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New XPS 13 Shows the Price of Going Too Thin
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago“"We were unable to fit a headphone jack within the chassis, based off the aggressive design and portability goals we chartered for XPS 13," is at least more honest than Apple saying “have courage” and “you’re using it wrong”. That said I probably only use my xps13’s headphone jack a couple of times a year. If it broke today I would need a usb-c- based alternative but frankly I would probably put it off for months. edit: the things are like $20 on Amazon.
- DanAtC 4y agoBut there's only two USB-C ports and USB-C hubs don't exist. If you're charging your laptop and using a headphone adapter you're SOL if you need to plug anything else in. Edit: USB-C only hubs. Everything I've seen is USB-C to USB-A/HDMI/Ethernet/Audio (though that resolves the above problem if the DAC is decent enough) There _are_ Thunderbolt docks (which this XPS 13 supports) which provide USB-C ports but they're pricey.
- withinboredom 4y agoUSB-C hubs do exist, my monitor has one built in. Works fine.
- DanAtC 4y agoIs it actually Thunderbolt not plain USB-C?
- microtonal 4y agoMany displays (like some consumer-oriented LG models) don't use Thunderbolt. Two USB-C lanes are used for DisplayPort Alt-Mode (usually with HBR3 for e.g. 4k@60Hz) and two lanes for some USB3 variant.
- puslog 4y ago> USB-C hubs don't exist Say what? I have one right here on my desk. You can get them for like $20 on Amazon etc.
- DanAtC 4y agoEdited my comment. Does it do one USB-C to multiple USB-C ports or is it USB-C to USB-A?
- haswell 4y ago> USB-C hubs don't exist What do you mean? A quick search returns several options. Personally I have an all-in-one USB-C to HDMI/SD/USB-A/headphone/etc dock dongle thing, and it covers my needs. There are a bunch of options for this, some more flexible than others, but options nonetheless.
- DanAtC 4y agoI meant one USB-C to many USB-C
- filoleg 4y agoIf it is a thunderbolt USB-C, then they do. I had a thunderbolt 3 dock for my older macbook, and it essentially connected with just one cable to macbook, which provided charging+external display (or two) connection+a few extra USB ports (a couple of which were usb-C)+headphone jack+SD card reader (and maybe a few other things I cannot recall off the top of my head).
- andrewmackrodt 4y agoNot sure if something like this would work on non Apple hardware: Satechi 4-Port USB-C Hub - https://amzn.eu/d/6a85dgf https://amzn.eu/d/6a85dgf I have a Dell XPS 2in1 from 2019 which only has 2 USB-C ports, however, I'm using a thunderbolt dock so I get a USB-C port back and a USB-C display port output on the back, have never tried connecting a device to it to though. Anker also have some hubs with one USB-C input and one PD.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago> Edit: USB-C only hubs. Everything I've seen is USB-C to USB-A/HDMI/Ethernet/Audio (though that resolves the above problem if the DAC is decent enough) There _are_ Thunderbolt docks (which this XPS 13 supports) which provide USB-C ports but they're pricey. Although they're not USB-C only, I have two hubs that expose a USB-C connector (for data, not just PD). One HP USB-C Dock G5 and some random Chinese thing off Amazon [0]. They're both USB, not thunderbolt. The HP is absurdly expensive, the second one is ok-ish (cost me €80). But they're both quite big, and the HP is heavy, so wouldn't be great to use at, say, a coffee shop. They both have sound cards and a 3.5 mm jack. The DAC on the Chinese one isn't as good as the one on my HP laptop, but it's decent, no background noise or anything. Haven't tested the HP. They're both able to power the computer through the USB-C port. --- [0] https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B09MTTZ36K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B09MTTZ36K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_...
