Just as a note to anyone wanting to pick one up. The webcam is down by the keyboard, and not in the bezel above the screen. So if you work remote, all your fellow workmates will be staring up your nose.
It really doesn't. I've got the XPS 15 and the camera is similarly placed. The optimal solution is to just run a USB webcam to the top of an external monitor.
On the go, you're SOL. Not only can everyone see up your nose, but don't even try typing unless you want to distract everyone with some nice finger close-ups.
I do the same - first so my clients aren't looking at the side of my face as I'm looking at them on my main monitor and second because the built in webcam quality is pretty horrible.
Might be good if you don't type touch then. It'll look like you're looking at the camera (them) more often. (As for myself, I'd just look arrogant...)
The minute someone can magic out a way to turn a monitor into a multi point camera, add some eye tracking logic and integrate that with the conference display, we'll have a small video teleconference revolution on our hands.
The real answer is a 3d camera. That way you can actually make eye contact and interact much more realistically. Fortunately the apple patent doesn't seem to apply.
The XPS 13 pioneered ultra-thin bezels which really are quite cool[0] -- not just visually: they shrunk the device footprint while keeping the screen the same size. The poor webcam position was a casualty of that design.
What's a bit weird is that even in this, what, second or third revision, they haven't managed to engineer around this issue despite it being mentioned as a major downside practically every time the laptop comes up.
Due to "InfinityEdge Display", there's no room to put it anywhere else. It does make the built in webcam rather useless, I've got an external (Logitech 920) webcam.
They should have done something like this, but it's Dell, not Apple.
I've used a number of their top of the line products over the years, and they've always been riddled with cost-saving compromises like this. If they put the bezel on top, they'd have to invest more money into the display hinge as well instead of whatever cheap plastic parts they currently use. That would eat into their profits, so it won't happen until the competition forces it.
Every xps 13 review I've seen mentions this as a big minus. I haven't used it yet, so I don't know, but is it really that big a deal? Seems like its a fair trade off for an edge to edge screen?
I think you misunderstood. The physical location of the webcam is so low on the device that it can only show the user from slightly underneath. This can't be fixed in software.
I don't even remember when I actually used a webcam on a laptop. I'm either in a conference room with dedicated camera, or doing voice-only meetings when traveling.
Sure, there may be people who are used to / need to do video from the laptop. FWIW I do work remotely / from home, and I do chat with my coworkers and customers regularly, but we only do voice.
If I needed to do video more often, I'd probably get a dedicated cam anyway, as it works when using external screen with laptop lid closed (which is what I do at home). But sure, that's not an option when traveling.
My experience is similar; this is definitely a company/team culture thing. At my workplace, if you see someone on camera the assumption is that it's accidental and you should let them know so that they can turn it off.
I've worked remote for 3 years and I've never done a video conference call. I go into the office once every two weeks. Not an option for everyone but I'm sure I can't be the only person who works like this
I've recently switched from project which extensively used Hangouts in meeting rooms into project that uses Lync and dinky Windows machine.
Asides from being much worse experience in terms of dialing in, sharing screens, etc, not seeing faces is so much worse. Inability to see emotions is terrible for team trust. We have 200 facial muscles that carry tons of information. We should use them.
> but is it really that big a deal? Seems like its a fair trade off for an edge to edge screen?
It was one of the major reasons I went with a Lenovo x250 when buying a new laptop ~18 months ago. I really liked the XPS13, but I do use my webcam regularly and having it so low just seemed like it would be very awkward. (The other major reason I went with the x250 is that I'm a big fan of the trackpoint).
Same here, I cannot work without a TrackPoint. I'm told the Toshiba work as well as Lenovo, but seeing this market shrinking every time I shop for a laptop is saddening.
Ehh, I used to feel the same but once you use something nice like a Macbook for a while you'll come to realise that trackpads are better on larger work areas and multiple workspaces and you can always still use your thumb to do small hops quickly.
I personally wouldn't ever consider a trackpoint again until they do something major to improve the feel/sensitivity actual sensor or allow us to directly edit the force/velocity curves directly. God damn thing is impossible to use on a 4k/5k native display.
I was forced to use a Mac and hated it partly because of this.
Why are you saying a trackpad is better for a large area? Don't you end up having to lift your finger, go back to the other end of the pad and drag it across again, instead of just applying constant pressure on the TrackPoint?
Just increase your sensitivity. I can click a button 7000 pixels away with about two or three quick and light motions. The whole process takes less than a second vs the 2-5 seconds I'd need with my X220 depending on speed/accel settings which IMO is lacking. Again if they just allowed me to easily edit the sensitivity curves on the trackpoint or made the displacement more linear I wouldn't mind nearly as much but as it stands I have to trade off speed/accuracy between short and long distance clicks because the sensor isn't linear and reliable enough to do both well.
For short clicks it's just a matter of preference, IMO. When I first switched to the macbook it felt strange for about a week but after that I didn't miss it one bit.
When using your webcam, do you look at its lens or the screen?
I usually look at the screen, to watch the other person's image, so a high-mounted webcam makes it seem that I'm looking at their chest. Which may or may not be appropriate.
I don't think anyone finds you looking at the screen inappropriate because it looks like you're looking at their chest if it were real life. Maybe someone who's never seen a camera or screen.
For the screen, I'd suggest checking it out in the store first and making sure it feels right. The 13" on a macbook (air/pro) feels larger imo because of bezel and the different aspect ratio (16:10 vs 16:9).
Given the security fears of cameras, I think it would be nice to have a no-camera option. Those that want a camera can then use a USB one, the main feature of which is that it can be unplugged when not in use.
I can't tell if it's a serious comment or not but in case it's serious: Why even buy a laptop? If you're paranoid enough to want to do this sort of thing to something you're paying over $1.5k for, have you realized the consequences of what other things a bad agent can do?
Your data, your files are more valuable to the NSA than your microphone. If they care about what you're saying, your house is already bugged.
I think the least of my concerns would be the camera - at least if they are doing that, they might trigger some data usage that I could catch on my modem/little-snitch, etc....
If they are able to access the, then odds are they can access things like my keyboard, 1password passwords, banking, etc...
