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Dell Xps 13 Developer Edition availability?

17 points by sirwitti ↗ HN
I'm a very happy Xps 13 9343 (2015) developer edition user and think of buying a new one.

For some reason dell does not offer the developer edition in europe even though it's being sold in the US for about a year.

I tried all offical ways I found to contact someone at dell and even resellers to get any information on this.

I also contacted @DellCares on Twitter, but did not get a response.

Since it seems like there are always people who know stuff on HN:

Why is it that I can't buy a Dell Xps 13 Developer Edition in Europe?

All the best, Martin

11 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 44.3 ms ] thread
galbar
According to this Canonical blog post it should be being sold in EU: https://ubuntu.com/blog/dell-xps-13-developer-edition-with-u...

I have the 2017's version, loving it and now I'm worried about replacing it if something happens :/

stupidcar
At least in the UK, I've found Dell and Canonical's official line on availability often simply does not match the reality of the Dell online store.
lerela
I do not have the answer to your question, but Ubuntu 21.04 mostly works on the non-developer edition of the 9310 (the WiFi card was not supported when it was released, but it's been fixed in kernel 5.11).

Suspend is still not properly supported (no deep sleep) but that might be the case with the developer edition as well from what I have read, and Dell does not seem to care. That is the main downside for me.

Overall, I can't say that I've been very happy with its performances so far, and the lack of USB-A compared to your version is a real pain. I guess this would be the same have I had been able to purchase a developer edition.

jmkni
A colleague of mine was able to get one in the UK by just talking to their sales team (some of them are better than others) on the online chat a few months ago.

The sales rep put together a custom order, didn't seem to be that big of a deal.

treffer
In the past I've pinged Barton George about this on Twitter. Try pinging @barton808 instead. Usually sales and customer support should be able to give you details on when/how to buy.

It usually takes a few extra months to get the Developer Edition in Europe, though

villgax
I was left speechless after realising everyone keeps buying Windows OS licenses every 3-4 years on average, each time they get a new OEM device. And mostly likely the same OS version at least twice.
lovetocode
Yeah you would have to if you want to keep Windows on both machines. Just because someone buys a new laptop doesn’t make the old one obsolete. I usually just give my old laptops away for free to those in need of it.
villgax
Yeah but then I didn't really use the OS license for how long I could have used it right, considering what I paid?
stevesimmons
Why do you need to buy a developer edition machine?

I bought my last two XPS13s in UK and Netherlands, negotiated the best specs/price/availability tradeoff via phone and webchat, and then ditched Windows in favour of Ubuntu 21.04.

Very easy. Great machines.

My only complaint is the single USB-C power/monitor cable display detection got less reliable when I upgraded from Ubuntu 20.10 to 21.04. Haven't had time to follow it up.

CogitoCogito
Are you guaranteed that an XPS 13 that comes with Windows has the same chipset as one that has guaranteed Linux support? I recently got an X1 Carbon only to find out that they sell slightly different versions simultaneously. Mine came with Windows and when I tried to install Linux, I found out that the WiFi chip was new and didn’t actually have a mainline driver. As it turned out there was an experimental driver that did work (which required compiling a specific custom kernel), but it took a day or two to sort that out. This wouldn’t have been an issue had I got the version officially supporting Linux.

Anyway not sure if the same problem could affect an XPS 13, but it is something to consider. Had I got mine 6 months earlier I wouldn’t even have had an experimental driver to work with.

Edit: I see this was brought up here already so it seems like you’d probably be okay:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27880558

duped
There was a shortage for most of 2020 and only in the last month or so has the DE been available domestically. It might be lagging a bit internationally.