> Not to a TV, tho, which makes it a deal breaker for me. They should put a proper HDMI port.
I'd rather have an extra Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port, to be honest. HDMI 2.0 is bigger and clunkier as a port, and Thunderbolt 3 is strictly better as a protocol (we're not even talking about HDMI 2.1). Maybe if you're talking HDMI 2.1, but the protocol can still be carried over a USB-C connector anyway, so keeping the standard connector interface is preferable in my books.
My bet is that TVs will soon start to have USB-C ports built-in (with whichever protocols they're willing to support). In the meantime, an adapter will do the trick; it can even live with the TV, since that's not meant to be portable.
Even Kaby Lake only supports HDMI 1.4, so there is no Intel-based laptop without a dedicated GPU on the market that is capable of HDMI 2.0. Your only choice is DisplayPort which you can use here via Thunderbolt 3.
I've used the XPS 13 Developer Edition (ie, running Linux) as my daily driver since 2012. For me, it's been way more reliable than either the ThinkPad X1 or even the MacBook Pro, both of which I used as my work laptops during that same time (running Linux and OS X respectively).
I've been hoping to upgrade to the 15-inch for a while, because I like larger screens. It's nice to see the review of this point release version.
I have the xps13 2016 dev edition too, and it's a solid laptop.
Let me ask you which dongle do you use to connect to external hdmi monitors? I got this one[1] a while ago, but it doesn't output more than 800x600. I use the wd15 at home without issues, but it's not suitable for traveling.
I have the same laptop and I'm happy with it, but I'm not happy with the dongle madness that universal adoption of USB C is foisting on us. I also want a reliable travel dongle for external HDMI for this laptop but the reviews of the units I've looked at are not encouraging. The current obsession with thinness (looking at YOU, Apple) is forcing useful connectors off the main system board onto expensive, unreliable dongles. Yuck.
I don't really understand this adversity towards USB Type-C as a single connector for everything. I was around when pretty much every single device had it's own dedicated port and it looked like a snake nest under a desk until USB came along. Yeah, LPT1 for printer, PS/2 for mouse and keyboard, VGA for monitor, etc. We're in a transitional period now to something better, so some people will need dongles for a while and I don't think it's a big deal.
I got my first computer with USB in 1999. I used it with a serial mouse, an AT keyboard, and an LPT printer (passed through a Zip100 on the same port, of course ;-) ). I think that my first use for USB came years later, when I'd already replaced that motherboard. I think I might've used a USB->PS/2 dongle at some point, but that was at the back of the computer, and I didn't care. Any memory card besides SD needs an extra adapter, and that stinks.
Over all these years, this is the first time that my primary machine is a mobile device (laptop), and that I might have to use dongles with the hardware that I'll be repeatedly connecting and disconnecting as I move around.
It's not a big deal, but it'll take time to transition from the last "single connector for everything" to the new one. The only problem I have is the rabid USB-C fans telling me I'm being left behind for sticking with my current hardware for a few more years.
I'm not sure if this is any help to you, maybe your issue is specific to the 2016 model, but I've used this[1] with my xps13 2015 without any issue. It's cheap too!
If you want to buy one you should extend your analysis beyond the hardware specs because the software and operating systems are not ready yet. I can give the example of the latest XPS 13 2-1 where Office applications like Outlook cannot recognize a monitor with a different resolution and the fonts are blurred. Look for example at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Office-apps-appear-... high DPI is a whole issue.
I can give many other examples with drivers support. For example, if I unplug the notebook from the dock the audio playback doesn't work again if I don't reboot the computer or remove/reinstall the driver.
It would ve nice to hear about a critical analysis in Linux.
Very true, the previous XPS 15 had huge problems with the Killer NIC card because the drivers for it took months to stabilise and its only recently been that a driver update has made the Wifi somewhat stable and the machine has stopped crashing every few days.
What other people seem to have done is get Dell to swap the Killer NIC with an Intel one which has much better driver support.
I'll never buy a latest gen XPS ever again. I bought my wife the latest and greatest XPS last year (Cyber Monday) and it had the most ridiculous problems. For example, WiFi would randomly disconnect, Chrome couldn't play Netflix (what?), internet speeds were an order of magnitude slower than my Chromebook, etc.
I fixed the issues by swapping with an Intel card (didn't want to have to wait months for driver updates), but in my opinion that is unacceptable for a premium laptop. Why is Dell skimping on parts? I paid $1500 precisely because I didn't want to deal with crappy parts, but instead they took my $1500 and gave me a worse browsing experience than my $150 Chromebook...
If you don't want to bother with dealing with Dell, they do provide official repair guides on their site telling you exactly how to do it. I bought the prior generation of the XPS 13, and for $25, an Intel 7625 wifi card. Took me about 20 minutes to swap it out.
There are a lot of reports of killer drivers causing issues. My friend needed help with his Alienware 15 because it started instantly blue screening as the login screen came up at every boot. Dell's only solution was a factory reset. I dug into it and a release of the official killer wifi drivers was bugged. They had to be disabled to actually boot. They couldn't be uninstalled or upgraded in safe mode because they use the Windows installed doesn't run in safe mode.
You can enable and disable drivers and startup functionality in safe mode. You can't install or uninstall any apps or drivers that utilize Windows Installer as the service isn't running, rendering the install/uninstall/modify abilities of those apps and drivers useless. You can still install and uninstall apps and drivers that use proper installers like NSIS, etc.
OK, so "Windows Installer" is a third party app? Why's it a service; surely it only needs to run when initiated as part of an install/upgrade/uninstall rather than perpetually?
They're right though. It doesn't run in safe mode and it's a fucking pain in the ass. Makes fixing issues harder when you can't uninstall shit in safemode. Drivers especially.
My experience with a similar (fully maxed out 9560, but no touch display). Since updating the drivers, the killer card has been working without fail, though it was a little frustrating to deal with a brand new laptop that constantly blue screened and failed to connect to wireless when my 10year old macbook sitting at the same desk was fine. Reddit has a good guide for setting it up, though some of these are now out-of-date.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/5unlmb/got_my_brand_n...
I hate how prevalent Killer NIC chips have become. They seem to be racing to the bottom with cheap wireless and ethernet PHYs with crappy drivers, yet their reputation hasn't quite caught up. Their marketing brands them as premium and a lot of manufacturers still buy into it to target the "gaming" segment (which also hates them).
I refuse to buy any board which has these chips and will pay a small premium for an Intel or Realtek instead.
I don't recall anybody ever having a kind word to say about them. As I recall the product used to be the cheapest Atheros chips the vendor could find plus a proprietary driver that was snake oil and bugs. Not better than a Realtek and worse in a lot of cases. I suspect that they're actually cheaper than a Realtek, which is why they keep showing on consumer hardware.
I always thought of them as purveyors of snake oil and reached for Intel NICs with great results every time. I used to like Atheros for radios back in the good old bad days of WEP and MadWifi.
> high DPI is an even more troublesome issue with Linux. As of right now, for me, high DPI is not worth it outside of the Apple walled garden.
Actual 4K resolution works way better on Linux than it does on OS X. By default, OS X will use 2560x1440, even on a display that's capable of 3840x2160. If you try to set it to the latter on OS X in your display settings, it looks really terrible.
The experience is less consistent on Linux in 3840x2160, but overall it's much better, and it's well-supported by the common applications that Linux users would use (Firefox/Chrome, terminal emulators, any GTK+ 3 or Qt 5 applications, and more).
It does not. If you have e.g. QHD on a 13" laptop, then it's cool because 2x scaling works. On my 32" 4K display, it's bad because I'd need 125% or 150% scaling, not 100% or 200%.
OSX will happily use 3840x2160. Are you sure your limitation is not somewhere else? Maybe you ran out of available crts on the graphics card, or the display cable has it's limits, or whatever.
That said, the 4K support in Fedora is nice. The only problem is with Qt4, Gtk2 and other apps using legacy toolkits.
> OSX will happily use 3840x2160. Are you sure your limitation is not somewhere else?
Yes, it will use it, but it looks terrible. Even the native system UI isn't designed for it, let alone Cocoa-based third-party applications or third-party applications that don't use Cocoa.
