There is a lot to of good to be said about the XPS series. I love them for all my coding tasks.
The only problem is that you cannot open the display up fully. They block at 160° or so.
In many situations it would be super useful to have the laptop opened up 180°. In a plane for example. Or when it sits on a desk in a laptop stand and you use an external keyboard.
Running a laptop comparison site myself (https://www.productchart.com), I wonder if we should add '180°' to the filter list. It seems like an odd feature. It's super useful to me. Never heard anybody else talk about it though.
If 180° opening angle is an important feature for you it might be worth it to go towards the XPS 2-in-1 series which features a 360° opening angle. In a car, on a plane or on foot that can be an awesome feature to have.
You can search for "Antiglare Touch Screen Protector" in Amazon and some suitable products will appear.
Why would you do such atrocity and how can you really keep clean a non-smooth surface which you constantly touch with your fingers are two issues that I better not think too much about.
I personally can't think of the last time I wanted to open a laptop 180* or more.
Obviously both our experience is anecdotal but if it was driving purchasing decisions you'd see more laptops that can open 180 since the design trade-offs are relatively minor in the overwhelming majority of cases.
On a plane is pretty much the only time for me. I've been on planes where my intention to get work done on the trip was shot because with the keyboard on the tray I wasn't able to open the screen far enough to get a good view.
But typing on a vertical keyboard is probably not awesome.
I have an XPS 2-in-1 and I open to 180 degrees sometimes when laying down and using the touchscreen. It sometimes works in economy seats as you can rest the laptop on your lap and then the screen is kind of like a seatback IFE. But if you opened it flat on your lap, the screen can't open that far because of the restrictions of the seat in front of you. I also will put it in "tent mode" e.g. over 270 degrees open and the screen upside down on the tray table to watch a movie.
About the only thing I don't do much is use it as a tablet as its kind of heavy, even though I have the Dell pen for it.
In addition to 180 I would add Thinkpad as a separate option to Lenovo. The security issues have been separate between the 2 systems and frankly I would never consider another lenovo but certainly a Thinkpad.
In fairness, there are literally an infinite number of laptops out there (if you take into account the never ending cycle of new laptops being released). Cataloguing every make and model for a hobby project is simply not going to be possible.
I bought an XPS15, and have had nothing but trouble with it. Every time there's a Windows update, the hard drive "can't be found" and it wipes GRUB on every reboot. I've been spending half an hour every morning getting it to a state where I can use it again, and had to mess around with firmware downgrades to get it usable (until the next Windows update).
Never buying a Dell again. Their support were worse than useless, insisting that somehow installing Linux had caused the problem.
I'm eagerly waiting for my first Purism laptop, then I can get 30 mins of my day back.
Yes, we hopefully get there at some point. I have categorized over 1600 feature requests so far. A 'Comes with Linux preinstalled filter' is not yet at the top, but it is in the top 5% of requested features.
...but did they fix the coil wine? I was very interested in an XPS in 2017, my main criteria for a new laptop was a Linux machine, and yet during all my research quality concerns continued to rise up regarding to XPS, either it was coil wine, an icky track pad, poor keyboard, bad finishes.. you name it.
I ended up snagging a non touch bar MBP and haven't looked back. The elite cell manufacturers have been able to bridge the gap between their hardware quality and the iPhone.. why hasn't Dell?
I have a pretty new one (9370 I think) and I love it. No coil whine, the build feels great, and I have no complaints about that keyboard or trackpad. My only real complaint so far is the bluetooth is flaky.
Haha, I was just going to ask about Bluetooth. I've got 9350 and while single device Bluetooth works quite well (okay, today it broke but it usually works) connecting Bluetooth headphones and a Bluetooth mouse at the same time makes the connection super unstable. That's with the proprietary firmware.
There are all kinds of issues in XPSes as far as I've seen. But generally it works well on Linux. I mean the same issues plague Windows too (I compared).
I have given up on bluetooth ever being sane. If I don't connect my JBL, my xbox remote or anything bluetooth for more than a week then the connection is kapput and I have to delete and re-add the device. Windows, Linux, doesn't matter. It magically stops working when not used enough.
Does the Bluetooth connection just drop out between suspensions? I’ve have this issue across both XPS 13’s I’ve owned. It’s incredibly frustrating and seems to be a long running issue [1]. If you care about Bluetooth I wouldn’t recommend an XPS 13
Yeah, mine drops after suspending. Sometimes it shows the device is disconnected and I need to re-pair it. Not sure if that is a problem with the system or my MX Ergo, but it never has problems on my Windows machine. Occasionally the whole bluetooth system dies and I need to reset.
Seriously. This Dell would be perfect if we could get 32GB of ram.
fwiw: I have a System76 ubuntu laptop with 32gb of ram. It's bulky, but the performance is good. I can't imagine making space for 32gb of ram would compromise the XPS form factor much.
Yeah I got the Oryx Pro 15". Default options, except 32G of ram.
I'm generally happy with it because I do data-intensive java development, and it handles that well (+ multitasking with chrome etc).
There are two cons you should be aware of: It's heavy, and the battery life isn't great at all. but if you use it like a desktop, or minimal carrying, it's good.
I have the Galago Pro with 32gb of ram. Bad battery life, terrible speakers and trackpad. But overall decent. I like the build and PopOS makes me happy as pie as to how well it all works out-of-the-box. Great price, too. But I think I picked up a few Christmas discounts.
Intel's memory controller on their -U (Ultrabook) chips had a 16GB limitation last generation (or was it the one before?) but I think that's been lifted in Whiskey Lake.
But in general if you're doing heavy processing Intel doesn't usually recommend the Ultrabook class chips. They are optimized for battery life and low thermal load, not performance.
> Intel's memory controller on their -U (Ultrabook) chips had a 16GB limitation
To be more specific, they don’t support LP-DDR3 with over 16gb. All laptops which support 32gb use regular DDR memory, not the low power variant. DDR4 is about the same as LP-DDR3 in power consumption under heavy load, but when not, LP-DDR3 is significantly less power usage. So while Intel is to blame for the cause of forcing a choice, ultimately the decision to prioritize battery life numbers is the reason you don’t see more 32gb laptops.
Intel Ark claims 32GB limit in the first place for Kaby Lake Refresh chips but Campuspoint tested 32GB sticks (64GB) with the T480 and it worked. Indeed, it seems every Intel chip supporting DDR4 SO-DIMM supports 32GB sticks.
