13 ms·

Dell XPS 13 Plus developer edition: Now available with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

96 points by nixcraft 4y ago

LinAGKar 4y ago
I feel like they should go for Pop!_OS, like HP did. Get all the big desktop Linux vendors focused on the same default distro. Also, how come Intel Evo, whatever that is, isn't supported when choosing Ubuntu?
tmpfs 4y ago
I used to have one of these machines, quite frankly one of the worst machines i have ever owned. Continuous hardware problems with the keyboard and trackpad. Do NOT recommend.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Nice try, but I'm still not touching Dell devices until their QA and customer support proves to have changed. Our last XPSs were overpriced garbage.
- vkazanov 4y ago
  I bought like 5 XPSs and 1 workstation from dell with ubuntu preinstalled, starting with the original release. Only one model was relatively problematic. So what do you mean? Are there better laptops with Linux preinstalled from major oems?
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Worksations and laptops are not really the same thing, are they? Every XPS15 we had in the office had some sort of issue. Either motherboard cooking itslef, battery dying prematurely, trackpads getting stuck, display flickering, laptop cooking itslef in the backpack, HDMI issue etc. Unacceptable for such expensive devices. >So what do you mean? Are there better laptops with Linux preinstalled from major oems? Read my comment again. I mean XPSs are very badly designed and built devices. I never said others are better.
Moosdijk 4y ago
2 things: 1: No anti glare coating on the screen? 2: that touch pad looks really cool!
rizky05 4y ago
sandGorgon 4y ago
sad - one country its not available is India, one of the only countries where Desktop Linux penetration is far higher than OSX.
- rajasimon 4y ago
  Also the reason for that is Price. With this price I can go to buy MacOS. I think that probably why Dell Developer Edition is not available in India. They can launch a cheaper edition that can market the business side can win.
  - sandGorgon 4y ago
    yeah..no. my main is a XPS bought in India. Let me reiterate - i can buy a Dell XPS running Windows (with windows tax baked in). But I cannot buy a Dell XPS Developer Edition running Ubuntu in India. So I cannot buy the cheaper variation of the same laptop..but the more expensive version is freely available.
mkl95 4y ago
I have had two Dells. One of them bloated like a balloon after a few months, and the other one overheated all the time. I have worked with other powerful laptops and none of them had those issues, which points at Dell not caring too much about quality. I'm not saying this laptop sucks, but I'd wait for a while before buying it.
- TobbenTM 4y ago
  Dell's have so many issues that make me hesitant to ever get one again. Ranging from warranty being voided for placing them in a bag: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 To having to _buy_ access to drivers; Dell support told me I had to pay to get access to the Windows 7 drivers of a Dell laptop I explicitly bought because of the Windows 7 compatibility.
- winternett 4y ago
  My XPS 15 got a faulty HDMI port suddenly after a forced Windows 11 update. It caused permanent problems for my HDTV as well that I had it plugged into. The battery went bad after 2 years, and it is running hot regularly. Right now I just will use it to stream videos until it dies. Most of the Dell computers I've purchased in the past 8 years have had major issues just after purchase which conveniently occur just after warranty expires. I got an R13 earlier this year prior to my laptop failures, it's still sitting its box unused for when my 8300 fails. My previous non-ssd XPS 16 still runs, after 10 years. That's the reason why I once was loyal to the brand.
- gentleman11 4y ago
  I have the same swelling issue. I had to order an expensive screw kit to get the fire hazard battery out. Their machines aren’t just bad, they’re dangerous
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    My company has about 40 laptops, roughly 50-50 Mac and PC. In the last 3 years or so we've had two Mac batteries swell up and one PC one. We've had one Mac battery no longer hold charge (but not swell), and 3 PC ones. (Doesn't the XPS have normal crosshead screws? My fairly old one does.)
ndncujdnskci 4y ago
So more expensive than a comparable System 76 build and you get to enjoy the Dell customer experience.
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  In much of Europe Dell will end up cheaper because it will be sold within the single market, meaning no customs tax and import levies, and warrantee doesn't cost you hundreds of Euros in shipping costs. System76 is really only an affordable option if you live in North America. That's if this comes out in whichever European country one lives in of course, because Dell is exasperatingly vague about their specific offerings, and in my case (the XPS 13 with Ubuntu 20.04 with Dell Netherlands) I could only offer it via telephone. That part sucks. The laptop is fine though. For the record: for my work laptop over the past ten years I've had two System76's and now a Dell XPS 13.
  - mgraupner 4y ago
    I think Tuxedo sells similar laptops to System76 with Linux preinstalled and reasonable shipping rates within Europe: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/Alle.tuxedo#!#1275,1319 https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Note...
intothemild 4y ago
I want to like this. But as someone who had a touch bar Mac... Not having a physical escape key sucks.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
Using a distro version as a selling point is so weird to me. Do a majority of linux users really care that the baseline, pre-installed OS is now 22.04? Is it not more appealing to just come out and say "hey, we have shiny new hardware, all components work great as of kernel x.xx"?
- e3bc54b2 4y ago
  With Ubuntu being absolute worst crapshoot of Desktop Linux nowadays, while still riding the glory from days of yore, it kinda makes sense. Dell isn't targeting Linux veterans, they're targeting people who have heard of this Linux thing and get led to Ubuntu by Google.
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  Yes it matters. Just knowing that it works with one of the most popular LTS distro versions is a major selling point. For me it was the reason I bought the XPS 13 with Ubuntu 20.04 a while back. I use Ubuntu myself, so not having to reinstall anything saved time too.
- aendruk 4y ago
  Since they’re also promoting Canonical’s app store I figure some advertising must have been part of the deal. 22.04 LTS is a useful reference though, even when planning to use another distro.
- nsteel 4y ago
  My problems installing new Ubuntu releases on (at the time) latest XPS hardware were due to the version of the wifi drivers packaged in Ubuntu. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I don't recall the kernel version helping, I had to grab newer driver debs from the testing repo until the next Ubuntu version was released. But you make a fair point because I can't find a similar announcement last month for the certification completion itself. There is probably a strategy behind that, we might simply not understand what Dell is trying to achieve with their developer edition.
- paranoidrobot 4y ago
