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Ask HN: What should I buy? Macbook Air or Dell XPS 13?

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Re: Ask HN: What should I buy? Macbook Air or Dell XPS 13?

#11

Post by ckdarby »

shams93 wrote: post #5

Yeah these days if you want a linux laptop you're going to have a better experience either installing linux under bootcamp on a macbook, or getting a laptop with linux pre-installed, or getting a chromebook and running ubuntu under crouton. The dual boot days are basically over. If you have windows often its boot load locked into windows10. You can run bash ubuntu under windows 10 now, but you still have the overhead…

Highly recommend the Asus zenbook. Was able to run Ubuntu right out of the box with everything working aside from having to rebind the screen brightness keys.

Re: Ask HN: What should I buy? Macbook Air or Dell XPS 13?

#12

Post by llamaz »

shams93 wrote: post #5

Yeah these days if you want a linux laptop you're going to have a better experience either installing linux under bootcamp on a macbook, or getting a laptop with linux pre-installed, or getting a chromebook and running ubuntu under crouton. The dual boot days are basically over. If you have windows often its boot load locked into windows10. You can run bash ubuntu under windows 10 now, but you still have the overhead…

What? I'm dual booting ubuntu on a macbook air right now. It works perfectly, apart from the webcam

(well...until I upgraded to xenial and systemd. Now I'm using OS X. I'm not really helping my case here)

Re: Ask HN: What should I buy? Macbook Air or Dell XPS 13?

#14

Post by TooSmugToFail »

rayalez wrote: post #6

Have you considered ThinkPad X1? I got one and I'm really happy with it.

I own a 2.5 years old i7 X1, and it made me start contemplating abandoning ThinkPad brand after 10 years of loyalty.

The battery life is poor (3.5 hrs max), and I had to replace the CPU fan a few weeks ago (free of charge, thanks to 3y warranty).

What's worst, however, is the deterioration of customer support. Lenovo has introduced this 'community' concept where users are expected to post their woes to a forum, hoping that a mix of other users and Lenovo affiliates (not sure whether they are employed by Lenovo, or just volunteering) would solve their problem.

It's stupid to the point of hurting their sales, for example in cases where you want to check compatibility of an accessory you want to buy.

But more importantly for me as a customer, if I forked out a premium price for a top of the line product, I want to be sure there's a quick way for me to reach a live person to address my problem; I don't want to have to post to a forum for a community to solve my problem.

ThinkPad franchise has gone down the drain after IBM sold it to Lenovo.

Re: Ask HN: What should I buy? Macbook Air or Dell XPS 13?

#19

Post by TimothyE »

ckdarby wrote: post #11
shams93 wrote: post #5

Yeah these days if you want a linux laptop you're going to have a better experience either installing linux under bootcamp on a macbook, or getting a laptop with linux pre-installed, or getting a chromebook and running ubuntu under crouton. The dual boot days are basically over. If you have windows often its boot load locked into windows10. You can run bash ubuntu under windows 10 now, but you still have the overhead…

Highly recommend the Asus zenbook. Was able to run Ubuntu right out of the box with everything working aside from having to rebind the screen brightness keys.

+1 for the Zenbook. I've got a UX31A (which uses the same body as the Air) and I've been running Ubuntu pretty much stock for 3 years on it. Best ultra-portable I've had (had a couple of the older XPS 13's but not the newest)

Re: Ask HN: What should I buy? Macbook Air or Dell XPS 13?

#20

Post by eeZi »

TooSmugToFail wrote: post #14
rayalez wrote: post #6

Have you considered ThinkPad X1? I got one and I'm really happy with it.

I own a 2.5 years old i7 X1, and it made me start contemplating abandoning ThinkPad brand after 10 years of loyalty. The battery life is poor (3.5 hrs max), and I had to replace the CPU fan a few weeks ago (free of charge, thanks to 3y warranty). What's worst, however, is the deterioration of customer support. Lenovo has introduced this 'community' concept where users are expected to post their woes to a forum, hopin…

> What's worst, however, is the deterioration of customer support. Lenovo has introduced this 'community' concept where users are expected to post their woes to a forum, hoping that a mix of other users and Lenovo affiliates (not sure whether they are employed by Lenovo, or just volunteering) would solve their problem.

... but there's still regular customer support you can call. The forums are optional.

My T460s is the best laptop I've ever used btw. They reverted to the old trackpad, it's as light as a Macbook.

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