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It seems great, but I really need a 16GB RAM option. (At least they have the 512GB SSD) With a couple of VMs, and a webbrowser, 8 GB can get tiny, and those ma

by jbk 12y ago

It seems great, but I really need a 16GB RAM option. (At least they have the 512GB SSD) With a couple of VMs, and a webbrowser, 8 GB can get tiny, and those machines don't evolve, so I'd like to plan for a couple of years...

julianz 12y ago
Recently bought a Dell e7440 14" machine with i7, 16GB and then added a 1TB SSD. As developer machines go, it's pretty decent. Not as much battery life as I'd like (3-4 hours) but I haven't actually run it out yet. It's small and light enough that I can take it anywhere, but big enough that I don't need external monitors to get proper work done. Only real downside is that the video is a little underpowered (HD 4000) so no gaming.
- ansible 12y ago
  I recently ordered a HP Omen gaming laptop. 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Nvidia 860m with 4GB VRAM, 15.6in 1080p IPS screen. It was $1700 USD from Costco, but it has taken three weeks to arrive. It is a little heavier than the e7440, but I really wanted a 15in screen.
commandar 12y ago
I don't think anyone's making machines in this class with that much RAM. They practically have to be built with on-board RAM to get this thin and there's just not enough demand to justify the logistics of building 16GB motherboards for them.
- jbk 12y ago
  The MacBook Pro 13 has an option to get 512+16GB. It's a bit heavier, but not that much. The Asus Zenbook UX303LN has 12GB (it's better), but only 256GB of SSD. I don't mind the price, I need a powerful tool.
  - commandar 12y ago
    The MBP is a different class of machine. This thing is roughly the size of an 11 inch MBA.
    - jbk 12y ago
      The weight isn't that different, though.
      - hsitz 12y ago
        Current 13.3" Macbook Pro weighs 3.46 pounds. The Dell XPS 13 weighs 2.6 pounds. The MBP thus weighs 32% more (0.8 pounds) than the Dell. That's a big difference to me, and to lots of people.
        stcredzero 12y ago
        Something a bit bulkier, but a lot lighter and more durable would be great.
        hsitz 12y ago
        The upcoming Lenovo LaVie Z machines will weigh 1.7 lbs but be in a bulkier (tough) Magnesium-alloy case. Not sure if they'll have enough RAM, hd-storage, or battery-life for many, although if they're that light I'd probably be happy to carry an ac-adapter around for periodic charging: http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/Lenovo%20LaVie%20Z%20Spec%20Sheet_1%201%2015%20FINAL.pdf http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/Lenovo%20LaVie%20Z%20Spe...
        nfoz 12y ago
        You'll never heard about it in North America, but the most gorgeous laptop right now IMO is the Panasonic CF-MX3: http://panasonic.jp/pc/products/mx3s/ http://panasonic.jp/pc/products/mx3s/ It's tragically expensive to import, though.
        fudgy73 12y ago
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  ThinkPad X201 to the X230 had two memory slots, so there's nothing stopping a 2x8 layout. But for single slot machines, the real issue is Intel deliberately not supporting 16GB SODIMMs.
- keeperofdakeys 12y ago
  The first samsung series 9 (2011) was an ultrabook-class machine that can take 16GB worth of RAM. Though, 8GB dimm modules weren't available when it was first produced.
mercnet 12y ago
Same, laptop has great potential especially if they release a Linux version. I hope the MB supports 16GB and Dell does not solder the RAM to the motherboard.
- jbk 12y ago
  > I hope the MB supports 16GB and Dell does not solder the RAM to the motherboard. On 13", all the RAMs are soldered on the boards.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    12" ThinkPads like the X201 are not soldered on. Dunno about later models since the X201 was already part way down the lack of good engineering.
    - jbk 12y ago
      As far as I know, all x220 and later are.
01Michael10 12y ago
I see ultrabooks more as secondary devices. You really run VMs on a 13.3" display? I can't see any portable PC totally replacing my desktop PC.
- noeleon 12y ago
  Is screen size a barrier to running VMs? I build all my customers environments in VMs and do this on the road, most run headless anyway. For me, I absolutely need a portable to replace my PC, since I don't have an office.
- jbk 12y ago
  Yes, my Ux31 is my main machine. I often plug an extra screen, though.
  - 01Michael10 12y ago