  It's also about support. You buy one of these, and then 2 months later call up Dell and say the Wifi on laptop is not working, then it can go one of two ways. If you're running Ubuntu 22.04, then you'd be justified in demanding they support it, and repair/replace as appropriate. If you're running $SomeOtherRandomDistro, then their support team you're dealing with may not have the right tools/processes to test and diagnose the issue. It would, I would argue, be justified for them to reject your support request until you can show it failing in Ubuntu 22.04. Assuming it wasn't something obviously physically wrong with the device.
aetherspawn 4y ago
Personally, I don't want laptops that look like glass. We've spent over $75K at Dell this year. We buy all our kiosks, laptops, monitors, docks, webcams, speakerphone equipment, servers, and more through them. And we love all of the gear, it's beautifully made, and it all just works (tm) together. But personally I long that they would give up on trying to push out hyper modern laptops or macbook clones and just push out robust business laptops that look like ThinkPad T/P-series. One of the reasons we don't buy Lenovo is because the quality of Dell's software, support, BIOS, recovery etc. is all lightyears ahead of Lenovo. For example, our business laptops don't ship with recovery partitions that can be wiped. We can open SupportAssist in the BIOS, connect to WiFi in the BIOS, and it will automatically download the latest factory image and re-install the OS from the cloud. The images don't come with any bloatware or ads baked-in and from there we can just deploy everything with InTune. Fantastic.
- Underphil 4y ago
  I have a work-issued Precision 7510 that is the antithesis to what you described. I'm with you on the 'laptops that look like glass' thing.
  - aetherspawn 4y ago
    We use a few Precision 7560 and they are fantastic, although we do miss the second set of buttons above the trackpad and also the nib mouse that your model has. It’s a shame the Precision 3000 series shares nothing design-wise with the 7-series. The 7-series is quite frankly unaffordable for the general case. And the recent revisions are slowly losing their ruggedness. We would buy a 7-series chassis with an i5 and no GPU if it had a price point around $2200-ish.
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  > I don't want laptops that look like glass. As a MacBook user, neither do I. It looks like Dell took all the mistakes Apple made in recent years and turned them up to 11 in a single package. That keyboard will be a nightmare to touchtype on. The arrow keys will require looking down to use every single time. The trackpad without clear borders will be a usability nightmare. Or perhaps they mean it spans the entire width of the laptop, which is probably much worse. Capacitive things have no place in a developer's computer.
vbezhenar 4y ago
I bought latitude 3410 last year as a cheap back up computer and couldn't be happier. Acceptable performance, very solid Linux support, everything just works in Fedora. Just few days ago wife's macbook stopped working, so I installed Windows 11, again very smooth experience, all drivers were installed automagically, everything works just fine. Everyone's got his own experience, my experience with Dell was very good. I also used their display, can't say anything bad about it either. No dead pixels. Can't comment about their support or something, we don't have such thing here, no matter whether it's macbook or dell. We support ourselves and pray it does not brake.
latch 4y ago
I've had 2 Dell XPS's running Ubuntu, a 9300 and 9370. I very recently switched to an Air M2. The build quality between the XPS and the air is night and day. The 9300 flexed so much that when I picked it up with a single hand, the trackpad would click from the flex. After a couple years, the keyboard stopped working, the shell started to physically split and I had to tighten the case screws every week or so (there was a ~2-3mm gap in the case, to a point where the USBc wouldn't line up). My camera started to turn off at the slightest vibration/breeze. I find OSX painful. But between a mildly frustrating OS and crap hardware...for me, the air is an obvious better buy.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  Linus is using a Macbook Air: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/linus-torvalds-uses-an-arm-powered-m2-macbook-air-to-release-latest-linux-kernel/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/linus-torvalds-uses-... It's not the first time: https://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvalds-i-love-my-macbook-air/ https://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvald...
  - pmontra 4y ago
    He is also using a Macbook Air, probably not his main machine. From the release notes of the latest kernel release [1] > On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop. [...] > Not that I've used it for any real work, I literally have only been doing test builds and boots and now the actual release tagging. But I'm trying to make sure that the next time I travel, I can travel with this as a laptop and finally dogfooding the arm64 side too. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgrz5BBk=rCz7W28Fj_o02s0Xi0OEQ3H1uQgOdFvHgx0w@mail.gmail.com/T/#u https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgrz5BBk=rCz7W28Fj_o02s0X...
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Linus isn't daily driving a Mac for his dev work. He just used it for the commit.
unclet 4y ago
It does not have the Esc key. So bad.
hlandau 4y ago
When I saw this, I was about to comment about how in seemingly every single case of a major laptop vendor selling a Linux model, it turns out the Linux version is unavailable in the UK. Then at the end of the article, I saw it list the UK as a country in which the laptop is available, and was pleasantly surprised: "As of today, the Dell XPS 13 Plus developer edition with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is available in the following countries (available configurations may vary by country):" The words "United Kingdom" are even a link to the Dell UK page to buy it. I click on the words. The configure-and-buy page opens. Operating system: Only Windows 11 is listed. Just... what? What is going on here? They explicitly said the Ubuntu edition is available in the UK, and then it isn't. Why does it feel like there's some bizarre conspiracy to deprive people in the UK of the Linux SKUs?
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  Call them. :( I had the same problem in the Netherlands with my XPS 13 with Ubuntu 20.04. The local website didn't list it, but when I gave the phone rep one of the codes they use for it on the US website they could order it (they were genuinely surprised at that). Dell's website really sucks, and it hides or shows things based either on outdated inventory data, or really black-boxy algorithms.
  - eCa 4y ago
    > Dell's website really sucks Even their cookie box is weird. I’ve never seen ”Declinate all” as an option.
    - Freak_NL 4y ago
      I agree with you on the weirdness, but I actually got the 'Decline All' option just now. The weirdness then? The other option is called 'Everyone's the Acceptor'. I… guess something to do with having en_GB as language set in my browser? Am I the only one getting this option to accept cookies for everyone? It feels like a huge responsibility. (Screenshot: https://postimg.cc/t1D1n3Pq https://postimg.cc/t1D1n3Pq)
turblety 4y ago