While I think that the Dell XPS is the most beautiful of the Dell machines, I think that the lattitude, especially the e7470 model[0] is a better development machine as they're more easily upgradable (at least regarding the RAM and SSD).
Judging by the pictures, the new models have pretty much the same keyboard as XPS. And the 15" models only come with numpad, which is a bit silly IMNSHO.
How's the extra ram affect the battery life? Recent HN discussions seems to point toward a heavy battery penalty because of the type of ram needed. (NB: I am not a hardware nerd, looking for actual information here, not just an idle question)
I've got last year's model and the ram has never been an issue for me, in fact I manage to run 6 to 7 workspaces, each with a chrome window with a few hundred tabs, terminal windows and an atom window all running really well. I do have the great suspender installed which obviously helps.
I just upgraded my XPS 15 to 32GB, 2400MHz RAM. Unfortunately with the XPS 13, it seems the RAM is soldered to the motherboard. Personally I wouldn't get the XPS 13 for work, but go for the more powerful XPS 15.
Upvote for the snark. Normally might go the other way for the trollishness, but seems fair given that a minority of HNeckbeards turn every post re: Apple into an ad for the XPS or Surface Book these days.
The "...for developers" talking point is so ridiculous I'd forgotten it was really just a rehashed argument from yesteryear. Used a Mac in the mid-00s while in undergrad CS, and other than a half of one semester virtualizing Windows for Verilog, every other toolchain or need I had worked perfectly in OS X. I had more conversations with other CS folks blathering about how Macs weren't used for development than I did problems using a Mac for development.
That silliness hadn't been an issue for quite some time until now, just as how most people aren't under such a severe RAM crunch anymore that 16GB isn't a deal breaker.
Every machine worth its salt is going to have made design compromises (Thunderbolt ports only, a horribly placed bezelwebcam, etc) because that's what building a product is about. Making a purchase is always going to involve subjective decision-making because that's what buying a product is about.
Is Ubuntu substantially lighter on system resources than macOS? I used a MBP for a few years during the OS X Lion/Mavericks era, and the system struggled on a 4GB/500HDD machine whereas a comparably specced Linux laptop would just fly.
I haven't run Linux on my MB's, so I can't say how same-same hardware performance would compare between the two. I always have a Linux machine around, though, and have for the last 20+ years (Slackware on floppies!) -- and it always runs faster than Windows. Much of that probably has to do with the fact that it's simply running a lot less code, and that a lot of what I would do with an app you do from the shell in Linux.
Regarding the narrow question of memory usage, I'd be surprised if Linux uses as much memory as MacOS, again because of the more extensive set of system services that runs in MacOS.
*Killer cards are a branding of Qualcomm Atheros. Their Linux drivers are open source and the firmware is now upstream.
This is very interesting. I am glad they are trying to include as many open source drivers as possible!
On a side note, Dell seems to be putting a bit of effort into this series. Do you guys think they are selling well enough for them to continue doing this or are they doing this as a hedge against Microsoft ?
I switched from a macbook to the previous model a year ago and put Arch on it. The machine is really really excellent.
I recently walked in a cafe in NYC and saw 6 of them and two macbooks, which I was shocked at.
So I hope Dell keeps it up. It's about time we had someone make decent laptops, besides apple, again. I was really missing the IBM Thinkpad series until these came along. Lenovo did not carry the torch well.
Nice! I have a developer version of the Dell precision series that is 2 generations old at this point. It has one of the best screens I have ever seen.
> I recently walked in a cafe in NYC and saw 6 of them and two macbooks, which I was shocked at.
Interesting! Is there any chance you caught what OS they were on (i.e. Linux vs Windows).
The I/O ports on it seem wrong. It would be much better if it lose the power plug and one of the old USB ports for two additional TB3 ports. Love the power gauge, although I rarely use it I really like it on my old MBP and miss it on the new ones.
They currently offer only one low end model with the non-touch screen. I wish they would offer a few better options with that screen. The regular HD screen meets all my needs and takes much less power.
I've just got the previous version and the coil whine is really annoying. I'm debating whether to keep it. I actually wouldn't mind as much if it's constant, but hearing a "brbrbrbrbrbr" whenever I scroll is very irritating.
There's a lot of static on the headphone port too, which is disappointing.
This also highly influenced my decision to buy a Lenovo T460 which is silent (even no noise under load) and long lasting too and Linux runs well on it too and is a lot cheaper for the same hardware, but does not look that pretty ;)
I had no idea this was actually a thing before this morning :(
It seems to only happen when there is graphics stress -- using "semaphores=1 i915_enable_rc6=7 i915_enable_fbc=1" seems to help, and once I started playing videos with --hwdec it was quieter also..
As it only happens during video, and I usually have headphones or the speakers going at those times I'm not too bugged by it yet..
Doing a kernel compile or something noisy in a term doesn't seem to trigger it..
Can I get these in India? There's currently NO Linux pre-installed laptops available in India as far s I can see (apart from Chromebooks). In the article, there seems to be some secret list of countries beyond EU and the US. What's the barrier making these available more broadly and have straightforward buying process?
You can simply buy Windows versions of these laptops in India and install Linux. AFAIK, the hardware is identical on both devices. If you install Ubuntu on the machine, you will get all the drivers during installation. You might want to wait for the Kaby Lake versions to hit Indian online stores though.
That was true for the Skylake XPS machines. The new Kaby Lake machines, sold with either Windows or Ubuntu, all use the "Killer" Qualcomm Atheros chip.
There's also more configurations to pick from with Windows, so it's not a bad idea if you're comfortable installing Ubuntu by yourself.
This may sound snarky but we've run the 7370 version of their lineup and chosen to abandon them for T460s at the time being. There are some pretty not cool things going on with the thunderbolt subsystem when it comes to displays and network cards.
Edit: to go into a bit more detail, we seem to see arbitrary packet loss on the thunderbolt based network cards (pigtails and docking stations), as well as sometimes the MAC changes, which messes with our radius system.
Furthermore, there are some issues with hardware acceleration on skylake so having a QHD screen is basically a waste if you want to try and view any QHD video content.