- MrPatan 4y agoThat's ok, all the xps I've had has faulty audio jacks, might as well save the space
- plonk 4y ago> “you’re using it wrong” When my high-end XPS started shutting down under any kind of load, the Dell support closed my complaint and told me "this laptop is not meant for gaming, it's your fault". Went to Apple the next time, at least their products usually stay awake while I use them.
- loloquwowndueo 4y agoBut you then said a driver downgrade fixed it. Remind me again of the software fix for the iPhone 4 “holding it wrong” debacle.
- plonk 4y agoThe iPhone 4 came out in 2010 and I haven't suffered that kind of debacle since then. The problems I've had with Apple products are minor in comparison to Dell's. When I've contacted Apple's support, they've always been reactive and never tried to tell me the bugs were my fault. I've never had another company throw my ticket away with as obviously dishonest a reason as "you're not supposed to actually use your graphics card for graphics" and prevent me from following up. The fact that a guy on Reddit was more helpful than the support isn't acceptable.
- sschueller 4y agoI assume they don't exist to avoid confusion when you can't plug in 127 displays. Then again USB-C is already a huge mess.
- duped 4y agoI use my XPS 13's headphone jack daily when I'm working and in meetings. If I had my way I'd disable microphones on every video call participant that wasn't wearing headphones too.
- loloquwowndueo 4y agoI use headphones daily (at least 3h a day) for meetings mostly but not the headphone jack ;) wireless headsets are very useful.
- pizza234 4y agoLaptops have reached weights and dimensions that, at least for my personal case, don't offset the downsides - I prefer without any doubt a 1.4kg laptop, with good repairability/performance/usability (including: cooling), than an unrepairable/poorly usable 1kg one. I hope that the Framework will gain popularity.
- tomComb 4y agoRequest for Ever thinner laptops does seem silly, but weight is quite a different thing - it really does matter IMO.
- Kerrick 4y agoIf you don't hit certain density targets, electronics begin to feel flimsy and poorly produced.
- diffeomorphism 4y agoFood for thought: Thinkpad X1 vs Macbook Pro and X1 Nano vs Air. Same sizes but about 70% of the weight and more durable. Yet, people feel that aluminium feels more "premium" than carbon fiber + titanium and magnesium. From a material sciences standpoint you can argue that people are just "wrong", just like a knife of solid gold would be a very stupid material choice. However, if people want to buy gold, you better offer that.
- pdpi 4y agoI really want to like the Framework, and the internal design definitely appealing to me, but the connectivity is just rage-inducing. It's fundamentally a previous-gen macbook pro with 4 USB-C ports (USB4, in this case), but the ports are buried deep in the chassis and you absolutely 100% need dongles to expose them, to the point you literally need a USB-C to USB-C dongle as a spacer!
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoSure, but how else would you have done it to make it better? USB-C is the only universal multi-purpose connector that can carry almost any type of high speed digital and analog signal without going to some proprietary connector. It literally was their only option.
- mccorrinall 4y agoSo, they have a 13mm chassis in height but cannot fit an audio jack, which is 3.5mm in diameter? They could just extend a 4mm diameter to the edges. You know, just put it here and don't fully extend this swift edge at the side: https://i.imgur.com/yuPFcuK.png https://i.imgur.com/yuPFcuK.png They are giving up functionality for asthetics.
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoThen maybe you didn't read the article throughly. The limitation is not directly due to thickness of the audio jack, but to the depth of it which would have limited the size of the heatsink. And if those 13.5mm are used to the brimm by the case, keyboard and PCB, then there's no 3.5mm+ of free space left for the jack. If you take a 3.5mm drill bit and start drilling in the sides of machine you're 100% gonna hit something critical. So yeah, Dell was right saying their tight packaging left no space for the jack.
- mccorrinall 4y agoI read it, but I don’t believe it. I guess I have to wait for ifixit‘s teardown though.