It's amazing to me that they didn't learn from Apple's mistakes. All we heard about for months was how annoying not having a physical escape key was. It even forced Apple to change the keyboard on newer models, with a physical escape key and then the touchbar to the right. But here we go, Dell has decided to put a capacitive escape key. They really need to know their market better. Anyway, it looked like a nice laptop. Totally unusable to a developer without a physical escape key. *edited, thanks for the correction cassianoleal
- Manfred 4y ago
  The whole keyboard looks like form over function. I have never touched them, so I’m curious about other people’s experience.
- bibanez 4y ago
  You can switch Escape with caps lock. It's easy to do in linux and arguably better if you get used to it for vim keybinding ergonomics
  - elcomet 4y ago
    But how do you caps lock ?
    - carlesfe 4y ago
      Shift-Capslock
    - nont 4y ago
      Remapping a combination of the windows key + another key like a backspace to Caplock gets the job done for me. Even shift + caplock would also solve the problem
    - pmontra 4y ago
      I remapped caps lock to control many years ago in Tweaks, Keyboard & Mouse, Additional Layout Options, Caps Lock Behavior. I can enable caps lock by pressing both shift keys and disable it by pressing any shift.
roschdal 4y ago
Meh. I would rather get a good desktop PC.
eastbound 4y ago
I have owned a Dell XPS, for an intern, in end-of-2020, and never again: - The first experience was trying to open the thing, the hinge is too strong, so the bottom comes with the top instead of staying on the table, and because of the loose grip it drops and slams on the table, - Fans are just as noisy as all PCs, I was told the XPS experience was the closest to Apple in the PC world, barring System76, that was a marketing-by-lies.
- bzzzt 4y ago
  They are MacBook-like if you consider thickness, weight, screen resolution and battery life (pre-M1 Mac that is). It's a shame the build quality is so bad. The Dell on-site support tech is a regular at my company due to the amount of breakage and we refuse to buy the XPS line anymore.
nopehnnope 4y ago
Dell XPS’s are superficially nice machines but the power management is comically broken. They overheat and drain their battery while sleeping. You’re lucky if you close the lid in the morning and there’s still juice left by 5pm.
- microtonal 4y ago
  Not just Dell :(. I had a Lenovo T14 AMD. The battery would drain overnight in S3 sleep. To add to the offense, if that'd happen it often wouldn't charge with the supplied Lenovo USB-C charger anymore. However, a borrowed MacBook USB-C adapter would bring it back alive within a few minutes. The first time I was pretty sure the laptop turned into a brick. Of course, this happened hours before I had to give a lecture.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    Chalk HP up there, too. Had a ProBook 430 for work, with an 8th gen Intel, so before the S0 circus. It would eat through the battery in S3 like nobody's business. It was only marginally better than my current joke of a computer, an EliteBook G8, but this one at least doesn't even pretend to sleep (no support for S3 at all).
franczesko 4y ago
XPS13 is my go-to choice. Serving me for many years, although I have to admit that the camera placement (bottom-left) corner in the older models is funnily frustrating.
okasaki 4y ago
The memory is still soldered on I guess, even after the framework laptop proved that you can have a compact laptop and memory slots (and other stuff), something we were told wasn't possible.
gentleman11 4y ago
Just in time for my Ifixit kit to arrive so I can take my swelling, fire hazard Dell battery out of my old xps after the swelling or electrical issues broke my old charger and made my trackpad stop working. Dell claims it’s not a known issue, so they won’t fix it for free, but if you google it, it seems fairly common on my model It always had suspend issues with Ubuntu too, it wouldn’t wake up 100% sometimes and would lag until I restarted it
mixedbit 4y ago
What is a fresh install Ubuntu experience with XPS laptops with two GPUs? In the Dell store only single GPU models allow to select Ubuntu preinstalled and I wonder if this is due to software problems with handling two GPUs well. I'm looking for a new laptop. My current one has two GPUs (not Dell), but due to stability problems I ended up using only integrated GPU on Ubuntu Linux. I wonder if with Dell the Ubuntu support for such setups is better.
aendruk 4y ago
Lots of complains about reliability here. I’ll just offer the counter-anecdote that I’ve been using an XPS 13 Developer Edition since 2016 and it’s been fine. Ironically I already don’t even use its physical escape key, in preference for a more ergonomic mapping.
francislavoie 4y ago
So. Stupid. You can't choose Ubuntu and 32GB RAM at the same time. I need 32GB. Because modern developer applications are incredibly RAM hungry. My Jetbrains IDEs eat up easily a dozen GB for indexes on my projects. gopls takes up a couple GB. Firefox fluctuates, but often half a dozen depending on how many tabs I have. Add in a few electron apps, and I'm at 27GB used right now. You can't even choose the top CPU option with Ubuntu, you're stuck with the i5. I want the multitasking performance. I'm currently on the previous generation Dell XPS 13 (9310), and I'm still satisfied, I'm not actually looking for a new laptop. But it was the exact same story when I was shopping for it. Impossible to get the developer edition, so I had to settle with getting it with Windows (and 32GB RAM) and setting up the dual-boot myself. Arguably it's more resellable because I can just wipe the Linux partition, re-merge the partitions, and it'll look pretty much stock. But meh. Worth mentioning that Linux Wi-Fi drivers for the model I have is terrible because they had two different chips they were using for XPS laptops and getting 32GB meant I would get that "upgraded" (but actually worse) chip. Had to fight with kernel upgrades to get a patch ahead of time to make it usable.
- secondcoming 4y ago
  Same thoughts when I was shopping around, so I went for a Precision Mobile and upgraded it to 128gb of aftermarket RAM.
- samhuk 4y ago
  I came to say exactly this. Color me unsurprised that this is the top comment. In what world is 16GB and a mobile i5 "developer orientated"? Makes my head spin.
  - tgv 4y ago
    I must say, I'm surprised that it takes that much memory. I've got a 16GB macbook pro, and it sits at a comfortable 9GB "app memory". I've got one config project open, one pretty large Vue/TS/HTML/CSS project, and two Go projects opened in VSCode, plus Chrome and Firefox, plus Outlook and Teams. And Emacs. I regularly run a Django docker project too, together with DBeaver and PyCharm, and still it doesn't eat up all my memory (although I do close VSCode in that case). Everything is memory hungry, yes, but it doesn't look like I need 32GB. Pricey machine, BTW.
Krisjohn 4y ago
The Dell XPS laptops are the worst crap Dell makes. They're like Toshiba Satellites. Why anyone would take a perfectly servicable distro like Ubuntu and ruin it on an XPS is beyond me.
Bost 4y ago
Be aware that "Ubuntu" doesn't mean "Free software"! 9 years ago I bought a new Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu. Everything has been fine until one month ago when I decided to natively install Guix OS. The wireless card "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (2x2 b/g/+ Bluetooth Combo Card)" has non-free, proprietary firmware. So no native(!) Guix on my Dell XPS. (Only hosted)