We ran Arch the entire time my team was on these and we kept the wiki up for this product. It just seemed that we were fighting a loosing battle with Dell's docks and with Intel's skylake stuff.
I have a Precision 5510 (XPS 15 Pro model), and was having nothing but trouble with their Thunderbolt/USB Type C docking station. After I threw that away and bought a pair of these [1] USB 3.0 to HDMI/VGA/Eth/USB dongles plugged into a 7 port USB hub, I've had no trouble, and no sacrifice in convenience. This was on Win 10. I believe those dongles are now useable also on Linux.
Do you recommend the 5510? I am seriously considering replacing my MacBook Pro with this. I currently get an hour and change of battery life when running my Windows VM even though OSX gets 7 hours easily.
It's a nice piece of kit for sure. I have the smaller battery, and it lasts about 4-5 hours. Would recommend skipping the second SSD and getting the bigger battery if you're off-power alot.
On the negative, Windows 10 HiDPI scaling is still flaky, especially if you have a 1080p external monitor plugged in (then it's essentially broken), so I'd recommend skipping the 4K version.
Also, you might want to set aside a few hours for driver upgrades, unless they've updated the install image since April. Both the WiFi, graphics and USB drivers that shipped on my machine were really flaky.
I haven't tried dual booting it with Linux yet, but it runs a Linux VM just fine. The heaviest application I run on it is probably AutoCAD, which makes it struggle sometimes, especially on battery power.
You might want to also look at the HP EliteBook lineup, I've heard that they're good solid machines, perhaps with less fuss out of the box.
I run Ubuntu on a 5510 and I love it. I get between 5 and 7 hours of battery life with it. Using the NVidia card will kill the battery, so be careful and make sure you set up Bumblebee/BBSwitch on Linux (or the NVidia settings on Windows). Otherwise, it's a great machine. I picked up the 32GB model with a 1TB NVMe drive and QHD+ display.
However, it is a bit too large for a bike commuter and I'll be selling it on eBay shortly.
> This Kaby Lake-based system comes with Ubuntu 16.04LTS preloaded and features the InfinityEdge display.
If you haven't had the personal experience yet: stay away from new Intel processors on linux for at least a year post release. And if you must purchase something with a new Intel processor - do yourself a favor and pick a rolling-release distribution like Archlinux. -- but seriously I advice against it, I tried an XPS 15 with Skylake a little over half-a-year ago and it was extremely unstable at the time (even running the kernel of git-master).
And how do you know it was related to the kernel and CPU combo? Do you have some series of patches that have been landed in the kernel since that claim to fix the issues you've had and have you tried those?
Skylake support only really landed in 4.4 and ramped up in 4.6 to be release-ready, it's fairly well known and you can ready any release vote from 4.4 to 4.7 to see commits pertaining to Skylake or the XPS13.
Cannot up vote this enough. Same experience with a current generation Razer Stealth Blade. Power remaining jumps from 6 hours to 1 on the UI and only lasts 45 minutes at best.
Dual boot into Windows 10 and everything is great. This is 100% a Linux kernel and power management issue.
Usually is a bit strong - I'm only on my third, since I tend to keep them until they fall apart - but I try to look for people selling off company laptops on Craigslist and equivalent. They're usually well taken care of and reasonably good quality. I found a 12" Thinkpad for $250 that was as good as new. I got a new battery, since I prefer 9 cells over 6, but the original still held 90%+ of the charge.
Over the years, my basic operational distinction between laptops and desktops comes down to Uninteruptable Power Supplies. It's not just working in the coffee shop [though that matters]. Thunderstorms matter too.
By the time I put a NUC on a UPS, and a monitor, keyboard, mouse, what advantage does it have over a regular desktop if I need computing power, or an rPi if I'm just noodling around in the terminal.
That makes sense. It seems like a different use case than is typical for a laptop. Though one that I used laptop might readily fill...there's some nice kit available for the price of a new NUC.
Yeah (not a NUC specifically, though I considered that), but a small formfactor PC.
I really like having that little bit of friction keeping me tied to an actual workstation. If I'm feeling antsy like I should be sitting in a coffee shop or office lounge area, that's usually a good signal to me that it's time to take a break.
A workstation isn't a computer form factor, it's a comprehensive suite of ergonomic and self mental conditioning decisions. As a side benefit, it's very easy to find / build a ludicrously performant computer, for not much money, that runs Linux (or even OpenBSD!) like a dream.
I was genuinely sad when my most sign-on with a job didn't give me a non-laptop option. I'm increasingly of the opinion that kind, humane IT departments offer workstations and allow people to borrow chromebooks for rare travel or working from home. The alternative sets up a subtle expectation that you could / should be working outside work. Plus I have to schlep the stupid thing home or lock it up in a cabinet every night. If only I could epoxy it to the desk...
You heard it here: 2017 is the year when startups, to demonstrate work-life balance friendliness, advertise big desktop workstation options for employees.
I was talking from a point of view of a student and a light gamer. Due to issues of transportation, it would not be feasible for me to have a ludicrously performant computer or a gaming rig. I use portability in the sense of being able to move across country with my device. I have a loud speakers, Das mechanical keyboard and a gaming mouse along with ergonomic chair and desk to help me type faster. That's my mental conditioning which I cannot have on the move. After that there is always something on download/upload on my laptop, so I never like disconnecting my laptop from ethernet. So problem solved.
You can do what I am doing, plus get multi monitor set up too. So unplugging your laptop becomes pain in ass. You can try love to hate your laptop touch pad and keyboard, so always crave using a mouse and mechanical keyboard set up. Uninstall wifi drivers too. That will help to keep your laptop locked in with an ethernet cable.
I want a powerful PC which can be easily transported without any damage to it. Mini PC seems to be better option than a gaming PC. As it has the option of external GPU which allows me share it with others, instead of it being hooked inside my laptop/custom pc all the time. Sharing decreases the cost. I know about decreased performance of external GPU over USB C in comparison to internal GPU.
