10 ms·

The posts comparing various laptops to the Dell XPS 13 and calling them similarly sized are missing a key point: the XPS 13's lack of bezels. It is a 13" scree

The posts comparing various laptops to the Dell XPS 13 and calling them similarly sized are missing a key point: the XPS 13's lack of bezels. It is a 13" screen, but due to the lack of bezels, it basically fits in an 11" chassis. I think that's an often overlooked detail and one of the pieces of "sexiness" that makes it very difficult to want to switch away from an XPS 13: it's so damn portable. System76 needs to come out with something comparable to that before I can switch. The market of people who want something rugged/durable/functional are already taken care of by the Thinkpads. The market that is still untapped is that of the Linux ultrabooks. Developers and other Linux enthusiasts basically just want a MBA/MBP that runs Linux natively. Do that, and people will flock to it.

lai 10y ago
I would also add that if they can also get the same quality trackpad as that of MacBooks, I would also flock to it.
- criddell 10y ago
  This has bothered me for a long time. Why are PC trackpads so awful? Why don't PC makers just do what Apple does with their trackpad?
  - lai 10y ago
    I think it's patented.
    - lobster_johnson 10y ago
      Isn't a trackpad essentially a touch screen? Non-Apple phones to that just fine. There's the tactile feedback, but even the old-style physically-moving trackpad would be better than what vendors have today.
  - gjjrfcbugxbhf 10y ago
    Or even what phone manufacturers do with their screens. The problem isn't ability though it's cost. The market for laptops is seriously cost competitive and customers don't know if a trackpad will be good or bad until after purchased (with the exception of a few brands like apple).
  - AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
    I believe they're trying. Microsoft has a "Precision Trackpad" spec for this purpose: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/pc-oems-ditch-the-custom-touchpad-drivers-give-us-precision-touchpad/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/pc-oems-ditch-the-cu...
sacul 10y ago
MBP-quality trackpads and MBP-equivalent battery life. I can't understand why battery life isn't higher on the list of "must haves" for people who want a nice linux laptop.
- themodelplumber 10y ago
  Do you ever have to do any laptopping for more than 2-3 hours in a place where there is no opportunity to plug in to a power source? My experience simply says that's really unlikely for me, and my couch and desk at work are 99.999% of the use cases. So battery allows me to meet these vendors halfway.
  - kazagistar 10y ago
    Airplanes?
    - bmuppireddy 10y ago
      A person who travels frequently doesnt need a *nix laptop.
      - lvh 10y ago
        It appears you're contradicting an ancestor's lived experience :) Is it really so ridiculous to suggest that sometimes, people who use Linux (let's call them technical) travel a lot? Is the idea of a programmer who flies around the world to present their work at conferences really so ridiculous? (There are lots of other archetypes, like consultants, SME owners that are still very technical themselves, et cetera.)
        gh02t 10y ago
        I'm an engineer that travels a lot for conferences and I use Linux almost exclusively... I'd love a svelte laptop with long battery life.
arcanus 10y ago
> The market that is still untapped is that of the Linux ultrabooks. Developers and other Linux enthusiasts basically just want a MBA/MBP that runs Linux natively. Do that, and people will flock to it. You nailed it. I'm someone who only works in Linux but admires (and desires) the form factor of a MBA.
- lallysingh 10y ago
  With a full-size escape key, and even a trackpoint option. That'd be nice.
neverminder 10y ago
This. Plus at least two USB 3.1 Type-C (Thunderbolt/DisplayPort) ports with USB Type-C charging would really make it stand out.
- cmurf 10y ago
  Strictly speaking this is Thunderbolt 3 (PCIe) which when the proper adapter is plugged in, can become HDMI, DisplayPort. And it would be USB 3.1 Gen 2. USB 3.1 alone implies Gen 1 which is the same as USB 3.0. The HP Spectre (W2K28UA) I have has three type-c ports. One is USB 3.1 Gen 1, is not Thunderbolt, is power. Two are Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 Gen 2, no power. (No power icon anyway, I haven't tried plugging the power adapter into either of them, maybe it'd work.)
  - neverminder 10y ago
    Regarding USB Type-C charging - I have 2015 Chromebook Pixel LS with two USB Type-C ports (one on each side of the laptop). The charging works on both ports which makes sense and I'm fairly sure this is the first ever laptop to allow charger to be plugged in on both sides of the laptop - convenience not to be underestimated. So from my point of view USB Type-C charging should work on every USB Type-C port.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    > USB 3.1 alone implies Gen 1 Does it really? I say slap anyone that implies that until they stop doing it.
