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Is this for software development (assuming yes since we're on HN)? I'm currently in the process of making this choice. Looking at Lenovo T470p/Dell XPS 13/15.

by jozzz 9y ago

Is this for software development (assuming yes since we're on HN)? I'm currently in the process of making this choice. Looking at Lenovo T470p/Dell XPS 13/15. If I'm doing linux development is it worth even thinking about the surface laptop?

TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
Yes, using Visual Studio 2017. I haven't tried a Surface device with Linux yet.
noir_lord 9y ago
Tried the XPS15, keyboard was terrible. Went with T470P i7-7700HQ with 2560x1440 screen, literally haven't switch home desktop on since I got it. Works great with fedora as well (except touchpad driver issue that's in the works) everything works great out the box.
- jozzz 9y ago
  That's pretty much the exact T470p config I was thinking of getting. I will probably rarely use the keyboard/trackpad except when travelling (not often) as most days I plan to use an usb mechanical keyboard+mouse. So all I'm really bothered about is whether I get better value for money in terms of CPU and screen with the XPS compared with a thinkpad. Of course the XPS is prettier as well ;) I've read the XPS screen is amazing whilst the thinkpad one is not so hot, do you have an opinion on this?
  - noir_lord 9y ago
    Trackpoint does work, there is an issue with the touchpad and not releasing it's click so I just disabled it and put the trackpoint in imps (since that's all I use). I read the same reviews on the T470P screen even the 2560x1440, I was worried it wouldn't be bright enough but on a night it's too bright so I dial it down to 40% or so, during the day rarely need to go over 80% even with the sun in the window behind me, the anti-reflective coating is good. The XPS15 had deeper richer colours but the T470P has a damn fine panel and for looking at text I preferred. FWIW, I went for the 256GB SSD and I wish I'd gone for the 512GB but other than that it's a truly stellar little machine. Even get good battery life (I went for the 72whr and 6 hours under use is about fair (though that will drop rapidly if you actually hammer the battery, 35W processors on a 72wh battery..).
  - rdslw 9y ago
    Dont. I curse the day ive chosen 13” xps with 3200x1800 hdpi screen. Id trade it for fullhd in a blink. Three issues: 1. It is goddamn mirror, and mind you im not picky here 2. Hundreds of apps or system parts (regedit? Wtf?) are complettly messed up by hdpi and scaling leaves you either too small or problems. Keybase desktop client (search for my bug) shows what you can expect. Windows 10 can not handle it. Gnome works more/less. 3. You dont need it on 13” screen. FHD is enough. Oh, and you cant disable touchscreen without serious jujitsu (bios option is ignored by windows) Simply dont. Take fullhd.
    - noir_lord 9y ago
      2560x1440@14" is perfect under Cinnamon/Fedora@192dpi, there is one application that causes me problems but everything else just works.
    - jozzz 9y ago
      Is there anyway to tell if the screen will be like a mirror? I've used a 1080p HP laptop that had the same issue. If I was coding with a dark background I'm staring at my face the whole time.
      - rdslw 9y ago
        Can't help here about HP. I know that dell xps 13" with FHD screen is very good in this regard, while dell xps 13" with 3200x1800 is mirror like.
elbrian 9y ago
I run an XPS 13 with Ubuntu 16.04 and do software development for a living (so I use the laptop for 10+ hours a day). Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll be happy to answer... but long story-short, this is the best laptop I've ever touched or owned.
- jozzz 9y ago
  Thanks. I put marginally more info here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493070 But essentially, if I'm mainly interested in performance and the screen it sounds like an XPS might be a better choice than a thinkpad? Do you have a 4k screen?
- iaml 9y ago
  How is the battery life on that combo?
- smnplk 9y ago
  How is your coil whine ?
jrs95 9y ago
Google's PixelBook could be a good option if you don't have any need for Windows. It will run Linux easily via crouton.
- cowmoo728 9y ago
  I found myself really frustrated by the keyboard layout on the chromebook pixel, specifically the chromeos specific keys that replaced the function keys and were missing the equivalent of f11 and f12. I really wanted to get the pixelbook but doubt I will just because of that.