I am not fan of so much power on the move. I don't even use a smart phone and I am fine with a flip phone. It has 16GB SD card and a headphone jack. Today, we see that in name of making devices thin and powerful companies are soldering RAM and SSD to motherboard. That's the reason I have decided to move away from laptops and depend on mini/custom PC. I can triple boot Windows/macOS/Linux. I also use persistence installation of Linux or even Windows using Windows to Go. So in case of emergency, I always have a way to get back to where I left off. Portable softwares, Teamviewer and SSH is always there too.
It seems to me that carrying powerful machine all the time must make one feel obligated to get back to work and hence more hectic life. I just cannot afford to pay premium price for additional power in portable form factor while losing options of upgradability.
I also welcome desktop workstation as long as I can hook a NVIDIA 1080 and play Crisis game.
PS: I read the review of Intel NUC, and it has graphics driver issues. Sad.
any opinion on this
Cubi 2 Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-7500U DDR4 mSATA HDMI Wifi Bluetooth SFF Barebone PC (Cubi2-005BUS)
I'm currently using the skylake nuc, all maxed out. That's dual Samsung 950 pro in raid0 and 32gb ram. Plus when I get home I hook it up to a razor core with gtx1080 inside. The only problems that I see are raid drivers for rapid storage controller and the fact that it can't draw power through the Core's thunderbolt connection. Windows 10 is currently the host os with ubuntu running in virtualbox.
Anyway, it has been trickier to make full use of external GPU without performance sacrifice. NUC has it's own power brick, do you use that or trying to get power supply through USB C port?
From the benchmarks that I've seen you lose about 5-10% of your GPU's performance compared to what you'd get on a pci-e 16x interface.
As for USB-C, I use its thunderbolt3 properties to enable Razer Core. Haven't used it that much as just a usb-c port. My idea was that it would be nice to be able to power it up through something like Razer Core since it has more than enough power output through this port. According to the documents it is not possible with the NUC. Maybe next gen version will provide such a feature.
I used a Mac Mini as my main machine some time ago when I was a student. Carried it between home and uni each term, and sometimes to offices where I had a monitor set up. My argument for getting one was similar: I spend 95% of the time with it plugged into big monitors and keyboards anyway, I can upgrade the disk/memory/etc, still portable enough, and much cheaper than an equivalent Macbook Pro.
But when it was time to upgrade, I got a laptop again. Because even if 95% of the time you use it plugged into big monitors and keyboards, you really miss the 5%. You still need a laptop to go to client meetings, conference rooms, conferences, hotels, hackathons, airports, etc.
And if you're getting both a portable desktop and a "basic laptop", might as well buy a good laptop for the same total price, and avoid the effort needed to keep all the data and configuration in sync on two computers.
However, if you are sure that you can live without having a computer that is usable outside of places where you have previously dropped off a monitor, it might be the most economical option.
I chose Dell because the 13" screen fit my needs more than the 14", and they have have committed to supporting Linux while Lenovo has been sluggish to release necessary drivers (there was some backlash here and on Reddit 1-2 months ago about this). My Dell has a mild coil-whine problem, and the keyboard is probably less desirable than the Lenovo's-- you can go to a Microsoft store and try out the Dell's keyboard if you have one nearby.
I've used both over the last 3 years. The X1 Carbon is ahead in terms of build quality and you have access to Lenovo's various maintenance options. The XPS has better Linux support. Personally I found the Trackpad on the XPS 13 terrible to the point it was unusable.
If buying again would probably go for the X1 Carbon.
I just recently broke down and picked up an X1 Carbon 4th gen in lieu of a new MBP w/ TouchBar. The 14" display is a sweet spot for size and resolution. I run Fedora, and everything 'just worked' besides the fingerprint scanner. I'm sure the new XPS will have good battery life, but the X1 is doing amazing with minimal powertop/tlp tweaking.
What I couldn't find when I was researching were thermal reviews on the X1 Carbon (important to me). Thankfully, I can say that it's always cool to the touch and the fan rarely spins up enough to be audible. Naturally, building from source and some video do cause the fans to engage, but they're not 'whiny'.
I've had two different models of the XPS 13, and an X1 Carbon in between. I'm planning to buy the new XPS 13 to upgrade my current one.
The X1 Carbon is okay, but the build quality just isn't the same, and once you're used to typing on a 4K screen, it's hard to go back. The new X1 Carbon models also have higher resolution screens, but to get that you have to sacrifice the keyboard (the new keyboard layouts are awful).
On top of that, Dell puts a lot of active effort into making sure all the drivers work flawlessly out of the box. That's why the Developer Edition ships with a different wireless card from the Windows version - fittingly, I've never once had the WiFi drop on me using my XPS 13 from 2015. I can't say the same about the Carbon.
This version has been out in the US for over a month now, I bought it directly from Dell in October. I have the non-developer editoin and installed Arch Linux on it as my primary OS. It did not require any hacks and the process is well-documented on the Arch Wiki.
If you qualify for Dell EPP, you can get a non-developer edition with the same specs as the developer edition and a Windows license for the same price.
I already complained on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11815107 concerning the older edition that it is ludicrous to call a laptop "Developer Edition" that does not even have an ethernet port. It seems Dell makes again the same mistake.
For protocol: For selling a "hipster model" it should better be thin, well-designed etc. For something that targets developers you want
- Ethernet port (ideally 10 GBit/s instead of 1 GBit/s if possible)
- Easily available maintaince manual and easy to open case to replace/extend RAM, replace SSD, clean fan etc.
- Hardware for which open specification is as much available as possible (which is a much stronger condition than "open source drivers on GNU/Linux are available")
- But besides GNU/Linux it also should be able to run Windows (often it is really import to be able to test software on Windows)
- Non-locked UEFI bootloader (including possibility to enable/disable secure boot) with ability add own keys and also remove existing secure boot keys (e.g. Microsoft's one if you really are a FOSS fanboy).
- Ideally possibility to compile UEFI firmware from source code on your own such that as few blobs as possible are compiled in (this probably also implies a necessity that a way exists to reset the UEFI to the factory state if you bricked the UEFI by too much experimenting).
- Long lifetime (5 years +) from purchase for which the device is officially supported by the manufacturer
Most offices I visit no longer provide RJ45 to the desk. It's all wifi nowadays, which makes sense since you're supposed to get 600+Mbps on a modern access point (which never happens, but that's the sales pitch).