- shawnb576 4y agoNot having a replaceable battery is a real problem. I have a circa 2018 Xps13 9370 that I’ve used regularly for non-work coding it generally still works great. Recently it was only lasting 60 minutes on a charge, but $50 to Amazon got me a new battery and now it’s great. I don’t really need a new computer and the battery is the one thing that is sure to fail. The CPU and 16G memory are fine for Windows 11 and WSL2 (or Ubuntu). It’s a waste to build machines that are designed to become trash, especially in todays world where hardware improvement curves have flattened so machines are usable for many years.
- mikae1 4y ago> Not having a replaceable battery is a real problem. It's such a big problem—not only for the consumer, but also for the environment—that it shouldn't be legal.
- scarface74 4y agoWho is throwing away perfectly good computers (or phones) instead of just paying to her them repaired?
- k8sToGo 4y agoHonestly, the more and more things I have, the more annoyed I am by this. I just bought a cheapish foldable e-bike, but since it is some Chinese brand, I am pretty sure it will be just trash once I use up most of my batteries cycles. The same thing goes for my battery run drill etc. Sure, I could open it up and probably replace the cells, but that is not really feasible for most people.
- dfadsadsf 4y agoCheapish ebikes often have standard batteries that you can buy on ali or some random website. Check what motor and controller you have and you should be able to find battery.
- filoleg 4y agoWhy would it be the case for your battery-run drill? Even the cheapest most basic battery-run drills that I managed to find at Home Depot had hot-swappable batteries. I got a slightly-above-the-cheapest Ryu battery drill, and it came with 2 separate batteries and a charger for them (so that i can use one while the other is charging). Swapping the batteries is as easy as holding the eject button, detaching the battery (which is mounted externally to the bottom of the handle), and then sliding in the new battery until it clicks. If one of the batteries died due to used up battery cycles, you can just buy another battery for cheap.
- zdragnar 4y agoIt's a shame to me that LG's gram didn't catch on more (or come with an option for more RAM). It's everything I wanted from the one Dell XPS 13 that I previously owned and more, with the exception of speakers that are unsuited to quality music. The battery life is fantastic, it's light weight, thin, larger screen (I ended up hating 13 inches). It's absolutely cool under pressure- just as fast as my last MBP at compiling code, but it doesn't sound like a helicopter is going to take off (tbh I forget if it even has fans, but if it does I've never heard them). I went through the trouble of booting / windows and grabbing the latest firmware updates before installing linux, but literally everything Just Works. Close the laptop lid and there's practically zero battery drain overnight. If games are your thing, you're more or less stuck at casual gaming, but it's easily become the favorite laptop that I've owned across HP, Dell, Apple, Acer and Toshiba. The only downside I can think of is that people other than me tend to hate 10+ keyboards, but I'm used to it and it doesn't bother my wrists at all (plus I get a number pad for quick entry!)
- tomComb 4y agoIt really does sound great, but for some reason I just really hate keyboards with a numpad, so that was a dealbreaker for me. Silly perhaps, but but then again keyboard really is very important.
- static_motion 4y agoThe Gram always seemed very interesting to me, until I touched one at a store. I was baffled by how flimsy it felt. Picking it up while opened prompts it to bend and warp far more than I'm comfortable with. I guess rigidity must be sacrificed in the name of lightness, but I could never own a computer that felt like it'd fall apart inside a backpack sleeve.
- zdragnar 4y agoI've accidentally dropped mine a few times, and my German shepherd has walked on it once or twice. Thankfully, and perhaps by the grace of the patron saint of clumsy fools, it still appears to be in near mint condition.
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- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- mgbmtl 4y agoI have so many weird power problems with my current XPS, I would not recommend Dell, especially a less repairable model. My current XPS (2 years old) doesn't hibernate well, and the BIOS will lose UEFI/disk settings if I forget to charge it for a few days. Once I had to unscrew everything in order to remove the CMOS battery, to make it boot again (based on random forum suggestions). My daughter still uses my older one, and after changing the battery for a generic one, it still works fine.
