8 ms·

Useful figures, so thanks for providing those. It's been a few months since I last looked into the latest prices. I agree with you that it's still worth it. Ho

Useful figures, so thanks for providing those. It's been a few months since I last looked into the latest prices. I agree with you that it's still worth it. However, I feel that without comparing the OS and tight OS integration, this doesn't represent one of the most important aspects of a comparison between the two, when considering a purchase. I go through this same loop every time I buy a new machine... yes, usually it's "no more Apple for me!" especially when I do the price comparison. So I waver for a couple of weeks whilst I research the latest hardware and Linux distros. But then I end up buying an Apple machine. It's been the same story for me for the last 17 years. There's plenty of people like me out there that definitely don't want to use Windows, and that want a Unix that gets out of the way. I love Linux, especially on the server, but it's generally too much hassle on a laptop and so I always gravitate back to macos. If the $600 is an Apple tax for that, then I will gladly continue to pay it. Over the 3 years lifetime of a developer machine (or more!), my time is definitely worth more than $600 compared with constantly fiddling with Linux kernal modules and other hardware support issues. I just want to get some work done without interruptions. Definitely would love the exact same machine without the TouchBar, though. Perhaps that would shave off $100?

lwh 6y ago
Dell has supported Linux officially on the XPS 13 variants since 2012. 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-...
- mr_custard 6y ago
  Thanks. I'm am aware of this. I research this all the time, and regularly come away disappointed. I don't know if I verbalised clearly enough, but I have actively wanted good options for years, and I'm always open to whatever alternatives are current at the time of purchase. Seriously, I'm in the market for a new laptop and there are still too many concerns relating to support for these devices... not just Dell but usually for whatever manufacturer I'm looking at. Once you start reading about people's experiences there are always issues - many of which have been discussed to death on HN. Just because Dell claim that Linux is officially supported does not mean that it will be a smooth ride. I don't think that has changed much at all over the last few years? But perhaps this year is different. Do you own this though? If you're using this new XPS model without power consumption issues, excellent wifi (wifi chips issues seem to always be the main downer), good mousepad behaviour? Perhaps it's finally not a problem? I will gladly lap up any positive news that you can give on this front.
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    I switched from a macbook to a system76 laptop around 6 years ago and the only negative I noticed functionality-wise was the worse trackpad. But I would guess that different users are sensitive to different problems. E.g. power management isn't much of an issue for me because I use my laptop unplugged for only a couple hours per day, so I wouldn't have noticed any problems related to that.
    - mr_custard 6y ago
      Ahh... good to hear. I have been keeping an eye on the system76 stuff too - not just Dell. For a long time system76 seemed to only make laptops with large keyboards with extra number pads and asymetric mouse pads which put me off (many manufacturers do this, so it's not just them). I notice that they finally have more tenkeyless models, so slowly but surely my checklist is being satisfied. Are you still able to use a recent version of Pop!_OS after all this time, or are you using another recent version of another distro? I'm interested in the longevity in terms of being able to install up to date OSes over the years. I mean that really shouldn't be an issue with Linux - support usually only gets better as time advances and new drivers / modules are written, but it would be nice to know how you got on, regardless.
      - bcrosby95 6y ago
        I bought the laptop back when System76 used Ubuntu and have never tried their Pop!_OS, and I use Fedora nowadays. Haven't had any problems with newer versions of Fedora.
  - no_dinner 6y ago
    I'm using the Thinkpad X1 Carbon 7th generation and I feel like with the latest Ubuntu 20.04 LTS it's finally at the level of usability I want in a Linux laptop. Everything works out of the box, including the speakers, camera, microphone, wifi & bluetooth, and fingerprint reader. I can even use my fingerprint for sudo! (I did have to run one or two commands to get that working though). The trackpad is also great, if a little small. Probably comparable to the Dell's. Also haven't got a chance to test real-world power consumption because I'm stuck at home lately (thank COVID for that) but it seems to be okay.
v77 6y ago
I came to Macs as a longtime Windows/Linux user for software developmemt. There's no way I would ever go back. My 2015 Air is rock solid, never any problems despite being used 8-12 hours per day and you get Unix underneath. Just bought a new Air so I can have a backup machine.
- lifeAsNerd 6y ago
  Dang I'm the total opposite. 1 round in the Apple ecosystem and I'd never touch their products again. I can't understand the appeal outside the marketing gimmicks.
  - mr_custard 6y ago
    It sounds like a number of things p*ed you off, but what was your biggest gripe with the Apple stuff? Or perhaps it was everything (!).
    - vbezhenar 6y ago