Right now I'm sitting behind 4K (Dell P2715Q) monitor connected to rMBP (13", 2015). What I'm supposed to miss? What exactly is not displaying correctly and I didn't notice?
Also, exactly what applications do not use Cocoa? Apple had made extremely difficult to talk directly do display server, the two non-private-frameworks-without-stable-abi ways were Carbon and Cocoa. Carbon is already dead.
> Right now I'm sitting behind 4K (Dell P2715Q) monitor connected to rMBP (13", 2015). What I'm supposed to miss? What exactly is not displaying correctly and I didn't notice?
I use the same monitor as well. Until recently, I had the 15" version of that laptop, and now I have the latest 15" Macbook Pro. Both use 2560x1440 on the external monitor even though it's capable of 3840x2160, because that's what OS X defaults to, and every time I try increasing the resolution, I only make it a few minutes before I can't stand how terrible the experience is and end up switching back.
> Also, exactly what applications do not use Cocoa?
I'm saying that native Mac applications look really bad on OS X when set to 3840x2160. The UI and text don't scale consistently, and that's true both of the system-level UI and of application UI. The situation gets even worse when you're talking about applications designed for X11[0], which I could forgive, but on the other hand, those applications scale just fine on Linux.
By contrast, all of this works out-of-the-box in (for example) Unity. I don't have to deal with dialog boxes that are out of proportion with the system bar, or text that's impossible to read unless I squint on some applications but perfectly readable on others.
[0] We could get into a debate about whether XQuartz really counts as "cocoa" or not, but I'd rather not.
> I use the same monitor as well. Until recently, I had the 15" version of that laptop, and now I have the latest 15" Macbook Pro. Both use 2560x1440 on the external monitor even though it's capable of 3840x2160, because that's what OS X defaults to, and every time I try increasing the resolution, I only make it a few minutes before I can't stand how terrible the experience is and end up switching back.
I would suggest to try using different DisplayPort cable.
OSX defaults to "best" resolution for the given display. In case of this monitor, it is 3840x2160, but - it will tell you is 1920x1080 and use it in HiDPI mode. Like this: http://imgur.com/a/infej
Once you change resolution, it will remember, what you changed it to on that specific display, and will use it next time you connect to it.
> I'm saying that native Mac applications look really bad on OS X when set to 3840x2160. The UI and text don't scale consistently, and that's true both of the system-level UI and of application UI.
In my experience, they scale perfectly. The ones that are non-HiDPI aware, are scaled by the system to the proper size (and thus are pixelated).
XQuartz is another matter. It should be taken behind the barn and shot long time ago. Running X11 apps is better done using a linux vm.
However, what I don't understand, why you have wrong scale. XQuartz is a not DPI-aware app, thus it is scaled by the system.
> I would suggest to try using different DisplayPort cable.
It has nothing to do with the cable. I've had this issue on every single 4K monitor I've used with these laptops - which is at least three different monitors, with different cables - and it even manifests with HDMI 4K output (at 30Hz). All of these setups work perfectly fine with my XPS 13 running at 4K on Linux. I don't understand why you think that the OS's inability to scale the system UI or applications in a reasonable way would have anything to do with the cable.
Try it with a Linux laptop running Unity, and you'll see the difference.
> I don't understand why you think that the OS's inability to scale the system UI or applications in a reasonable way would have anything to do with the cable.
Because that's not the experience everyone else is having. That leaves possibility, that something is broken on your end.
> Try it with a Linux laptop running Unity, and you'll see the difference.
I know how Linux handles HiDPI. See my comment about Fedora elsewhere in the thread.
Okay I have no idea what you're talking about either, and I've used OS X on a 4K monitor. It scales to a virtual 1920x1080p by default; everything just looks sharper. What did you expect to happen?
> Okay I have no idea what you're talking about either, and I've used OS X on a 4K monitor. It scales to a virtual 1920x1080p by default; everything just looks sharper. What did you expect to happen?
If it's scaling to 1080p for you, that's because either your monitor or your cable doesn't support 2560x1440 at 60Hz. If it does, it should default to 1440, assuming you're on an rMBP.
In terms of "what I expected to happen" - well, I expected an actual 4K resolution (like 3840x2160) to work. Maybe not by default, but at least when I enable it, it should be able to auto-scale the appropriate parts of the system and application UI in a consistent manner. That means that I'd be able to actually view a 3840x2160 image at its full intended resolution (not 1080p or 1440p) without scrolling, while also not having to squint in order to read the system bar or do anything else on the OS.
That works pretty much out-of-the-box on Linux with Unity. Even with tweaking configuration everywhere, I can't find any way to do that on OS X and have it look halfway decent.
> In terms of "what I expected to happen" - well, I expected an actual 4K resolution (like 3840x2160) to work. Maybe not by default, but at least when I enable it, it should be able to auto-scale the appropriate parts of the system and application UI in a consistent manner.
That's what it does. OS X will by default render at the panel's native resolution. But it scales everything to a lower effective resolution. Say you're running a 5K monitor at "2560x1440" (as in the iMac 5K). And the app displays a 32x32 icon at (0,0). The OS will see that you're running in 2x mode (real resolution = 2x effective resolution). So it'll pull a 64x64 version of the icon from the app's art assets. It'll take up 32x32 on the virtual 2560x1440 display, but a 64x64 image will be what's copied to the frame buffer. Text glyphs, and images, likewise, will be rendered at full resolution.
When you bypass the default setup and tell the OS to run at 3840x2160, you're not telling it to render at that resolution. You're telling it to size things as if you're running on a standard definition monitor of that size. So when the app displays a 32x32 icon, the OS will see you're running at 1x mode, and pull a 32x32 icon from the art assets. The result will be a tiny icon.
I have a 4K laptop running Linux mint and it's great. Mint has a high dpi setting that makes it look good. There are a few programs that have trouble, but most work just fine. I think Ubuntu will be coming out with support soon as well.
This does not accord with my experience. I have last year's 15" Dell Precision with a 4k panel, and Sway works brilliantly. I went with Intel graphics for compatibility, and because it saves money and battery life compared to NVidia. Text looks great, and I can make it really tiny if I want.
Chrome is still using an old version of GTK isn't it?
I have a load of problems with the virtual keyboard on my Tablet, I've had to work around it with a chrome extension that manually lets me pop the keyboard up.
It is a wonderful resource, but doesn't solve all trouble. It specifically says that the only modern DE that supports hidpi scaling well is KDE. Gnome hidpi support is crap (no fractional scaling), Unity is going away. Sway and the rest are of course cool, but most people use some kind of GUI toolkit like GTK that either supports hidpi or not (mostly not well).
> Office applications like Outlook cannot recognize a monitor with a different resolution and the fonts are blurred
I just spent 30 minutes this morning dealing with this exact issue on my laptop that I've docked into two nice external monitors.
To fix it, open the display settings and set one of the external monitors to the primary display. Then log out, and log back in.
I have no idea why this works, but if it hadn't I'd have chucked the laptop out the window by now. Windows 10 is almost great, but for a dozen little stupid things like this.
It doesn't work with Microsoft Office, it is a known issue that Microsoft Office doesn't support that setting. With Google Chrome it will work because all the work is done by the browser.
Mine has a problem with stuck keys. If I press caps lock+w, the w stays pressed (in software) so I just get long strings of wwwwww. The spacebar also gets double-pressed around 5% of the time, which is extremely annoying.
Another issue is that audio to the headphones will sometimes just stop until I restart pulse. Not even a reboot will fix it, only a pulse restart.
It's a fantastic machine otherwise, but the drivers are pretty buggy.
Yeah, external monitors in a mixed DPI setting is very weird. If you change your primary monitor, you get to pick which screen it looks OK on!
Mine actually bricked itself so hard it couldn't boot at all. I had to send it back to dell. This was after installing a firmware update _distributed with their tool_.
No, it doesn't. I use two similar external monitors, same DPI, and Office fonts are blurred. Please check the link, it is a known issue. The monitors are not 4k or the exact resolution of the notebook display.
XPS 13 on linux (ubuntu) here, the support is very good. The HiDPI screen need some configuration but most apps will run out of the box, some need to set a parameter for pixel density. Most issues can be solve by looking in the ArchWiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI).