At least the Lenovo Carbon X1 has a dongle for RJ45. Useful when that `docker pull` ends up downloading a 1.5GB container...
If it's a primary development machine then sometimes it's going to need to do some number crunching. It doesn't matter that it's not made for it, sometimes you don't have time to spin up an aws instance.
Some of these times internet access is needed for number crunching. This is when it really comes in hand
That and moving around 30gb backups of numbers you've crunched.
Regardless how fast wireless is, wired connections is always faster. It helps for installing the OS, pulling large data sets, etc... Also few USB-ether dongles support pxe boot.
To be honest, WiFi stability is a question of architecture and implementation. With the right hardware, and enough of it to avoid the issues associated with APs overload, you can make WiFi very reliable.
Our office is 200 seats. While getting wired was true in the past new cubicles are going without. We have a few users that request a LAN connection for their hard IP phones.
I think quite many of us developers are happy with not having the thickness of the laptop doubled just to add an ethernet port. You already need to carry a chunky ethernet cable with you, so adding an usb-ethernet dongle isn't that big of a price to pay.
There are definitely 1Gbps dongles, I bought one at Best Buy for a USB-only laptop I picked up. Now, in hindsight, I'd probably go for integrated Ethernet, but I also do a lot of embedded development for which I'm going to be highly dependent on dongles and hubs anyhow.
My experience with ethernet dongles is terrible. The biggest problems I have are erratic behavior on wake up. Like 1Gbps switching to 100Mbps, the device taking forever to be recognised when it is not simply not recognised.
Aside from Ethernet, aren't all the other requirements depend on the kind of development you do? For me, if keyboard is convenient and I get enough Ram/CPU/Disk space I don't care how serviceable or moddable it is, I still can do my Java back-end work.
The 5 year lifetime is more of a money question, I'd prefer a new system in 3 years.
Yeah, that's not going to happen any time soon. I think the version you are looking for is "GNU Advocate Edition". Other than the Ethernet port and the camera placement, it seems like an excellent notebook for developers.
It appears your definition of Developer is more on the "Open source enthusiasts" (for lack of a better term).
Most developers don't care about their hardware being open source, or maintenance or unlockable UEFI, and they definitely would never compile a UEFI firmware.
Most of them probably can ignore Ethernet in favor of wifi most of the time, and can use a usb-to-ethernet adapter when really needed.
Long life is probably as important to them as it is important to everyone else.
The only real issue I think is being able to run windows, though if you are buying a linux laptop when a windows laptop of the same ilk is available, I'm not sure how much you care.
Well the announcement has Torvalds as posterboy (quite plausible he compiled UEFI a few times), boasts upstreamed sources for the drivers and the laptop comes with Linux pre-installed. While I generally agree with your sentiment, GPs expectations are not surprising, even if over-optimistic.
I personally do care about the open source aspect - not only because I work on open source projects, but because it means I'm not so awfully dependent on the manufacturer. Does the proprietary driver support the kernel version / distribution / whatever you wanna use? No? Bummer. The more the stuff is open, the higher the chance someone will make it work.
> Ethernet port (ideally 10 GBit/s instead of 1 GBit/s if possible)
There are several vendors that make thunderbolt network adapters that support 10GbE SFPs. I think supporting this within the laptop would increase the laptop's size significantly. You can even go up to 40 GbE.
Note that i7 laptop quad core chips are not out yet. On my current dual core i7-6500u 16gb (HP pavilion 15), it noticeably slows down with a modest number of chrome tabs (50 or so spread between several windows, but many of them suspended).
Side note: are there any quad core skylake i7 laptops with a good battery life, like closer to 8 hours than 4?
Ah, Ok, I see now. Hmmm... I don't see a way to increase from 128GB to 256GB w/out also getting the touch screen. I would be perfectly happy with 13" @ 1920X1080 and no touch screen.
Ah, well. For the best, I don't really need a new laptop ATM.
Is it possible to install my own SSD in an XPS 13? The price difference between the default 128 GB drive and the 512 GB is a whooping $1000! I'd love to buy an XPS 13, but this price difference sounds like theft.
I don't see how anyone can call this a developer edition laptop if it has the same keyboard as the rest of the XPS line. XPS keyboards are mushy chiclets with big gaps between keys.
Meanwhile, Dell's Latitude line has excellent keyboards, at least as excellent as you're likely to get in a laptop these days.
I've always been a fan of the Latitude series, they are (in my experience) the best combination of quality components, cost efficiency, and are easy to repair/upgrade. The only negative is that they tend to lag behind Dell's other series when it comes to having the latest CPU/GPU.
From Dell, no official support, but my experience over the years has been that they are well supported by the Linux community for network drivers and things like power management (sleep/wake). The biggest downside (for me) is the lack of a good GPU beyond the Intel HD series; the models I've dealt with are most often equipped with Quadro NVS chips. The NVS just barely outperforms the Intel HD series, but requires the closed source driver to do so.
I haven't messed with them since the Sandy Bridge days though, so your mileage may vary with more recent models.
Where is the perceptions that developers want really thin laptops and super hi res screen coming from? Neither is going to help me run a few VMs, data stores etc...
If you're looking for a larger laptop with the same design, look also at the Dell Precision 5510 line, not just XPS 15. I've been waiting for an XPS15 with a good CPU and without discrete GPU, and gave up - they only do i3 version.
Then I've noticed the new Precision 5510 uses the same XPS-like design, gives you i5-6640HQ with Intel GPU (not sure why they don't offer i7 without Nvidia too).
Anyway, got mine a few days ago, seems working flawlessly (except the usual UEFI / Secure Boot stuff). Comes with Ubuntu out of the box, seems to work fine with Qubes so far.
I don't think it's particularly noisy. Sure, you can hear it when doing CPU-intensive stuff (say, doing "make -j4" on a large project), but well - the heat needs to go somewhere, otherwise the laptop would get quite hot (like the MBP, for example). The fan opening is on the bottom, not on the side/back as on other laptops, so perhaps this also dampens the noise.
