6 ms·

I've been doing very similar research, but with slightly different constraints, so for those who might be looking for a more powerful laptop: * 15 inch screen,

by dmayle 10y ago

I've been doing very similar research, but with slightly different constraints, so for those who might be looking for a more powerful laptop: * 15 inch screen, preferably hidpi * ability to power two external 4k@60 displays * 64GB of RAM * M.2 NVMe SSD (preferably Samsung SM961 / 960 Pro) * quad core (this trumps kaby lake vs skylake) * touch screen Other than that, I tend to agree with the opinions expressed in the article. I have found four possibilities: * Dell Precision 7510 paired with TB15 thunderbolt dock (no touch screen) * Lenovo Thinkpad P50 (People seem to have troubles getting 2 external screens at 4k@60, no touch) * Falcon Northwest TLX / System76 Oryx Pro / Clevo (1080p no touch, bad battery, but has GTX 1070, more USB-C ports) There is one more possible contender, which is the as yet unreleased kaby lake XPS 15. Given the XPS 13 refresh, I suspect we'll see the new XPS 15 in the December / January time frame. If I knew for certain that it would support 64GB of RAM, I would wait and get that machine, but at this point I'm leaning towards buying the Precision 7510 in the next week or two.

jrs95 10y ago
Software support for hidpi outside of OS X/macOS isn't great. If you can test it out on an existing computer before buying a new one I'd recommend doing that just to be sure that's what you want. Otherwise 1080p would probably be bearable on a 15" screen I would imagine.
- dmayle 10y ago
  I've got a colleague who had the P50 4k display, who said the only annoying part at the time was that moving Chrome or IntelliJ from a lowdpi to highdpi display meant you had to relaunch those processes (and this was some time ago). While I agree this is annoying, Fedora 25 launches this month with Wayland, which is supposed to fix these issues.
intrasight 10y ago
I'm doing same analysis. Am leaning towards P50 since it supports multiple PCIe x4 whereas Dell only supports one. Could you link to references about external screen troubles?
fdim 10y ago
What about Precision 5510?
- dmayle 10y ago
  The 5510 gives you 4k touch, but is limited to 32GB of RAM (and has a slightly weaker processor) This is the business version of the skylake XPS 15.
  - fdim 10y ago
    Fits perfectly for my needs :) I've got 6820HQ and FHD. Not sure if anyone would notice any difference from 6920HQ. Also "limited to 32GB" sounds a bit funny. Would you mind sharing why would you need more? (I am developer btw)
- cowsandmilk 10y ago
  maxes out at 32GB of memory on Dell's web site.
cowsandmilk 10y ago
If I configure the 7510 with the 3840x2160 LCD, it doesn't let me select Ubuntu as the OS instead of Windows. Do you have any info on whether it works, but just isn't supported?
- mattst88 10y ago
  Ubuntu 14.04 is very likely not going to be a good experience on a 4k display. A newer release, however, should be significantly better. I'm not sure if it's possible to work around Dell's configuration constraint system.
vladimir-y 10y ago
> I have found four possibilities: Such heavy laptops can not be considered as an alternative for Macbooks.
- jacquesc 10y ago
  That assumes everyone cares about weight / thinness over of system performance. Apple no longer gives users an option to choice their preference.
  - vladimir-y 10y ago
    It's very easy to find a decently made heavy laptop (jut get any Dell/HP workstation, or gaming Alienware/etc), much harder to find a portable decent laptop. The main laptop's feature is its portability, else is secondary.
    - sverige 10y ago
      So a half inch thinner and a pound or two in weight is the main consideration? I have yet to find any laptop that isn't portable by definition. I have an old ThinkPad that I use sometimes for OpenBSD, and I find it to be very portable.
- sverige 10y ago
  Why this fetish over saving a little weight? I don't understand it, but it's common among the MBP crowd.
  - vladimir-y 10y ago
    Not a fetish, but practical thing, unless you keep your laptop constantly on the table or drive it only in the car.
    - Nadya 10y ago
      The difference between carrying 2lbs or carrying 6lbs is negligible to me. Unless I'm going hiking with 80lbs of gear, I won't appreciate a loss of a few pounds. Any scenario I can imagine where I'm already carrying 80lbs in gear involves scenarios that I wouldn't be bringing my laptop regardless of the weight. Especially if you get a proper bag or backpack to carry the laptop with. The laptop would need to weigh over 12lbs before I even noticed I was carrying it with a shoulder-strap.
lhl 10y ago
The Dell Precision looks like a good option if you don't need a better GPU (Quadro M2000M ~= GTX960m). I've been doing VR dev so I went w/ an Aorus (the smaller X3v6 on preorder), but you may want to look at something like the X5v6 which should tick all your checkboxes save touch and might be more appealing than the Aorus: http://www.aorus.com/Product/Features/X5%20v6 http://www.aorus.com/Product/Features/X5%20v6 One bummer about this new gen of Aorus' is the mystifying lack of TB3 (despite USB-C 3.1 on an otherwise top-of-the-line-specced system). Too bad about the P50 having external display issues. A built-in 100% NTSC / 100% AdobeRGB 4K panel sounds great. (same crap Quadro card though)
- dmayle 10y ago
  The MSI GT62VR looks like what you want. It meets all of my needs plus GTX 1070, plus Thunderbolt 3
dnissley 10y ago
According to Intel, Kaby Lake mobile processors support a max of 32gb of ram. http://ark.intel.com/products/95451/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz- http://ark.intel.com/products/95451/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-Proc...
- dmayle 10y ago
  The high end XPS 15 currently uses the Skylake-H, and will probably also use the Kaby Lake-H (quad core) as opposed to the U dual core, and we don't know if that will have higher RAM support
yannovitch 10y ago
Personally, I took a leap of faith and I ordered the new Alienware 15, because 50 % of my time I do Film editing with color grading and graphics heavy things (so the nvidia 10 70 should be useful) and 50% of my time I do development (Kubernetes,...) so the 32gb of RAM come in handy. Plus it has NVMe, 4k screen,HDMI 2 + DP, TB3,... it check a lot of your boxes. I considered the Thinkpad P50 and the HP Zbook 15 but I found the GPU to be a bit weak. Plus I heard many issues with the HDMI 1.4 on these machines.