USB-C (even a dock with power, usb, sound, hdmi, display port, ethernet will run fine), WiFi, Graphic Card, touchpad, sound, event the touchscreen, all work without troubles. Really happy to finely find a nice linux-friendly laptop.
Agreed, I also bought an XPS 9360 and comparing it to Linux on my Macbook Pro, the difference is night and day. Everything is incredibly well supported on the XPS.
Kinda. The Precision 5520 can be configured with a Xeon E3-1505Mv6 ("better" CPU) but with a Quadro M1200 (Maxwell) instead of the new XPS 9960 with a Pascal GTX 1050 ("worse" graphics, quoted because it depends on workload, pro vs consumer GPUs but the pro stuff here is a generation older...they'll probably update it soon). The Precision 7720 can be had with an E3-1535Mv6 and a Quadro P5000 (similar to a GTX 1070, and Pascal), but it's a 17" and thicker. https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Quadro-P5000.191073.0.h...
high DPI in windows 10 is honestly such a shit show. Bugs, you have to Log Out and Log back in every time you change settings/monitors! Its honestly unacceptable given how seamlessly macOS and Linux (Fedora at least) handle this sort of thing.
I had lots of annoyance with a previous Optimus based notebook. How has the situation of bumblebee and primusrun and dualbooting improved in the past two years?
I have upgraded an Ubuntu laptop over a few years and every upgrade it broke, requiring some new incantation to fix it the next time. I don't think it's considered the future?
> I had lots of annoyance with a previous Optimus based notebook. How has the situation of bumblebee and primusrun and dualbooting improved in the past two years?
Very slightly, but you're better off getting a notebook that actually has FOSS graphics drivers, for a much more stable and reliable experience.
It's unfortunate that you can't upgrade the XPS15 to the 4K display or a quad-core processor without getting the nVidia graphics along with it. IIRC, some previous models included 4K configurations without that.
I've all but given up hope on Apple bothering with 32Gb RAM.
Been researching the Dell alternatives (XPS and Precision) for a couple of months now. Very tempting machines indeed. I just want to see one in real life to see what the build quality feels like.
Pssst.. Mr Schiller... it seems it is possible to stick 32Gb of RAM into a laptop AND have decent battery life. Well, that is unless you're intent on giving your products anorexia which it seems you are.
I own a Dell XPS 13 and it seems to be fine build quality wise. Others have not been so lucky.
To be honest though, if I had the budget and Apple weren't being ridiculous with the specs I'd still consider a mac a much better development machine; specifically due to Adobe's refusal to port photoshop to ubuntu. If you do not have any need for photoshop, then XPS developer edition is much better value.
My only concern with the dell line is that drivers really are a problem. For some reason, the audio works perfectly fine under Ubuntu and is really half baked on Windows 10 (with the newest drivers from dell). It's like upside down bizarro world.
I'm in the same boat. I have a serious analysis paralysis when it comes to figuring out what my next laptop will be (assuming the MBP keeps hardware specs relatively similar). I just don't know how to find a good laptop model that will definitely run trouble free with a Linux distro.
I really like OS X because of the *nix like OS with a high level of 'just works'. I absolutely won't go back to Windows, my workflow is so far beyond it- so what're my best resources for finding a high spec laptop that will be compatible with a modern Linux distro?
I've got Windows 7 and Mint running on an old Lenovo T430 (pretty sure it's a 430) and Ubuntu 16.10 on my old 2009 MBP after Apple stopped shipping OS updates for it.
Excluding the fact they're on old hardware, I still don't think they 'just work' enough. Power save, WiFi, graphics drivers, fan control, all things that took a LOT of fiddling. Don't really love Ubuntu's desktop either.
> They’ve opted to go with the same Killer Wireless-AC 1535 as they use in the smaller XPS 13.
FWIW this NIC is a huge liability, wifi instability is common and it will bring some machines down hard (bluescreens/kernel panics, just check /r/dell).
Dell US apparently has instructions to replace this POS by a compatible Intel NIC (7200 or 8000 series) if you have issues and complaint, that seems not to be the case for Dell EU.
An Intel NIC costs $20~30, some folks just order a 8260/8265 at the same time as the laptop and install it before even booting.
XPS is great, having said that I'm waiting for one with USB Type-C charging only and as far as I'm concerned it's time and all sockets should be USB Type-C. I have my Chromebook Pixel for 2 years now and I got used to plugging in a charger from either side.
This is my current laptop and I love it. I finally replaced my desktop PC with a laptop. I use it with a 4K 32" monitor via the docking station (I have the exact same setup at work and at home, I just bring the laptop with me each day.) Having a single machine saves me so much time regarding the complex development setup.
I have a dual boot setup with Ubuntu and Windows with no issues.
I bought it for $1699 CAD for the 7700HQ + Full HD Screen (not 4K) + GTX 1050 + 256GB HD + 16GB RAM and immediately upgraded the disk to 1TB and the ram to 32GB.
I tried the XPS 15 Kaby Lake UHD touch version
- coil whine
- ctrl key on the most left part of the keyboard
- sound
- no notch for opening
- fan noise
- led bleeding
- touchpad
- surface coating
+ touch display
+ UHD/GPU/RAM/CPU
It was included: problem with CPU and random freezes, Coil Whine, Swollen Battery, SSD problem and problem with misaligned Jack port with a hole in case.
In total, my device was repaired 3 times (within 10 months) and from the original device I have a case, touch-pad and screen only.
I'm not here to complain, because after the battery fix was done, it works perfectly. The Dell Service is super helpful and reactive, D2D warranty is just awesome.
My question is:
Have somebody seen any indicators of problems listed above in 9560?
They're definitely not all of them that bad, a colleague has one which functions perfectly and overall reviews seem on the positive side. But yeah, once in a while sh*t happens. E.g. I've had/used multiple Dell devices without any problems whatsoever but I recommended some Dell precision latop to a friend and it came basically DOA.
/r/dell lists serious issues with the Killer NIC, coil whine, thermal limitations (when playing), speakers are bad ("average android 4.0 device sounds"), Win10 scaling make 4K display still not great (especially with external low-density displays), backlit keyboard disabling itself, some people get absolutely dreadful battery life.
I really don't know why anyone would order a laptop from Dell, or any other OEM for that matter.
Dell and their like, obviously, aren't at the for-front of laptop design. They are still using plastic and calling Carbon fiber a "premium" laptop material (it isn't). They are using second rate network adapters. They are using second rate SSDs which have terrible write speeds. Windows trackpads arent any better than they were 10 years ago.
To top it all off? You'll need to do a whole damn Windows reinstall to get rid of the tons of bloatware they pack in.
That order is pretty much spot on and it's been that way for 20 years.
HP's competitor to the 9560 would likely be the just-released Zbook Studio G4 but it does not offer a 4k touch screen option. Lenovo doesn't really have a competitor right now, the closest would likely be the P51s but it's only dual core...I think the regular P51 (not the slim) is at least one pound heavier.
Mine has had only had flaky wifi (killer) and a driver install from Killer's site remedied that. Other than that it's been a flawless machine. Windows 10 still doesn't have all of its' HiDpi issues worked out but I love this laptop.
I also had the swollen battery problem but my 9550 - my trackpad eventually got pushed up 1/4 of an inch or so. The bummer was that my laptop was out of warranty and the battery is not a "user serviceable option" on the 9550 so I couldn't just order a replacement battery from Dell -- they wanted me to send it in and wait two weeks which was a non-starter as it is my main development machine. I ended up buying a used battery off of some guy on Amazon along with a screwdriver kit with a T5 bit. It took me all of 10 minutes to replace the battery.
I haven't had any other problems but the fact that they won't allow end-users to replace such a simple part as the battery will make me think hard when I replace this laptop.
Sure, mine had BSOD's space bar double-tap, choppy sound and laggy 3D mouse (I mean 1 sec lag) right out of the box. I wasn't as patient as you, I sent it back. On Linux most was fine except the keyboard, but I was too afraid that HW was crap (also, searching for solutions was throwing me a lot of other people's issues with the HW). It seems like I was right.
As a developer I can't imagine buying anything other than a Macbook Pro, and I mainly use Windows.