- chme 4y ago
  Ubuntu did pioneer easy proprietary driver integration into their distro AFAIK. About wireless that is to be expected with most (all modern?) Intel Wifi cards... I mean there is proprietary firmware running on most/all modern Laptops, the difference is that many controllers have their own flash and don't rely on the os to feed them their firmware...
  - Bost 4y ago
    That means, on modern Laptops, the firmware is "sitting inside" proprietary hardware, so that it is irrelevant if this firmware is proprietary or not. If this is conclusion of mine is correct(?), that means: even less motivation for modern Ubuntu versions to include proprietary blobs.
    - bubblethink 4y ago
      firmware for Intel's wifi cards is hosted in the linux firmware repo with a redistributable license. Any wifi card made in the last 10+ years requires firmware.
    - chme 4y ago
      That is a distinction without difference in regards to proprietary definition. If you are a purist that doesn't like proprietary firmware, it doesn't matter were that firmware is located. However, on other issues internal flash means the controller is more expensive and more difficult to update on bugs or security issues, so putting firmware on in the filesystem makes it much more visible, easier to manage and cost-effective. This is not possible for many controllers, like the boot rom, keyboard, touchscreen, hdd/ssd controller, because they are needed to work before there is a filesystem available in many cases. But in case of Wifi and Bluetooth, doing it like this is possible and preferred for most people I guess. Of course many people would prefer having only FOSS firmware, but even in that case they would prefer having as much firmware as possible visible on the filesystem instead of hidden away on some flash for those reasons.
timq 4y ago
To bring some positive news, I bought this computer last month and up to now I'm quite happy with it. TouchPad feels very good but is a little buggy when the computer rest on some surfaces. The function keys are not a pain to use, and the keyboard feels very good otherwise. I installed Fedora and Windows 10 on it. Bought with Ubuntu for the price reduction. Oled screen is marvelous, battery life is okay: 5h when developing using vscode and tons of extensions. It does get quite hot when doing some 3d stuff but that's expected I guess. Battery life can be improved by choosing the LCD screen. It has some flaws, but I find them minor and I value much more the possibility to have a windows Linux dual boot.
varispeed 4y ago
Is this a joke? I mean what's the use of this laptop for a developer if it has a typical consumer keyboard not designed for typing code? Also having been a user of couple of generations of XPS, I wouldn't wish this laptop upon an enemy. These laptops were the most unreliable I have a ever had. I also never heard fans so loud in any other laptop like in my XPS 15. They were louder than a hairdryer. Imagine this during a meeting. Plus typical issues like coil whine or if you power it off, pray that it will turn on... When my XPS 15 died, while not being a fan of Apple I bought M1 MBPRO. Now I am not sure why other manufacturers like Dell even bother making their laptops. Do yourself a favour and don't bother with Dell. You can run Linux on Mac just fine (through virtualisation).
haspok 4y ago
So sad, what used to be a groundbreaking laptop (an ultraportable that you'd actually buy with official Linux support!) is now copying the worst from Apple, while degrading in almost all aspects from the predecessors. No headphone jack, no USB-A? 13" 4K screen which sucks the not-so-small battery as fast as the first version did ~10 years ago? Touchbar? Glass screen? A charger that can't actually charge the device while you are compiling your code? And this is a "developer" machine? I'm so disappointed.
sebzim4500 4y ago
I have an XPS 15, the power management is so bad that I had to tell it to hibernate rather than sleep when I close the lid. Otherwise it was using 3x more CPU 'sleeping' with the lid closed than under normal use. I tried to figure out what was going on with performance recorder/analyser but eventually I gave up.
- varispeed 4y ago
  Mine wouldn't "wake up" from hibernation and having experiencing it wake up from sleep while in my backpack, I learned the hard way, that only safe way was to shut it down.
Ecstatify 4y ago
Beware buying Dell XPS Laptops. Just got a MacBook Pro to replace mine. - Screen Broken, the screen is distorted and unusable, need to connect an external screen to work - Random Bluetooth Disconnects, throughout the day the Bluetooth will randomly switch off - The laptop started to peel, looks like my laptop has dandruff - Dell bloatware
dgan 4y ago
I have a Dell XPS 13 provided by my employer. I don't understand what's so supposedly good about them. - It won't boot when battery is empty. I literally have to wait for like 10min until it decides I can now use it. Have fun explaining why you are late on your morning meeting after forgetting to charge it over night. You just sit there, looking at your laptop. - No graphics at all by default, in Debian Buster. Had to install some drivers from Unstable. - Touchpad is barely acceptable. - Only a single Jack port on the laptop itself, so you have to bring the whole heap of wires and boxes with you if you want to use a mouse or plug in a USB; so much for a "portable laptop" - Pointless touch screen. Never used it. - Sometimes fans are going crazy for absolutely no reason. I think there has to be a mechanical fault, the noise is not something you d expect. It got suddenly better tho, without me taking any action. Overall, it brings headaches, without any advantage. No way I am getting this for myself.
jonathantf2 4y ago
I have 3 brand new XPS 13 Plus machines sitting right in front of me, the trackpads are unusable. You have no idea where it starts and ends, the click is super finnicky etc.
wink 4y ago
I applauded this Dell developer thing until I got my first Dell laptop ever (not an XPS) and learned that laptops can have audible coil whine (apparently many XPS also have this). I also learnt just how annoyingly buggy docking stations can be. So nope, gonna stick to Thinkpads for personal laptops I have to buy myself.
chem83 4y ago
Nah! Folks, get the Lenovo Z13 instead. Exact same size, OLED or IPS, LTE modem, up to 32GB LPDDR5, Ryzen 6800 with similar perf numbers and better battery to 12th Gen i7 1260/1280 and way better graphics. No capacitive function row! And is running Linux no problem.
baaaat 4y ago
Review of my 4k XPS 9370: - runs very hot (and gets loud) - terrible battery life (battery almost completely unusable after a few years) + standby mode eating all battery quickly (and sometimes doesnt wake up from hibernation on linux) - annoying coil whine when charging battery that is almost full - wont turn on if battery is low (<5%) + connected to a charger (will trigger "ssd can not be found bios error") - issues with wifi speed when bluetooth headphones are connected at the same time (might be a linux driver problem for killer wifi) - touchscreen is pointless (but there was no other way to get the 4k display) - low quality trackpad - only 3 ports and all are usb c (not even HDMI on a laptop???) First and last Dell laptop I will every buy. If ARM is not an issue for your use case there really is no reason why you should not buy a silent macbook air in current year instead.

