I'm not sure why people are having so much trouble with this question, which can easily be restated as "why can't someone build a laptop that has at least as good a display as what Apple calls a 'retina' display while having the same battery life as an rMBP?"
After the first, short paragraph addressing the strict issue with "retina", the longer, second paragraph of the grandparent post directly answered why that would be the case: competing on different feature trade-offs rather than making the same trade-offs and competing on price allows greater profits because it avoids entering a market with direct substitutes, even if doing so in a way constrained by the trade-offs earlier entrants have made results in entering what is effectively a smaller market without direct substitutes instead of a larger market with direct substitutes.
I can assure you that the 9-10 hour estimate for the MBP is optimistic at best, and downright misleading at worst. I'm lucky to get 7 hours if I turn down the brightness and do nothing but browse the web and check email (no video or Outlook, just regular old Apple mail). Any realistic usage scenarios net about 4-5 hours, and any semi-intensive use (IDE open, iMovie, Photoshop, streaming video, etc) will drain the battery in 3.5 hours flat. I'm not the only person with these issues; Marco Arment, Gruber, and the rest of the Apple triumvirs all share the same complaints with regards to the 15" MacBook Pro's battery life. Part of the blame is poor optimization on Apple's part with Turbo Boost, and another just rests on the fact that it's ridiculously hard to drive a high-resolution, bright screen, a powerful processor, and a graphics unit without sacrificing some degree of efficiency.
I've got a 15" rMBP and regularly get 8-10 hours of browsing, word processing, or light coding. On ArsTechnica's web browsing battery test, the rMBP exceeds 10 hours.
Recommended display brightness for standard office conditions is 150 nits. The rMBP goes up to double that, which obviously has a battery life cost. Also Chrome is poorly optimized for Mav, it takes several hours off the total.
Try using Safari instead of Chrome. And check if you're running a lot of Flash. The usual problem is that Chrome is engineered to gorge power with no regard to your battery. Flash, of course, is pure abuse and stupidity.
It all disappoints me because I prefer Chrome for its tools. But Google simply doesn't seem to care that it goes overboard on power and RAM drain.
GPU passthrough requires a hardware video output for the discrete GPU. You can go looking through the moaning of Oculus Rift users[1] as they prowl laptops that do this, but it's pretty much unheard of in current standard laptops.
[1] Rift needs better video latency than you get with routing the DGPU output through the IGPU. Apparently there are now some specialized 17" gaming laptops that support a "direct mode" that might allow GPU passthrough to HDMI given software support.
If, like me, you're considering getting one of these to install linux on (to replace a macbook pro or whatever), you should check out the archwiki article on it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_15
Even if you're going to run a different distro, I find the arch wiki to be one of the best resources for "should I try installing linux on this?"
Couldnt they just say NVME so I know what they are talking about? Industry standard terms exist for a reason. Imagine if someone stopped using USB port and came up with their own description of the standard.
I would argue that the best PC laptops are the old IBM ThinkPads. The best PC laptop in production, I'm not sure. The Panasonic Toughbooks are pretty nice for their purpose.
I'm sitting on the couch right now with my employer's ThinkPad. The touchpad is disabled, as on any laptop I use. I detest even a single touchpad caused accident, and I actually like the fine control I get with a mouse. My couch, desk or thigh is my mouse pad.
Funny, I've been using a mouse since the eighties. Not at all minimizing your RSSI issues.
I've often thought that the reason I don't have RSSI and shoulder issues (which one can get using a mouse) is that I amp the acceleration (or whatever the term is) up all the way. I use a small mouse (currently a wireless logitech, thanks Doug) and I can move my pointer quickly and precisely across the entire screen while keeping the outside pad of my lower hand (near the wrist) resting on the desk (or couch at the moment). I move the mouse entirely with my fingers, no wrist or shoulder movement at all. If you watched my hand moving the mouse, and took the mouse out from under it, it would like like I was gently scratching the desk/couch.
The downside is that when someone else walks up to my machine to show me something they get vertigo when they first move the mouse.
I agree on the touchpads, but I like Thinkpad screens. Give me a nice 1080p matte finish any day over the ultra-glossy high resolution screens that make everything tiny, burn through battery, and look terrible in bright sunlight.
With the extended battery and bay battery (no slice battery) I was seeing over 14 hours of real world wireless usage (inc. fullscreen video) on my 14" Thinkpad. The Thinkpad is a workhorse, not a toy.
The 1080p IPS screen on my T450s is a blurry piece of crap with awful backlight bleed in comparison to the screen on my rMBP. I can at least control my room lighting to avoid glare--I can't do anything about the low-resolution hazy text on the 1080p matte screen. For a workhorse machine--I stare at text all day--that clarity is priceless.