Back in 2012 I got a maxed out macbook air w/ 8gb of ram, and waking from sleep was noticeably slower than the other machines I've had. Never did any testing to see if that was actually the cause, but I'm curious if large amounts of memory can be hard for quick sleep/wake actions.
> I'm curious if large amounts of memory can be hard for quick sleep/wake actions
No, because sleep mode keeps the memory powered (albeit in idle mode which with LP-DDR3 is less than 10% of the power draw normally).
Hibernate is where the ram gets flushed to disk and the ram is powered down, which could impact startup times with more RAM, but that isn’t the issue in your case I believe. I’m guessing your case is due to an app you have running.
I currently have a 9350 and the 3-4 centimeters of potential screen real estate below the display which is unused, is more or less the only thing that bothers me.
Plus, kernel 4.19 causes some wifi issues currently. But the hardware has been very reliable so far.
Maybe somebody on here knows. Is there a (mostly) Linux compatible laptop that offers the following?
- 10-11 inch (preferably the size of the 11" Macbook Air or 10.5 inch iPad)
- Good touchscreen (with Linux support)
- Good keyboard with hinged display (2-in-one would be awesome, but I doubt that's possible given the other constraints I already have)
- Solid CPU options (i.e. no Atom)
I bought a Chuwi Surbook Mini and installed Linux on it but while the Hardware works fine, the touchscreen is so-so and the attached keyboard cover is awful. I'd buy a Microsoft Surface 10" but Linux on there doesn't support hibernation and that's a must for me (and I won't go with Windows. I tried that with the Chuwi, that OS is just not for me, I loathe it). I'd also maybe go with a Pixel Slate but 12.3 inch sounds too big for me and Google doesn't sell it here so I can't even preview it.
Thanks, yeah I was tempted by the Pixelbook, but it is not being sold here so I can't just try it out in a store or try it out and send it back. I'll try to research it some more.
I have the old Asus Zenbook, although it's a little larger than what you're looking for, plus apparently Asus stopped making the good version. It's fast with excellent touchscreen and fully works under Linux.
It's a real shame that Sony stopped making the original Vaio (the one which was the size of a large paperback book). The GDP Pocket is supposed to be equivalent and may be more like what you're looking for - I have not tried one.
The 12" Chromebook models (Pixel Slate, Pixelbook, Samsung Chromebook Pro) are not any larger than the 11" MBA. They're narrower and slightly taller. The MBA just has enormous bezels and also a different aspect ratio.
Thanks, I haven't had a chance to try them out because the few Google products I'm actually interested are apparently only for the US marked. I'll look at some comparison pictures and make up my mind.
Sorry. I just briefly read the repo. So you're saying when I put the cover on the device it will suspend to ram (consuming very little energy) and when I open it again it will come back immediately?
You will have to configure this behavior, as by default that would require pressing the power button instead of using the Hall effect sensors and the magnets from the cover.
But yes, you are correct: it will consume very little power while suspended if you use s2ram (resuming immediately) or hibernate (slower ersume, but consumes nothing)
You mean you don't like the webcam at the bottom left of the display so your typing fingers occupy 50% of the image when you're typing and broadcasting? :)
We had an office joke where those of us in this situation were called "Spidey fingers." It sounds dumb but once you see somebody typing on their laptop during a video conference, it becomes hilarious.
When aliens will invade with ships equipped with CRTs, they'll appreciate the fact that their new slaves are able to make them nice flatscreens, for sure.
Sad to see the XPS 13 line going the same way as Apple and removing the USB A ports. On the plus side, it's at least possible to connect two monitors to the USB C ports now (the 2017 version I have has only one USB C port), but it's less overall ports now since the power jack is also replaced by USB C. The body seems the same size as previously, so the excuse of "more thinness" doesn't really apply.
That said, the XPS 13 has been the best experience I've had with Linux on a laptop. The bundled Ubuntu install works out of the box, but even on other distros it's not difficult to set up, and I've not encountered any driver issues, which have been common on every other laptop I've installed Linux on. It helps that it's a great quality laptop in general - anecdotally in my office, we see far more hardware issues with the latest Macbooks than with XPSs.So I'd recommend it for anyone who wants a Linux or Windows laptop, or is considering switching away from Mac without compromising on hardware quality.
Apple has the common decency to make all of their USB-C ports identical, and support just about every allowable feature I know of, so, in theory, there's no reason you'll ever plug a device into a Mac and have it not work because the port isn't compatible (even though it's physically the same). Great in theory, I just wish the ports were more reliable — I've now had two laptops with flaky ports.
Dell dropped the ball by giving this laptop two TB3 ports and one that only does USB.
They're identical on the same machine, but the Macbook only has USB3.1 (+ Display Port) whereas the Macbook Pro is TB3. This isn't very obvious to users.
That was the case with the 2016 and 2017 models of 13" MBP w/touch bar - the right side had reduced PCI Express bandwidth. The 2018 model has full bandwidth on all ports.
It's the 2016/2017 versions of the tbMBP 13". My understanding is that the the right-hand side have all the same capabilities as the left-hand side, but lower PCIe bandwidth.
It's definitely confusing and a bit frustrating that it's different if you're in a scenario where the bandwidth matters, but at least it's just numbers rather than devices outright not working.
I once encountered a situation where a particular projector would only work when connected to the right hand side of my 13" MacBook Pro (2016) - so it's not true to say that devices don't work.
Having a Yubikey permanently installed, I can say that on the 9370, I don't miss USB Type A ports, but I definitely wouldn't be using this as a daily laptop if it had one fewer (two total) USB Type C connectors.
That would effectively mean I have zero ports free when charging and with my permanent Yubikey plugged in. It's never been an issue in practice, but I also wish that Dell would remove the ambiguity and make them all TB3 ports.
I have the previous gen model which also is 2 TB3 + 1 USB-C and it really doesn't matter much at all in practice. Since TB3 is isolated to the more "permanent" stuff (docks or eGPUs) it's pretty natural to just always use the same port since the cable layout is fixed. It's not like you connect random TB3 stuff to it regularly on the go.
Yes, USB 3.X type A has additional pins, all the “blue“ type-a ports can support USB 3.0 and 3.1 gen 1/2 depending on the controller powering them.
USB-C adds additional pins for alt-mode as well as a higher power delivery allowance, but the USB data protocol part of it is the same as any other type of port of the same spec.
