6 ms·

Yes, I've been using a Retina MacBook Pro 13" (early 15) and 15" (mid 15) and just picked up the xps 13 9350 with iris pro. There are definitely some quality

by zeusk 10y ago

Yes, I've been using a Retina MacBook Pro 13" (early 15) and 15" (mid 15) and just picked up the xps 13 9350 with iris pro. There are definitely some quality control issues but once you get a working model with no faults (I had one that wouldn't reboot and had terrible coil whine, one that had loose trackpad and yellow tint on screen but this could also be because of Amazon's shitty packaging where the laptop was in a box with only some brown paper crumpled in) - atleast they took them back no questions asked. I'm amazed how far windows laptops have come along. The only real downsides are that it power throttles (and thermal too, but I placed my own aftermarket thermal paste and it doesn't cross 66 C on full load now) due to the iris GPU itself consuming 18W at it's rated turbo boost with the SoC's TDP being 15W (long turbo) and 25W (short turbo). Perhaps go with the i5 model that has the HD 520 or the new 9360 that has kabylake with better thermal and power consumption (HD 620 is roughly similar to HD 540 but won't throttle). You can also use Intel's XTU to undervolt and better battery life and throttling if you're going to use windows. Linux runs flawlessly, infact so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card. AMA

gaara87 10y ago
What version of linux are you running on it? What do you primarily use it for?
toyg 10y ago
> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card Please tell us more! What card am I supposed to replace it with, and is it anything involving soldering or just sockets and switches?
- th0br0 10y ago
  The WiFi card is a simple mPCIe card. You can just switch that out.
- snerbles 10y ago
  If it's anything like the 9343 model from 2015, a T5 Torx driver and a wedge tool can pop it open. I swapped the Broadcom card for an Intel 7620 in mine. https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157
  - kichik 10y ago
    +1 on this. If you get the Broadcom card in your Dell, replace it ASAP. It can cause so many issues but it's really easy to replace. Costs around $40 including the torx driver and takes under 10 minutes.
- zeusk 10y ago
  The broadcomm DW1560 is the currently recommended card. There are numerous guides on replacing the wifi card in the dell, ifixit has guides. And because this isn't apple, the laptop has a upgrade/repair/owner's manual (online).
th0br0 10y ago
A recent Linux kernel (4.9.0-rc1) even gets you 9-10hrs of battery life after 9 months of heavy usage!
rloc 10y ago
> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card How do you install OS X on this machine ? Any tutorial you can recommend ?
- danudey 10y ago
  If you google for 'hackintosh' that should set you well on your way.
caleblloyd 10y ago
> xps 13 9350 with iris pro Do you mean Iris Graphics 540? I think Iris Pro Graphics 550 included on-chip eDRAM and isn't available on any of their 15W Skylake CPUs, it's a 28W only part.
- zeusk 10y ago
  Oh, yes. Thanks for the correction. I thought only Pro SKUs get EDRAM but turns out I was wrong.
  - caleblloyd 10y ago
    I didn't know 540 had eDRAM! That's awesome. Their naming sceme is very confusing.
    - sliken 10y ago
      IRIS = edram
      - caleblloyd 10y ago
        For Skylake, yes. For Haswell and Broadwell, no. A small "e" on the graphics generation denotes eDRAM. Iris 5100 (Haswell) and Iris 6100 (Broadwell) were GT3, no eDRAM. Iris Pro 5200 (Haswell) and Iris Pro 6200 (Broadwell) were GT3e with eDRAM. For Skylake they switched it up so that Iris 540 and Iris 550 are both GT3e, and Iris Pro 580 is GT4e. All with eDRAM. My comment above is incorrect, Iris 550 is not the "pro" version, Iris Pro 580 is.
caconym_ 10y ago
> once you get a working model with no faults (I had one that wouldn't reboot and had terrible coil whine, one that had loose trackpad and yellow tint on screen I never understood how people can deal with multiple rounds of RMAing (or whatever) a defective product and still turn around and recommend it to other people. If a company can't consistently deliver their products intact and functional, why should I waste hours of my time (which effectively increases the price of the product by hundreds of dollars) picking up their mess? The fact that this is still a thing kinda says to me that PC laptop OEMs still aren't ready to go toe to toe with Apple in the customer experience department, despite the overall improved quality of their offerings.
- jjn2009 10y ago
  this is a complete not starter. I had an XPS 15 that stopped turning on after a week and I immediately returned it and did not bother trying a new one. Such a waste of time to get situated on a new device then find out said device is broken.
- vortico 10y ago
  If a company can offer a product substantially cheaper than a competitor with lower reliability but offer acceptable customer support for dealing with these issues, the hours of my time I spend fixing the issue might very well surpass the extra money I spend on a competitor.
- zeusk 10y ago
  well let's not get into how bad Apple screws customers when it does so. I had the macbook (was it '12?) that had the gpu death issue - apple denied that the issue was a defect until a class action was brought against them; I was out at-least a thousand dollars as I had to toss the unit because apple wanted me to pay for the repairs which cost almost as much as a new unit in my country. Did I mention I faced the same bullshit with iPhone 4? Maybe I was just holding it wrong. And as I said, `but this could also be because of Amazon's shitty packaging where the laptop was in a box with only some brown paper crumpled in` - I'm not even sure if the issue was because of improper shipping or factory defect. If you're all that worried about wasting your time, go to the nearest retail store and test your unit as you buy it. I also forgot to mention, I bought the defective models through Amazon Warehouse Deals - so it could very well have been a return due to the said defects.
jseliger 10y ago
I'm surprised no one has linked to this already, but Ars: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/the-xps-13-de-dell-continues-to-build-a-reliable-linux-lineage/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/the-xps-13-de-dell-co... has a pretty thorough review. If we're talking about MBP replacements, Purism also has an interesting one: https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-13 https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-13, but they're much smaller than Dell.