Is your screen glossy that reflects the lights around? I am asking, because I am also using a T450s, with matt a 1920x1080 screen. It's the best screen I ever had. I can work with any ambient light, does not reflect, it is not as sensitive to viewing angle as the screens that I had before and has very lively colours. I absolutely love this machine.
Maybe we don't have the same screens, i.e. there are different models?
Not to mention that 1080p is the WRONG #$%#@^#$ ASPECT RATIO for any real computer work. It's wrong for anything other than watching movies, and has no advantages even for that.
You're right, the default LCD are abysmal, although Lenovo tried to improve the situation a bit. Many models have IPS options. Also many thinkpad heads have moderate or more modding skills and swapping parts is very common.
Beside, keyboard aren't everything, these laptops are sturdy. Most laptops are flimsy and fail early. I own lots of 2005-2009 models that are impeccable.
Finally, 2nd hand Thinkpads are cheap, You can find a decent one for as much as a raspberrypi2 kit.
I have one I bought a couple of months ago hooked up to a 44" 4K Visio TV via HDMI. It is my main development machine and I love it. I bought it through the Microsoft store to avoid crapware (via their Signature Edition line) and it was actually cheaper than the same specs on dell.com at the time.
I really wish Dell could comprehend just how much ill will and outright damage they cause to their brand with all the useless trashware they put on their systems. McAfee?? Really? That, and that horrible webcam they put in there. It's just screams "I'm a low quality piece of junk" far louder than any positives can make up for.
I got one of these in November and primarily run Ubuntu on it, and I'm really happy with it. The only thing that (really) sucks is that Suspend/Resume is broken, so you get a kernel panic if you shut the lid. Otherwise, it's wicked fast (compiles LLVM in 10 minutes and CoreCLR in about 2 minutes) and the display is really nice.
The only gripe I have with the layout of the keyboard is that sometimes the palm of my hand grazes the touchpad while typing, which on Ubuntu causes a click and moves the mouse cursor - a minor annoyance when typing but easily undoable.
The Ubuntu installation process is a little dicey but some person on the Ubuntu forums posted a detailed list of instructions and they mostly worked for me. Upgrading the kernel did not fix my suspend/resume problem, though. (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301071)
The battery life is not as stellar as a macbook but I don't mind. It can last through a flight across the United States, so that works for me.
Nvidia will launch this year (spring) it's new cards based on 16nm. That's a 4 year jump because cards are now 28nm.
(AMD has the same plans)
A six year jump this year in storage technology is promised by intel, it's Octane disk are 7 times faster then ssd in a practice test. Intel believes it's technology can be 1000 faster than ssd.
You can always wait but this time you should.
134 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] thread1) the touchpad never worked; 2) the keyboard still has problems; 3) some of the more important programs look just horrible on Linux, as the resolution is just too high; 4) sometimes WiFi just does not work;
...so much for the Sputnik project.
Also, regarding #3, I've heard Linux Mint as great HiDPI support in their last version.
Also take out the broadcom wifi and burn it with fire! Replaced with Intel wifi card and have zero wifi issues.
Overall the only problems I face is with - GTK2 apps, they look awkward. Eg. very small icons - Spotify, Steam, Skype will look very small
However the biggest turnoff is that whenever I connect to external display (1080p), I have to apply a weird command with scaling and panning options. This results in blurred look, a bit lag and fan spinning hard. I wish there was some option to do selective font scaling based the screen.
The current situation with XPS 15 seems much worse: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301071
For decent experience, one should wait until April until 16.04 comes out. And some issues will probably remain for a release or two after that.
Really tired of bad ideas like this becoming universal traits.
It's inconsistent enough to be frustrating.
Not having a numpad means my keyboard takes up significantly less space on my desk and means mousing is more ergonomic; not having one on my laptop makes it much prettier and lets me have nice speaker grills.
I suspect that this is true of the vast majority of people, except maybe accountants, data entry folks, and some scientists. But I generally do finance, math, and programming just fine without a numpad.
IP addresses 127.192.168.00.1
You can enter many calculations quickly: 327.5 / 15.3 * 7
[enter] also means you can add type in a column on numbers quickly which is useful for setting up spreadsheets or depending on software time sheets etc. Teachers often enter lot's of grades at the same time etc etc.
The downside is wider keyboard. But, you can just use a separate USB device.
http://www.amazon.com/V7-Ergonomic-Resistant-Notebook-KP0N1-...
But, I would not really have an issue with there being laptops that don't have them if it weren't for the fact that it has become a near universal trait of laptops, even when there's plenty of bezel to accommodate them.
Some of us do use those keys, and having that option would be nice.
edit: What if this column were on the left of the keyboard to offset the quote key? Then the keyboard would be symmetric with respect to the F and J keys.