Additionally, it might even make sense to have the power plug only be USB-2.0, if it's cheap. No reason to have a thunderbolt 3.0 cable plugged into the wall all the time
And that wastes physical real estate that could be used for a more modern cable. And with more USBC / thunderbolt cables around, theyll also get cheaper.
Whoah, what's up with that? Not sure why you're inferring this coffee shop story or why you're doing this smug posturing thing but it's pretty obnoxious.
I know everyone has a different step but I would welcome two usb C ports over a regular port just because the I can get a powered usb c dock that is connected to all my peripherals.
That way all I have to plug in when I get in to work is one cable.
Same here. My work laptop is a HP Zbook workstation. My favorite thing is my USB C doc. 4 USB ports, 2 display ports, Ethernet, USB c port, power, and a VGA port.
There are already screens like that, and I like the idea in principle.
I'm more hesitant in practice because the USB3 hub in my current Dell display didn't get along with my computer and would cause blue screens when used. Easy to avoid, I just don't have the USB hub plugged in.
As things get more and more integrated, a problem anywhere in the system means the whole thing doesn't work and you can't avoid the busted parts.
> As things get more and more integrated, a problem anywhere in the system means the whole thing doesn't work and you can't avoid the busted parts.
That's a general issue: laptops are pretty integrated and even in your tower it's pretty hard to patch the mobo (and let's not get into the issue of upgrading your L1 cache.
I started computing on a machine (PDP-6) on which you could add instructions with a wire wrap pencil. That's clearly impossible today, but with modern manufacturing, increased integration typically means increased overall reliability.
All true, but the benefits of integrating those things are more obvious to me than "you don't have a separate USB and power cable."
On the plus side, issues like mine ought to become less common with an integrated device, since it would become impossible for Dell to not test their USB hub when they plug in the display cable.
And I suppose I've considered a thunderbolt hub for the convenience and decided against it just because of what they cost. If that sort of integration were "free" with displays, yeah I'd probably take it.
I have a Dell monitor which does video, audio, power, and a couple of USB ports over USB-C. It’s easily the best setup I’ve ever had just for the convineance in being able to plug in one cable and immediately have everything I need working.
I already do this, and it's wonderful. I had to get a monitor that was way too big though to find one that had all the ports I want and which could supply enough power back to the laptop, but I assume smaller monitors are getting it by now too. Still though, it's well worth it if you need a new monitor to wait for one that has all your preferred specs and also does USB-C, I don't think I could go back.
I plug in my laptop and the monitor comes on, my keyboard and mouse start working over USB, my speakers start working because I turned the builtin soundbar off and enabled the in USB-C/3.55mm DAC that's also built into some Dell monitors, and even my printer and a synthesizer that I use as a practice (piano-)keyboard are are ready to go.
They are already pretty widespread, but expensive for now. I have to regularly use at work a Dell XPS 13, a macbook and a Lenogo Yoga. The monitor I use is an HP Z27 with a built in dock, where I have a keyboard and mouse connected. Whenever I have to switch a laptop, I just unplug the usb-c cable of the monitor from the laptop I am using and plug it to the new one. It takes a couple of seconds and I have my full setup usable again. The best thing is that it also provides power to the laptops, so I do not have to plug them.
In the past, when I was connecting a laptop to a monitor I had two options:
1) Use a proprietary dock. This is as convenient as the usb-c cable, but you can use it with a single brand of devices. Also, in the case of the usb-c cable you are free to move the laptop around the desk. Not so easy with a dock.
2) Plug the monitor and the peripherals directly the ports of the laptop. When you have to switch laptops frequently, it feels like this process is taking ages. It also looks ugly to have an octopus laptop on the desk.
Having said that the dedicated usb-c docks are notoriously problematic. I have tried a lot to find a single one with more than 3 star reviews, but it seems impossible. At least, I have not heard complains about the built-in docks inside monitors. In this case though, you have to make some sacrifices in the number and variety of ports. For example, in my case, I do not have ethernet.
Such monitors are pretty common now, at the higher end of the market, but most of them cannot charge larger laptops like 15-inchers that need more than 80 watts.
This is my primary concern with the whole "charge your laptop through peripherals" trend promoting usb-c. My laptop ships with a ~200W PSU, so anything that wants to reasonably charge my it needs that amount in excess power. I just don't see it being economical to stuff that king of power into everything. Not to mention I can't even find a 200W usb-c wall charger...
I've had this setup for a couple of years. Back when I started out on it, with a Dell XPS 15 (9550) and Dell docks, reliability was pretty iffy; unusable for their TB dock and kind of flaky for their USB-C dock. The latter is the only one that has proven in the long run to be a decent implementation; when I switched to a Thinkpad (P52s) a year ago the USB-C dock ended up working just fine, and the TB dock was recalled and replaced and now is just flaky.
I'd either go with a hardware combination that you or a trusted reviewer has tested, or wait another year or so for the bugs to get worked out.
EDIT: Or just avoid Dell, they seem to be behind the curve on figuring out Thunderbolt 3.
Even well reviewed devices aren't guaranteed to work. At work I had a TB3 dock from Belkin, that was one of the top sellers on Amazon. Everything worked on the MBP, but when I tried connecting my ThinkPad (T470s) all the peripherals and displays worked, however it wouldn't deliver any power. On the other hand the cheap Chinese TB3 dock (UGREEN branded) I have at home works fine with the ThinkPad.
If you stick with non-bleeding edge distros, I think it will be fine. A colleague had some problems with Arch occasionally with newer kernels (especially when using Powertop since it often lags behind a bit). I've also had occasional problems with a very similarly built Toshiba laptop. By the time distros like Ubuntu were using those kernels, all of the problems were fixed. Probably in a 3 year period it only happened twice, so it wasn't a huge deal since I was expecting to have occasional problems.
I run Arch on a XPS 15, it was relatively painless and I have no major complaints, I am very cautious about upgrading the kernel and only do so periodically. I would 100% consider switching to something else if they manage to solve packages as Arch has.
You do have the option of the XPS15. My XPS15 has 2 USB 3.0 ports and one USB C port. It also has a separate power connection port, HDMI, and SD card reader.
Don't. I got both, and while the xps 13 is good gear, the 15 has been nothing but pain. The name is the only thing they got in common, and dell stayed silent on numerous issues about it.
That is rather unfortunate. I have had zero of these problems you describe with my XPS15 laptop and I have had it around 5-6 months now. I hope it will stay that way.