I've heard there were issues with proper power management on skylake when it was new, so perhaps they fixed it in the kernel - no idea. Or maybe the noise is worse on the models with Nvidia, which is one of the reasons why I wanted a model without it. It's also possible that the fan will get more noisy over time, so let's see.
Update: The one thing I'm only 95% happy with is the keyboard - it's way better than on all the other 15.6" laptops I've tried (in particular no numpad stupidity), but I'd still prefer the keyboard from my old t420s. The enter is way too narrow on the "EN international" keyboard, should get the US keyboard instead, for example.
Fan operation is pretty much dictated by physics. Higher wattage CPU's will generate more heat as a tradeoff for less throttling. The two ways standard ways to deal with heat are more aggressive cooling profiles or a bigger heat sink (i.e. a larger and heavier laptop overall).
The 5510's are packaged to be relatively smaller and lighter. The Precision 7500 models are heavier and larger. The additional volume also allows more expansion (and accommodate significantly more powerful hardware at initial build).
In terms of fan noise, choice of CPU and workload is probably going to make more difference than anything else.
Wondering if there is an awesome list of sanction notebooks used by startups/tech companies? i.e. approved notebook brand and models to be purchased for employee.
320 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 174 ms ] threadhttps://www.google.no/search?q=xps+13+webcam&safe=off&source...
On the go, you're SOL. Not only can everyone see up your nose, but don't even try typing unless you want to distract everyone with some nice finger close-ups.
The minute someone can magic out a way to turn a monitor into a multi point camera, add some eye tracking logic and integrate that with the conference display, we'll have a small video teleconference revolution on our hands.
Unfortunately, doing a search I see that Apple has already thought of that.. http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/08/apple_files_patent...
What's a bit weird is that even in this, what, second or third revision, they haven't managed to engineer around this issue despite it being mentioned as a major downside practically every time the laptop comes up.
[0] Striking comparison with a contemporary MBP: https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/sty...
Look at the InfinityEdge Display here: http://www.weboo.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/New-Dell-XP-1...
https://files.catbox.moe/2nnsm3.jpg
I've used a number of their top of the line products over the years, and they've always been riddled with cost-saving compromises like this. If they put the bezel on top, they'd have to invest more money into the display hinge as well instead of whatever cheap plastic parts they currently use. That would eat into their profits, so it won't happen until the competition forces it.
If I needed to do video more often, I'd probably get a dedicated cam anyway, as it works when using external screen with laptop lid closed (which is what I do at home). But sure, that's not an option when traveling.
Ive worked remotely for... 7 years now and Ive probably had no more than 10 video calls for work in that time.
Asides from being much worse experience in terms of dialing in, sharing screens, etc, not seeing faces is so much worse. Inability to see emotions is terrible for team trust. We have 200 facial muscles that carry tons of information. We should use them.
It was one of the major reasons I went with a Lenovo x250 when buying a new laptop ~18 months ago. I really liked the XPS13, but I do use my webcam regularly and having it so low just seemed like it would be very awkward. (The other major reason I went with the x250 is that I'm a big fan of the trackpoint).
The trackpoint is the only thing that keeps me on Lenovo laptops (Carbon X1, probably P50 next). I keep the touchpad disabled on my laptop.
I personally wouldn't ever consider a trackpoint again until they do something major to improve the feel/sensitivity actual sensor or allow us to directly edit the force/velocity curves directly. God damn thing is impossible to use on a 4k/5k native display.
Why are you saying a trackpad is better for a large area? Don't you end up having to lift your finger, go back to the other end of the pad and drag it across again, instead of just applying constant pressure on the TrackPoint?
For short clicks it's just a matter of preference, IMO. When I first switched to the macbook it felt strange for about a week but after that I didn't miss it one bit.
On gnome I set the pointer speed to very (almost maximum), and am able to zoom across any screen under a second, simply by applying more pressure.
I usually look at the screen, to watch the other person's image, so a high-mounted webcam makes it seem that I'm looking at their chest. Which may or may not be appropriate.
It varies. If I'm listening to someone else I usually look at the screen, if I'm speaking I'm looking at the lens.
To echo what @StavrosK said, I don't think that looking at the screen when the webcam is above the screen would be perceived as inappropriate.
Your data, your files are more valuable to the NSA than your microphone. If they care about what you're saying, your house is already bugged.
If they are able to access the, then odds are they can access things like my keyboard, 1password passwords, banking, etc...
http://i.imgur.com/62jcJpB.jpg
Thank you for the picture!
camera up top = screen down a inch. Camera on the bottom = screen up a inch.
I rater the camera be clumsy since i use it 0.001% of the time, and the screen be 1" up since i use it all the time.
1" seems small. but that is probably 10 degrees on your neck if you have the laptop at half arms reach.
[0]http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-e7470-ultrabook/p...
(Typing this on the new MBP that people tell me is not a "Pro" machine -- but it's the best laptop I've ever owned!)
Why doesn't this seem to be a problem now? Is it replaceable?
Definitely the fastest machine I've ever owned/used.
I guess it's difficult to test, would also be interested to know if somebody has tested the different versions against each other.
The "...for developers" talking point is so ridiculous I'd forgotten it was really just a rehashed argument from yesteryear. Used a Mac in the mid-00s while in undergrad CS, and other than a half of one semester virtualizing Windows for Verilog, every other toolchain or need I had worked perfectly in OS X. I had more conversations with other CS folks blathering about how Macs weren't used for development than I did problems using a Mac for development.
That silliness hadn't been an issue for quite some time until now, just as how most people aren't under such a severe RAM crunch anymore that 16GB isn't a deal breaker.
Every machine worth its salt is going to have made design compromises (Thunderbolt ports only, a horribly placed bezelwebcam, etc) because that's what building a product is about. Making a purchase is always going to involve subjective decision-making because that's what buying a product is about.
Regarding the narrow question of memory usage, I'd be surprised if Linux uses as much memory as MacOS, again because of the more extensive set of system services that runs in MacOS.
On a side note, Dell seems to be putting a bit of effort into this series. Do you guys think they are selling well enough for them to continue doing this or are they doing this as a hedge against Microsoft ?
I recently walked in a cafe in NYC and saw 6 of them and two macbooks, which I was shocked at.