96 points by nixcraft 4y ago

I feel like they should go for Pop!_OS, like HP did. Get all the big desktop Linux vendors focused on the same default distro. Also, how come Intel Evo, whatever that is, isn't supported when choosing Ubuntu?

tmpfs 4y ago

I used to have one of these machines, quite frankly one of the worst machines i have ever owned. Continuous hardware problems with the keyboard and trackpad. Do NOT recommend.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

Nice try, but I'm still not touching Dell devices until their QA and customer support proves to have changed. Our last XPSs were overpriced garbage.

vkazanov 4y ago
I bought like 5 XPSs and 1 workstation from dell with ubuntu preinstalled, starting with the original release. Only one model was relatively problematic. So what do you mean? Are there better laptops with Linux preinstalled from major oems?
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Worksations and laptops are not really the same thing, are they? Every XPS15 we had in the office had some sort of issue. Either motherboard cooking itslef, battery dying prematurely, trackpads getting stuck, display flickering, laptop cooking itslef in the backpack, HDMI issue etc. Unacceptable for such expensive devices. >So what do you mean? Are there better laptops with Linux preinstalled from major oems? Read my comment again. I mean XPSs are very badly designed and built devices. I never said others are better.

Moosdijk 4y ago

2 things: 1: No anti glare coating on the screen? 2: that touch pad looks really cool!

rizky05 4y ago

sandGorgon 4y ago

sad - one country its not available is India, one of the only countries where Desktop Linux penetration is far higher than OSX.

rajasimon 4y ago
Also the reason for that is Price. With this price I can go to buy MacOS. I think that probably why Dell Developer Edition is not available in India. They can launch a cheaper edition that can market the business side can win.
- sandGorgon 4y ago
  yeah..no. my main is a XPS bought in India. Let me reiterate - i can buy a Dell XPS running Windows (with windows tax baked in). But I cannot buy a Dell XPS Developer Edition running Ubuntu in India. So I cannot buy the cheaper variation of the same laptop..but the more expensive version is freely available.

mkl95 4y ago

I have had two Dells. One of them bloated like a balloon after a few months, and the other one overheated all the time. I have worked with other powerful laptops and none of them had those issues, which points at Dell not caring too much about quality. I'm not saying this laptop sucks, but I'd wait for a while before buying it.

TobbenTM 4y ago
Dell's have so many issues that make me hesitant to ever get one again. Ranging from warranty being voided for placing them in a bag: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 To having to _buy_ access to drivers; Dell support told me I had to pay to get access to the Windows 7 drivers of a Dell laptop I explicitly bought because of the Windows 7 compatibility.
winternett 4y ago
My XPS 15 got a faulty HDMI port suddenly after a forced Windows 11 update. It caused permanent problems for my HDTV as well that I had it plugged into. The battery went bad after 2 years, and it is running hot regularly. Right now I just will use it to stream videos until it dies. Most of the Dell computers I've purchased in the past 8 years have had major issues just after purchase which conveniently occur just after warranty expires. I got an R13 earlier this year prior to my laptop failures, it's still sitting its box unused for when my 8300 fails. My previous non-ssd XPS 16 still runs, after 10 years. That's the reason why I once was loyal to the brand.
gentleman11 4y ago
I have the same swelling issue. I had to order an expensive screw kit to get the fire hazard battery out. Their machines aren’t just bad, they’re dangerous
- Symbiote 4y ago
  My company has about 40 laptops, roughly 50-50 Mac and PC. In the last 3 years or so we've had two Mac batteries swell up and one PC one. We've had one Mac battery no longer hold charge (but not swell), and 3 PC ones. (Doesn't the XPS have normal crosshead screws? My fairly old one does.)

ndncujdnskci 4y ago

So more expensive than a comparable System 76 build and you get to enjoy the Dell customer experience.

Freak_NL 4y ago
In much of Europe Dell will end up cheaper because it will be sold within the single market, meaning no customs tax and import levies, and warrantee doesn't cost you hundreds of Euros in shipping costs. System76 is really only an affordable option if you live in North America. That's if this comes out in whichever European country one lives in of course, because Dell is exasperatingly vague about their specific offerings, and in my case (the XPS 13 with Ubuntu 20.04 with Dell Netherlands) I could only offer it via telephone. That part sucks. The laptop is fine though. For the record: for my work laptop over the past ten years I've had two System76's and now a Dell XPS 13.
- mgraupner 4y ago
  I think Tuxedo sells similar laptops to System76 with Linux preinstalled and reasonable shipping rates within Europe: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/Alle.tuxedo#!#1275,1319 https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Note...

intothemild 4y ago

I want to like this. But as someone who had a touch bar Mac... Not having a physical escape key sucks.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

BaculumMeumEst 4y ago

Using a distro version as a selling point is so weird to me. Do a majority of linux users really care that the baseline, pre-installed OS is now 22.04? Is it not more appealing to just come out and say "hey, we have shiny new hardware, all components work great as of kernel x.xx"?

e3bc54b2 4y ago
With Ubuntu being absolute worst crapshoot of Desktop Linux nowadays, while still riding the glory from days of yore, it kinda makes sense. Dell isn't targeting Linux veterans, they're targeting people who have heard of this Linux thing and get led to Ubuntu by Google.
Freak_NL 4y ago
Yes it matters. Just knowing that it works with one of the most popular LTS distro versions is a major selling point. For me it was the reason I bought the XPS 13 with Ubuntu 20.04 a while back. I use Ubuntu myself, so not having to reinstall anything saved time too.
aendruk 4y ago
Since they’re also promoting Canonical’s app store I figure some advertising must have been part of the deal. 22.04 LTS is a useful reference though, even when planning to use another distro.
nsteel 4y ago
My problems installing new Ubuntu releases on (at the time) latest XPS hardware were due to the version of the wifi drivers packaged in Ubuntu. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I don't recall the kernel version helping, I had to grab newer driver debs from the testing repo until the next Ubuntu version was released. But you make a fair point because I can't find a similar announcement last month for the certification completion itself. There is probably a strategy behind that, we might simply not understand what Dell is trying to achieve with their developer edition.
paranoidrobot 4y ago
It's also about support. You buy one of these, and then 2 months later call up Dell and say the Wifi on laptop is not working, then it can go one of two ways. If you're running Ubuntu 22.04, then you'd be justified in demanding they support it, and repair/replace as appropriate. If you're running $SomeOtherRandomDistro, then their support team you're dealing with may not have the right tools/processes to test and diagnose the issue. It would, I would argue, be justified for them to reject your support request until you can show it failing in Ubuntu 22.04. Assuming it wasn't something obviously physically wrong with the device.