andrepd 10y ago
If portability is important to you I suggest checking the Xiaomi Air 13. It's as lightweight as an XPS 13, and almost as small (+0.5cm in length and width), with arguable better keyboard, touchpad, screen and general build quality for about 1/2 the price.
ajacksified 10y ago
I used to covet my friend's Dell due to the lack of bezel (after making fun of his laptop choices for years.) Then - we got on a video call. To compensate for the bezel, the webcam is on the BOTTOM of the monitor... which meant looking up his nose.
adamc 10y ago
Actually, what I want is a 17" screen (it's not just the pixels, I need the fonts to be big enough for my aging eyes) that is not crazy heavy.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  I don't understand the recent trend of very-high-resolution devices that strongly recommend you not adjust their 250% default scaling. OK, you have lots and lots of pixels that are too small to see individually or in combination. Put in a cheaper screen with the same functional resolution. Lower price, same quality.
  - pkolaczk 10y ago
    The quality is not the same. Lower resolution + anti-aliasing makes the text blurry.
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      If my screen requires 250% scaling to be usable (which I am not making up - that is precisely the scaling it "recommends"), then lower resolution with pixels that are six times bigger is not a loss of quality. Large black squares composed of smaller black squares are not somehow ineffably superior to large unitary black squares.
      - pkolaczk 10y ago
        Wait, wat? Are you using bitmap fonts? Scaling of vector fonts in modern desktop systems doesn't work that way. Scaling is done before rasterization, and you would get perfectly sharp edges with 250% scaling.
solatic 10y ago
> The market of people who want something rugged/durable/functional are already taken care of by the Thinkpads. Are mostly unhappily taken care of by the Thinkpads. The brand has gone downhill since IBM sold to Lenovo, which has steadily eroded the level of quality that can be expected from a Thinkpad-branded laptop. Modern Thinkpads aren't nearly as serviceable or as durable as the Thinkpads of IBM's era. People who stick with Thinkpads today tend to do so because a) the enterprise support is still relatively solid, b) no real competitors for the Trackpoint, if you want one you need to get a Thinkpad, c) the keyboard, while not as high quality as it used to be, is still great relative to most of the market, d) Thinkpads are still basically reference laptops for Linux, and as a customer, it's reasonable to assume that there will be good hardware support. If System76 wanted to go after Thinkpads, they probably could.
- sithadmin 10y ago
  >Thinkpads >the enterprise support is still relatively solid That's not the experience I've had with my own company's support requests with Lenovo, and the lousy support relative to Dell is a prime reason why most clients I work with are dropping Lenovo for Dell.
  - solatic 10y ago
    Relative compared to, you know, companies like Acer or Samsung, which aren't really in the enterprise support market, and whose products enterprise IT shops would have to largely support themselves.
  - ghostly_s 10y ago
    Seconded. We are a major enterprise customer of Lenovo's and have been deeply disappointed with the level of service particularly vs. what we used to get with Dell (~6 years ago).
    - JudasGoat 10y ago
      Maybe some PC company will get the idea to hire retired IT people to do tech support remotely. I think it would be competitive to off shoring.
FireBeyond 10y ago
Very true. I've played with both and XPS 9360 and 9560 (the latest 13 and 15"): The 13 is smaller than my rMBP 13 (and size wise is between it and my girlfriend's Macbook). The 15 is only a little bigger than the rMBP 13. I _love_ the bezel or lack thereof. The only weirdness is that "bottom of screen" webcam, but I barely use it. And if you get the 9560... wow. 4K display, GTX 1050M, i7 w/ 32GB. I'm very happy.
zanny 10y ago
Why do we need another XPS 13 when they already have the developer edition of it that supports Ubuntu? Like others have said, Lenovo's Thinkpad contract with Red Hat is tenuous at best and their quality has only been getting worse. Its not a default install, its not first class, and Lenovo is not dedicating staff to driver support in consumer products. We have the XPS developer edition program making great ultraportables for Linux. We need a business class workstation notebook in the 17" form factor with ruggedness and great features that has complete and total Linux support and inclusion out of the box.