      I'm in a similar position and I can answer for my situation. I bought iPad 3 back in 2012 I think. I liked it a lot and I bought iPhone 4S which I liked even more (until they released iOS 7 but that's theme for another rant). After that I understood that I love Apple approach and decided to buy a Macbook as I wanted to write some apps and also needed new laptop at that time. I bought Retina Macbook Pro 15" mid 2012. Well, it was worst laptop I ever saw. Software was good, I still love it. SSD broke in the second month, so I took it to repair and it was in repair for another month until replacement SSD arrived. Thankfully it was covered by warranty and that's the only good thing about this situation. I used it for 2 years and then it just started to tear apart. Charger cable failed. I bought new at aliexpress, tried to replace it and almost caused a fire, so I had to buy a new charger which costs like a cheap laptop LoL. Keyboard failed. Right now half of keys just do not work, another half of keys work if pressed hard enough. And I did not spill anything there, they just don't register presses. I'm using USB keyboard to work on it. Audio port failed. There's some switch there to detect optical cable or something like that. That switch is stuck, so red laser always lighting out of there and macOS thinks that I inserted a headphones, so speakers do not work. And headphones do not work either. I'm using USB headphones if I need sound. It sometimes panics. I think that something's wrong with GPU. It's Nvidia GPU and I've read that it was poorly soldered. Not sure. Its battery almost dead, it can live for a 10 minutes of low-power usage. Of course I can't replace a battery, because it's glued. Even on charger it gets hot on load pretty quickly and then it starts to throttle. Its CPU going lower than 1GHz. And system becomes very laggy, everything slow as hell. Its cooling just terrible. Sure, it's a laptop, but I never experienced such a slowdown with other laptops. I was very disappointed with Apple engineering. I've used few laptops in my life. Not a single one of them caused so many issues. Not a single one of them had faulty charger cable. All of them have easily replaceable battery. Also in my country I'm paying heavy Apple tax, Apple devices typically cost 30-50% more than in US, but other manufacturers have more sane prices, so I would have to pay much more extra. I went back to Windows and I'm pretty happy. I never liked Windows, but since Windows 10 it's actually good OS that works much more stable than macOS and have all the software I need. My last hope was Mac Pro. But its price is just absurd, so that hope is vanished. Basically Apple does not make any computer that I would want to buy, all computers are antithetical to my needs. I want something that's reliable, bulky, powerful and repairable. Preferably a PC, as I don't really need a laptop. And they focus on the opposite properties. So while I loved macOS, there's nothing to run it on. I'm thinking about hackintosh and probably will build my next computer considering it (can run Windows anywhere, so can select hackinosh-friendly parts anyway). But it seems that hackintosh in the future might be doomed (more proprietary hardware, may be even ARM migration), so probably that won't be a way to go either. What funny is that I'm in a similar position regarding phones. I hate large screen phones and with discontinuing iPhone SE 1 Apple stopped producing the only phone that I'd want to buy. I'm using iPhone 8 now, but I don't like it and thinking about buying SE 1 instead. Too bad that Androids don't have any phones for me either, so it's more about phone industry rather than just Apple.
calaphos 6y ago
I've had very good experiences with Linux on my laptop. Definitely more stable than windows, literally never had to fiddle with kernel modules or any sort of hardware support. Battery life is actually better than in windows. You have to be a bit careful with the hardware, especially non Intel wifi/Bluetooth seems not well supported. And Nvidia graphics are a bit risky, but of the alternative is a MacBook that shouldn't matter as much
- fossuser 6y ago
  I've heard this a lot over the years, but it's never held up to scrutiny. Usually there's a lot of manual config, driver issues, shitty hardware support, screen resolution issues, bad battery life, laptop suspend issues, terrible trackpad support, connecting to external monitor issues, etc. I've had the best luck with Thinkpads and I still like Linux and have fun with this kind of thing, but it's not even close to macOS and I don't think it's really close to Windows either.
- deergomoo 6y ago
  My issue with desktop/laptop Linux has always been the quality of the GUI-based software. While I appreciate that people put in tons of time and effort to make these things available for free, I’d rather pay for something better, and on Linux I usually can’t. As an example, our dev machines at the office run Linux, and it’s a great platform for the majority of the work we do. But I have to keep a Windows VM around for Office, because I can’t trust that LibreOffice isn’t going to completely mangle a file that I need to send to a client.
horsawlarway 6y ago
If you're fine paying a consistent 600 tax, just make the leap and give a reasonable xps machine running linux another chance. My work machine is a 13" macbook pro on Catalina, my personal project machine is a 15" dell xps from 2017. Of the two, I'm delighted by the XPS running Arch/Gnome/Wayland. I'm much, MUCH less delighted by the Catalina crap box.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mr_isomies 6y ago
For me, this idea that time invested on your machine is time lost to the void... just doesn't add up. Like, at all. Shouldn't one of the point of honing your craft be to become intimately knowledgeable about the tools that you use every single day? I have some musician friends. They do that for a living. They've had the same guitars for years, maybe even decades. They know how the guitar works, how to change its strings & pick-ups, how it behaves in different rooms. They notice how it ages, how it breaks, how it _really_ works. When it breaks they get the exact same model. It's a good thing. For me, the real tradeoff is getting locked-in into an ecosystem that is privately owned, profit driven. That's the real tax right there.