The build quality is top of the line, the drivers are solid, and everything just works. The trackpad is industry leading, and the keyboard is great too. Performance is exceptional, especially in the 15" which comes with a HQ processor (not ultrabook-grade) and a discrete graphics card. It has a PCI-e SSD. The price is reasonable compared to the competition.
But despite being IMO the best laptop available, the main reason I choose them is because every so often I need to boot into OSX for testing, or to do something Mac-only. And nothing else can do that.
Same..Look at the comments for an XPS/whatever manufacturer flagship device release and you'll find mostly 'this works great except sometimes it explodes' and then back and forth a bunch of times where someone claims that it works for them, while someone else brings up something else that randomly doesn't work for them.
Most of what you said applies to Surface Books and Surface Pros, you should check them out if you work on Windows. I'm pretty happy with my SP4 myself.
I use the XPS 15 in an office with only mac users and this machine is just more powerful since Apple wont update the Macbook Pro line with developers in mind. I hated working on an under performing laptop when I was using the macs.
Processor is a little more powerful, testing shows them comparable in some testing since Apple can tune the chips a little more then Dell is allowed to. I have twice as much ram which is the real big leap forward, my hard drive seems to be a little faster also.
The specs would agree with you, but my real life side-by-side experience only demonstrates that the XPS is better for gaming. For everything else, my old rMBP is as fast or faster.
And my Mac runs for weeks, sometimes > 2 months, without a reboot. I've had to reboot the XPS on average twice a week (due to crashes, or updates, or really weird performance drops).
My real life side by side test show that turning off my machine at the end of the day isn't a big deal. The fact that I can run 2-3 VMs when the rest of my team can barely run one is a big deal. More ram is a huge benefit, everything I run in the linux subsystem runs faster than the macs I work next to.
Yeah, 32 vs 16 GB is truly a massive difference when doing virtualization. When you consider that the base OS and core apps (dev env/browsers) take up something like 2-3GB, you're more than doubling the available memory for VMs.
You just described the XPS 15 9560... Except the Dell gets a mostly proper keyboard with real function keys (this matters greatly to me as a programmer). It's not ThinkPad grade, yet close. (I've tested my colleague's top spec model).
As for Apple, it's a shame they don't ship 32gb laptops with touch screens.
I'm currently on an ageing OG X1 Carbon (i7/8/256), which has a sensational keyboard and track pointer, with a superb light and strong chassis; for my next, I'm hoping they'll upgrade the core count to 4+ and memory to 32, and an AMOLED display.
In my experience with this new XPS 15 9560, the touch screen is only marginally useful. It doesn't seem to play well with screen pens, so it's just a thing to smudge your finger grease on if you want to show off.
I am also developer and I changed last year from Mac to Dell XPS 13". I would have stayed on Mac but the new keyboard felt strange, touchbar is... well I felt it is time to try something new. One surprising feature that I though I would never use is touch screen. I really like it and I thought it would be useless.
There are some things that I think could be better. I think Windows is a bit ugly, hardware does not feel polished like in Apple but it's not nowhere as bad as Dells used to be. The only thing I go back to Mac when I need to do iOS stuff and sometimes when i get something from designers in Sketch format but it is unlikely that I will return to MBP anytime soon.
That's interesting about the touchscreen? Do you feel any need to get a 2-in-1 or is he simple touchscreen sufficient? I'd interested in a 2-in-1, but they don't run Linux real well and there are other issues, including cost. But if the touchscreen is useful enough, then maybe an XPS 13 along with a tablet would be a good idea.
Simple touch screen is definitely enough for me. I don't feel I need tablet. I have Ipad and I hardly use it.
I find myself touching the screen when reading, on actionable wizards etc. So, it is mostly usability bonus for stuff that I could do in mouse. Funny thing is that I really didn't notice first that I started to touch screen.
I have W10 running on a 2012 Panasonic ToughBook that has a touch screen. For quite some time I believed that a touch screen was hokey and no one wanted to get smudges on the screen. But I've got to say that once you start using it, whether to click on links, launch apps, or whatever, especially with the large tiles in W10, it becomes very natural. I do think, however, that it is more natural with smaller machines where the screen is just physically closer to you...like on the XPS 13.
As a counterpoint, I have a lenovo p50 and I couldn't possibly be happier. I'm frequently developing on a Scala backend with a mobile frontend. If you don't want memory pressure, 16GB just won't do it, but my 64GB does phenomenally.
And since I'm often working in Kenya it can be quite difficult to get service for Apple, having parts I can switch out with a screwdriver is a huge blessing. And it's stupidly tough, I've fallen directly on it and it's survived in the past.
As a fellow developer, I purchased a xps 15 with the 1080p screen. The keyboard is top notch, minus the fact it doesn't have a dedicated end key. The touch pad is good enough as I don't need it very often in the IDE world. The windows 10 touch pad gestures work great. I would highly recomend it.
This is the laptop I have. The biggest (and the only) complaint is that after about 3 or 4 days of use the track pad stops scrolling and starts doing a "click-and-drag" instead. A restart takes care of this.
For $1500 I don't want to regularly spend 5-10 minutes fixing my trackpad, and the anguish of that task relative to the turning of the cosmos is irrelevant.
I wish business laptops still existed. I bought a 5 year old laptop because you can't get anything today with serviceable parts or design that makes sense. The thinkpad retro can't get here soon enough (assuming it actually has function keys and isn't slimmed down just to be slim).
The lattitude E74xx series is pretty good, I upgraded the RAM and disk on every model I owned. And they still come with win7 drivers. But the latest generation (E7480) has dropped the full Ethernet port with the same sort of foldable port that Sony used on its z-series and they break too easily. You should try a E7470 which has a full Ethernet port while still being an ultra book.
Also they haven't tried to be creative with the keyboard layout, which includes page down/up keys which the xps lacks, quite important for shortcuts.
I'm rocking a thinkpad x230 and I will probably continue to do so until they stop making decent batteries for it. I will weep when I can no longer use it.
I use an x230 as my primary as well... but I can't seem to suppress my desire for a FHD screen. Do you know if any of the newer X-series are worth the money?
I'm looking for a (possibly) portable machine to do some deep learning exploration on. Would a developer edition of this with Ubuntu pre-installed, be a good choice? Is the NVidia powerful enough and accessible via drivers?
I bought one in February. Horrible experience. It couldn't display any video in the browser without freezing. Apparently an intel driver issue. The solution was to manually install an unsupported version of the video driver from the intel website. That solved it but left me with an unstable wifi and a noisy fan. I had much better luck with the Lattitude E74xx series.
- failure that politely states that I need to reboot (if I try to use fingerprint reader to login too quickly after opening the laptop)
- unplanned reboots due to updates
- laggy and choppy video on a single external 4k monitor (compared to no apparent lag when the old rMBP drives 2x 4k monitors)
- very slow Bash (ubuntu subsystem) - but at least they're making an effort
- Cortana seems less effective than Siri, and she wasn't great; and Cortana still only uses Bing search and displays results in Edge browser
- louder and more frequently spun up fan compared to old rMBP (which was also an i7 with an Nvidia GPU)
- occasional crashes when opening laptop or logging in
- very slow unzipping of files (on new 1TB PCIe SSD), regardless of whether 7z is used or built-in unzip is used, and regardless of where I unzip/extract to
In summary, it's just a sexy little game machine. In that regard, it does pretty well. You do have to wear headphones to game because the fan is so loud. And you can't play on an external monitor... too laggy and limited to 30Hz refresh.
Too bad Apple no longer caters to my crowd. Thankfully this old rMBP I use is still running well (despite the screen covering deterioration in weird spotty ways).
What is "your crowd"? Only thing I wish my rMBP had was more than 16GB of RAM for some of the dev I do. Other than that, I can't see switching anytime soon.
Since we're on HN, I'll assume 'his crowd' is software development.
How has apple stopped catering this crowd? Let me give you my opinion.
The new macbook pro's main feature is one that is totally useless to professionals. The touch bar is an interesting idea for the casual user, but for anyone who uses any software professionally, it provides no value as it is much slower than keyboard shortcuts. Not to mention that the lack of tactile feedback means you need to look away from the monitor to use it.