- zeppelin101 4y agoAgreed on the hibernation part. My last year's high end XPS 17 has this kind of issue. Sometimes I get BSODs after a hibernation, especially if certain peripherals are connected. That aside, I do think the laptop is really great (albeit pricey).
- kojoru 4y ago> There's no technical reason, other than thinness, for the way Dell soldered the RAM down, for instance. That's a sentiment that's been repeated a lot, and it's not fully true. One important property that soldered-on RAM has is increased security. There's been a demonstrably practical way to break full-disk encryption with physical access to a turned on or sleeping computer by re-attaching the memory quickly to another computer. The keys then can be read from the memory. That's not a vector you have anymore if the memory is not removable.
- collsni 4y agoWhat type of data are we putting on these laptops? Nuclear keys? Good security balances practicality. In my opinion that's a bad argument.. This is to save space, and is impactful to the longevity of the hardware and environment.
- mulmen 4y agoIt’s impactful but in what direction? How many repairable or upgradeable laptops actually got repairs and upgrades? Or was it just wasted material and energy in production? I don’t have the answer but these things can be surprising.
- dsr_ 4y agoNone of the unreparable laptops get repaired. None of the unupgradable laptops get upgraded. Some of the reparable, upgradable laptops get upgraded and/or repaired. Every corporate IT organization I've ever talked to wants to be able to swap batteries, RAM and disks, and if they're easy enough, keyboards. They'd really prefer if the user could be sent a screwdriver and a replacement for batteries and RAM.
- mulmen 4y agoOk but does the repairability always justify the added material and manufacturing cost? Especially in a consumer application. I love my old repairable Thinkpad but I have been on the same MacBook Pro for 8 years now with zero repairs.
- D13Fd 4y agoI think there is room in the market for repairable and non-repairable laptops, and if someone wants to sell a non-repairable one, I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s a trade off. I had an Apple MacBook Pro that lasted 7 years, and I have a Lenovo T400s from 2010 that is still chugging along. I never upgraded either of them. All of the extra size and weight to make them repairable was for nothing as far as my usage was concerned. And for non-tech consumers, the reaction to a 4 or 5 year old laptop breaking down isn’t necessarily going to be “let’s pay a technician $150/hr + parts to fix it,” it’s going to be “let’s buy a new one.” So while repairability is good, I don’t view it as essentially in every model of laptop.
- nicoburns 4y ago> And for non-tech consumers, the reaction to a 4 or 5 year old laptop breaking down isn’t necessarily going to be “let’s pay a technician $150/hr + parts to fix it,” it’s going to be “let’s buy a new one.” And then they can sell it. A repair shop can buy it, fix it up, and sell it on.
- wslh 4y agoAs an XPS 13 and MacBook Air (M1) user. I would say the following taking aside the operating system factors (Linux/Windows vs. macOS): - The XPS 13 is better and more expensive except because of the battery and performance against the M2?. In the M1 "it is the battery stupid". Nothing compares to the M1 in the battery side. - The article doesn't talk about the cooling factor, in the older XPSs it has a fan and again the MacBook Air doesn't have one. The XPS 2-1 doesn't have a fan. - The XPS with a Thunderbolt dock like the TB16 is basically a desktop, with n external monitors while the MacBook Air only supports one. - Many more things to detail in favor of the XPS 13 (touchscreen, resolution, 32gb of RAM) but for a nomad the MacBook beats it. - As a last note I should add that the last Ubuntu 22 Wayland freezes when you connect a second external monitor to the XPS: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407630/os-freezing-with-dual-monitors-on-ubuntu-22-04-lts https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407630/os-freezing-with-dua...