- y4mi 9y ago
  there are some limitations for software development with crouton though... basic scripting works fine, but quite a few things fail. The most recent one i stumbled on was kivy [1]. It couldn't start X-Sessions to open any windows. [1]https://kivy.org/#home https://kivy.org/#home
  - jrs95 9y ago
    Interesting, I wasn't aware of these issues. I'm pretty much strictly doing web & server development though
  - isr 9y ago
    Could you elaborate a bit on that? I find that a tad surprising ... Just hazarding a guess, but are you using the xiwi X11 replacement? That's just a dummy x server, with everything forwarded to a chrome app. Its a hack to get around the chromeos switch from x to a custom wayland'ish display server. Pretty slow. But with crouton, you can also run a full xorg on vt-2. And I would be very surprised if anything failed to run there (from a graphical perspective). Even steam with full hardware acceleration works.
    - y4mi 9y ago
      I started with xiwi, but as crouton environments are cheap, I also created a full xorg install. It's pretty easy to choose after all. I've since installed galliumOs though, so I can't test anymore.
jmkni 9y ago
I’ve had an XPS 15 for about a year and I love it. Not least because it supports 2 4K monitors (60fps over USB-C, 30FPS over HDMI), but is also a solid laptop in its own right. Also, the model I have has 32GB of RAM. The only downside is the battery life, I get about 2 hours.
- nathansoz 9y ago
  Really? My XPS 15 gets 4 hours easy and it is usually closer to 6. Also it actually supports 3 (!) 4k displays at 60hz if you include the built in screen. With the TB16 dock it is a joy to use.
  - jmkni 9y ago
    That's 2 hours of work (Visual Studio), more if I'm just browsing and turn down the brightness.
- seabrookmx 9y ago
  It's worth noting the Dell Precision 5520, which uses the same chassis as the XPS 15. It comes in a few different configurations that aren't available in the XPS. Mine is the last-gen 5510 (same chassis but with an i7-6820HQ), and I was able to get a 1080p screen (for battery life and to avoid scaling issues) and 32gb of RAM only in the Precision, not the XPS.
  - amadeusw 9y ago
    I never considered the Precision line. I just saw that I can customize pretty much everything about it - cool! I'm considering getting it. How is it in your experience? Are there any bios or driver issues? Did you try installing linux? (I have twitter link in my profile for DM)
    - mantis369 9y ago
      Beware the throttling. You get that i7 or Xeon performance for the first 45 seconds of the compile, and then that and the testing (or encoding, or whatever) go down to i5 performance or worse.
cube2222 9y ago
I have a sp2017 i7 16GB and it's great as a developer machine. I'm mainly using languages that are cross-platform like Go and the JVM. But I often end up using Windows Subsystem for Linux which works amazing. I wouldn't buy any of the surface devices if you're planning to put linux on it (it's a little bit pointless), but maybe WSL + Docker on Windows are enough for you. (For me they are at least)
- komali2 9y ago
  Got any WSL tips? I'm always trying to get that thing to be more functional.
  - cube2222 9y ago
    Yea. Use hyper.is if you want to use vim/emacs with bells and whistles. The powershell default shell just can't handle it and doesn't color some parts of the screen well. Also, use tmux, if you don't do that already, solves the problem of no terminal tabs in windows.
olyjohn 9y ago
If you're doing work on Linux, get a laptop that is supported with Linux on it. The first sign of problems on your Surface, you'll have to nuke it, put Windows on it, see if it's still broken, reproduce the issue on Windows, then take it into a store. Dell sells Linux certified models, the XPSs even. Maybe it's called the "Developer Edition" or something. You can always go with System 76 or Librem or something along those lines too.
- Crespyl 9y ago
  You can get the "Developer" editions with Linux pre-installed, though when I looked I couldn't find a version with more than 8GB of RAM. The Windows ones have more RAM and essentially the same hardware, I got a 16GB version and put Linux on it myself, all the drivers were the same and everything works perfectly. (The only caveat was a UEFI setting related to hard drive configuration and Windows Fast Boot, I forget the details but it wasn't too hard to fix.) Really happy with it overall.