    Sorry, didn't realize you guys were using a 13.3" PC for real work. Yikes! I guess spoiled here to have separate PCs for work (two 21" displays), home (24" display plus TV as second display), and a laptop for portable use. Using a small display laptop as my main box would be to limiting for me. When I am running a VM or logged on to another PC remotely, I like to view it on a second display instead of switching back and forth...
    - JamesMcMinn 12y ago
      I use a Dell XPS 13 (2014 edition) as my main dev machine with an i7, 512GB SSD and 8GB RAM. It supports DisplayPort 1.2, which means I can Daisychain monitors. I plug in one DisplayPort cable and it connects to my 27" 1440p monitor and my 24" 1080p portrait monitor, giving me 3 separate displays to use.
    - tramjoe_ 12y ago
      You do not understand, do you? We do work on these machines. Using VMs, mostly headless. I have 10 to 20 VMs running on my X220 while on the road - in my case mostly build environments - and _none_ of them is taking a sinlge pixel on my display.
noeleon 12y ago
I have this requirement. I just bought a Toshiba Z30t. Ultrabook that is self serviceable and supports 16GB. But build quality and feel - talk about your pieces of shit.
polskibus 12y ago
remember that for a couple of VMs running smoothly you will need more than 2 cores
- jbk 12y ago
  Sure, but it's 2core HT
  - polskibus 12y ago
    I thought HT offers crippled performance compared to a real core because of sharing a lot of resources within the physical cores. Can a HT logical core really count as a physical core when hosting a VM on it ? I'd love to hear your experience, because I will be upgrading PC soon from an old AMD Phenom and am hesitant to count HT as a real benefit.
    - jbk 12y ago
      It depends, but I'm doing a lot of compilation and playback of videos, and the bottleneck is now more and more I/O and RAM than pure CPU speed.
meddlepal 12y ago
My company recently gave me an Precision M4800. It's a beast to carry around, but I love it. The whole thing feels very solid. Once I updated the BIOS then Fedora 21 ran like a champ. If it didn't cost nearly $3,000 I would buy one as a personal laptop. 32GB of RAM and 2xSSD make working with a lot of VM's very easy.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  That laptop sounds insane, particularly with that resolution! It does look like something from the mid 1990s unfortunately, but at least nobody will pinch it based on looks alone (more likely with Apple hardware sadly)
  - meddlepal 12y ago
    It's pretty awesome. I don't have the 3K resolution screen, but the 1920x1080 is still great. It is heavy though and my commute involves a lot of walking so that can be a bit annoying. I kinda like the mid 1990's look. I think the best thing though is the more traditional keyboard. I really cannot stand the chiclet-style keyboards that have become all the rage.
cgag 12y ago
I'm using 16 gigs of ram right now, and I'm upset by the idea of only having 8 gigs, but just out of curiosity, why do you regularly run multiple VMs? I almost never run any VMs, but occasionally one to play around with other distros. I see a lot of people talking like running multiple VMs is the norm for devs, and I'm curious what people are doing that requires it on a regular basis.
- nhanb 12y ago
  As a web developer, I use VMs to have a completely isolated and reproducible development environment for each project. Vagrant [1] is a popular tool to achieve this, so take a look if you're interested :) [1]: https://www.vagrantup.com/ https://www.vagrantup.com/
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  what surprises me is that they would run all of them on their laptop. If it was me, I would be strongly inclined to build a workstation in my basement for hosting all those VMs and remote connect.
seanwilson 12y ago
I'm in a similar boat and couldn't go back to a laptop with less than 16GB of RAM. To develop a mobile app for example, sometimes I need to be running a couple of Android emulators, an iOS simulator, Vagrant and VirtualBox for a local server, a couple of IDEs, a browser and more.
georgemcbay 12y ago
Yeah this is exactly how I feel. I was actually recently (in the past couple of weeks) in the market for a laptop and heavily considered this device as an option based on the very positive CES reports but the non-upgradable 8GB ram was a dealbreaker and I ended up with a bigger, uglier Toshiba (with more memory).
tallanvor 12y ago
Depending on what you're doing, you don't need any VMs for 8GB to feel small... When I have a couple of Visual Studio instances running, an instance or two of WinDbg, Firefox, IE, and RDC Manager with several connections open, I can start getting low memory warnings!