This was my experience with a previous gen version that I was given at work too; half the hardware was different, it was hit or miss whether Linux would work with the wifi hardware you got (if they make a developer edition of the 15" though I assume that one would always come with a working chipset), it was falling apart much quicker than people with the 13" versions were, the keyboard was terrible (although the keyboard on the 13" was terrible too, but it didn't stick as much as the 15" did, though that could just be bad luck), etc.
Do you run Linux on it? Apparently the XPS15 can't be ordered with Linux [1], so you're paying the $100 MS tax and as of a year ago, installing Linux was not without issues [2].
Personally I want a 15-inch laptop with Linux preinstalled or perfectly supported, a great trackpad, a bright screen so I can work outdoors, and USB A so I can plug in my mech keyboards without dongles because I lose them all the time.
I would assume a mechanical keyboard is not being used portably? Couldn't the dongle just stay with the keyboard?
I do not use Linux on my XPS15. It's just a personal preference but I prefer Windows on my personal machines. I use many virtual machines on the laptop, and those have no issues, but that is a bit different than running it as a OS ;).
But I do love the laptop a lot! That is quite annoying that there are some Linux problems and that you pay a bit extra for MS. I stick with using Linux at work when I am purely doing development work, and at home when doing casual stuff, like a little coding, gaming, and web browsing I prefer Windows.
My previous employer got me a new macbook pro and every couple weeks I either lost a dongle or it broke. The cheap ones are really fragile, and the better ones still not great. If I had only one machine, or all machines took the dongle, I probably wouldn't lose so many at least.
I do use a mech portably...I like to carry one in my laptop bag and set up at a picnic table at a nearby park. I'll use the built-in keyboard for light work but with heavy typing I need the mech for ergonomics.
My 9360 XPS13 is the best experience I have for a macbook air replacement. I get a fan, keyboard that doesn't destroy itself, tiny bezel, i7, etc, and it runs high sierra.
Nah. The 9370 is basically fully soldered down with no expansion - the only exception (if I recall) is the SSD, which I think can still be swapped for now.
I tried to do that on my 9343 and pretty sure I ended up breaking one of the clips on the aluminum case. I got it back on and after reseating it a couple of times there's no longer a visible gap once I get all the screws it, but there's a spot on the back of the laptop where I can press down and here a slight clicking noise, like a latch is trying to catch somewhere but can't.
Just saying, removing some of these things can be more difficult than the Youtube videos or internet guides would have you believe.
I've got a 9560 with killer wifi card, running 16.04 with no problems. Additionally it's not that tough to swap out the killer for an intel wifi card if you really find the need to.
I replaced intel wifi with Killer's, not sure if it's exactly the same model but it uses the same chip QCA6174. IMHO Atheros provides the best support under Linux.
You are thinking of the old ath9k cards. Newer ath10k cards, while still supported, do a lot of the stuff in the firmware. So they aren't that different from others.
The killer cards in question, both mine and the one in the Dell laptop, use the ath10k driver. I had some problems with other cards (e.g. QCA988X as AP) but not with this chip specifically.
Can't speak for Linux but on Windows the killer wifi card in my XPS 13 gave me nothing but grief. Internet connectivity problems, issues bringing laptop out of sleep, etc. Just a huge headache. Dell would never acknowledge the problem or provide anything but worthless scripted help involving running diagnostic tools even though I told them flat out to please replace the WiFi card. I eventually caved and bought an Intel WiFi card. While removing the killer card, killer's antenna connection ball broke off and got stuck inside the connector socket. I had to use a needle and magnifying glass to get it out. After installing the Intel WiFi card, ALL of the problems went away. Best $20 I ever spent.
It always amazes me when "premium" laptops use the same penny-pinching techniques as lower tier ones. I'm already paying $1000+, where the heck is it going if not quality parts??
I split my development time between a 2015 rMBP and a Precision 5530 (pro model of the XPS 15). I still can not switch fully to the Dell because of a few issues:
- The touchpad is just garbage compared to the MBP, to the point I have an even more keyboard centric setup on it than my desktop, because I want to drop it out of a window every time I use the touchpad.
- Fans. I've accepted that most laptops will run active cooling more than any radiative chassis MBP, but the issues are that while the fans run constantly, they also change speeds constantly in both Windows and Ubuntu. They'd be far less annoying if they ran at a higher, but steady RPM by averaging response over a large time window. Manually managing fans feels like 1998. Also, for a $3.5K laptop that runs fans constantly, these are some of the jankiest, most rattling prone fans I've heard. Most colleagues with XPS 13/15 have sent them in for fan replacement at least once.
A more niche gripe is that 16:9 is the wrong aspect ratio for a professional laptop.
Pros:
- Screen quality and brightness.
- Keyboard (why I can't just get a new MBP).
- Hardware configurability.
- Many hardware issues at first, especially in linux, were quickly and effectively fixed by Dell driver and firmware updates.
16:10 is great, although I did briefly trial run a Surface Book 2 and loved the 3:2 screen, as well as the rest of the hardware. Only decided against it because of the amount of compromises and maintenance when running Linux on it.
I'm hoping more device start offering 3:2 screens now. I was interested in the surface line too but decided against it for the same reasons as you. I ordered Huawei's Matebook X pro yesterday which was the only other laptop I saw which offers a nice 3:2 display. I'm hoping everything will work out of the box (this laptop uses intel wireless unlike the marvell chip on the surface) with any recent distro.
Sidenote: I've also read about decent openbsd support for the older version of this laptop. [1]
I have a rather high end Latitude, (model lower than XPS 13), and every mac user that used the touchpad on it says it feels on par with the one on MBP.
I bought (and returned) an XPS 13 9360 last year. Touchpad was trash - overly sensitive, skipped, unrecognized movements, etc. I understand part of that is software, but it's embarrassing how much better the touchpads are on Macbooks.
It seems all the trackpads got worse when they went button-less to copy Apple.
I wish I could even get my HP ZBook trackpad to function as nicely in Debian as it does on Windows. I probably need to dig in the Xorg settings, but the last two attempts saw me reverting to the defaults + Gnome tweaking, which seems to be insufficient regardless of how I tweak the simple options.
Ditto on the touchpad issues. Have a 2016 XPS 13 (1st or 2nd year of the new design) that I ended up sending in 3 times for repairs due to the touchpad. Jittery, can't scroll, unreliable with right clicks / two finger clicks; ruined the experience for me. I eventually gave up sending to the factory because they were all equally dysfunctional.