The new design has force a redesign in the keyboard, giving it much lower travel, and it is now a lot more uncomfortable to use (this one in particular is quite subjective)
16GB is just not enough in the era of containers.
The price. It's just absurd and some of the most expensive features (TB) are just useless as I stated above.
I used to manage with VMs on 8gb, 16 should be enough for most people using containers. Believe the laptop in this review can be upgraded to 32 for the heavy-hitters.
Agree 99% on this. My 2012 rMBP (i7 quad core, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, and NVidia discrete graphics) still runs like a champ with VMWare running in the background supporting a docker swarm nonetheless). The only upgradable part in this system was the SSD and I upgraded that from the original 256 to the one that's in there now. The keyboard is actually starting to wear out with the 'S' having all but disappeared from the 'S' key.
All I was hoping for was this exact form factor with upgraded internals (faster CPU, faster GPU, 32GB), swapping the two existing Thunderbolt 2 ports for Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports. But no, apparently we all wanted lighter and thinner, no function keys and only poorly supported (so far) USB-C ports. Who knew?
By the way... TB is not useless. I use it everyday. I plug my rMBP into power and then plug a TB cable in from my computer to my LG Thunderbolt display with builtin USB-3 hub and TB passthrough.
Switching to the 9560 (from a MBP) wouldn't be as easy as one would hope. WSL is very very slow and awkward to use compared to the macOS terminal. Part of the performance problems are related to forking: on *nix forking is a lightweight operation and used a lot, especially in all of those convenient BASH tools that we use (like RVM) but on Windows it's a very expensive process--I'm rewriting GVM2 to speed it up for Go development on WSL. Then there's the whole deal of having to double up on your installs (e.g. installing ruby dependencies on both Windows and within WSL for code completion support, etc., from within VSCode) and not editing WSL files within Windows or risk corruption.
Then there's that single 2-lane Thunderbolt/USB-C port and the 9560's 130W power requirements...sadness. While an HP Zbook Studio G4 (also quad core i7, all the way up to Xeon) includes two 4-lane TB3 ports, it has older Quadro 1200m graphics and comes with a 150W power adapter (!): way way out of the max 100W USB-C spec. And yet the new rMBP still only draws something like 87W. In short, you can't charge any of these machines over USB-C unless they're idling.
It's like being stuck between a rock and hard place right now: Apple caters only to the mass consumer while everyone else is spread so thinly across all markets that they can't seem to focus and make a truly awesome MBP replacement for power users (engineers, creatives, scientists, gamers, etc). And I look at this 5-year old rMBP with its totally smooth underside, still incredible display, properly placed speakers and webcam, and wonder why Windows notebooks still can't compete with this Jobs-era design.
>> - less precise trackpad than my 3 year old rMBP
>> - palm-sensitive trackpad
This! I sound like a broken record, but what is wrong with the PC manufacturers not getting the trackpad right/close(r) to how (well) Apple MBP trackpads operate?
Yes, they may have been improving, but going back from MBP to PC laptop is simply infuriating as a result of lack of accuracy of their trackpads. And to back up my subjective assessment of the situation, I have been making a point to make a walk through of the Microsoft store about every 6 months to test out (the trackpads) of all the shiniest PC laptops on display. </rant>
Couldn't agree more. Whenever a friend picks up a new non-Apple machine that's the first thing I try out. It's almost always bad enough for me stop there.
I've always found that Dell ships rock solid H/W, but does a piss poor job of systems integration. The best way to get "OSX Level" reliability that I've found is to clean-install Windows, or remove all their shitty Dell applications and tools. Their track-pad 'helper' tool is particularly quite terrible. Windows 10 too is its own beast. I disable all that update shit because like you I don't want any unplanned reboots. Its ridiculous that you have to do all this shit, but you will be rewarded in the end. I regularly get 40-50 days of up-time before manually rebooting for updates. YMMV !
> - less precise trackpad than my 3 year old rMBP
>
> - palm-sensitive trackpad
Sadly this seems to be par for the course for non-Apple laptops. I will say that the Asus ZenBook seems to get pretty close though.
> Thankfully this old rMBP I use is still running well (despite the screen covering deterioration in weird spotty ways).
I'm using a mid-2010 MBP (upgraded the RAM and replaced the drive with an SSD) and it's awesome. Still very usable, runs the latest MacOS, and still gets really good battery life. The Apples of that era seem shockingly well built.
> And you can't play on an external monitor... too laggy and limited to 30Hz refresh.
Did you use an HDMI cable or USB-C to HDMI adapter? Since the spec says the HDMI port is 1.4 only, I'd like to know if using a USB-C to HDMI 2.0 adapter will give you more bandwidth, allowing you to do 4k at 60hz with 4:4:4 chroma support.
> despite the screen covering deterioration in weird spotty ways
If it's like images at [1] you may be eligible for a free screen replacement. I got Apple to change mine after it started showing the defect (granted, I went to an Apple Store mere weeks before the Apple Care+ coverage ended). Mine is a late 2013 rMBP. The new screen, however, is starting to show the same kind of damage around the edges.
Literally the only reason I continue to buy MBP's. If PC manufacturers could give me a trackpad which was even close to as good as Apple's I would hop the fence tomorrow.
Regarding the fans, highly recommend using an overclocking tool to undervolt the CPU and iGPU -- reduced temp under load for me by nearly 15C, runs stable with cpu at -130mV. Stops the fans from turning on as often or running as aggressively.
I too was unlucky in receiving a Toshiba as the vendor of my 1TB SSD. There is a reddit thread out there about switching from Intel RST to AHCI with OCZ drivers -- this improved my random write performance significantly.
The most annoying part of the system to me is the "coil whine" coming from the internal DC/DC converters. Lots of different pitch and erratic high frequency noises come from the laptop. My colleagues can confirm that my ears are not particularly sensitive to high frequency noise but this laptop is very audible. Just do not feel like it should have this kind of defect on such a high end machine.
This laptop looks like mixed bag of opinions. I'm looking something to switch from rMPB 2013 (need more RAM, storage). That laptop i still on my list but on last position.
I had rMBP2016 for 3 months and I could't write on that keyboard. After 1-2 hr's I felt pain in my fingers because constant contact of my nails with that keyboard. And I don't have some bear nails :) Sold it and now my short list is
1. Lenovo X1 carbon WQHD - best keyboard I ever written.
2. XPS 13 (coil whine, spongy keyboard)
3. XPS 15 - problems described in many places ..
Still can't make decision :/
I suggest the lattitude E7470 or E7480 (if you don't see a laptop as a fashion statement). Light, practical, enough ports (the E7470 has a full Ethernet port) and a boring keyboard (which is what I expect from a keyboard).
My friend have one of lattitude models (12.5") and those Dell business screens are not the best ones IMO. Maybe I'm wrong but it is hard to find reseller that have those on the shelf to touch and feel :/
I never felt like it was a cheap screen but I am probably not the best judge. I own a E7270 too but I find that format to be too small for any serious work. 14in is a good balance between being portable and comfortable.
Actually the matte FHD (1920x1080) displays on the E7450/7470/7480 are some of the best displays with no pwm etc. They're not the widest color gamut but they're solid.
I'm ordering the T470P today, 7700HQ (4C/8HT) with a 2560x1440 screen.
No thunderbolt 3 (strange one that) but otherwise exactly what I wanted and with discount comes in around 250 cheaper than the XPS15 with a 1080 screen.
Is the webcam back at the top of the screen, or is it still at the bottom-left "I can see right up your nose" position.
edit Yep, on page 2:
> The smaller bezels really do reduce the bulk of the notebook, with the one downside in Dell’s case of a poorly positioned webcam at the bottom of the display. Dell wants to keep the top and side bezels the same size for aesthetics, and heavy webcam users will not appreciate this, with a less than flattering up-the-nose result.
If you use Linux like arch please make sure to set kernel mode parameters to get your video to work. I also had a lot better luck swapping in an intel 8265 but the one it comes with works fine when you have a good signal.
All in all the 9560 has replaced my Mac as a daily driver.