lwh 6y ago

Dell has supported Linux officially on the XPS 13 variants since 2012. 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-...

mr_custard 6y ago
Thanks. I'm am aware of this. I research this all the time, and regularly come away disappointed. I don't know if I verbalised clearly enough, but I have actively wanted good options for years, and I'm always open to whatever alternatives are current at the time of purchase. Seriously, I'm in the market for a new laptop and there are still too many concerns relating to support for these devices... not just Dell but usually for whatever manufacturer I'm looking at. Once you start reading about people's experiences there are always issues - many of which have been discussed to death on HN. Just because Dell claim that Linux is officially supported does not mean that it will be a smooth ride. I don't think that has changed much at all over the last few years? But perhaps this year is different. Do you own this though? If you're using this new XPS model without power consumption issues, excellent wifi (wifi chips issues seem to always be the main downer), good mousepad behaviour? Perhaps it's finally not a problem? I will gladly lap up any positive news that you can give on this front.
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  I switched from a macbook to a system76 laptop around 6 years ago and the only negative I noticed functionality-wise was the worse trackpad. But I would guess that different users are sensitive to different problems. E.g. power management isn't much of an issue for me because I use my laptop unplugged for only a couple hours per day, so I wouldn't have noticed any problems related to that.
  - mr_custard 6y ago
    Ahh... good to hear. I have been keeping an eye on the system76 stuff too - not just Dell. For a long time system76 seemed to only make laptops with large keyboards with extra number pads and asymetric mouse pads which put me off (many manufacturers do this, so it's not just them). I notice that they finally have more tenkeyless models, so slowly but surely my checklist is being satisfied. Are you still able to use a recent version of Pop!_OS after all this time, or are you using another recent version of another distro? I'm interested in the longevity in terms of being able to install up to date OSes over the years. I mean that really shouldn't be an issue with Linux - support usually only gets better as time advances and new drivers / modules are written, but it would be nice to know how you got on, regardless.
    - bcrosby95 6y ago
      I bought the laptop back when System76 used Ubuntu and have never tried their Pop!_OS, and I use Fedora nowadays. Haven't had any problems with newer versions of Fedora.
- no_dinner 6y ago
  I'm using the Thinkpad X1 Carbon 7th generation and I feel like with the latest Ubuntu 20.04 LTS it's finally at the level of usability I want in a Linux laptop. Everything works out of the box, including the speakers, camera, microphone, wifi & bluetooth, and fingerprint reader. I can even use my fingerprint for sudo! (I did have to run one or two commands to get that working though). The trackpad is also great, if a little small. Probably comparable to the Dell's. Also haven't got a chance to test real-world power consumption because I'm stuck at home lately (thank COVID for that) but it seems to be okay.

v77 6y ago

I came to Macs as a longtime Windows/Linux user for software developmemt. There's no way I would ever go back. My 2015 Air is rock solid, never any problems despite being used 8-12 hours per day and you get Unix underneath. Just bought a new Air so I can have a backup machine.