-Many issues with power management, where I would close the lid and it would sleep, only to wake up later randomly. I would find it in my backpack blazing hot with fans at 100%.
-This was the 4k model, and at that point windows barely supported that resolution so the experience was awful with all but the most robust apps. Any legacy app was unusable. I expect this is better now.
-The speakers on 2/3 gave off a poppy, static sound during boot.
-Network connectivity is horrible. Sometimes the adapter would just turn off, requiring a restart. Resuming from sleep would take a full 60 seconds to connect to known networks. Insane
I also stopped sending it back in because every touchpad seemed to have the same scrolling issues. Then I tried installing Linux to see if the issues would be the same, and since then the trackpad has been working great. It's the reason I use Linux these days.
Sorry for asking an unrelated question, I recently bought a XPS 15. Do you know what is the difference between Precision 5530 and XPS 15 exactly?
It is the graphics card? Or it does have better build quality or better keyboard or something? Build quality is important to me since I use my laptop all the time.
The differences should be the different GPU (Quadro vs GTX) and that you can order the Precision 5530 with an intel wifi chip and Xeon CPUs. The actual build quality for both should be very similar considering its the same chassis.
I would totally buy one if it came with the pointy-stick (whatever Dell calls Track Point). The main reason I stay with Lenovo is eraser mouse. There's a nice HP (830 I think) but not much else.
I've been using these for years and love them. I've had to use a MBP for work for the last few months and boy is it ever torture to use. You know why? Mostly it's just about what you're used to. The quality of both computers is pretty good, but the Linux computer is set up exactly the way I want.
Why is the 16GB RAM + FHD screen (1080p) variant not available in the US and Canada? It seems like this has been a long-standing issue since at least the 9360.
This is very frustrating since I don't need the 4k panel (in fact I don't want it for resolution scaling reasons) however I absolutely do need the 16GB of RAM.
I hope you're right, because I've tried and failed to create such a configuration on the website. Would you mind providing a link to a RAM-configurable 1080 model?
EDIT: Found it, and you're right! You have to start with the i7 rather than the i5 on the product home page, but yes, it's there! This is awesome -- never really used the 4K or touch, and could definitely use the extra battery life. https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...
What's worse is the 4k screen is a touch screen and very power intensive. When I looked a few months ago it took the expected battery lifetime from 20 hours to 12 hours. What's worse is that also meant you got a glossy screen instead of a matte. I passed.
The large majority of laptops I have to deal with are still maxed at 8 GB, now if one needs to run the whole backend stack on the laptop, then it is another matter.
>Not only that but the 8th generation developer edition supports Suspend-to-idle natively which allows the system to resume much more quickly from sleep.
What's different about this from before? I have an xps9350 with fedora - and have noticed sometimes buggy suspending (it shuts down instead of suspending) - but it usually got fixed with kernel update
Does anyone know if they fixed the automatic brightness adjustment that you can't turn off? I have 5th and 6th gen XPS 13s and they both have this awful "feature" where the display readjusts brightness based on how dark/light the colors on the screen are. It's really obnoxious to scroll over a gif on twitter and have your brightness start cycling up and down with the image. Or to highlight a line of code in a text editor and see the screen noticeably dim.
Everything else about these machines is great, but this is a complete show stopper for me. I would happily upgrade to a brand new $2500+ machine, but only if this is fixed.
On xps 13 9360 you can disable adaptive brigthness with an update that is available for windows. On xps 13 9370 you can disable adaptive brightness through bios if your bios is new enough.
anyone develop on the little 13" screen these days? I assume it will always be hooked to a few monitors(2) for any coding tasks?
also what about the power consumption for linux, i bought a XPS13 for a family member and have not turned it to ubuntu for him as linux always eats up batter faster.
I do on a EEE PC 1215B, the last of the netbook's generation, but only when travelling, or weekend coding at some coffe shop, nothing serious.
Basically do the same as I always did since fvwm days, a couple of virtual screens, with each one having a maximized application and then I just switch among them.
Its not so bad if you make good use of your hotkeys. E.g. on Ubuntu the "windows key" + number will switch to that program in your dock. I have it setup like this: win+1 = IDE, win+2 = terminal, win+3 = test browser, win+4 = documentation, win+5=notes.
Then you can easily run everything on fullscreen and not worry about alt-tab-hell.
Does anyone know if the linux-can't-handle-multiple-displays-when-one-of-them-is-4k-and-the-others-aren't issue has been resolved, either formally or informally? I've heard this from several folks, (and seen it firsthand once) and it's keeping me from upgrading my linux laptop for now (I don't have 4k monitors as a part of my work setup).
On Wayland it's generally a solved problem (at work I use Sway, with my internal panel - 13" 1080p, at 1.25x scale, and my external panel - 34" 3440x1440 - at 1x). Especially with Firefox nightlies bringing native Wayland support, it's only going to get better from here, but it's already pretty good.
In Xorg, it's as bad as it ever was, mostly for tech debt / protocol reasons. It can be alleviated somewhat with xrandr hacks, but they're gnarly.
Running latest Ubuntu on a 4k and a 1280x1920 screen. Not ideal, but I can work with it. Some apps still have issues, either to large on the small screen, or to small on the big one... I feel like they're 1 or 2 version away from it being good.
Fractional scaling (125%) is not available. There is a workaround, but I couldn't get it to work.
I had plenty of issues with going back and forth. Finally I just got a Dell 4k monitor. I think it was 700 at the time but I am pretty sure they are closer to 350 now or less. That solved docking and so many other issues like restarting applications, etc.
I have a 2017 13" XPS running Solus Linux. I have come to abhor this machine. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to reboot the computer due to frozen or halting apps. I only have 8GB of RAM so that might be it but I can't run Slack app or the Google Play app at the same time without definitely causing problems.
I have a desktop with Solus and 16GB at home and never run into any issues with it.
I am guessing here but Solus Linux isn't probably officially supported by Dell on the Developer Edition of this laptop (you have the Developer Edition, don't you?)
I do have the Developer Edition. It may not be officially supported but everything works out of the box. I've got a personal IdeaPad laptop from years ago that has a worse configuration but doesn't freeze like this Dell.
I had a (first version?) XPS 13 running first Gentoo and then later Linux Mint and I never had problems with it. Once I even let it run for 2 months without rebooting and making it go into suspend-to-RAM from time to time and it never crashed.