- oneplane 4y agoSome aspects are multi-dimensional. More RAM can be good, but faster or unified RAM can also be good. Neither model has both. Same goes for the CPU which isn't really comparable by spec but perhaps more by productivity. At that point we get in to the 'well what are you intending to do with the device' territory and we end up with nomadic use vs. desktop use etc. I do think that the whole power management (be it cooling fans or runtime on battery) as a complete picture can be compared (pretty much the way you described), but it gets murky again if we try to compare operating systems since they all seem to do it differently. When Linux on the M1 turned out to be very fast, some people thought the systems were artificially limited for no reason and linux would then 'unlock' that free speed, but it turned out to simply be bad power management and run at high performance all the time. That can feel great (or, responsive) but at the same time reduce the on-battery time so much that it becomes pointless. It's tough to make proper comparisons, even when Apple was all-Intel it wasn't easy as even having 'similar SKUs' in terms of silicon doesn't really tell a useful story for the actual user experience.
- mrtksn 4y agoHow is the Windows situation these days? On my Macbook, my uptime is from OS update that needs a restart to OS update that needs to restart, which is usually every few months. I value the always on and ready to go quality on laptop, do you have than on XPS13 with Windows? Is the screen resolution handled properly now on XPS13? Is everything the right size but crisper on high dpi displays?
- harry8 4y agoEvery time a discussion of Dell laptops is happening I will mention that I own one and it is broken because I "closed the lid" and you can't do that with Dell laptops. That is their quality. They did not recall. In my country you generally can ask a company if they want to honour the warranty for such a gross defect especially when the warranty is very recently expired and for companies that aren't cheap and nasty they usually do. You can't even contact Dell unless you have a current warranty. I can't recommend avoid their laptops strongly enough. Overpriced cheap, nasty and shoddy equipment that Dell does NOT stand behind. You want a part to repair it yourself? Cost you more than a whole laptop. Dell. Just a horrendous customer experience all around. IBM, Lenove, Asus, Apple all vastly better in my experience.
- static_motion 4y agoIt really is incredible how far Dell has come. Their flagship consumer XPS line seems to be plagued with issues at every release. A relative of mine has an XPS 15 9550 which has had several issues, the worst of which was the battery swelling and beginning to bend the frame. This apparently was a widespread issue and replacement batteries were never available, and the model was never recalled despite this incredibly dangerous fault. This relative of mine still uses that same computer to this day, with the battery removed, so it's functionally a very sleek desktop, but still plagued with random issues for which I have to be on constant tech support.
- Manneveru 4y ago
- plonk 4y agoI really liked the XPS 15 9560 until I realised its design and support were trash. It features: - a system that shut down when I gamed for two minutes, it lasted for months and the support closed my ticket with "this laptop is not meant for gaming, it's your fault" (someone on reddit later found that downgrading a driver fixed it), - a reasonably powerful GTX 1050 that you can't use because the thermals are awful and 10 minutes of gaming turn the system into a slideshow, - a good Core i7 that gets throttled at 800MHz for no reason (I was stuck with a potato laptop for years before I figured out what was happening and fixed it with CPU-Z), - a TPM that randomly failed to unlock my BitLocker drive, the motherboard was replaced twice with no effect, a BIOS update a year later seems to have fixed it, - a power button that randomly stops working for a minute or two. I hope they made an effort on the latest ones. That XPS truly is the worst disaster I've ever used.
- rr808 4y agoI dont understand the appeal of 13 inch laptops. More portable? Are we so weak now? Maybe because I remember old laptops which were always much larger and heavier.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Maybe because I remember old laptops which were always much larger and heavier. Depends on the old laptop—during the netbook craze, 7-11 inches wasn't uncommon.
- cesarb 4y ago> Depends on the old laptop—during the netbook craze, 7-11 inches wasn't uncommon. Playing devil's advocate: I have one of these in my hand right now (an EeePC netbook). It's around 22cm x 16cm, around 27cm diagonal, which Google tells me corresponds to around 11 inches. But it's thick, around 3cm at its thickest point, and also somewhat heavy. (I'd really love to have a more modern device in that form factor; it's a missing step between large phones and small notebooks. This niche seems to have been filled by tablets, but unfortunately they don't have quality keyboards, and most importantly, they don't run the same general-purpose operating system I use on normal notebooks.)