So I hope Dell keeps it up. It's about time we had someone make decent laptops, besides apple, again. I was really missing the IBM Thinkpad series until these came along. Lenovo did not carry the torch well.
> I recently walked in a cafe in NYC and saw 6 of them and two macbooks, which I was shocked at.
Interesting! Is there any chance you caught what OS they were on (i.e. Linux vs Windows).
I guess, after almost 5 years, they are quite serious about it? Although the effort is shared with their Windows siblings.
I tried the 13 but I personally like bigger screen to work on.
Everything worked perfectly with Ubuntu 16.10 except the headphones which I found a pretty simple solution for online.
I love it! Highly reccomended.
There's a lot of static on the headphone port too, which is disappointing.
I had no idea this was actually a thing before this morning :(
It seems to only happen when there is graphics stress -- using "semaphores=1 i915_enable_rc6=7 i915_enable_fbc=1" seems to help, and once I started playing videos with --hwdec it was quieter also..
As it only happens during video, and I usually have headphones or the speakers going at those times I'm not too bugged by it yet..
Doing a kernel compile or something noisy in a term doesn't seem to trigger it..
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/f/46...
There's also more configurations to pick from with Windows, so it's not a bad idea if you're comfortable installing Ubuntu by yourself.
Edit: to go into a bit more detail, we seem to see arbitrary packet loss on the thunderbolt based network cards (pigtails and docking stations), as well as sometimes the MAC changes, which messes with our radius system.
Furthermore, there are some issues with hardware acceleration on skylake so having a QHD screen is basically a waste if you want to try and view any QHD video content.
We ran Arch the entire time my team was on these and we kept the wiki up for this product. It just seemed that we were fighting a loosing battle with Dell's docks and with Intel's skylake stuff.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dell-DA100-Universal-Adapter/dp/B00O0...
On the negative, Windows 10 HiDPI scaling is still flaky, especially if you have a 1080p external monitor plugged in (then it's essentially broken), so I'd recommend skipping the 4K version.
Also, you might want to set aside a few hours for driver upgrades, unless they've updated the install image since April. Both the WiFi, graphics and USB drivers that shipped on my machine were really flaky.
I haven't tried dual booting it with Linux yet, but it runs a Linux VM just fine. The heaviest application I run on it is probably AutoCAD, which makes it struggle sometimes, especially on battery power.
You might want to also look at the HP EliteBook lineup, I've heard that they're good solid machines, perhaps with less fuss out of the box.
However, it is a bit too large for a bike commuter and I'll be selling it on eBay shortly.
If you haven't had the personal experience yet: stay away from new Intel processors on linux for at least a year post release. And if you must purchase something with a new Intel processor - do yourself a favor and pick a rolling-release distribution like Archlinux. -- but seriously I advice against it, I tried an XPS 15 with Skylake a little over half-a-year ago and it was extremely unstable at the time (even running the kernel of git-master).
Dual boot into Windows 10 and everything is great. This is 100% a Linux kernel and power management issue.
I see several advantage of owing it like
1. portability
2. connects to extenal GPU (it already has integrated Iris Pro GPU)
3. optical audio
4. upgradable/future proof
5. my choice of keyboard/mouse/os/display
6. Thunderbolt™ 3
www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/products-overview.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11908100
By the time I put a NUC on a UPS, and a monitor, keyboard, mouse, what advantage does it have over a regular desktop if I need computing power, or an rPi if I'm just noodling around in the terminal.
I certainly will choose desktop tower in comparison to this miniPC but that just isn't possible for now for me.
Some use it as their media center in living room instead of work station.
I really like having that little bit of friction keeping me tied to an actual workstation. If I'm feeling antsy like I should be sitting in a coffee shop or office lounge area, that's usually a good signal to me that it's time to take a break.
A workstation isn't a computer form factor, it's a comprehensive suite of ergonomic and self mental conditioning decisions. As a side benefit, it's very easy to find / build a ludicrously performant computer, for not much money, that runs Linux (or even OpenBSD!) like a dream.
I was genuinely sad when my most sign-on with a job didn't give me a non-laptop option. I'm increasingly of the opinion that kind, humane IT departments offer workstations and allow people to borrow chromebooks for rare travel or working from home. The alternative sets up a subtle expectation that you could / should be working outside work. Plus I have to schlep the stupid thing home or lock it up in a cabinet every night. If only I could epoxy it to the desk...
You heard it here: 2017 is the year when startups, to demonstrate work-life balance friendliness, advertise big desktop workstation options for employees.
You can do what I am doing, plus get multi monitor set up too. So unplugging your laptop becomes pain in ass. You can try love to hate your laptop touch pad and keyboard, so always crave using a mouse and mechanical keyboard set up. Uninstall wifi drivers too. That will help to keep your laptop locked in with an ethernet cable.
I want a powerful PC which can be easily transported without any damage to it. Mini PC seems to be better option than a gaming PC. As it has the option of external GPU which allows me share it with others, instead of it being hooked inside my laptop/custom pc all the time. Sharing decreases the cost. I know about decreased performance of external GPU over USB C in comparison to internal GPU.
I am not fan of so much power on the move. I don't even use a smart phone and I am fine with a flip phone. It has 16GB SD card and a headphone jack. Today, we see that in name of making devices thin and powerful companies are soldering RAM and SSD to motherboard. That's the reason I have decided to move away from laptops and depend on mini/custom PC. I can triple boot Windows/macOS/Linux. I also use persistence installation of Linux or even Windows using Windows to Go. So in case of emergency, I always have a way to get back to where I left off. Portable softwares, Teamviewer and SSH is always there too.
It seems to me that carrying powerful machine all the time must make one feel obligated to get back to work and hence more hectic life. I just cannot afford to pay premium price for additional power in portable form factor while losing options of upgradability.
I also welcome desktop workstation as long as I can hook a NVIDIA 1080 and play Crisis game.
PS: I read the review of Intel NUC, and it has graphics driver issues. Sad.
any opinion on this
Cubi 2 Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-7500U DDR4 mSATA HDMI Wifi Bluetooth SFF Barebone PC (Cubi2-005BUS)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LXP5JZC/
Skull Canyon Graphics Output Problem https://communities.intel.com/thread/102260 https://communities.intel.com/thread/108306
Anyway, it has been trickier to make full use of external GPU without performance sacrifice. NUC has it's own power brick, do you use that or trying to get power supply through USB C port?