But then I still sold it because I could never get used to its cursor keys and absolutely hated the impossible-to-deactivate-embedded-automatic-brightness-control.
Do you have a swap partition? If you don't have a swap partition enabled, then your computer will freeze when your RAM fills up.
I have the XPS 16" and this happens to me under Arch Linux, but thankfully not very often because I have 16GB of RAM. If you really have to break out of the freeze, then you can try switching to another terminal window (eg. ctrl-alt-F3 or some other function key), then try to kill the offending process. It might take a minute for your keyboard inputs to take effect, but it generally can be done.
Tip: I have the exact same setup, and I use earlyoom (https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom) to prevent this. Previously, I was frequently unable to break out of the freeze no matter how long I waited, forcing a hard reboot, but with earlyoom just a single memory-heavy app gets killed instead.
tl;dr -- add
`nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0` to /etc/default/grub in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter, run `update-grub`, reboot. Verify with `sudo nvme get-feature -f 0x0c -H /dev/nvme0`.
Totally agreed that this shouldn't happen. I hope that's your issue.
I have a 2017 13" XPS running Ubuntu. It's a 9360 and I made sure to order one that actually shipped Ubuntu. It works perfectly and I'm very happy with it. I also have 8GB of RAM. I recommend this laptop to everyone, though of course I haven't tried the newer ones that are available today.
Perhaps OS support is your problem? Did you order it with Ubuntu or with Windows?
I really want to buy a "Linux laptop" like this because I want to vote with my money and I don't want to be paying for a Windows license that I'm not going to use. But why don't they sell an XPS 15 Developer Edition? Surely there's a lot of professional types wanting a bigger laptop right? Is there some hardware difference between the two that causes problems? What's the deal?
Tempting but how is the coil whine on the new model? I had a 9370 for two days last year but the coil whine was irksome to the point of returning it.
Also what is the point of 4K on a 13" laptop? Honestly the 1080p model needs scaling to at least 1.25 as 1.0 is just painful even with perfect vision. Am I missing something obvious or is it just so Dell can tick the 4K marketing check box?
Providing it has no coil whine the only potential issue I see is the crappy SOLDERED(!) Killer wifi card. Damn shame you can't get it with an Intel one.
I'm curious about the Killer wifi cards as I've never heard of them and I've always had issues with the Intel wifi cards in my Thinkpads. I went so far as to buy USB wifi for those times when the Intel one wouldn't work. Basically I'm saying that when I first saw it I was happy to see it wasn't Intel, but you are saying it's worse?
[edit] Oh... and you can get the 16G model without the 4K display. Just select the i7/8G model and upgrade it.
The coil whine is per device not per model. You can get lucky and have no coil whine or unlucky and have it loud af on the same model laptops produced at the same time.
True but it seems that Dell's XPS models seem to suffer from coil whine much more than I have ever experienced with other makes using the same primary components (CPU, RAM make, SSD make, etc.) so it is clearly something Dell does (or doesn't do) that makes the matter worse.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 326 ms ] threadThe only problem is that you cannot open the display up fully. They block at 160° or so.
In many situations it would be super useful to have the laptop opened up 180°. In a plane for example. Or when it sits on a desk in a laptop stand and you use an external keyboard.
Running a laptop comparison site myself (https://www.productchart.com), I wonder if we should add '180°' to the filter list. It seems like an odd feature. It's super useful to me. Never heard anybody else talk about it though.
But then you don't have the option of a matte screen. And that is essential for me.
I am waiting for the day we have matte touchscreens.
Why would you do such atrocity and how can you really keep clean a non-smooth surface which you constantly touch with your fingers are two issues that I better not think too much about.
I am typing this comment using one of these.
Obviously both our experience is anecdotal but if it was driving purchasing decisions you'd see more laptops that can open 180 since the design trade-offs are relatively minor in the overwhelming majority of cases.
But typing on a vertical keyboard is probably not awesome.
About the only thing I don't do much is use it as a tablet as its kind of heavy, even though I have the Dell pen for it.
Never buying a Dell again. Their support were worse than useless, insisting that somehow installing Linux had caused the problem.
I'm eagerly waiting for my first Purism laptop, then I can get 30 mins of my day back.
Taking into account the context of this story, does it make sense to add "Linux" to the OS list?
With that, your site would be very useful to me, without it, not so much.
I ended up snagging a non touch bar MBP and haven't looked back. The elite cell manufacturers have been able to bridge the gap between their hardware quality and the iPhone.. why hasn't Dell?
There are all kinds of issues in XPSes as far as I've seen. But generally it works well on Linux. I mean the same issues plague Windows too (I compared).
1.https://www.dell.com/community/Linux-Developer-Systems/XPS-1...
fwiw: I have a System76 ubuntu laptop with 32gb of ram. It's bulky, but the performance is good. I can't imagine making space for 32gb of ram would compromise the XPS form factor much.
I'm generally happy with it because I do data-intensive java development, and it handles that well (+ multitasking with chrome etc).
There are two cons you should be aware of: It's heavy, and the battery life isn't great at all. but if you use it like a desktop, or minimal carrying, it's good.
- only the thunderbolt dock works, all other docks have complications
- the LTE card will not work (exposed wrong, needs to be on usb)
- the webcam will not work (IR based)
otherwise it seems like a nice laptop
But in general if you're doing heavy processing Intel doesn't usually recommend the Ultrabook class chips. They are optimized for battery life and low thermal load, not performance.
To be more specific, they don’t support LP-DDR3 with over 16gb. All laptops which support 32gb use regular DDR memory, not the low power variant. DDR4 is about the same as LP-DDR3 in power consumption under heavy load, but when not, LP-DDR3 is significantly less power usage. So while Intel is to blame for the cause of forcing a choice, ultimately the decision to prioritize battery life numbers is the reason you don’t see more 32gb laptops.
Edit: Looking at the specs it looks like whiskey lake did not add support for LPDDR4. [1] [2]
[1] https://ark.intel.com/products/149091/Intel-Core-i7-8565U-Pr...
[2] https://www.anandtech.com/show/13275/intel-launches-whiskey-...
No, because sleep mode keeps the memory powered (albeit in idle mode which with LP-DDR3 is less than 10% of the power draw normally).
Hibernate is where the ram gets flushed to disk and the ram is powered down, which could impact startup times with more RAM, but that isn’t the issue in your case I believe. I’m guessing your case is due to an app you have running.