aetherspawn 4y ago

Personally, I don't want laptops that look like glass. We've spent over $75K at Dell this year. We buy all our kiosks, laptops, monitors, docks, webcams, speakerphone equipment, servers, and more through them. And we love all of the gear, it's beautifully made, and it all just works (tm) together. But personally I long that they would give up on trying to push out hyper modern laptops or macbook clones and just push out robust business laptops that look like ThinkPad T/P-series. One of the reasons we don't buy Lenovo is because the quality of Dell's software, support, BIOS, recovery etc. is all lightyears ahead of Lenovo. For example, our business laptops don't ship with recovery partitions that can be wiped. We can open SupportAssist in the BIOS, connect to WiFi in the BIOS, and it will automatically download the latest factory image and re-install the OS from the cloud. The images don't come with any bloatware or ads baked-in and from there we can just deploy everything with InTune. Fantastic.

Underphil 4y ago
I have a work-issued Precision 7510 that is the antithesis to what you described. I'm with you on the 'laptops that look like glass' thing.
- aetherspawn 4y ago
  We use a few Precision 7560 and they are fantastic, although we do miss the second set of buttons above the trackpad and also the nib mouse that your model has. It’s a shame the Precision 3000 series shares nothing design-wise with the 7-series. The 7-series is quite frankly unaffordable for the general case. And the recent revisions are slowly losing their ruggedness. We would buy a 7-series chassis with an i5 and no GPU if it had a price point around $2200-ish.
cassianoleal 4y ago
> I don't want laptops that look like glass. As a MacBook user, neither do I. It looks like Dell took all the mistakes Apple made in recent years and turned them up to 11 in a single package. That keyboard will be a nightmare to touchtype on. The arrow keys will require looking down to use every single time. The trackpad without clear borders will be a usability nightmare. Or perhaps they mean it spans the entire width of the laptop, which is probably much worse. Capacitive things have no place in a developer's computer.

vbezhenar 4y ago

I bought latitude 3410 last year as a cheap back up computer and couldn't be happier. Acceptable performance, very solid Linux support, everything just works in Fedora. Just few days ago wife's macbook stopped working, so I installed Windows 11, again very smooth experience, all drivers were installed automagically, everything works just fine. Everyone's got his own experience, my experience with Dell was very good. I also used their display, can't say anything bad about it either. No dead pixels. Can't comment about their support or something, we don't have such thing here, no matter whether it's macbook or dell. We support ourselves and pray it does not brake.

latch 4y ago

I've had 2 Dell XPS's running Ubuntu, a 9300 and 9370. I very recently switched to an Air M2. The build quality between the XPS and the air is night and day. The 9300 flexed so much that when I picked it up with a single hand, the trackpad would click from the flex. After a couple years, the keyboard stopped working, the shell started to physically split and I had to tighten the case screws every week or so (there was a ~2-3mm gap in the case, to a point where the USBc wouldn't line up). My camera started to turn off at the slightest vibration/breeze. I find OSX painful. But between a mildly frustrating OS and crap hardware...for me, the air is an obvious better buy.

bdcravens 4y ago
Linus is using a Macbook Air: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/linus-torvalds-uses-an-arm-powered-m2-macbook-air-to-release-latest-linux-kernel/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/linus-torvalds-uses-... It's not the first time: https://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvalds-i-love-my-macbook-air/ https://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvald...
- pmontra 4y ago
  He is also using a Macbook Air, probably not his main machine. From the release notes of the latest kernel release [1] > On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop. [...] > Not that I've used it for any real work, I literally have only been doing test builds and boots and now the actual release tagging. But I'm trying to make sure that the next time I travel, I can travel with this as a laptop and finally dogfooding the arm64 side too. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgrz5BBk=rCz7W28Fj_o02s0Xi0OEQ3H1uQgOdFvHgx0w@mail.gmail.com/T/#u https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgrz5BBk=rCz7W28Fj_o02s0X...
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Linus isn't daily driving a Mac for his dev work. He just used it for the commit.

unclet 4y ago

It does not have the Esc key. So bad.

hlandau 4y ago

When I saw this, I was about to comment about how in seemingly every single case of a major laptop vendor selling a Linux model, it turns out the Linux version is unavailable in the UK. Then at the end of the article, I saw it list the UK as a country in which the laptop is available, and was pleasantly surprised: "As of today, the Dell XPS 13 Plus developer edition with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is available in the following countries (available configurations may vary by country):" The words "United Kingdom" are even a link to the Dell UK page to buy it. I click on the words. The configure-and-buy page opens. Operating system: Only Windows 11 is listed. Just... what? What is going on here? They explicitly said the Ubuntu edition is available in the UK, and then it isn't. Why does it feel like there's some bizarre conspiracy to deprive people in the UK of the Linux SKUs?

Freak_NL 4y ago
Call them. :( I had the same problem in the Netherlands with my XPS 13 with Ubuntu 20.04. The local website didn't list it, but when I gave the phone rep one of the codes they use for it on the US website they could order it (they were genuinely surprised at that). Dell's website really sucks, and it hides or shows things based either on outdated inventory data, or really black-boxy algorithms.
- eCa 4y ago
  > Dell's website really sucks Even their cookie box is weird. I’ve never seen ”Declinate all” as an option.
  - Freak_NL 4y ago
    I agree with you on the weirdness, but I actually got the 'Decline All' option just now. The weirdness then? The other option is called 'Everyone's the Acceptor'. I… guess something to do with having en_GB as language set in my browser? Am I the only one getting this option to accept cookies for everyone? It feels like a huge responsibility. (Screenshot: https://postimg.cc/t1D1n3Pq https://postimg.cc/t1D1n3Pq)

turblety 4y ago

It's amazing to me that they didn't learn from Apple's mistakes. All we heard about for months was how annoying not having a physical escape key was. It even forced Apple to change the keyboard on newer models, with a physical escape key and then the touchbar to the right. But here we go, Dell has decided to put a capacitive escape key. They really need to know their market better. Anyway, it looked like a nice laptop. Totally unusable to a developer without a physical escape key. *edited, thanks for the correction cassianoleal

