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Dell updates popular XPS 13 laptop with 16:10 screen, IR camera
- CharlesColeman 7y agoThat's awesome. 16:9 monitors only make sense for watching video, and are an abomination for pretty much any kind of work involving text. I will be very happy when 4k 16:10 or 3:2 desktop monitors become widely available at an affordable price.
- partiallypro 7y agoMicrosoft's Surface has the perfect aspect ratio for screens (3:2), imo. Wide screen devices just look wrong. 16:10 is fine, but it still isn't quite right (this is also what Apple uses.)
- stevehawk 7y agoI very reluctantly gave up my Thinkpad Yoga 2 for a new Surfacebook instead of sticking with Lenovo but I have no regretted the switch yet. Any chance you can recommend a USB C hub that retains a USB-C plug on it that will do DisplayPort out? I have a nice Anker USB-C hub but it only gives me HDMI out and even though it retains a USB-C plug on it it downgrades it to USB 3.0.
- partiallypro 7y agoUnfortunately no, and I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't upgraded their dock to have USB-C ports. I have been holding out on upgrading my dock for this reason.
- kaibee 7y agoThere's two Lenovo docks that do this. One has an integrated GPU that I guess you can use if you have thunderbolt, one doesn't. Both provide plenty of displayport/hdmi out. I think this was it: https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Thunderbolt-40AN0135US-Capability/dp/B07M6S81CM/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=lenovo+dock&qid=1578085392&s=electronics&sr=1-4 https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Thunderbolt-40AN0135U... I bought one to use with my HP work laptop at home.
- dementik 7y agoI dont know if I understood your need correctly, but I am using Dell D6000 usb-c dock with two displayport-connected monitors. Dock works perfectly, cannot say the same on other Dell docks (TB15 and some other).
- randyrand 7y agoFor anyone wondering, 3:2 is equal to 16:10.67
- BossingAround 7y agoTo make a screen with any ratios other than 16:9 seems to be very expensive nowadays though. I personally would rather a laptop be cheaper than to have a 16:10 or 3:2 monitor. Then again, it would probably be only visible in greater margin for the manufacturer :/.
- unilynx 7y agoIt's probably not that they're much more expensive to make, but there are much better economies of scale with a 16:9 ratio... the same panels work for TVs too
- mamon 7y agoThere isn't a market for 13-inch TVs... But mathematics support your reasoning about economies of scale: with constant, 13.3 inch diagonal, higher the aspect ratio, lower the screen area,thus less raw materials used, cheaper to produce.
- somehnguy 7y agoAgreed. I got very used to 16:10 when I bought my monitors as a teenager. A couple of years ago I finally decided the 19" screens weren't cutting it anymore after 10 years of service and wanted to move to 24". Spent some time looking for 16:10 but ended up with 16:9 unfortunately. 16:10 monitors were way less common and way more expensive. And 144hz 16:10 monitors just don't even seem to exist. 16:9 feels so much more cramped than it should given the screen size.
- pkilgore 7y agoDoes any Dell employee lurking have info about why I should consider waiting for the developers edition rather than just load up my favorite distro on the consumer hardware?
- lebrad 7y agoThe reason to get the Developer Edition is to endorse OEM Linux support
- Lio 7y agoFurther to that Dell will also have configured it with Linux compatible hardware with solid driver support. For example, the WiFi and Bluetooth support in dev edition XPS13 is solid. You’re also paying for OEM firmware updates. I've had several over the life of my XPS13 even though it’s no longer the current model.
- kaibee 7y agoIsn't that one cheaper? I could've sworn it was when I got mine.
- NilsIRL 7y agoFrom what I can tell it is generally more expensive because the only place you can get it is from dell directly so you pay more than on other retailers which do not sell the developer edition. However, on dell's website it is cheaper than the "normal" edition.
- NilsIRL 7y agoThe developer edition ships with Linux (Ubuntu) instead of Windows.
- jshevek 7y agoThis is why the parent comment asks for a reason to wait for the dev version, rather than simply install their own distro. If one does not want to install a distro, then this might be a reason to wait for pre-installed Ubuntu. But the parent is happy to install their own distro, and so is asking for an additional reason, relevant to them, to wait for the dev version.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoLooks nice, I'm torn about what my next laptop should be, but at this point whoever can offer me the most for 1k and I want 16GB of RAM minimum, if that's not possible, I'm holding back. I'm sick of paying ridiculous money for basically the same maximum RAM we've been able to buy for a decade (A 2010 MBP could hold 16GB of RAM, sure it's not DDR4 or better, but it's still useful and runs just fine).