- 10-11 inch (preferably the size of the 11" Macbook Air or 10.5 inch iPad)
- Good touchscreen (with Linux support)
- Good keyboard with hinged display (2-in-one would be awesome, but I doubt that's possible given the other constraints I already have)
- Solid CPU options (i.e. no Atom)
I bought a Chuwi Surbook Mini and installed Linux on it but while the Hardware works fine, the touchscreen is so-so and the attached keyboard cover is awful. I'd buy a Microsoft Surface 10" but Linux on there doesn't support hibernation and that's a must for me (and I won't go with Windows. I tried that with the Chuwi, that OS is just not for me, I loathe it). I'd also maybe go with a Pixel Slate but 12.3 inch sounds too big for me and Google doesn't sell it here so I can't even preview it.
It's a real shame that Sony stopped making the original Vaio (the one which was the size of a large paperback book). The GDP Pocket is supposed to be equivalent and may be more like what you're looking for - I have not tried one.
Linux does support suspend2ram on the Microsoft Go.
Hibernation is just mixing suspend2ram with resume from swap.
The display is not hinged, but the inclinable stand provides a similar functionality.
But yes, you are correct: it will consume very little power while suspended if you use s2ram (resuming immediately) or hibernate (slower ersume, but consumes nothing)
Only s2idle consumes a lot of power.
That said, the XPS 13 has been the best experience I've had with Linux on a laptop. The bundled Ubuntu install works out of the box, but even on other distros it's not difficult to set up, and I've not encountered any driver issues, which have been common on every other laptop I've installed Linux on. It helps that it's a great quality laptop in general - anecdotally in my office, we see far more hardware issues with the latest Macbooks than with XPSs.So I'd recommend it for anyone who wants a Linux or Windows laptop, or is considering switching away from Mac without compromising on hardware quality.
Dell dropped the ball by giving this laptop two TB3 ports and one that only does USB.
It's definitely confusing and a bit frustrating that it's different if you're in a scenario where the bandwidth matters, but at least it's just numbers rather than devices outright not working.
That was a serious miss on Dell's part. I'm not sure why they did that?
Makes it a little annoying for users.
That would effectively mean I have zero ports free when charging and with my permanent Yubikey plugged in. It's never been an issue in practice, but I also wish that Dell would remove the ambiguity and make them all TB3 ports.
I didn’t realise at first, this was due to the difference in USB vs Thunderbolt.
USB-C adds additional pins for alt-mode as well as a higher power delivery allowance, but the USB data protocol part of it is the same as any other type of port of the same spec.
Some of us do work in actual offices and not in some coffee shops down the street. ;)
http://sdphca.ucsd.edu/lab_equip_manuals/usb_20.pdf
Whoah, what's up with that? Not sure why you're inferring this coffee shop story or why you're doing this smug posturing thing but it's pretty obnoxious.
You can't transfer data between two Macs using USB-C to USB-C cable that comes as a charger...
I anticipate that 2019 will be the year when we'll get monitors that are the "dock", so in practice most users will use at most a single port.
I'm more hesitant in practice because the USB3 hub in my current Dell display didn't get along with my computer and would cause blue screens when used. Easy to avoid, I just don't have the USB hub plugged in.
As things get more and more integrated, a problem anywhere in the system means the whole thing doesn't work and you can't avoid the busted parts.
That's a general issue: laptops are pretty integrated and even in your tower it's pretty hard to patch the mobo (and let's not get into the issue of upgrading your L1 cache.
I started computing on a machine (PDP-6) on which you could add instructions with a wire wrap pencil. That's clearly impossible today, but with modern manufacturing, increased integration typically means increased overall reliability.
On the plus side, issues like mine ought to become less common with an integrated device, since it would become impossible for Dell to not test their USB hub when they plug in the display cable.
And I suppose I've considered a thunderbolt hub for the convenience and decided against it just because of what they cost. If that sort of integration were "free" with displays, yeah I'd probably take it.
I plug in my laptop and the monitor comes on, my keyboard and mouse start working over USB, my speakers start working because I turned the builtin soundbar off and enabled the in USB-C/3.55mm DAC that's also built into some Dell monitors, and even my printer and a synthesizer that I use as a practice (piano-)keyboard are are ready to go.
In the past, when I was connecting a laptop to a monitor I had two options:
1) Use a proprietary dock. This is as convenient as the usb-c cable, but you can use it with a single brand of devices. Also, in the case of the usb-c cable you are free to move the laptop around the desk. Not so easy with a dock.
2) Plug the monitor and the peripherals directly the ports of the laptop. When you have to switch laptops frequently, it feels like this process is taking ages. It also looks ugly to have an octopus laptop on the desk.
Having said that the dedicated usb-c docks are notoriously problematic. I have tried a lot to find a single one with more than 3 star reviews, but it seems impossible. At least, I have not heard complains about the built-in docks inside monitors. In this case though, you have to make some sacrifices in the number and variety of ports. For example, in my case, I do not have ethernet.
I wouldn’t recommend buying one if you saw one — the power delivery spec only goes up to 100 W!
I'd either go with a hardware combination that you or a trusted reviewer has tested, or wait another year or so for the bugs to get worked out.
EDIT: Or just avoid Dell, they seem to be behind the curve on figuring out Thunderbolt 3.
The only thing I'm really missing is an ethernet port on the laptop itself, but that's hard in this form factor.
What issues do you have? I do not notice a difference from the xps13 quality.
Poor USB-C support (sometimes ethernet died, sometimes screens changed resolutions...). The problem kept changing from BIOS update to BIOS update.
Then the USB-C harware failed: I could use it only if my laptop stayed perfectly still.
Only a few hours of battery life.
Drunk touchpad.
Speakers died after 3 month.
The 2 first points were fixed after years of hit and miss BIOS updates. It felt like beta testing the product.
Tons of complains from many users on Dell forum, with zero help from Dell.
Given the price of the machine, it's a damn shame.
[1] https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15/spd/xps-...
[2] https://medium.com/@kemra102/linux-on-the-dell-xps-15-919e6d...
Personally I want a 15-inch laptop with Linux preinstalled or perfectly supported, a great trackpad, a bright screen so I can work outdoors, and USB A so I can plug in my mech keyboards without dongles because I lose them all the time.
I do not use Linux on my XPS15. It's just a personal preference but I prefer Windows on my personal machines. I use many virtual machines on the laptop, and those have no issues, but that is a bit different than running it as a OS ;).