Edit:
Incase, to save time for someone, put this in kernel mode parameters in the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg and rerun grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
I have an XPS 13 and the coil whine is one of the things that annoyed me the most, seems like they don't care at all. I've briefly used a Thinkpad and on that front is dead silent.
If they continue to provide a model with a Linux distribution installed, I would like to support them and purchase their products again, but that defect is the only thing I would like to see it fixed.
It's proven for me that they don't, as it's a long standing and massive problem. Consumers should stop buying poorly engineered/manufactured devices, that would be the reasonable reaction.
> If they continue to provide a model with a Linux distribution installed, I would like to support them and purchase their products again, but that defect is the only thing I would like to see it fixed
Normally Thinkpads support Linux very well though don't come with it preinstalled.
Any driver issues or other advice about running Windows 7 on this?
(I don't want to use Windows 8 or 10 because of telemetry, nor do I want to spend countless hours trying to figure out how to disable all telemetry, and worry about future updates that introduce more telemetry. I'm happy staying at Window 7.)
If anyone cares, I just got a Toshiba Portege X30, it's the lightest machine that can be equipped with 32GB Ram, has 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports and a matte fhd touchscreen. Sadly only a dual core U processor (they launch quad-core U processors in just a few months)
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] threadYou can, using the Thunderbolt 3 port. I run my XPS 13 at 4K@60Hz using the mini-DP port, and Thunderbolt 3 is capable of that and more.
I'd rather have an extra Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port, to be honest. HDMI 2.0 is bigger and clunkier as a port, and Thunderbolt 3 is strictly better as a protocol (we're not even talking about HDMI 2.1). Maybe if you're talking HDMI 2.1, but the protocol can still be carried over a USB-C connector anyway, so keeping the standard connector interface is preferable in my books.
My bet is that TVs will soon start to have USB-C ports built-in (with whichever protocols they're willing to support). In the meantime, an adapter will do the trick; it can even live with the TV, since that's not meant to be portable.
I've been hoping to upgrade to the 15-inch for a while, because I like larger screens. It's nice to see the review of this point release version.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Adapter-Type-Ethernet-470-ABQN/d...
The standard dell one doesn't seem to work as well on both (yeah...).
Over all these years, this is the first time that my primary machine is a mobile device (laptop), and that I might have to use dongles with the hardware that I'll be repeatedly connecting and disconnecting as I move around.
It's not a big deal, but it'll take time to transition from the last "single connector for everything" to the new one. The only problem I have is the rabid USB-C fans telling me I'm being left behind for sticking with my current hardware for a few more years.
See also: https://plus.google.com/+ThorstenLeemhuis/posts/fZLWWPJEQts
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0123PJ9BK
I can give many other examples with drivers support. For example, if I unplug the notebook from the dock the audio playback doesn't work again if I don't reboot the computer or remove/reinstall the driver.
It would ve nice to hear about a critical analysis in Linux.
What other people seem to have done is get Dell to swap the Killer NIC with an Intel one which has much better driver support.
I don't know what these guys are doing but even in Windows, I would get IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL after deep sleep.
I fixed the issues by swapping with an Intel card (didn't want to have to wait months for driver updates), but in my opinion that is unacceptable for a premium laptop. Why is Dell skimping on parts? I paid $1500 precisely because I didn't want to deal with crappy parts, but instead they took my $1500 and gave me a worse browsing experience than my $150 Chromebook...
Isn't this entirely broken, surely no one designed it so you couldn't fix applications in safe-mode?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Installer
They're right though. It doesn't run in safe mode and it's a fucking pain in the ass. Makes fixing issues harder when you can't uninstall shit in safemode. Drivers especially.
I refuse to buy any board which has these chips and will pay a small premium for an Intel or Realtek instead.
I always thought of them as purveyors of snake oil and reached for Intel NICs with great results every time. I used to like Atheros for radios back in the good old bad days of WEP and MadWifi.
Actual 4K resolution works way better on Linux than it does on OS X. By default, OS X will use 2560x1440, even on a display that's capable of 3840x2160. If you try to set it to the latter on OS X in your display settings, it looks really terrible.
The experience is less consistent on Linux in 3840x2160, but overall it's much better, and it's well-supported by the common applications that Linux users would use (Firefox/Chrome, terminal emulators, any GTK+ 3 or Qt 5 applications, and more).
That said, the 4K support in Fedora is nice. The only problem is with Qt4, Gtk2 and other apps using legacy toolkits.
Yes, it will use it, but it looks terrible. Even the native system UI isn't designed for it, let alone Cocoa-based third-party applications or third-party applications that don't use Cocoa.
Also, exactly what applications do not use Cocoa? Apple had made extremely difficult to talk directly do display server, the two non-private-frameworks-without-stable-abi ways were Carbon and Cocoa. Carbon is already dead.
I use the same monitor as well. Until recently, I had the 15" version of that laptop, and now I have the latest 15" Macbook Pro. Both use 2560x1440 on the external monitor even though it's capable of 3840x2160, because that's what OS X defaults to, and every time I try increasing the resolution, I only make it a few minutes before I can't stand how terrible the experience is and end up switching back.
> Also, exactly what applications do not use Cocoa?
I'm saying that native Mac applications look really bad on OS X when set to 3840x2160. The UI and text don't scale consistently, and that's true both of the system-level UI and of application UI. The situation gets even worse when you're talking about applications designed for X11[0], which I could forgive, but on the other hand, those applications scale just fine on Linux.
By contrast, all of this works out-of-the-box in (for example) Unity. I don't have to deal with dialog boxes that are out of proportion with the system bar, or text that's impossible to read unless I squint on some applications but perfectly readable on others.
[0] We could get into a debate about whether XQuartz really counts as "cocoa" or not, but I'd rather not.
I would suggest to try using different DisplayPort cable.
OSX defaults to "best" resolution for the given display. In case of this monitor, it is 3840x2160, but - it will tell you is 1920x1080 and use it in HiDPI mode. Like this: http://imgur.com/a/infej
Once you change resolution, it will remember, what you changed it to on that specific display, and will use it next time you connect to it.
> I'm saying that native Mac applications look really bad on OS X when set to 3840x2160. The UI and text don't scale consistently, and that's true both of the system-level UI and of application UI.
In my experience, they scale perfectly. The ones that are non-HiDPI aware, are scaled by the system to the proper size (and thus are pixelated).
XQuartz is another matter. It should be taken behind the barn and shot long time ago. Running X11 apps is better done using a linux vm.
However, what I don't understand, why you have wrong scale. XQuartz is a not DPI-aware app, thus it is scaled by the system.
It has nothing to do with the cable. I've had this issue on every single 4K monitor I've used with these laptops - which is at least three different monitors, with different cables - and it even manifests with HDMI 4K output (at 30Hz). All of these setups work perfectly fine with my XPS 13 running at 4K on Linux. I don't understand why you think that the OS's inability to scale the system UI or applications in a reasonable way would have anything to do with the cable.
Try it with a Linux laptop running Unity, and you'll see the difference.
Because that's not the experience everyone else is having. That leaves possibility, that something is broken on your end.
> Try it with a Linux laptop running Unity, and you'll see the difference.
I know how Linux handles HiDPI. See my comment about Fedora elsewhere in the thread.
If it's scaling to 1080p for you, that's because either your monitor or your cable doesn't support 2560x1440 at 60Hz. If it does, it should default to 1440, assuming you're on an rMBP.
In terms of "what I expected to happen" - well, I expected an actual 4K resolution (like 3840x2160) to work. Maybe not by default, but at least when I enable it, it should be able to auto-scale the appropriate parts of the system and application UI in a consistent manner. That means that I'd be able to actually view a 3840x2160 image at its full intended resolution (not 1080p or 1440p) without scrolling, while also not having to squint in order to read the system bar or do anything else on the OS.
That works pretty much out-of-the-box on Linux with Unity. Even with tweaking configuration everywhere, I can't find any way to do that on OS X and have it look halfway decent.
That's what it does. OS X will by default render at the panel's native resolution. But it scales everything to a lower effective resolution. Say you're running a 5K monitor at "2560x1440" (as in the iMac 5K). And the app displays a 32x32 icon at (0,0). The OS will see that you're running in 2x mode (real resolution = 2x effective resolution). So it'll pull a 64x64 version of the icon from the app's art assets. It'll take up 32x32 on the virtual 2560x1440 display, but a 64x64 image will be what's copied to the frame buffer. Text glyphs, and images, likewise, will be rendered at full resolution.