It mostly works, but I've found I still don't use it as often as would the real keys.
I can understand that for people using arrow keys a lot or entering tons of numbers the extra number block is important. I have seen several times that accountants bought external number blocks because their laptops didn't have it (and I think because in France entering numbers is extra difficult due to the AZERTY layout - you have to press SHIFT for the digits).
So it's really about ergonomy due to habits. I think the best would be if vendors would provide several keyboard options - centred, with or without trackpoint, different layouts even in non-US countries (this is something that Lenovo provides for ThinkPads and I am very happy about).
Storage: all SSDs are PCI-e.
Graphics: 2GB GT 750M. Can't imagine needing anything more unless you do intensive gaming or visual work.
Excellent build quality. Haven't seen a single knock on it.
Very thin and light.
Getting all this at ~$2000.
None of these points are exclusive to this laptop, but I don't know of any other machine that offers everything in one package for a reasonable price.
ThinkPad P50 comes close, but doesn't offer the same screen resolution (with touch), and it's more expensive.
I only know this because I'm in the market. If anyone has any advice, I'd love to know more.
The bezel looks sexy on top, but overall, it's just more crappy design decisions from Dell.
As a consequence I have a collection of unused 500GB laptop hard drives since you have to order with some storage and that is the cheapest Lenovo do. I immediately replace them, but this is wasteful and silly. If their prices were far closer to normal then I'd just get Lenovo to do it, and they'd make more money. Instead they see me getting the lowest specs, instead of what I actually use.
crucial is overcharging too. 16gb ram kits are $75
i also have a large box of 500gb drives
If Lenovo charged an amount substantially similar (or better) than regular retail, then I'd gladly pay them for the upgrades. But at multiples of the retail price it makes no sense.
http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/latitude-e7470-ultrabook/p...
Maybe when someone finally gets a trackpad that's as good as the Macbook. Almost every PC laptop I've tried has paled in comparison.
It's amazing how the tables have turned; I can't imagine myself saying anything like this 5-6 years ago.
The proper comparison is to Apple's mainstream models.
MacBook weight: 2.03 lb
Not even remotely the same category.
My point stands: the best comparison is to Apple's mainstream laptops such as the MacBook Air, not to an ultralight.
(This message is just about the OS; yes, yes, privacy etc., and there's still yet more stuff yet to fix up like battery life, etc. I only game in Windows so honestly I don't much worry about it. I'm just saying, it's much slicker than I've ever seen Windows be even on new hardware, let alone 6-year-old hardware.)
did you touch a Surface Book?
Just another third party app you need to make MacOs behave like a normal operating system (on top of the one that enables proper tabbing, oh and one that makes the alt key work properly in the terminal).
Normal is relative. Having used OS X for a long time, I assure you it is quite normal to me.
The DPI of the screen is really high and doesn't scale well under XFCE, but I'm not sure if that's really a fault of the laptop.
I had some success modifying things like border width, font sizes manually.
I agree with regard to the touchpad size/palm sensitivity - accidental clicks are a big problem.
External GPU helps.
Now, when I read something like this, it's obviously an ad.
So before you RDP, you need to change the local resolution to something compatible with normal font size (100%) and 15". It is such an annoyance to change resolutions back and forth that you end up configuring the lower resolution permanently.
Why is Apple the only one that can build a 15" retina laptop with 9-10 hours of battery life?
One could make the argument that substandard drivers for the Apple hardware is to blame here, so perhaps battery benchmarks on a Hackintosh vs the same hardware in Windows would settle the debate, but that's some tinfoil hat shit… Apple has been vocal about battery life as a top priority for the company going all the way back to the PowerPC/Intel switch.
Apple didn't write Darwin from scratch, after all.
I use XPS-13 (4k display version), and certainly don't get the battery life promised by Dell.
The XPS 15 has better than a Retina display:
- Reina: 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch.
- 4K: 3840-by-2160 resolution at 282 pixels per inch (60% more pixels).
So you're comparing apples and oranges (minor pun intended). It is unsurprising that a display which literally has more work to do will consume more battery in the process.
You argued that Apple was the only company able to engineer laptops with good screens, when it was pointed out that in fact it was Dell that had the better screen, you're now using that point to argue that Apple is still superior.
So I guess your only point is that "Apple is superior" and you'll massage the facts to support that notion.
- Earlier argument: Worse screen = Apple is superior.
- Latest argument: Better screen = Apple is superior.
That is not what he said.
Enjoy your kool aid.
Please don't be personally abrasive on HN. If you take all that rudeness out, what's left is a fine comment.
Because "retina" in the context of displays is an Apple-trademarked marketing term, which is why Apple is the only one who can build a "retina laptop", irrespective of size or battery life.