by zeusk 10y ago

gaara87 10y ago

What version of linux are you running on it? What do you primarily use it for?

toyg 10y ago

> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card Please tell us more! What card am I supposed to replace it with, and is it anything involving soldering or just sockets and switches?

th0br0 10y ago
The WiFi card is a simple mPCIe card. You can just switch that out.
snerbles 10y ago
If it's anything like the 9343 model from 2015, a T5 Torx driver and a wedge tool can pop it open. I swapped the Broadcom card for an Intel 7620 in mine. https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157
- kichik 10y ago
  +1 on this. If you get the Broadcom card in your Dell, replace it ASAP. It can cause so many issues but it's really easy to replace. Costs around $40 including the torx driver and takes under 10 minutes.
zeusk 10y ago
The broadcomm DW1560 is the currently recommended card. There are numerous guides on replacing the wifi card in the dell, ifixit has guides. And because this isn't apple, the laptop has a upgrade/repair/owner's manual (online).

th0br0 10y ago

A recent Linux kernel (4.9.0-rc1) even gets you 9-10hrs of battery life after 9 months of heavy usage!

rloc 10y ago

> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card How do you install OS X on this machine ? Any tutorial you can recommend ?

danudey 10y ago
If you google for 'hackintosh' that should set you well on your way.

caleblloyd 10y ago

> xps 13 9350 with iris pro Do you mean Iris Graphics 540? I think Iris Pro Graphics 550 included on-chip eDRAM and isn't available on any of their 15W Skylake CPUs, it's a 28W only part.

zeusk 10y ago
Oh, yes. Thanks for the correction. I thought only Pro SKUs get EDRAM but turns out I was wrong.
- caleblloyd 10y ago
  I didn't know 540 had eDRAM! That's awesome. Their naming sceme is very confusing.
  - sliken 10y ago
    IRIS = edram
    - caleblloyd 10y ago
      For Skylake, yes. For Haswell and Broadwell, no. A small "e" on the graphics generation denotes eDRAM. Iris 5100 (Haswell) and Iris 6100 (Broadwell) were GT3, no eDRAM. Iris Pro 5200 (Haswell) and Iris Pro 6200 (Broadwell) were GT3e with eDRAM. For Skylake they switched it up so that Iris 540 and Iris 550 are both GT3e, and Iris Pro 580 is GT4e. All with eDRAM. My comment above is incorrect, Iris 550 is not the "pro" version, Iris Pro 580 is.

caconym_ 10y ago

> once you get a working model with no faults (I had one that wouldn't reboot and had terrible coil whine, one that had loose trackpad and yellow tint on screen I never understood how people can deal with multiple rounds of RMAing (or whatever) a defective product and still turn around and recommend it to other people. If a company can't consistently deliver their products intact and functional, why should I waste hours of my time (which effectively increases the price of the product by hundreds of dollars) picking up their mess? The fact that this is still a thing kinda says to me that PC laptop OEMs still aren't ready to go toe to toe with Apple in the customer experience department, despite the overall improved quality of their offerings.

jjn2009 10y ago
this is a complete not starter. I had an XPS 15 that stopped turning on after a week and I immediately returned it and did not bother trying a new one. Such a waste of time to get situated on a new device then find out said device is broken.
vortico 10y ago
If a company can offer a product substantially cheaper than a competitor with lower reliability but offer acceptable customer support for dealing with these issues, the hours of my time I spend fixing the issue might very well surpass the extra money I spend on a competitor.
zeusk 10y ago
well let's not get into how bad Apple screws customers when it does so. I had the macbook (was it '12?) that had the gpu death issue - apple denied that the issue was a defect until a class action was brought against them; I was out at-least a thousand dollars as I had to toss the unit because apple wanted me to pay for the repairs which cost almost as much as a new unit in my country. Did I mention I faced the same bullshit with iPhone 4? Maybe I was just holding it wrong. And as I said, `but this could also be because of Amazon's shitty packaging where the laptop was in a box with only some brown paper crumpled in` - I'm not even sure if the issue was because of improper shipping or factory defect. If you're all that worried about wasting your time, go to the nearest retail store and test your unit as you buy it. I also forgot to mention, I bought the defective models through Amazon Warehouse Deals - so it could very well have been a return due to the said defects.

jseliger 10y ago

I'm surprised no one has linked to this already, but Ars: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/the-xps-13-de-dell-continues-to-build-a-reliable-linux-lineage/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/the-xps-13-de-dell-co... has a pretty thorough review. If we're talking about MBP replacements, Purism also has an interesting one: https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-13 https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-13, but they're much smaller than Dell.