- CoolGuySteve 7y agoYeah, I replaced my wife's marginally upgraded 2011 MacBook Air recently with the 2019 MacBook Air because I got tired of looking at that shitty TN panel on the old Air. 8 years later and the base model $1100 MacBook still has 8GB of ram and 256GB of storage, just like the 2011 MacBook Air I wanted to replace. What the fuck happened?
- giancarlostoro 7y agoMeanwhile I can get a decent tower that costs about the base price of a Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM, a decent SSD, and so on, can play GTA5 and the new Tomb Raider (a buddy of mine built a rig for like under $400 and benchmarked with those games and was surprised).
- CoolGuySteve 7y agoYeah, the HP Envy 13 I use has a sharper display, a 1TB SSD, and 16GB of RAM, and twice as many cores for $100 cheaper than the 2019 MacBook Air. It got crushed by an airline seat reclining but other than some slight warping it's fine, so the build quality is actually pretty decent on it. The only things worse about the Envy are the tiny trackpad and the lack of OS X, but I prefer Ubuntu to OS X these days anyways.
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- jshevek 7y ago"Dell estimates that this model will get up to 19 hours of battery life when configured with an FHD+ display." I like this trend.
- akvadrako 7y agoUp to means you don’t really do anything and set the brightness low. The trend is actually to have smaller batteries. So if you do anything that uses the cpu 19 hours can become 3 pretty quick.
- spuz 7y agoI love the 16:10 ratio screen but a bit disappointed that the page-up and page-down keys are still squashed above the left and right arrow keys. I have used the XPS 13 for about 6 months and just cannot avoid hitting the pg-up or pg-down keys when reaching for the arrow keys which is a nightmare for coding. I would much rather have those as function keys as they were on the previous model of the XPS 13. When I looked into this issue, I found an old thread on a Dell forum where an XPS 13 user (of a previous model) was complaining that there were no dedicated page-up and down keys. As someone that uses those keys a lot I get that it seems Dell's solution to this has caused them to sabotage the functionality of the arrow keys and is definitely worse than having no dedicated keys for pg-up and down. I was hoping they would hear feedback from developers or anyone who uses arrow keys a lot and revert back to the old layout.
- skyyler 7y agoWe've heard your complaints, and now those keys are backspace and forward delete.
- spuz 7y agoWait is this a joke or is it real? I've actually gone and taken another look and now I can't tell what the actual new layout of the keyboard is. I can't find any examples of photos of the latest model with a UK layout. Edit turns out I was wrong and now the pg-up and pg-down keys are function keys again but the left and right keys are now full-size. From what I've heard from MacBook users, they prefer the inverted T layout that Apple went with with their latest 16" laptop as it's easier to find the arrow keys by feel. Oh well I guess it's still a big improvement from last year's design.
- eisa01 7y agoIt's really funny how PC OEMs copied the broken Apple arrow-key layout from 2016-18...
- nyc640 7y agoI for one prefer having one-key access to the PgUp/PgDn keys to be able to Ctrl + PgUp/PgDn to move between browser tabs, but at least from the article, it looks pretty clearly like the PgUp and PgDn keys are not squished above the arrow keys in the new design and instead require you to press Fn + Up/Down. [1] [1] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/xps132020ces3-1440x961.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/xps13...
- jupp0r 7y agoWhat a disappointing review. Core count? RAM clock rates? I guess it's really an "enterprise" laptop for people who don't care much about things like that.
- CaptainMarvel 7y agoIt’s not a review. It’s just a press release/advertisement.
- chadlavi 7y agoKind of annoying that you can't get it without the windows logo on the meta key when buying it with Linux.
- retrac 7y agoI'm surprised Microsoft would let them use that logo on a product not sold with Windows.
- rednixion 7y agoThey didn't two models ago and there was a special kernel hack/package installed specifically to keep the windows key from doing anything since there wasn't an accompanying license, it took less than a minute to remove but still annoying. The last model didn't have that keyblock though so I guess they got over it.
- nas 7y agoI have a 13" XPS and a 15" Macbook Pro. I wanted to like the XPS but the Mac is just much better hardware. First, there is no comparison between the quality of the touchpads. The MacBook one works great but the XPS is terrible (imprecise movement, accidental movement/clicks from palm). The XPS wifi card is unreliable, it frequently disconnects. I understand a lot of people replace it with a better one. The screen is not great. There is no way to disable the automatic brightness magic going on (terrible for doing photograph processing). There is no way to turn of the eye blinding charge light on the front, under the touchpad. For a laptop that is premium priced, I'm disappointed with the hardware quality. I prefer my Lenovo X230 over the XPS 13.