More to the point, another manufacturing aping Apple's tradeoffs means the two end up competing on price, which neither wants to. So, naturally, other competitors who are interested in claiming some segment of the price-insensitive market by competing on something other than price make different trade-offs -- in this case, better DPI and shorter battery life. For lots of laptop usage patterns, this is a superior tradeoff; for others, its not.
An easy answer to that question would be to submit for consideration some non-Apple laptop that accomplishes that. I'm sure it must exist, and that would be a good thing to know about.
That there is some random Dell laptop with better resolution than a retina display and worse battery life is simply not responsive to the question.
After the first, short paragraph addressing the strict issue with "retina", the longer, second paragraph of the grandparent post directly answered why that would be the case: competing on different feature trade-offs rather than making the same trade-offs and competing on price allows greater profits because it avoids entering a market with direct substitutes, even if doing so in a way constrained by the trade-offs earlier entrants have made results in entering what is effectively a smaller market without direct substitutes instead of a larger market with direct substitutes.
Why is Apple the only one that can build a 15" retina laptop with 9-10 hours of battery life?
The answer "Dell makes a laptop with a better-than-retina screen with terrible battery life" is not in fact responsive.
Recommended display brightness for standard office conditions is 150 nits. The rMBP goes up to double that, which obviously has a battery life cost. Also Chrome is poorly optimized for Mav, it takes several hours off the total.
Try using Safari instead of Chrome. And check if you're running a lot of Flash. The usual problem is that Chrome is engineered to gorge power with no regard to your battery. Flash, of course, is pure abuse and stupidity.
It all disappoints me because I prefer Chrome for its tools. But Google simply doesn't seem to care that it goes overboard on power and RAM drain.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-15-9550-i7-512GB-UHD-I...
NotebookCheck folks do some of the most thorough testing of notebooks you can find anywhere.
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[1] For example: ArsTechnica review seem to have botched graphics tests somehow.
Having Nvidia GTX 960M GPU is a big part of XPS 15 value proposition (and what makes it stand out from e.g. Macbook Pro).
This doesn't show up in ArsTechnica review, yet it is completely obvious in NotebookCheck one.
[1] Rift needs better video latency than you get with routing the DGPU output through the IGPU. Apparently there are now some specialized 17" gaming laptops that support a "direct mode" that might allow GPU passthrough to HDMI given software support.
1. Extremely poor graphics performance in benchmarks.
2. More than 5 hours less battery life than the MacBook Pro. (!)
3. No Thunderbolt port that can be used while charging the machine.
Even if you're going to run a different distro, I find the arch wiki to be one of the best resources for "should I try installing linux on this?"
i7-6700HQ, GTX960M, 512 GB PCIe Gen3 x4 SSD, 4K IPS display 15 inch for $1500
Unfortunately, even though it's been out for over a month, no major websites have reviewed the laptop.
http://www.amazon.com/UX501VW-DS71T-Touchscreen-Skylake-H-i7...
Couldnt they just say NVME so I know what they are talking about? Industry standard terms exist for a reason. Imagine if someone stopped using USB port and came up with their own description of the standard.
I've often thought that the reason I don't have RSSI and shoulder issues (which one can get using a mouse) is that I amp the acceleration (or whatever the term is) up all the way. I use a small mouse (currently a wireless logitech, thanks Doug) and I can move my pointer quickly and precisely across the entire screen while keeping the outside pad of my lower hand (near the wrist) resting on the desk (or couch at the moment). I move the mouse entirely with my fingers, no wrist or shoulder movement at all. If you watched my hand moving the mouse, and took the mouse out from under it, it would like like I was gently scratching the desk/couch.
The downside is that when someone else walks up to my machine to show me something they get vertigo when they first move the mouse.
With the extended battery and bay battery (no slice battery) I was seeing over 14 hours of real world wireless usage (inc. fullscreen video) on my 14" Thinkpad. The Thinkpad is a workhorse, not a toy.
Maybe we don't have the same screens, i.e. there are different models?
Beside, keyboard aren't everything, these laptops are sturdy. Most laptops are flimsy and fail early. I own lots of 2005-2009 models that are impeccable.
Finally, 2nd hand Thinkpads are cheap, You can find a decent one for as much as a raspberrypi2 kit.
The only gripe I have with the layout of the keyboard is that sometimes the palm of my hand grazes the touchpad while typing, which on Ubuntu causes a click and moves the mouse cursor - a minor annoyance when typing but easily undoable.
The Ubuntu installation process is a little dicey but some person on the Ubuntu forums posted a detailed list of instructions and they mostly worked for me. Upgrading the kernel did not fix my suspend/resume problem, though. (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301071)
The battery life is not as stellar as a macbook but I don't mind. It can last through a flight across the United States, so that works for me.