lai 10y ago

I would also add that if they can also get the same quality trackpad as that of MacBooks, I would also flock to it.

criddell 10y ago
This has bothered me for a long time. Why are PC trackpads so awful? Why don't PC makers just do what Apple does with their trackpad?
- lai 10y ago
  I think it's patented.
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    Isn't a trackpad essentially a touch screen? Non-Apple phones to that just fine. There's the tactile feedback, but even the old-style physically-moving trackpad would be better than what vendors have today.
- gjjrfcbugxbhf 10y ago
  Or even what phone manufacturers do with their screens. The problem isn't ability though it's cost. The market for laptops is seriously cost competitive and customers don't know if a trackpad will be good or bad until after purchased (with the exception of a few brands like apple).
- AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
  I believe they're trying. Microsoft has a "Precision Trackpad" spec for this purpose: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/pc-oems-ditch-the-custom-touchpad-drivers-give-us-precision-touchpad/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/pc-oems-ditch-the-cu...

sacul 10y ago

MBP-quality trackpads and MBP-equivalent battery life. I can't understand why battery life isn't higher on the list of "must haves" for people who want a nice linux laptop.

themodelplumber 10y ago
Do you ever have to do any laptopping for more than 2-3 hours in a place where there is no opportunity to plug in to a power source? My experience simply says that's really unlikely for me, and my couch and desk at work are 99.999% of the use cases. So battery allows me to meet these vendors halfway.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  Airplanes?
  - bmuppireddy 10y ago
    A person who travels frequently doesnt need a *nix laptop.
    - lvh 10y ago
      It appears you're contradicting an ancestor's lived experience :) Is it really so ridiculous to suggest that sometimes, people who use Linux (let's call them technical) travel a lot? Is the idea of a programmer who flies around the world to present their work at conferences really so ridiculous? (There are lots of other archetypes, like consultants, SME owners that are still very technical themselves, et cetera.)
      - gh02t 10y ago
        I'm an engineer that travels a lot for conferences and I use Linux almost exclusively... I'd love a svelte laptop with long battery life.

arcanus 10y ago

> The market that is still untapped is that of the Linux ultrabooks. Developers and other Linux enthusiasts basically just want a MBA/MBP that runs Linux natively. Do that, and people will flock to it. You nailed it. I'm someone who only works in Linux but admires (and desires) the form factor of a MBA.

lallysingh 10y ago
With a full-size escape key, and even a trackpoint option. That'd be nice.

neverminder 10y ago

This. Plus at least two USB 3.1 Type-C (Thunderbolt/DisplayPort) ports with USB Type-C charging would really make it stand out.

cmurf 10y ago
Strictly speaking this is Thunderbolt 3 (PCIe) which when the proper adapter is plugged in, can become HDMI, DisplayPort. And it would be USB 3.1 Gen 2. USB 3.1 alone implies Gen 1 which is the same as USB 3.0. The HP Spectre (W2K28UA) I have has three type-c ports. One is USB 3.1 Gen 1, is not Thunderbolt, is power. Two are Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 Gen 2, no power. (No power icon anyway, I haven't tried plugging the power adapter into either of them, maybe it'd work.)
- neverminder 10y ago
  Regarding USB Type-C charging - I have 2015 Chromebook Pixel LS with two USB Type-C ports (one on each side of the laptop). The charging works on both ports which makes sense and I'm fairly sure this is the first ever laptop to allow charger to be plugged in on both sides of the laptop - convenience not to be underestimated. So from my point of view USB Type-C charging should work on every USB Type-C port.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  > USB 3.1 alone implies Gen 1 Does it really? I say slap anyone that implies that until they stop doing it.