- cenal 7y agoTouchpads on Mac are stellar but have gotten too large. They often detect my palms as I type and move the mouse into the wrong spot.
- whalesalad 7y agoThis is what keeps me from switching. PC hardware is so far behind as far as fit, finish and touchpoints. I’ve been wanting to give a Nix based mobile machine a chance but nothing comes close. Apple gets shit on HN constantly but their mobile hardware can’t be beat.
- radicalbyte 7y agoGet the XPS with the top end screen, it is amazing. Better than the MBP Retina screen. I have the opposite setup - a 13" MBP and a 15" XPS and I really loved working on the XPS. It was just so fast and the screen was fantastic. I say WAS, because yesterday I installed a new BIOS via the Dell tooling (and updated all of the drivers at the same time) and it bricked my machine. I spent the afternoon going through an increasingly crazy set of fixes which included dismantling the PC to remove the CMOS battery. So now my XPS 15 is a $5000 paperweight. I really hope that this is a known issue and Dell step up to fix it.
- throwawaysea 7y agoOne issue with Windows laptops on WiFi that annoys me is that they aren't well-tuned to transfer from one access point to another. For example at work I will often have to disconnect from the network and reconnect to get my laptop to snap to a nearby access point. Otherwise it stays connected to a far away point but with weaker connection indicated (by the bars). This never seems to be an issue with iOS/MacOS devices.
- ajflores1604 7y agoI'm hoping Thinkpad follows this lead and also moves to something not 16:9
- llampx 7y agoLenovo announced the X1 Carbon 2020 as well today, and it looks the same as the X1 Carbon 2019 and the X1 Carbon 2018. Max 16 GB RAM. But hey, it has WiFi 6 now.
- poulsbohemian 7y agoI don't think there is anything particularly different about my development environment than others, but I really struggle with only 16gb of ram. As much as I like being mobile, my MBP is "light duty" at best (real work relegated to my iMac). Thus, disappointing to see the 16gb limit on these new Dell models.
- NilsIRL 7y agoWhat is your development environment?
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- CoolGuySteve 7y agoMaybe one day, the chipset gods at Intel will see fit to bless us with a 13" ultrabook that has 32GB of RAM. I can't tell if it's Intel restricting it, but it's suspicious to me that every manufacturer simultaneously agreed to not ship larger RAM configurations in this form factor.
- smerrill 7y agoThis XPS 13 is available with 32 GB RAM.
- arthurcolle 7y agoThey probably don't want to do it because then everyone will complain that the battery life is garbage. My specced out 16 GB MBP barely gets 4 hours without being plugged in.
- zozbot234 7y agoWhy aren't hardware/motherboard vendors using RAM hotplug to power down some of the RAM when unused and save that battery life? OS's support RAM hotplug already because it's needed for server use cases, the one missing bit is hardware support.
- jadbox 7y agoThe developer model has an option for 32gb! https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Dell-XPS-13-DE-Icelake-2020 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Dell-XPS... EDIT: the 32gb model isn't available for sale until next month I think
- CoolGuySteve 7y agoOh wow, so the arstechnica article is mistaken. This is great news.
- swozey 7y agoMy 2019 XPS 13 2 in 1 has 32gb and an i7, it's a little power house except it's thermals are terrible and it will throttle quickly if you don't throttlestop it. My MBP work machine has 16gb so I definitely feel limited there. The ultrabooks you want to watch at are the XPS 7390 2-in-1. HP Spectre x360 and Lenovo c940. I don't believe the latter 2 offer 32GB right now but I'm guessing they will eventually since the Dell has it now.
- mbreedlove 7y agoWhy would someone want an IR camera? I can't find any information online about why that would be useful.
- cpascal 7y agoIt's for Windows Hello (facial recognition login).
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- throwawaysea 7y agoThis may seem like a minor issue, but the downward firing speakers are a ridiculous choice for 2020. There are laptops that don't have compromises like these. Yes we can use headphones or pair an external bluetooth speaker, but sometimes it is nice to just have your laptop fill your hotel room with sound and you may not have these other accessories on hand.
- 1e-9 7y agoThe ars technica writeup does not mention the most significant upgrade of all in my opinion: 32GB RAM in February. See https://bartongeorge.io/2020/01/01/introducing-the-2020-xps-13-developer-edition-this-one-goes-to-32/ https://bartongeorge.io/2020/01/01/introducing-the-2020-xps-...
- purplezooey 7y agoAre keyboards going to get so flat that at some point they are concave...