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Loving my XPS 13 running ubuntu since 2018. Trackpad is great and I still get enough battery life to use for browsing at work all day edit: sorry, I just remem

Loving my XPS 13 running ubuntu since 2018. Trackpad is great and I still get enough battery life to use for browsing at work all day edit: sorry, I just remembered -- I did have to replace the SSD on this thing when it conked out in 2019! fortunately I bought it refurbished with a warranty of some sort and they shipped a new one fast.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
I have an XPS 15 of a similar age, and the battery has swollen to the point that it's pushing the trackpad out of the case.
evilduck 5y ago
Thank you for replying. I don't mean this as a dig at you or your choices but from a cursory glance that model has a significantly worse screen, a weird nose-and-finger webcam on the bottom of the screen, negligible price and spec differences (or probably a much worse value proposition compared to an M1 if you're ok with macOS and ARM), a touchpad which is pretty certain to be worse than Apple's, and a plastic body it looks like. I think it wins on port options, the aesthetics you could argue as personal preferences, and optioned up it has the potential for maybe a better screen and a digitizer but at that point it loses badly on price. It's not a bad computer, but it's clearly a compromise on several issues and not really beating Apple enough at the stuff it does better that would compel a switch from purely a hardware or value standpoint. I think it's fine if you wanted to avoid Apple or macOS for software reasons, but that's about it. I've also had a pretty good track record with Apple hardware lasting ages while I watch peers with PCs that drop like flies every few years. This is the point that many of us feel stuck with Apple. Every time I research Apple's alternatives I feel like I've wasted my time.
- Octoth0rpe 5y ago
  > nose-and-finger webcam on the bottom of the screen FWIW, I believe they've fixed this in recent revisions, as well as added a 16:10 ratio screen. This is one of the very few laptops I'd consider vs a macbook at this point, especially given the preinstalled linux option.
  - rossy 5y ago
    The display seems to be fixed as well, with the new OLED XPSes having a wider gamut than the Macs. For what it's worth, it's the touchpads and displays that keep pushing me away from the 13-inch MBP. I much prefer the feel of most PC precision touchpads to the grainy texture of the MBP touchpad. As for the display, I like to set high-DPI displays to 2x scaling, since it tends to look and work better, but the 13-inch MBP's 2560x1600px only has 1280x800dp of real estate at 2x scaling, which feels very cramped in comparison to the 1920x1080dp of real estate on my XPS 13's 3840x2160px display.
m-ee 5y ago
I just got a brand new precision (XPS but with a Quadro card) and it’s unusable. Trackpad straight up broken, maybe due to battery swelling. Had to update firmware to get the headphone jack to function. Camera has strange flickers. Cleary I got a lemon but that’s terrible quality control. We used XPS 13s as lab computers at a previous job and they would just stop powering on eventually. Sometimes removing and reinserting the battery would bring them back, usually not.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

I have an XPS 15 of a similar age, and the battery has swollen to the point that it's pushing the trackpad out of the case.

evilduck 5y ago

Thank you for replying. I don't mean this as a dig at you or your choices but from a cursory glance that model has a significantly worse screen, a weird nose-and-finger webcam on the bottom of the screen, negligible price and spec differences (or probably a much worse value proposition compared to an M1 if you're ok with macOS and ARM), a touchpad which is pretty certain to be worse than Apple's, and a plastic body it looks like. I think it wins on port options, the aesthetics you could argue as personal preferences, and optioned up it has the potential for maybe a better screen and a digitizer but at that point it loses badly on price. It's not a bad computer, but it's clearly a compromise on several issues and not really beating Apple enough at the stuff it does better that would compel a switch from purely a hardware or value standpoint. I think it's fine if you wanted to avoid Apple or macOS for software reasons, but that's about it. I've also had a pretty good track record with Apple hardware lasting ages while I watch peers with PCs that drop like flies every few years. This is the point that many of us feel stuck with Apple. Every time I research Apple's alternatives I feel like I've wasted my time.

Octoth0rpe 5y ago
> nose-and-finger webcam on the bottom of the screen FWIW, I believe they've fixed this in recent revisions, as well as added a 16:10 ratio screen. This is one of the very few laptops I'd consider vs a macbook at this point, especially given the preinstalled linux option.
- rossy 5y ago
  The display seems to be fixed as well, with the new OLED XPSes having a wider gamut than the Macs. For what it's worth, it's the touchpads and displays that keep pushing me away from the 13-inch MBP. I much prefer the feel of most PC precision touchpads to the grainy texture of the MBP touchpad. As for the display, I like to set high-DPI displays to 2x scaling, since it tends to look and work better, but the 13-inch MBP's 2560x1600px only has 1280x800dp of real estate at 2x scaling, which feels very cramped in comparison to the 1920x1080dp of real estate on my XPS 13's 3840x2160px display.

m-ee 5y ago

I just got a brand new precision (XPS but with a Quadro card) and it’s unusable. Trackpad straight up broken, maybe due to battery swelling. Had to update firmware to get the headphone jack to function. Camera has strange flickers. Cleary I got a lemon but that’s terrible quality control. We used XPS 13s as lab computers at a previous job and they would just stop powering on eventually. Sometimes removing and reinserting the battery would bring them back, usually not.