by jozzz 9y ago

TYPE_FASTER 9y ago

Yes, using Visual Studio 2017. I haven't tried a Surface device with Linux yet.

noir_lord 9y ago

Tried the XPS15, keyboard was terrible. Went with T470P i7-7700HQ with 2560x1440 screen, literally haven't switch home desktop on since I got it. Works great with fedora as well (except touchpad driver issue that's in the works) everything works great out the box.

jozzz 9y ago
That's pretty much the exact T470p config I was thinking of getting. I will probably rarely use the keyboard/trackpad except when travelling (not often) as most days I plan to use an usb mechanical keyboard+mouse. So all I'm really bothered about is whether I get better value for money in terms of CPU and screen with the XPS compared with a thinkpad. Of course the XPS is prettier as well ;) I've read the XPS screen is amazing whilst the thinkpad one is not so hot, do you have an opinion on this?
- noir_lord 9y ago
  Trackpoint does work, there is an issue with the touchpad and not releasing it's click so I just disabled it and put the trackpoint in imps (since that's all I use). I read the same reviews on the T470P screen even the 2560x1440, I was worried it wouldn't be bright enough but on a night it's too bright so I dial it down to 40% or so, during the day rarely need to go over 80% even with the sun in the window behind me, the anti-reflective coating is good. The XPS15 had deeper richer colours but the T470P has a damn fine panel and for looking at text I preferred. FWIW, I went for the 256GB SSD and I wish I'd gone for the 512GB but other than that it's a truly stellar little machine. Even get good battery life (I went for the 72whr and 6 hours under use is about fair (though that will drop rapidly if you actually hammer the battery, 35W processors on a 72wh battery..).
- rdslw 9y ago
  Dont. I curse the day ive chosen 13” xps with 3200x1800 hdpi screen. Id trade it for fullhd in a blink. Three issues: 1. It is goddamn mirror, and mind you im not picky here 2. Hundreds of apps or system parts (regedit? Wtf?) are complettly messed up by hdpi and scaling leaves you either too small or problems. Keybase desktop client (search for my bug) shows what you can expect. Windows 10 can not handle it. Gnome works more/less. 3. You dont need it on 13” screen. FHD is enough. Oh, and you cant disable touchscreen without serious jujitsu (bios option is ignored by windows) Simply dont. Take fullhd.
  - noir_lord 9y ago
    2560x1440@14" is perfect under Cinnamon/Fedora@192dpi, there is one application that causes me problems but everything else just works.
  - jozzz 9y ago
    Is there anyway to tell if the screen will be like a mirror? I've used a 1080p HP laptop that had the same issue. If I was coding with a dark background I'm staring at my face the whole time.
    - rdslw 9y ago
      Can't help here about HP. I know that dell xps 13" with FHD screen is very good in this regard, while dell xps 13" with 3200x1800 is mirror like.

elbrian 9y ago

I run an XPS 13 with Ubuntu 16.04 and do software development for a living (so I use the laptop for 10+ hours a day). Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll be happy to answer... but long story-short, this is the best laptop I've ever touched or owned.

jozzz 9y ago
Thanks. I put marginally more info here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15493070 But essentially, if I'm mainly interested in performance and the screen it sounds like an XPS might be a better choice than a thinkpad? Do you have a 4k screen?
iaml 9y ago
How is the battery life on that combo?
smnplk 9y ago
How is your coil whine ?

jrs95 9y ago

Google's PixelBook could be a good option if you don't have any need for Windows. It will run Linux easily via crouton.