When you bypass the default setup and tell the OS to run at 3840x2160, you're not telling it to render at that resolution. You're telling it to size things as if you're running on a standard definition monitor of that size. So when the app displays a 32x32 icon, the OS will see you're running at 1x mode, and pull a 32x32 icon from the art assets. The result will be a tiny icon.
I have a load of problems with the virtual keyboard on my Tablet, I've had to work around it with a chrome extension that manually lets me pop the keyboard up.
I just spent 30 minutes this morning dealing with this exact issue on my laptop that I've docked into two nice external monitors.
To fix it, open the display settings and set one of the external monitors to the primary display. Then log out, and log back in.
I have no idea why this works, but if it hadn't I'd have chucked the laptop out the window by now. Windows 10 is almost great, but for a dozen little stupid things like this.
Look also at this future update: https://www.google.com.ar/amp/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/artic...
Another issue is that audio to the headphones will sometimes just stop until I restart pulse. Not even a reboot will fix it, only a pulse restart.
It's a fantastic machine otherwise, but the drivers are pretty buggy.
Mine actually bricked itself so hard it couldn't boot at all. I had to send it back to dell. This was after installing a firmware update _distributed with their tool_.
Eveything except HDMI out from the USB-C dock works. I think that's a kernel patch merge away.
I had lots of annoyance with a previous Optimus based notebook. How has the situation of bumblebee and primusrun and dualbooting improved in the past two years?
I have upgraded an Ubuntu laptop over a few years and every upgrade it broke, requiring some new incantation to fix it the next time. I don't think it's considered the future?
I believe the future is called "Prime Synchronisation", announced a few years ago. Good luck getting it to work though: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/957814/prime-and-pr... I gave up after a while.
We're probably nearing the time when I'll give all the methods another go, but currently I'm back into the "change setting and log out + in" camp.
As an aside, bumblebee also seems to break my i3 environment... I get hangs & magic sysreq won't recover. I've had to go back to the default DE.
Very slightly, but you're better off getting a notebook that actually has FOSS graphics drivers, for a much more stable and reliable experience.
It's unfortunate that you can't upgrade the XPS15 to the 4K display or a quad-core processor without getting the nVidia graphics along with it. IIRC, some previous models included 4K configurations without that.
Been researching the Dell alternatives (XPS and Precision) for a couple of months now. Very tempting machines indeed. I just want to see one in real life to see what the build quality feels like.
Pssst.. Mr Schiller... it seems it is possible to stick 32Gb of RAM into a laptop AND have decent battery life. Well, that is unless you're intent on giving your products anorexia which it seems you are.
</end rant>
To be honest though, if I had the budget and Apple weren't being ridiculous with the specs I'd still consider a mac a much better development machine; specifically due to Adobe's refusal to port photoshop to ubuntu. If you do not have any need for photoshop, then XPS developer edition is much better value.
My only concern with the dell line is that drivers really are a problem. For some reason, the audio works perfectly fine under Ubuntu and is really half baked on Windows 10 (with the newest drivers from dell). It's like upside down bizarro world.
I really like OS X because of the *nix like OS with a high level of 'just works'. I absolutely won't go back to Windows, my workflow is so far beyond it- so what're my best resources for finding a high spec laptop that will be compatible with a modern Linux distro?
I've got Windows 7 and Mint running on an old Lenovo T430 (pretty sure it's a 430) and Ubuntu 16.10 on my old 2009 MBP after Apple stopped shipping OS updates for it.
Excluding the fact they're on old hardware, I still don't think they 'just work' enough. Power save, WiFi, graphics drivers, fan control, all things that took a LOT of fiddling. Don't really love Ubuntu's desktop either.
FWIW this NIC is a huge liability, wifi instability is common and it will bring some machines down hard (bluescreens/kernel panics, just check /r/dell).
Dell US apparently has instructions to replace this POS by a compatible Intel NIC (7200 or 8000 series) if you have issues and complaint, that seems not to be the case for Dell EU.
An Intel NIC costs $20~30, some folks just order a 8260/8265 at the same time as the laptop and install it before even booting.
The only thing that worked was uninstalling all Killer software and just letting Windows install the wifi driver.
I have a dual boot setup with Ubuntu and Windows with no issues.
I bought it for $1699 CAD for the 7700HQ + Full HD Screen (not 4K) + GTX 1050 + 256GB HD + 16GB RAM and immediately upgraded the disk to 1TB and the ram to 32GB.
It was included: problem with CPU and random freezes, Coil Whine, Swollen Battery, SSD problem and problem with misaligned Jack port with a hole in case.
In total, my device was repaired 3 times (within 10 months) and from the original device I have a case, touch-pad and screen only.
I'm not here to complain, because after the battery fix was done, it works perfectly. The Dell Service is super helpful and reactive, D2D warranty is just awesome.
My question is: Have somebody seen any indicators of problems listed above in 9560?
Dell and their like, obviously, aren't at the for-front of laptop design. They are still using plastic and calling Carbon fiber a "premium" laptop material (it isn't). They are using second rate network adapters. They are using second rate SSDs which have terrible write speeds. Windows trackpads arent any better than they were 10 years ago.
To top it all off? You'll need to do a whole damn Windows reinstall to get rid of the tons of bloatware they pack in.
I've always been lucky with touchpads on high end HPs. I've been using Ubuntu since 2009, maybe it's a Windows problem.
HP's competitor to the 9560 would likely be the just-released Zbook Studio G4 but it does not offer a 4k touch screen option. Lenovo doesn't really have a competitor right now, the closest would likely be the P51s but it's only dual core...I think the regular P51 (not the slim) is at least one pound heavier.
I haven't had any other problems but the fact that they won't allow end-users to replace such a simple part as the battery will make me think hard when I replace this laptop.
Pro equipment means pro support. Why is only Apple getting this ?
My rMBP, fully loaded, had an issue with the logic board (one of the many that affected the 2013 rMBP).
Took it to an Apple Store. They wanted it for a week and a half for "replacement and testing".
Dell absolutely has Pro Support, up to and including same day replacement if you need it.
The build quality is top of the line, the drivers are solid, and everything just works. The trackpad is industry leading, and the keyboard is great too. Performance is exceptional, especially in the 15" which comes with a HQ processor (not ultrabook-grade) and a discrete graphics card. It has a PCI-e SSD. The price is reasonable compared to the competition.
But despite being IMO the best laptop available, the main reason I choose them is because every so often I need to boot into OSX for testing, or to do something Mac-only. And nothing else can do that.
No thanks..
And my Mac runs for weeks, sometimes > 2 months, without a reboot. I've had to reboot the XPS on average twice a week (due to crashes, or updates, or really weird performance drops).
As for Apple, it's a shame they don't ship 32gb laptops with touch screens.
I'm currently on an ageing OG X1 Carbon (i7/8/256), which has a sensational keyboard and track pointer, with a superb light and strong chassis; for my next, I'm hoping they'll upgrade the core count to 4+ and memory to 32, and an AMOLED display.
I use it a lot for document reviews, working with spreadsheets, and anywhere that touch corresponds more with manipulation of the object on screen.
I completely disregard it when the laptop is docked though. For me, mouse/kb habits take over.
Apple refuses to open up their dev space, like the worst kind of community citizen, and your response is to support that behaviour?
There are some things that I think could be better. I think Windows is a bit ugly, hardware does not feel polished like in Apple but it's not nowhere as bad as Dells used to be. The only thing I go back to Mac when I need to do iOS stuff and sometimes when i get something from designers in Sketch format but it is unlikely that I will return to MBP anytime soon.
I find myself touching the screen when reading, on actionable wizards etc. So, it is mostly usability bonus for stuff that I could do in mouse. Funny thing is that I really didn't notice first that I started to touch screen.
And since I'm often working in Kenya it can be quite difficult to get service for Apple, having parts I can switch out with a screwdriver is a huge blessing. And it's stupidly tough, I've fallen directly on it and it's survived in the past.
https://www.cnet.com/news/macbook-pro-october-2016-battery-l...