Manfred 4y ago
The whole keyboard looks like form over function. I have never touched them, so I’m curious about other people’s experience.
bibanez 4y ago
You can switch Escape with caps lock. It's easy to do in linux and arguably better if you get used to it for vim keybinding ergonomics
- elcomet 4y ago
  But how do you caps lock ?
  - carlesfe 4y ago
    Shift-Capslock
  - nont 4y ago
    Remapping a combination of the windows key + another key like a backspace to Caplock gets the job done for me. Even shift + caplock would also solve the problem
  - pmontra 4y ago
    I remapped caps lock to control many years ago in Tweaks, Keyboard & Mouse, Additional Layout Options, Caps Lock Behavior. I can enable caps lock by pressing both shift keys and disable it by pressing any shift.

roschdal 4y ago

Meh. I would rather get a good desktop PC.

eastbound 4y ago

I have owned a Dell XPS, for an intern, in end-of-2020, and never again: - The first experience was trying to open the thing, the hinge is too strong, so the bottom comes with the top instead of staying on the table, and because of the loose grip it drops and slams on the table, - Fans are just as noisy as all PCs, I was told the XPS experience was the closest to Apple in the PC world, barring System76, that was a marketing-by-lies.

bzzzt 4y ago
They are MacBook-like if you consider thickness, weight, screen resolution and battery life (pre-M1 Mac that is). It's a shame the build quality is so bad. The Dell on-site support tech is a regular at my company due to the amount of breakage and we refuse to buy the XPS line anymore.

nopehnnope 4y ago

Dell XPS’s are superficially nice machines but the power management is comically broken. They overheat and drain their battery while sleeping. You’re lucky if you close the lid in the morning and there’s still juice left by 5pm.

microtonal 4y ago
Not just Dell :(. I had a Lenovo T14 AMD. The battery would drain overnight in S3 sleep. To add to the offense, if that'd happen it often wouldn't charge with the supplied Lenovo USB-C charger anymore. However, a borrowed MacBook USB-C adapter would bring it back alive within a few minutes. The first time I was pretty sure the laptop turned into a brick. Of course, this happened hours before I had to give a lecture.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  Chalk HP up there, too. Had a ProBook 430 for work, with an 8th gen Intel, so before the S0 circus. It would eat through the battery in S3 like nobody's business. It was only marginally better than my current joke of a computer, an EliteBook G8, but this one at least doesn't even pretend to sleep (no support for S3 at all).

franczesko 4y ago

XPS13 is my go-to choice. Serving me for many years, although I have to admit that the camera placement (bottom-left) corner in the older models is funnily frustrating.

okasaki 4y ago

The memory is still soldered on I guess, even after the framework laptop proved that you can have a compact laptop and memory slots (and other stuff), something we were told wasn't possible.

gentleman11 4y ago

Just in time for my Ifixit kit to arrive so I can take my swelling, fire hazard Dell battery out of my old xps after the swelling or electrical issues broke my old charger and made my trackpad stop working. Dell claims it’s not a known issue, so they won’t fix it for free, but if you google it, it seems fairly common on my model It always had suspend issues with Ubuntu too, it wouldn’t wake up 100% sometimes and would lag until I restarted it

mixedbit 4y ago

What is a fresh install Ubuntu experience with XPS laptops with two GPUs? In the Dell store only single GPU models allow to select Ubuntu preinstalled and I wonder if this is due to software problems with handling two GPUs well. I'm looking for a new laptop. My current one has two GPUs (not Dell), but due to stability problems I ended up using only integrated GPU on Ubuntu Linux. I wonder if with Dell the Ubuntu support for such setups is better.

aendruk 4y ago

Lots of complains about reliability here. I’ll just offer the counter-anecdote that I’ve been using an XPS 13 Developer Edition since 2016 and it’s been fine. Ironically I already don’t even use its physical escape key, in preference for a more ergonomic mapping.

francislavoie 4y ago

So. Stupid. You can't choose Ubuntu and 32GB RAM at the same time. I need 32GB. Because modern developer applications are incredibly RAM hungry. My Jetbrains IDEs eat up easily a dozen GB for indexes on my projects. gopls takes up a couple GB. Firefox fluctuates, but often half a dozen depending on how many tabs I have. Add in a few electron apps, and I'm at 27GB used right now. You can't even choose the top CPU option with Ubuntu, you're stuck with the i5. I want the multitasking performance. I'm currently on the previous generation Dell XPS 13 (9310), and I'm still satisfied, I'm not actually looking for a new laptop. But it was the exact same story when I was shopping for it. Impossible to get the developer edition, so I had to settle with getting it with Windows (and 32GB RAM) and setting up the dual-boot myself. Arguably it's more resellable because I can just wipe the Linux partition, re-merge the partitions, and it'll look pretty much stock. But meh. Worth mentioning that Linux Wi-Fi drivers for the model I have is terrible because they had two different chips they were using for XPS laptops and getting 32GB meant I would get that "upgraded" (but actually worse) chip. Had to fight with kernel upgrades to get a patch ahead of time to make it usable.

secondcoming 4y ago
Same thoughts when I was shopping around, so I went for a Precision Mobile and upgraded it to 128gb of aftermarket RAM.
samhuk 4y ago
I came to say exactly this. Color me unsurprised that this is the top comment. In what world is 16GB and a mobile i5 "developer orientated"? Makes my head spin.
- tgv 4y ago
  I must say, I'm surprised that it takes that much memory. I've got a 16GB macbook pro, and it sits at a comfortable 9GB "app memory". I've got one config project open, one pretty large Vue/TS/HTML/CSS project, and two Go projects opened in VSCode, plus Chrome and Firefox, plus Outlook and Teams. And Emacs. I regularly run a Django docker project too, together with DBeaver and PyCharm, and still it doesn't eat up all my memory (although I do close VSCode in that case). Everything is memory hungry, yes, but it doesn't look like I need 32GB. Pricey machine, BTW.

Krisjohn 4y ago

The Dell XPS laptops are the worst crap Dell makes. They're like Toshiba Satellites. Why anyone would take a perfectly servicable distro like Ubuntu and ruin it on an XPS is beyond me.