andrepd 10y ago

If portability is important to you I suggest checking the Xiaomi Air 13. It's as lightweight as an XPS 13, and almost as small (+0.5cm in length and width), with arguable better keyboard, touchpad, screen and general build quality for about 1/2 the price.

ajacksified 10y ago

I used to covet my friend's Dell due to the lack of bezel (after making fun of his laptop choices for years.) Then - we got on a video call. To compensate for the bezel, the webcam is on the BOTTOM of the monitor... which meant looking up his nose.

adamc 10y ago

Actually, what I want is a 17" screen (it's not just the pixels, I need the fonts to be big enough for my aging eyes) that is not crazy heavy.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
I don't understand the recent trend of very-high-resolution devices that strongly recommend you not adjust their 250% default scaling. OK, you have lots and lots of pixels that are too small to see individually or in combination. Put in a cheaper screen with the same functional resolution. Lower price, same quality.
- pkolaczk 10y ago
  The quality is not the same. Lower resolution + anti-aliasing makes the text blurry.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    If my screen requires 250% scaling to be usable (which I am not making up - that is precisely the scaling it "recommends"), then lower resolution with pixels that are six times bigger is not a loss of quality. Large black squares composed of smaller black squares are not somehow ineffably superior to large unitary black squares.
    - pkolaczk 10y ago
      Wait, wat? Are you using bitmap fonts? Scaling of vector fonts in modern desktop systems doesn't work that way. Scaling is done before rasterization, and you would get perfectly sharp edges with 250% scaling.

solatic 10y ago

> The market of people who want something rugged/durable/functional are already taken care of by the Thinkpads. Are mostly unhappily taken care of by the Thinkpads. The brand has gone downhill since IBM sold to Lenovo, which has steadily eroded the level of quality that can be expected from a Thinkpad-branded laptop. Modern Thinkpads aren't nearly as serviceable or as durable as the Thinkpads of IBM's era. People who stick with Thinkpads today tend to do so because a) the enterprise support is still relatively solid, b) no real competitors for the Trackpoint, if you want one you need to get a Thinkpad, c) the keyboard, while not as high quality as it used to be, is still great relative to most of the market, d) Thinkpads are still basically reference laptops for Linux, and as a customer, it's reasonable to assume that there will be good hardware support. If System76 wanted to go after Thinkpads, they probably could.

sithadmin 10y ago
>Thinkpads >the enterprise support is still relatively solid That's not the experience I've had with my own company's support requests with Lenovo, and the lousy support relative to Dell is a prime reason why most clients I work with are dropping Lenovo for Dell.
- solatic 10y ago
  Relative compared to, you know, companies like Acer or Samsung, which aren't really in the enterprise support market, and whose products enterprise IT shops would have to largely support themselves.
- ghostly_s 10y ago
  Seconded. We are a major enterprise customer of Lenovo's and have been deeply disappointed with the level of service particularly vs. what we used to get with Dell (~6 years ago).
  - JudasGoat 10y ago
    Maybe some PC company will get the idea to hire retired IT people to do tech support remotely. I think it would be competitive to off shoring.

FireBeyond 10y ago

Very true. I've played with both and XPS 9360 and 9560 (the latest 13 and 15"): The 13 is smaller than my rMBP 13 (and size wise is between it and my girlfriend's Macbook). The 15 is only a little bigger than the rMBP 13. I _love_ the bezel or lack thereof. The only weirdness is that "bottom of screen" webcam, but I barely use it. And if you get the 9560... wow. 4K display, GTX 1050M, i7 w/ 32GB. I'm very happy.

zanny 10y ago

Why do we need another XPS 13 when they already have the developer edition of it that supports Ubuntu? Like others have said, Lenovo's Thinkpad contract with Red Hat is tenuous at best and their quality has only been getting worse. Its not a default install, its not first class, and Lenovo is not dedicating staff to driver support in consumer products. We have the XPS developer edition program making great ultraportables for Linux. We need a business class workstation notebook in the 17" form factor with ruggedness and great features that has complete and total Linux support and inclusion out of the box.