lifeAsNerd 6y ago
Dang I'm the total opposite. 1 round in the Apple ecosystem and I'd never touch their products again. I can't understand the appeal outside the marketing gimmicks.
- mr_custard 6y ago
  It sounds like a number of things p*ed you off, but what was your biggest gripe with the Apple stuff? Or perhaps it was everything (!).
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    I'm in a similar position and I can answer for my situation. I bought iPad 3 back in 2012 I think. I liked it a lot and I bought iPhone 4S which I liked even more (until they released iOS 7 but that's theme for another rant). After that I understood that I love Apple approach and decided to buy a Macbook as I wanted to write some apps and also needed new laptop at that time. I bought Retina Macbook Pro 15" mid 2012. Well, it was worst laptop I ever saw. Software was good, I still love it. SSD broke in the second month, so I took it to repair and it was in repair for another month until replacement SSD arrived. Thankfully it was covered by warranty and that's the only good thing about this situation. I used it for 2 years and then it just started to tear apart. Charger cable failed. I bought new at aliexpress, tried to replace it and almost caused a fire, so I had to buy a new charger which costs like a cheap laptop LoL. Keyboard failed. Right now half of keys just do not work, another half of keys work if pressed hard enough. And I did not spill anything there, they just don't register presses. I'm using USB keyboard to work on it. Audio port failed. There's some switch there to detect optical cable or something like that. That switch is stuck, so red laser always lighting out of there and macOS thinks that I inserted a headphones, so speakers do not work. And headphones do not work either. I'm using USB headphones if I need sound. It sometimes panics. I think that something's wrong with GPU. It's Nvidia GPU and I've read that it was poorly soldered. Not sure. Its battery almost dead, it can live for a 10 minutes of low-power usage. Of course I can't replace a battery, because it's glued. Even on charger it gets hot on load pretty quickly and then it starts to throttle. Its CPU going lower than 1GHz. And system becomes very laggy, everything slow as hell. Its cooling just terrible. Sure, it's a laptop, but I never experienced such a slowdown with other laptops. I was very disappointed with Apple engineering. I've used few laptops in my life. Not a single one of them caused so many issues. Not a single one of them had faulty charger cable. All of them have easily replaceable battery. Also in my country I'm paying heavy Apple tax, Apple devices typically cost 30-50% more than in US, but other manufacturers have more sane prices, so I would have to pay much more extra. I went back to Windows and I'm pretty happy. I never liked Windows, but since Windows 10 it's actually good OS that works much more stable than macOS and have all the software I need. My last hope was Mac Pro. But its price is just absurd, so that hope is vanished. Basically Apple does not make any computer that I would want to buy, all computers are antithetical to my needs. I want something that's reliable, bulky, powerful and repairable. Preferably a PC, as I don't really need a laptop. And they focus on the opposite properties. So while I loved macOS, there's nothing to run it on. I'm thinking about hackintosh and probably will build my next computer considering it (can run Windows anywhere, so can select hackinosh-friendly parts anyway). But it seems that hackintosh in the future might be doomed (more proprietary hardware, may be even ARM migration), so probably that won't be a way to go either. What funny is that I'm in a similar position regarding phones. I hate large screen phones and with discontinuing iPhone SE 1 Apple stopped producing the only phone that I'd want to buy. I'm using iPhone 8 now, but I don't like it and thinking about buying SE 1 instead. Too bad that Androids don't have any phones for me either, so it's more about phone industry rather than just Apple.

calaphos 6y ago

I've had very good experiences with Linux on my laptop. Definitely more stable than windows, literally never had to fiddle with kernel modules or any sort of hardware support. Battery life is actually better than in windows. You have to be a bit careful with the hardware, especially non Intel wifi/Bluetooth seems not well supported. And Nvidia graphics are a bit risky, but of the alternative is a MacBook that shouldn't matter as much

fossuser 6y ago
I've heard this a lot over the years, but it's never held up to scrutiny. Usually there's a lot of manual config, driver issues, shitty hardware support, screen resolution issues, bad battery life, laptop suspend issues, terrible trackpad support, connecting to external monitor issues, etc. I've had the best luck with Thinkpads and I still like Linux and have fun with this kind of thing, but it's not even close to macOS and I don't think it's really close to Windows either.
deergomoo 6y ago
My issue with desktop/laptop Linux has always been the quality of the GUI-based software. While I appreciate that people put in tons of time and effort to make these things available for free, I’d rather pay for something better, and on Linux I usually can’t. As an example, our dev machines at the office run Linux, and it’s a great platform for the majority of the work we do. But I have to keep a Windows VM around for Office, because I can’t trust that LibreOffice isn’t going to completely mangle a file that I need to send to a client.

horsawlarway 6y ago

If you're fine paying a consistent 600 tax, just make the leap and give a reasonable xps machine running linux another chance. My work machine is a 13" macbook pro on Catalina, my personal project machine is a 15" dell xps from 2017. Of the two, I'm delighted by the XPS running Arch/Gnome/Wayland. I'm much, MUCH less delighted by the Catalina crap box.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mr_isomies 6y ago

For me, this idea that time invested on your machine is time lost to the void... just doesn't add up. Like, at all. Shouldn't one of the point of honing your craft be to become intimately knowledgeable about the tools that you use every single day? I have some musician friends. They do that for a living. They've had the same guitars for years, maybe even decades. They know how the guitar works, how to change its strings & pick-ups, how it behaves in different rooms. They notice how it ages, how it breaks, how it _really_ works. When it breaks they get the exact same model. It's a good thing. For me, the real tradeoff is getting locked-in into an ecosystem that is privately owned, profit driven. That's the real tax right there.