- rr808 4y agoMaybe tablet with bluetooth keyboard?
- rjh29 4y agoFor me the Thinkpad T series is the sweet spot and I don't personally see any utility from being even thinner and lighter, especially if the connectivity suffers. Seems mostly a case of thin/light laptops looking nicer and therefore selling more, rather than being genuinely good for the consumer.
- tomjen3 4y agoAnd I don't understand why people want bigger ones. Maybe that is because we are different and have different needs?
- haspok 4y agoSad to see the XPS 13 starting out ~10 years ago as a "super"-portable (it was the one that introduced the tiny bezels, if anyone remembers), but still proper laptop, then turning into this fashion monster today. No headphone jack? C'mon, you must be joking. I don't even dare to ask if there is going to be a "developer" version of this running Linux, because the target market is so different now I cannot imagine it makes any sense. But OK, in the meantime other players like System76 and Tuxedo are getting better and better - it is not such a void anymore in the Linux laptop space that used to be.
- Freak_NL 4y agoMy current laptop is an XPS 13 (9310), and I got it specifically because it comes with Ubuntu supported and installed. My work laptops before that were System76 (which is OK, but way too much of a hassle in Europe when something goes wrong). I guess the next one will be something else again. Damn, I hate it when there isn't just a go-to model I can pick, and I hate comparing laptops and not just having an easy filter for 'works perfectly with Linux'. Ah well, this one won't need replacing for quite a while. Honestly, I wouldn't mind getting something a little bigger either (15" that is) if it just comes with RJ45 Ethernet, DisplayPort and HDMI, a bunch of USB-A ports, USB-C, and a headphone jack. You know, stuff we actually use. Now I have docking stations at work and at home (hybrid office/work-from-home), which works well enough, but it feels inefficient and cumbersome.
- nsonha 4y agoImagine the room for innovation if these companies stop blindingly chase being thin: modular, 2 pieces, not-shit webcam... applies to phones too.
- omar_alt 4y agoSoon the average laptop will be lighter than the average smartphone
- chiefalchemist 4y agoFrom an engineering POV it's an interesting exercise. From the perspective of product design, are these features really something Dell's customers are asking for? Along the same lines, while it's easy not to confuse "Air" with "Pro", does this over-engineering (?) hurt the XPS line? Thin for the sake of thin? Thin at all costs (i.e., no headphone jack? How big is that market?
- Const-me 4y agoI wouldn’t want a computer like that. I owned 4 laptops, got my first one in 2008. For all of them I have upgraded RAM and disks immediately after the purchase. For some of them upgraded SSDs after couple years of use: both speed and cost per GB are quickly improving over time for them. A soldered SSD is especially bad because broken laptop = lost data. I never broke a laptop but I think that was just my luck. When it will happen, I want to be able to recover data from the computer. About the 3.5mm audio jack, bluetooth audio is not good enough for music, it simply doesn’t have the bandwidth. Uncompressed 16 bit / 48 kHz stereo exceeds 1.5 mbit/second, while Bluetooth audio has throughput of 300-400 kbit/second and uses some lossy codecs on the air.
- dsomers 4y ago> A soldered SSD is especially bad because broken laptop = lost data. I never broke a laptop but I think that was just my luck. When it will happen, I want to be able to recover data from the computer. Please reconsider your backup strategy if this is the case. If your data is valuable at all you should be able to drop your laptop in a shredder at any moment and not lose anything. 3.2.1. 3 copies, 2 types of media, 1 offsite.
- Const-me 4y agoThe valuable data is backed up properly. And a laptop is usually a secondary computer i.e. there’s not much there to begin with. But I don’t like to lose any data at all if avoidable, no matter how unimportant that data is. I still keep VHD disk images from these 3 old laptops, thanks to nearly exponential decline of disk costs per TB.