cowmoo728 9y ago
I found myself really frustrated by the keyboard layout on the chromebook pixel, specifically the chromeos specific keys that replaced the function keys and were missing the equivalent of f11 and f12. I really wanted to get the pixelbook but doubt I will just because of that.
y4mi 9y ago
there are some limitations for software development with crouton though... basic scripting works fine, but quite a few things fail. The most recent one i stumbled on was kivy [1]. It couldn't start X-Sessions to open any windows. [1]https://kivy.org/#home https://kivy.org/#home
- jrs95 9y ago
  Interesting, I wasn't aware of these issues. I'm pretty much strictly doing web & server development though
- isr 9y ago
  Could you elaborate a bit on that? I find that a tad surprising ... Just hazarding a guess, but are you using the xiwi X11 replacement? That's just a dummy x server, with everything forwarded to a chrome app. Its a hack to get around the chromeos switch from x to a custom wayland'ish display server. Pretty slow. But with crouton, you can also run a full xorg on vt-2. And I would be very surprised if anything failed to run there (from a graphical perspective). Even steam with full hardware acceleration works.
  - y4mi 9y ago
    I started with xiwi, but as crouton environments are cheap, I also created a full xorg install. It's pretty easy to choose after all. I've since installed galliumOs though, so I can't test anymore.

jmkni 9y ago

I’ve had an XPS 15 for about a year and I love it. Not least because it supports 2 4K monitors (60fps over USB-C, 30FPS over HDMI), but is also a solid laptop in its own right. Also, the model I have has 32GB of RAM. The only downside is the battery life, I get about 2 hours.

nathansoz 9y ago
Really? My XPS 15 gets 4 hours easy and it is usually closer to 6. Also it actually supports 3 (!) 4k displays at 60hz if you include the built in screen. With the TB16 dock it is a joy to use.
- jmkni 9y ago
  That's 2 hours of work (Visual Studio), more if I'm just browsing and turn down the brightness.
seabrookmx 9y ago
It's worth noting the Dell Precision 5520, which uses the same chassis as the XPS 15. It comes in a few different configurations that aren't available in the XPS. Mine is the last-gen 5510 (same chassis but with an i7-6820HQ), and I was able to get a 1080p screen (for battery life and to avoid scaling issues) and 32gb of RAM only in the Precision, not the XPS.
- amadeusw 9y ago
  I never considered the Precision line. I just saw that I can customize pretty much everything about it - cool! I'm considering getting it. How is it in your experience? Are there any bios or driver issues? Did you try installing linux? (I have twitter link in my profile for DM)
  - mantis369 9y ago
    Beware the throttling. You get that i7 or Xeon performance for the first 45 seconds of the compile, and then that and the testing (or encoding, or whatever) go down to i5 performance or worse.

cube2222 9y ago

I have a sp2017 i7 16GB and it's great as a developer machine. I'm mainly using languages that are cross-platform like Go and the JVM. But I often end up using Windows Subsystem for Linux which works amazing. I wouldn't buy any of the surface devices if you're planning to put linux on it (it's a little bit pointless), but maybe WSL + Docker on Windows are enough for you. (For me they are at least)

komali2 9y ago
Got any WSL tips? I'm always trying to get that thing to be more functional.
- cube2222 9y ago
  Yea. Use hyper.is if you want to use vim/emacs with bells and whistles. The powershell default shell just can't handle it and doesn't color some parts of the screen well. Also, use tmux, if you don't do that already, solves the problem of no terminal tabs in windows.

olyjohn 9y ago

If you're doing work on Linux, get a laptop that is supported with Linux on it. The first sign of problems on your Surface, you'll have to nuke it, put Windows on it, see if it's still broken, reproduce the issue on Windows, then take it into a store. Dell sells Linux certified models, the XPSs even. Maybe it's called the "Developer Edition" or something. You can always go with System 76 or Librem or something along those lines too.

Crespyl 9y ago
You can get the "Developer" editions with Linux pre-installed, though when I looked I couldn't find a version with more than 8GB of RAM. The Windows ones have more RAM and essentially the same hardware, I got a 16GB version and put Linux on it myself, all the drivers were the same and everything works perfectly. (The only caveat was a UEFI setting related to hard drive configuration and Windows Fast Boot, I forget the details but it wasn't too hard to fix.) Really happy with it overall.