Also they haven't tried to be creative with the keyboard layout, which includes page down/up keys which the xps lacks, quite important for shortcuts.
https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640
- less precise trackpad than my 3 year old rMBP
- palm-sensitive trackpad
- failure that politely states that I need to reboot (if I try to use fingerprint reader to login too quickly after opening the laptop)
- unplanned reboots due to updates
- laggy and choppy video on a single external 4k monitor (compared to no apparent lag when the old rMBP drives 2x 4k monitors)
- very slow Bash (ubuntu subsystem) - but at least they're making an effort
- Cortana seems less effective than Siri, and she wasn't great; and Cortana still only uses Bing search and displays results in Edge browser
- louder and more frequently spun up fan compared to old rMBP (which was also an i7 with an Nvidia GPU)
- occasional crashes when opening laptop or logging in
- very slow unzipping of files (on new 1TB PCIe SSD), regardless of whether 7z is used or built-in unzip is used, and regardless of where I unzip/extract to
In summary, it's just a sexy little game machine. In that regard, it does pretty well. You do have to wear headphones to game because the fan is so loud. And you can't play on an external monitor... too laggy and limited to 30Hz refresh.
Too bad Apple no longer caters to my crowd. Thankfully this old rMBP I use is still running well (despite the screen covering deterioration in weird spotty ways).
What is "your crowd"? Only thing I wish my rMBP had was more than 16GB of RAM for some of the dev I do. Other than that, I can't see switching anytime soon.
How has apple stopped catering this crowd? Let me give you my opinion.
The new macbook pro's main feature is one that is totally useless to professionals. The touch bar is an interesting idea for the casual user, but for anyone who uses any software professionally, it provides no value as it is much slower than keyboard shortcuts. Not to mention that the lack of tactile feedback means you need to look away from the monitor to use it.
The new design has force a redesign in the keyboard, giving it much lower travel, and it is now a lot more uncomfortable to use (this one in particular is quite subjective)
16GB is just not enough in the era of containers.
The price. It's just absurd and some of the most expensive features (TB) are just useless as I stated above.
All I was hoping for was this exact form factor with upgraded internals (faster CPU, faster GPU, 32GB), swapping the two existing Thunderbolt 2 ports for Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports. But no, apparently we all wanted lighter and thinner, no function keys and only poorly supported (so far) USB-C ports. Who knew?
By the way... TB is not useless. I use it everyday. I plug my rMBP into power and then plug a TB cable in from my computer to my LG Thunderbolt display with builtin USB-3 hub and TB passthrough.
Switching to the 9560 (from a MBP) wouldn't be as easy as one would hope. WSL is very very slow and awkward to use compared to the macOS terminal. Part of the performance problems are related to forking: on *nix forking is a lightweight operation and used a lot, especially in all of those convenient BASH tools that we use (like RVM) but on Windows it's a very expensive process--I'm rewriting GVM2 to speed it up for Go development on WSL. Then there's the whole deal of having to double up on your installs (e.g. installing ruby dependencies on both Windows and within WSL for code completion support, etc., from within VSCode) and not editing WSL files within Windows or risk corruption.
Then there's that single 2-lane Thunderbolt/USB-C port and the 9560's 130W power requirements...sadness. While an HP Zbook Studio G4 (also quad core i7, all the way up to Xeon) includes two 4-lane TB3 ports, it has older Quadro 1200m graphics and comes with a 150W power adapter (!): way way out of the max 100W USB-C spec. And yet the new rMBP still only draws something like 87W. In short, you can't charge any of these machines over USB-C unless they're idling.
It's like being stuck between a rock and hard place right now: Apple caters only to the mass consumer while everyone else is spread so thinly across all markets that they can't seem to focus and make a truly awesome MBP replacement for power users (engineers, creatives, scientists, gamers, etc). And I look at this 5-year old rMBP with its totally smooth underside, still incredible display, properly placed speakers and webcam, and wonder why Windows notebooks still can't compete with this Jobs-era design.
This! I sound like a broken record, but what is wrong with the PC manufacturers not getting the trackpad right/close(r) to how (well) Apple MBP trackpads operate?
Yes, they may have been improving, but going back from MBP to PC laptop is simply infuriating as a result of lack of accuracy of their trackpads. And to back up my subjective assessment of the situation, I have been making a point to make a walk through of the Microsoft store about every 6 months to test out (the trackpads) of all the shiniest PC laptops on display. </rant>
I bought the laptop because I didn't want a new Macbook. I ended up regretting it a little bit since I don't love the trackpad.
I don't get why it is so hard to make a decent trackpad today when Apple did it more than 5 years ago :(
Sadly this seems to be par for the course for non-Apple laptops. I will say that the Asus ZenBook seems to get pretty close though.
> Thankfully this old rMBP I use is still running well (despite the screen covering deterioration in weird spotty ways).
I'm using a mid-2010 MBP (upgraded the RAM and replaced the drive with an SSD) and it's awesome. Still very usable, runs the latest MacOS, and still gets really good battery life. The Apples of that era seem shockingly well built.
Did you use an HDMI cable or USB-C to HDMI adapter? Since the spec says the HDMI port is 1.4 only, I'd like to know if using a USB-C to HDMI 2.0 adapter will give you more bandwidth, allowing you to do 4k at 60hz with 4:4:4 chroma support.
If it's like images at [1] you may be eligible for a free screen replacement. I got Apple to change mine after it started showing the defect (granted, I went to an Apple Store mere weeks before the Apple Care+ coverage ended). Mine is a late 2013 rMBP. The new screen, however, is starting to show the same kind of damage around the edges.
[1] http://www.staingate.org/#gallery
I may just go into the store and ask them what the situation is for me.
Literally the only reason I continue to buy MBP's. If PC manufacturers could give me a trackpad which was even close to as good as Apple's I would hop the fence tomorrow.
Does it look similar to this - http://www.staingate.org/ https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/17/apple-mbp-ar-coating-qu... . My rMBP had the same problem and I got the screen replaced for free (outside warranty).
Regarding the fans, highly recommend using an overclocking tool to undervolt the CPU and iGPU -- reduced temp under load for me by nearly 15C, runs stable with cpu at -130mV. Stops the fans from turning on as often or running as aggressively.
I too was unlucky in receiving a Toshiba as the vendor of my 1TB SSD. There is a reddit thread out there about switching from Intel RST to AHCI with OCZ drivers -- this improved my random write performance significantly.
The most annoying part of the system to me is the "coil whine" coming from the internal DC/DC converters. Lots of different pitch and erratic high frequency noises come from the laptop. My colleagues can confirm that my ears are not particularly sensitive to high frequency noise but this laptop is very audible. Just do not feel like it should have this kind of defect on such a high end machine.
Can't speak for the touchscreens.
No thunderbolt 3 (strange one that) but otherwise exactly what I wanted and with discount comes in around 250 cheaper than the XPS15 with a 1080 screen.
edit Yep, on page 2:
> The smaller bezels really do reduce the bulk of the notebook, with the one downside in Dell’s case of a poorly positioned webcam at the bottom of the display. Dell wants to keep the top and side bezels the same size for aesthetics, and heavy webcam users will not appreciate this, with a less than flattering up-the-nose result.
All in all the 9560 has replaced my Mac as a daily driver.
Edit: Incase, to save time for someone, put this in kernel mode parameters in the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg and rerun grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
nouveau.modeset=0 acpi_rev_override=1 enable_psr=1 disable_power_well=0
If they continue to provide a model with a Linux distribution installed, I would like to support them and purchase their products again, but that defect is the only thing I would like to see it fixed.
It's proven for me that they don't, as it's a long standing and massive problem. Consumers should stop buying poorly engineered/manufactured devices, that would be the reasonable reaction.
> If they continue to provide a model with a Linux distribution installed, I would like to support them and purchase their products again, but that defect is the only thing I would like to see it fixed
Normally Thinkpads support Linux very well though don't come with it preinstalled.
(I don't want to use Windows 8 or 10 because of telemetry, nor do I want to spend countless hours trying to figure out how to disable all telemetry, and worry about future updates that introduce more telemetry. I'm happy staying at Window 7.)