by dmayle 10y ago

jrs95 10y ago

Software support for hidpi outside of OS X/macOS isn't great. If you can test it out on an existing computer before buying a new one I'd recommend doing that just to be sure that's what you want. Otherwise 1080p would probably be bearable on a 15" screen I would imagine.

dmayle 10y ago
I've got a colleague who had the P50 4k display, who said the only annoying part at the time was that moving Chrome or IntelliJ from a lowdpi to highdpi display meant you had to relaunch those processes (and this was some time ago). While I agree this is annoying, Fedora 25 launches this month with Wayland, which is supposed to fix these issues.

intrasight 10y ago

I'm doing same analysis. Am leaning towards P50 since it supports multiple PCIe x4 whereas Dell only supports one. Could you link to references about external screen troubles?

fdim 10y ago

What about Precision 5510?

dmayle 10y ago
The 5510 gives you 4k touch, but is limited to 32GB of RAM (and has a slightly weaker processor) This is the business version of the skylake XPS 15.
- fdim 10y ago
  Fits perfectly for my needs :) I've got 6820HQ and FHD. Not sure if anyone would notice any difference from 6920HQ. Also "limited to 32GB" sounds a bit funny. Would you mind sharing why would you need more? (I am developer btw)
cowsandmilk 10y ago
maxes out at 32GB of memory on Dell's web site.

cowsandmilk 10y ago

If I configure the 7510 with the 3840x2160 LCD, it doesn't let me select Ubuntu as the OS instead of Windows. Do you have any info on whether it works, but just isn't supported?

mattst88 10y ago
Ubuntu 14.04 is very likely not going to be a good experience on a 4k display. A newer release, however, should be significantly better. I'm not sure if it's possible to work around Dell's configuration constraint system.

vladimir-y 10y ago

> I have found four possibilities: Such heavy laptops can not be considered as an alternative for Macbooks.

jacquesc 10y ago
That assumes everyone cares about weight / thinness over of system performance. Apple no longer gives users an option to choice their preference.
- vladimir-y 10y ago
  It's very easy to find a decently made heavy laptop (jut get any Dell/HP workstation, or gaming Alienware/etc), much harder to find a portable decent laptop. The main laptop's feature is its portability, else is secondary.
  - sverige 10y ago
    So a half inch thinner and a pound or two in weight is the main consideration? I have yet to find any laptop that isn't portable by definition. I have an old ThinkPad that I use sometimes for OpenBSD, and I find it to be very portable.
sverige 10y ago
Why this fetish over saving a little weight? I don't understand it, but it's common among the MBP crowd.
- vladimir-y 10y ago
  Not a fetish, but practical thing, unless you keep your laptop constantly on the table or drive it only in the car.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    The difference between carrying 2lbs or carrying 6lbs is negligible to me. Unless I'm going hiking with 80lbs of gear, I won't appreciate a loss of a few pounds. Any scenario I can imagine where I'm already carrying 80lbs in gear involves scenarios that I wouldn't be bringing my laptop regardless of the weight. Especially if you get a proper bag or backpack to carry the laptop with. The laptop would need to weigh over 12lbs before I even noticed I was carrying it with a shoulder-strap.

lhl 10y ago

The Dell Precision looks like a good option if you don't need a better GPU (Quadro M2000M ~= GTX960m). I've been doing VR dev so I went w/ an Aorus (the smaller X3v6 on preorder), but you may want to look at something like the X5v6 which should tick all your checkboxes save touch and might be more appealing than the Aorus: http://www.aorus.com/Product/Features/X5%20v6 http://www.aorus.com/Product/Features/X5%20v6 One bummer about this new gen of Aorus' is the mystifying lack of TB3 (despite USB-C 3.1 on an otherwise top-of-the-line-specced system). Too bad about the P50 having external display issues. A built-in 100% NTSC / 100% AdobeRGB 4K panel sounds great. (same crap Quadro card though)

dmayle 10y ago
The MSI GT62VR looks like what you want. It meets all of my needs plus GTX 1070, plus Thunderbolt 3

dnissley 10y ago

According to Intel, Kaby Lake mobile processors support a max of 32gb of ram. http://ark.intel.com/products/95451/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz- http://ark.intel.com/products/95451/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-Proc...

dmayle 10y ago
The high end XPS 15 currently uses the Skylake-H, and will probably also use the Kaby Lake-H (quad core) as opposed to the U dual core, and we don't know if that will have higher RAM support

yannovitch 10y ago

Personally, I took a leap of faith and I ordered the new Alienware 15, because 50 % of my time I do Film editing with color grading and graphics heavy things (so the nvidia 10 70 should be useful) and 50% of my time I do development (Kubernetes,...) so the 32gb of RAM come in handy. Plus it has NVMe, 4k screen,HDMI 2 + DP, TB3,... it check a lot of your boxes. I considered the Thinkpad P50 and the HP Zbook 15 but I found the GPU to be a bit weak. Plus I heard many issues with the HDMI 1.4 on these machines.