by jbk 12y ago

julianz 12y ago

Recently bought a Dell e7440 14" machine with i7, 16GB and then added a 1TB SSD. As developer machines go, it's pretty decent. Not as much battery life as I'd like (3-4 hours) but I haven't actually run it out yet. It's small and light enough that I can take it anywhere, but big enough that I don't need external monitors to get proper work done. Only real downside is that the video is a little underpowered (HD 4000) so no gaming.

ansible 12y ago
I recently ordered a HP Omen gaming laptop. 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Nvidia 860m with 4GB VRAM, 15.6in 1080p IPS screen. It was $1700 USD from Costco, but it has taken three weeks to arrive. It is a little heavier than the e7440, but I really wanted a 15in screen.

commandar 12y ago

I don't think anyone's making machines in this class with that much RAM. They practically have to be built with on-board RAM to get this thin and there's just not enough demand to justify the logistics of building 16GB motherboards for them.

jbk 12y ago
The MacBook Pro 13 has an option to get 512+16GB. It's a bit heavier, but not that much. The Asus Zenbook UX303LN has 12GB (it's better), but only 256GB of SSD. I don't mind the price, I need a powerful tool.
- commandar 12y ago
  The MBP is a different class of machine. This thing is roughly the size of an 11 inch MBA.
  - jbk 12y ago
    The weight isn't that different, though.
    - hsitz 12y ago
      Current 13.3" Macbook Pro weighs 3.46 pounds. The Dell XPS 13 weighs 2.6 pounds. The MBP thus weighs 32% more (0.8 pounds) than the Dell. That's a big difference to me, and to lots of people.
      - stcredzero 12y ago
        Something a bit bulkier, but a lot lighter and more durable would be great.
        hsitz 12y ago
        The upcoming Lenovo LaVie Z machines will weigh 1.7 lbs but be in a bulkier (tough) Magnesium-alloy case. Not sure if they'll have enough RAM, hd-storage, or battery-life for many, although if they're that light I'd probably be happy to carry an ac-adapter around for periodic charging: http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/Lenovo%20LaVie%20Z%20Spec%20Sheet_1%201%2015%20FINAL.pdf http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/Lenovo%20LaVie%20Z%20Spe...
        nfoz 12y ago
        You'll never heard about it in North America, but the most gorgeous laptop right now IMO is the Panasonic CF-MX3: http://panasonic.jp/pc/products/mx3s/ http://panasonic.jp/pc/products/mx3s/ It's tragically expensive to import, though.
        fudgy73 12y ago
MichaelGG 12y ago
ThinkPad X201 to the X230 had two memory slots, so there's nothing stopping a 2x8 layout. But for single slot machines, the real issue is Intel deliberately not supporting 16GB SODIMMs.
keeperofdakeys 12y ago
The first samsung series 9 (2011) was an ultrabook-class machine that can take 16GB worth of RAM. Though, 8GB dimm modules weren't available when it was first produced.

mercnet 12y ago

Same, laptop has great potential especially if they release a Linux version. I hope the MB supports 16GB and Dell does not solder the RAM to the motherboard.

jbk 12y ago
> I hope the MB supports 16GB and Dell does not solder the RAM to the motherboard. On 13", all the RAMs are soldered on the boards.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  12" ThinkPads like the X201 are not soldered on. Dunno about later models since the X201 was already part way down the lack of good engineering.
  - jbk 12y ago
    As far as I know, all x220 and later are.