Bost 4y ago

Be aware that "Ubuntu" doesn't mean "Free software"! 9 years ago I bought a new Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu. Everything has been fine until one month ago when I decided to natively install Guix OS. The wireless card "Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (2x2 b/g/+ Bluetooth Combo Card)" has non-free, proprietary firmware. So no native(!) Guix on my Dell XPS. (Only hosted)

chme 4y ago
Ubuntu did pioneer easy proprietary driver integration into their distro AFAIK. About wireless that is to be expected with most (all modern?) Intel Wifi cards... I mean there is proprietary firmware running on most/all modern Laptops, the difference is that many controllers have their own flash and don't rely on the os to feed them their firmware...
- Bost 4y ago
  That means, on modern Laptops, the firmware is "sitting inside" proprietary hardware, so that it is irrelevant if this firmware is proprietary or not. If this is conclusion of mine is correct(?), that means: even less motivation for modern Ubuntu versions to include proprietary blobs.
  - bubblethink 4y ago
    firmware for Intel's wifi cards is hosted in the linux firmware repo with a redistributable license. Any wifi card made in the last 10+ years requires firmware.
  - chme 4y ago
    That is a distinction without difference in regards to proprietary definition. If you are a purist that doesn't like proprietary firmware, it doesn't matter were that firmware is located. However, on other issues internal flash means the controller is more expensive and more difficult to update on bugs or security issues, so putting firmware on in the filesystem makes it much more visible, easier to manage and cost-effective. This is not possible for many controllers, like the boot rom, keyboard, touchscreen, hdd/ssd controller, because they are needed to work before there is a filesystem available in many cases. But in case of Wifi and Bluetooth, doing it like this is possible and preferred for most people I guess. Of course many people would prefer having only FOSS firmware, but even in that case they would prefer having as much firmware as possible visible on the filesystem instead of hidden away on some flash for those reasons.

timq 4y ago

To bring some positive news, I bought this computer last month and up to now I'm quite happy with it. TouchPad feels very good but is a little buggy when the computer rest on some surfaces. The function keys are not a pain to use, and the keyboard feels very good otherwise. I installed Fedora and Windows 10 on it. Bought with Ubuntu for the price reduction. Oled screen is marvelous, battery life is okay: 5h when developing using vscode and tons of extensions. It does get quite hot when doing some 3d stuff but that's expected I guess. Battery life can be improved by choosing the LCD screen. It has some flaws, but I find them minor and I value much more the possibility to have a windows Linux dual boot.

varispeed 4y ago

Is this a joke? I mean what's the use of this laptop for a developer if it has a typical consumer keyboard not designed for typing code? Also having been a user of couple of generations of XPS, I wouldn't wish this laptop upon an enemy. These laptops were the most unreliable I have a ever had. I also never heard fans so loud in any other laptop like in my XPS 15. They were louder than a hairdryer. Imagine this during a meeting. Plus typical issues like coil whine or if you power it off, pray that it will turn on... When my XPS 15 died, while not being a fan of Apple I bought M1 MBPRO. Now I am not sure why other manufacturers like Dell even bother making their laptops. Do yourself a favour and don't bother with Dell. You can run Linux on Mac just fine (through virtualisation).

haspok 4y ago

So sad, what used to be a groundbreaking laptop (an ultraportable that you'd actually buy with official Linux support!) is now copying the worst from Apple, while degrading in almost all aspects from the predecessors. No headphone jack, no USB-A? 13" 4K screen which sucks the not-so-small battery as fast as the first version did ~10 years ago? Touchbar? Glass screen? A charger that can't actually charge the device while you are compiling your code? And this is a "developer" machine? I'm so disappointed.

sebzim4500 4y ago

I have an XPS 15, the power management is so bad that I had to tell it to hibernate rather than sleep when I close the lid. Otherwise it was using 3x more CPU 'sleeping' with the lid closed than under normal use. I tried to figure out what was going on with performance recorder/analyser but eventually I gave up.

varispeed 4y ago
Mine wouldn't "wake up" from hibernation and having experiencing it wake up from sleep while in my backpack, I learned the hard way, that only safe way was to shut it down.

Ecstatify 4y ago

Beware buying Dell XPS Laptops. Just got a MacBook Pro to replace mine. - Screen Broken, the screen is distorted and unusable, need to connect an external screen to work - Random Bluetooth Disconnects, throughout the day the Bluetooth will randomly switch off - The laptop started to peel, looks like my laptop has dandruff - Dell bloatware

dgan 4y ago

I have a Dell XPS 13 provided by my employer. I don't understand what's so supposedly good about them. - It won't boot when battery is empty. I literally have to wait for like 10min until it decides I can now use it. Have fun explaining why you are late on your morning meeting after forgetting to charge it over night. You just sit there, looking at your laptop. - No graphics at all by default, in Debian Buster. Had to install some drivers from Unstable. - Touchpad is barely acceptable. - Only a single Jack port on the laptop itself, so you have to bring the whole heap of wires and boxes with you if you want to use a mouse or plug in a USB; so much for a "portable laptop" - Pointless touch screen. Never used it. - Sometimes fans are going crazy for absolutely no reason. I think there has to be a mechanical fault, the noise is not something you d expect. It got suddenly better tho, without me taking any action. Overall, it brings headaches, without any advantage. No way I am getting this for myself.

jonathantf2 4y ago

I have 3 brand new XPS 13 Plus machines sitting right in front of me, the trackpads are unusable. You have no idea where it starts and ends, the click is super finnicky etc.

wink 4y ago

I applauded this Dell developer thing until I got my first Dell laptop ever (not an XPS) and learned that laptops can have audible coil whine (apparently many XPS also have this). I also learnt just how annoyingly buggy docking stations can be. So nope, gonna stick to Thinkpads for personal laptops I have to buy myself.

chem83 4y ago

Nah! Folks, get the Lenovo Z13 instead. Exact same size, OLED or IPS, LTE modem, up to 32GB LPDDR5, Ryzen 6800 with similar perf numbers and better battery to 12th Gen i7 1260/1280 and way better graphics. No capacitive function row! And is running Linux no problem.

baaaat 4y ago

Review of my 4k XPS 9370: - runs very hot (and gets loud) - terrible battery life (battery almost completely unusable after a few years) + standby mode eating all battery quickly (and sometimes doesnt wake up from hibernation on linux) - annoying coil whine when charging battery that is almost full - wont turn on if battery is low (<5%) + connected to a charger (will trigger "ssd can not be found bios error") - issues with wifi speed when bluetooth headphones are connected at the same time (might be a linux driver problem for killer wifi) - touchscreen is pointless (but there was no other way to get the 4k display) - low quality trackpad - only 3 ports and all are usb c (not even HDMI on a laptop???) First and last Dell laptop I will every buy. If ARM is not an issue for your use case there really is no reason why you should not buy a silent macbook air in current year instead.