But I do love the laptop a lot! That is quite annoying that there are some Linux problems and that you pay a bit extra for MS. I stick with using Linux at work when I am purely doing development work, and at home when doing casual stuff, like a little coding, gaming, and web browsing I prefer Windows.
I do use a mech portably...I like to carry one in my laptop bag and set up at a picnic table at a nearby park. I'll use the built-in keyboard for light work but with heavy typing I need the mech for ergonomics.
Just saying, removing some of these things can be more difficult than the Youtube videos or internet guides would have you believe.
It always amazes me when "premium" laptops use the same penny-pinching techniques as lower tier ones. I'm already paying $1000+, where the heck is it going if not quality parts??
- The touchpad is just garbage compared to the MBP, to the point I have an even more keyboard centric setup on it than my desktop, because I want to drop it out of a window every time I use the touchpad.
- Fans. I've accepted that most laptops will run active cooling more than any radiative chassis MBP, but the issues are that while the fans run constantly, they also change speeds constantly in both Windows and Ubuntu. They'd be far less annoying if they ran at a higher, but steady RPM by averaging response over a large time window. Manually managing fans feels like 1998. Also, for a $3.5K laptop that runs fans constantly, these are some of the jankiest, most rattling prone fans I've heard. Most colleagues with XPS 13/15 have sent them in for fan replacement at least once.
A more niche gripe is that 16:9 is the wrong aspect ratio for a professional laptop.
Pros:
- Screen quality and brightness.
- Keyboard (why I can't just get a new MBP).
- Hardware configurability.
- Many hardware issues at first, especially in linux, were quickly and effectively fixed by Dell driver and firmware updates.
What aspect ratio is more fitting for a professional laptop? 4:3?
Sidenote: I've also read about decent openbsd support for the older version of this laptop. [1]
[1] https://jcs.org/2017/07/14/matebook
It seems all the trackpads got worse when they went button-less to copy Apple.
Maybe the Latitudes have a better touchpad? I don't mind the Lenovo T-series touchpads and they look similar.
I also own MBP13 - and I prefer the keyboard on my Dell over it.
-Many issues with power management, where I would close the lid and it would sleep, only to wake up later randomly. I would find it in my backpack blazing hot with fans at 100%.
-This was the 4k model, and at that point windows barely supported that resolution so the experience was awful with all but the most robust apps. Any legacy app was unusable. I expect this is better now.
-The speakers on 2/3 gave off a poppy, static sound during boot.
-Network connectivity is horrible. Sometimes the adapter would just turn off, requiring a restart. Resuming from sleep would take a full 60 seconds to connect to known networks. Insane
It is the graphics card? Or it does have better build quality or better keyboard or something? Build quality is important to me since I use my laptop all the time.
Older XPS13 wouldn't let them be remapped (Fn is handled in hardware / Linux kernel doesn't see it). If they fix this I'd buy one.
But as it is, the control key is further away from C, D keys than on a desktop keyboard. Unacceptable to me.
This is very frustrating since I don't need the 4k panel (in fact I don't want it for resolution scaling reasons) however I absolutely do need the 16GB of RAM.
Mind boggling.
======
I hope you're right, because I've tried and failed to create such a configuration on the website. Would you mind providing a link to a RAM-configurable 1080 model?
For example, this one allows an i5/i7 choice as well as a 1080/2160 choice, but that's it -- no RAM/storage modifications: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...
EDIT: Found it, and you're right! You have to start with the i7 rather than the i5 on the product home page, but yes, it's there! This is awesome -- never really used the 4K or touch, and could definitely use the extra battery life. https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...
https://i.imgur.com/oI81Gt7.png
There's at least some value in that guarantee that you won't run into any driver issues.
What's different about this from before? I have an xps9350 with fedora - and have noticed sometimes buggy suspending (it shuts down instead of suspending) - but it usually got fixed with kernel update
Everything else about these machines is great, but this is a complete show stopper for me. I would happily upgrade to a brand new $2500+ machine, but only if this is fixed.
also what about the power consumption for linux, i bought a XPS13 for a family member and have not turned it to ubuntu for him as linux always eats up batter faster.
Basically do the same as I always did since fvwm days, a couple of virtual screens, with each one having a maximized application and then I just switch among them.
I almost exclusively prefer 13" displays for development. I feel lost on larger displays.
Then you can easily run everything on fullscreen and not worry about alt-tab-hell.
In Xorg, it's as bad as it ever was, mostly for tech debt / protocol reasons. It can be alleviated somewhat with xrandr hacks, but they're gnarly.
Fractional scaling (125%) is not available. There is a workaround, but I couldn't get it to work.
I have a desktop with Solus and 16GB at home and never run into any issues with it.
I don't recommend this laptop anymore to anyone.
But then I still sold it because I could never get used to its cursor keys and absolutely hated the impossible-to-deactivate-embedded-automatic-brightness-control.
I have the XPS 16" and this happens to me under Arch Linux, but thankfully not very often because I have 16GB of RAM. If you really have to break out of the freeze, then you can try switching to another terminal window (eg. ctrl-alt-F3 or some other function key), then try to kill the offending process. It might take a minute for your keyboard inputs to take effect, but it generally can be done.
tl;dr -- add `nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0` to /etc/default/grub in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter, run `update-grub`, reboot. Verify with `sudo nvme get-feature -f 0x0c -H /dev/nvme0`.
Totally agreed that this shouldn't happen. I hope that's your issue.
Wouldn't this happen with any 8 GB laptop? Not sure what you blame the XPS 13 for that.
Perhaps OS support is your problem? Did you order it with Ubuntu or with Windows?
Although those tend to be a lot pricier than the regular XPS 15's
Also what is the point of 4K on a 13" laptop? Honestly the 1080p model needs scaling to at least 1.25 as 1.0 is just painful even with perfect vision. Am I missing something obvious or is it just so Dell can tick the 4K marketing check box?
Providing it has no coil whine the only potential issue I see is the crappy SOLDERED(!) Killer wifi card. Damn shame you can't get it with an Intel one.
The ideal high DPI resolution for a screen of this size would be 3200x1800, allowing an effective resolution of 1600x900 with even 2x integer scaling.
[edit] Oh... and you can get the 16G model without the 4K display. Just select the i7/8G model and upgrade it.
Nothing, that's pointless, I have the 1080 version and luckily no coil whine.
https://youtube/watch?v=blyswNKEPEY
(also no problems with WiFi either)