01Michael10 12y ago

I see ultrabooks more as secondary devices. You really run VMs on a 13.3" display? I can't see any portable PC totally replacing my desktop PC.

noeleon 12y ago
Is screen size a barrier to running VMs? I build all my customers environments in VMs and do this on the road, most run headless anyway. For me, I absolutely need a portable to replace my PC, since I don't have an office.
jbk 12y ago
Yes, my Ux31 is my main machine. I often plug an extra screen, though.
- 01Michael10 12y ago
  Sorry, didn't realize you guys were using a 13.3" PC for real work. Yikes! I guess spoiled here to have separate PCs for work (two 21" displays), home (24" display plus TV as second display), and a laptop for portable use. Using a small display laptop as my main box would be to limiting for me. When I am running a VM or logged on to another PC remotely, I like to view it on a second display instead of switching back and forth...
  - JamesMcMinn 12y ago
    I use a Dell XPS 13 (2014 edition) as my main dev machine with an i7, 512GB SSD and 8GB RAM. It supports DisplayPort 1.2, which means I can Daisychain monitors. I plug in one DisplayPort cable and it connects to my 27" 1440p monitor and my 24" 1080p portrait monitor, giving me 3 separate displays to use.
  - tramjoe_ 12y ago
    You do not understand, do you? We do work on these machines. Using VMs, mostly headless. I have 10 to 20 VMs running on my X220 while on the road - in my case mostly build environments - and _none_ of them is taking a sinlge pixel on my display.

noeleon 12y ago

I have this requirement. I just bought a Toshiba Z30t. Ultrabook that is self serviceable and supports 16GB. But build quality and feel - talk about your pieces of shit.

polskibus 12y ago

remember that for a couple of VMs running smoothly you will need more than 2 cores

jbk 12y ago
Sure, but it's 2core HT
- polskibus 12y ago
  I thought HT offers crippled performance compared to a real core because of sharing a lot of resources within the physical cores. Can a HT logical core really count as a physical core when hosting a VM on it ? I'd love to hear your experience, because I will be upgrading PC soon from an old AMD Phenom and am hesitant to count HT as a real benefit.
  - jbk 12y ago
    It depends, but I'm doing a lot of compilation and playback of videos, and the bottleneck is now more and more I/O and RAM than pure CPU speed.

meddlepal 12y ago

My company recently gave me an Precision M4800. It's a beast to carry around, but I love it. The whole thing feels very solid. Once I updated the BIOS then Fedora 21 ran like a champ. If it didn't cost nearly $3,000 I would buy one as a personal laptop. 32GB of RAM and 2xSSD make working with a lot of VM's very easy.

72deluxe 12y ago
That laptop sounds insane, particularly with that resolution! It does look like something from the mid 1990s unfortunately, but at least nobody will pinch it based on looks alone (more likely with Apple hardware sadly)
- meddlepal 12y ago
  It's pretty awesome. I don't have the 3K resolution screen, but the 1920x1080 is still great. It is heavy though and my commute involves a lot of walking so that can be a bit annoying. I kinda like the mid 1990's look. I think the best thing though is the more traditional keyboard. I really cannot stand the chiclet-style keyboards that have become all the rage.

cgag 12y ago

I'm using 16 gigs of ram right now, and I'm upset by the idea of only having 8 gigs, but just out of curiosity, why do you regularly run multiple VMs? I almost never run any VMs, but occasionally one to play around with other distros. I see a lot of people talking like running multiple VMs is the norm for devs, and I'm curious what people are doing that requires it on a regular basis.

nhanb 12y ago
As a web developer, I use VMs to have a completely isolated and reproducible development environment for each project. Vagrant [1] is a popular tool to achieve this, so take a look if you're interested :) [1]: https://www.vagrantup.com/ https://www.vagrantup.com/
sliverstorm 12y ago
what surprises me is that they would run all of them on their laptop. If it was me, I would be strongly inclined to build a workstation in my basement for hosting all those VMs and remote connect.

seanwilson 12y ago

I'm in a similar boat and couldn't go back to a laptop with less than 16GB of RAM. To develop a mobile app for example, sometimes I need to be running a couple of Android emulators, an iOS simulator, Vagrant and VirtualBox for a local server, a couple of IDEs, a browser and more.

georgemcbay 12y ago

Yeah this is exactly how I feel. I was actually recently (in the past couple of weeks) in the market for a laptop and heavily considered this device as an option based on the very positive CES reports but the non-upgradable 8GB ram was a dealbreaker and I ended up with a bigger, uglier Toshiba (with more memory).

tallanvor 12y ago

Depending on what you're doing, you don't need any VMs for 8GB to feel small... When I have a couple of Visual Studio instances running, an instance or two of WinDbg, Firefox, IE, and RDC Manager with several connections open, I can start getting low memory warnings!