As for USB-C, I use its thunderbolt3 properties to enable Razer Core. Haven't used it that much as just a usb-c port. My idea was that it would be nice to be able to power it up through something like Razer Core since it has more than enough power output through this port. According to the documents it is not possible with the NUC. Maybe next gen version will provide such a feature.
But when it was time to upgrade, I got a laptop again. Because even if 95% of the time you use it plugged into big monitors and keyboards, you really miss the 5%. You still need a laptop to go to client meetings, conference rooms, conferences, hotels, hackathons, airports, etc.
And if you're getting both a portable desktop and a "basic laptop", might as well buy a good laptop for the same total price, and avoid the effort needed to keep all the data and configuration in sync on two computers.
However, if you are sure that you can live without having a computer that is usable outside of places where you have previously dropped off a monitor, it might be the most economical option.
Anyone has experiences with the two of them so he can compare?
If buying again would probably go for the X1 Carbon.
What I couldn't find when I was researching were thermal reviews on the X1 Carbon (important to me). Thankfully, I can say that it's always cool to the touch and the fan rarely spins up enough to be audible. Naturally, building from source and some video do cause the fans to engage, but they're not 'whiny'.
Considering the XPS myself, but waiting for the coil whine to be fixed. I have also been eyeing the ASUS UX305 as possible alternative.
The X1 Carbon is okay, but the build quality just isn't the same, and once you're used to typing on a 4K screen, it's hard to go back. The new X1 Carbon models also have higher resolution screens, but to get that you have to sacrifice the keyboard (the new keyboard layouts are awful).
On top of that, Dell puts a lot of active effort into making sure all the drivers work flawlessly out of the box. That's why the Developer Edition ships with a different wireless card from the Windows version - fittingly, I've never once had the WiFi drop on me using my XPS 13 from 2015. I can't say the same about the Carbon.
If you qualify for Dell EPP, you can get a non-developer edition with the same specs as the developer edition and a Windows license for the same price.
For protocol: For selling a "hipster model" it should better be thin, well-designed etc. For something that targets developers you want
- Ethernet port (ideally 10 GBit/s instead of 1 GBit/s if possible)
- Easily available maintaince manual and easy to open case to replace/extend RAM, replace SSD, clean fan etc.
- Hardware for which open specification is as much available as possible (which is a much stronger condition than "open source drivers on GNU/Linux are available")
- But besides GNU/Linux it also should be able to run Windows (often it is really import to be able to test software on Windows)
- Non-locked UEFI bootloader (including possibility to enable/disable secure boot) with ability add own keys and also remove existing secure boot keys (e.g. Microsoft's one if you really are a FOSS fanboy).
- Ideally possibility to compile UEFI firmware from source code on your own such that as few blobs as possible are compiled in (this probably also implies a necessity that a way exists to reset the UEFI to the factory state if you bricked the UEFI by too much experimenting).
- Long lifetime (5 years +) from purchase for which the device is officially supported by the manufacturer
At least the Lenovo Carbon X1 has a dongle for RJ45. Useful when that `docker pull` ends up downloading a 1.5GB container...
Some of these times internet access is needed for number crunching. This is when it really comes in hand
That and moving around 30gb backups of numbers you've crunched.
Even moderately sized still have copper to every desk. Latency wins when doing development.
Most developers don't care about their hardware being open source, or maintenance or unlockable UEFI, and they definitely would never compile a UEFI firmware.
Most of them probably can ignore Ethernet in favor of wifi most of the time, and can use a usb-to-ethernet adapter when really needed.
Long life is probably as important to them as it is important to everyone else.
The only real issue I think is being able to run windows, though if you are buying a linux laptop when a windows laptop of the same ilk is available, I'm not sure how much you care.
There are several vendors that make thunderbolt network adapters that support 10GbE SFPs. I think supporting this within the laptop would increase the laptop's size significantly. You can even go up to 40 GbE.
"Ships in 9 - 12 business days"
Side note: are there any quad core skylake i7 laptops with a good battery life, like closer to 8 hours than 4?
I hear the 1080p version has much better battery life.
Ah, well. For the best, I don't really need a new laptop ATM.
Meanwhile, Dell's Latitude line has excellent keyboards, at least as excellent as you're likely to get in a laptop these days.
I haven't messed with them since the Sandy Bridge days though, so your mileage may vary with more recent models.
Where is the perceptions that developers want really thin laptops and super hi res screen coming from? Neither is going to help me run a few VMs, data stores etc...
• no need to take my hands of my keyboard when I need to move the cursor, so I can start typing again right away
• you can make the cursor travel long distance by just applying a bit of hard pressure, no need to go back and forth on the pad
• three-button, so I can use the middle button to paste (X11 copy/paste system), open a link in a new tabe, etc...
Then I've noticed the new Precision 5510 uses the same XPS-like design, gives you i5-6640HQ with Intel GPU (not sure why they don't offer i7 without Nvidia too).
Anyway, got mine a few days ago, seems working flawlessly (except the usual UEFI / Secure Boot stuff). Comes with Ubuntu out of the box, seems to work fine with Qubes so far.
I've heard there were issues with proper power management on skylake when it was new, so perhaps they fixed it in the kernel - no idea. Or maybe the noise is worse on the models with Nvidia, which is one of the reasons why I wanted a model without it. It's also possible that the fan will get more noisy over time, so let's see.
Update: The one thing I'm only 95% happy with is the keyboard - it's way better than on all the other 15.6" laptops I've tried (in particular no numpad stupidity), but I'd still prefer the keyboard from my old t420s. The enter is way too narrow on the "EN international" keyboard, should get the US keyboard instead, for example.
The 5510's are packaged to be relatively smaller and lighter. The Precision 7500 models are heavier and larger. The additional volume also allows more expansion (and accommodate significantly more powerful hardware at initial build).
In terms of fan noise, choice of CPU and workload is probably going to make more difference than anything else.