Unfortunately XPS Developer Edition does not support external 4k displays @ 60Mhz like Dell's own P2715Q. If that kind of thing matters to you.
Otherwise I think it a great machine.
Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
41–50 of 112 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, those are great specs for 1300. what's battery life like?
It's one of those "it depends" answers, but mine lasts around 4-5 hours when: - cranked the screen to 80% brightness - have two browsers open with multiple tabs (plus YouTube playing in the background) - doing development I'd say it's about average. If you play games the graphics card is going to soak up energy within a couple hours, but for heavy gameplay you'd want to plug it in anyway. I always want more battery l…
Have you done any tuning with 'powertop'? If not, that can add some non-trivial time to your battery life.
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#43The nice thing about an OSX machine is that it (legally) runs more software than any other operating system.
It sounds like the software you need is available on all three operating systems, so the Dell machine is a fine choice.
I'm assuming that the movies you want to watch are rips or Netflix and not something like UltraViolet streams.
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#44I had the first gen XPS 13 and while it was a beautiful machine it ran extremely hot at time. So much so that I couldn't use it while on my lap. I'm not sure if the deciding has changed much since then but it's worth taking into consideration. I ultimately went with a retina MBP (early 2015). My next laptop is likely to be either a Lenovo T460 or a Dell P50 (or their successors).
Dell P50?
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#45In a similar boat. The closest machine to the Macbook Pro is the razer blade stealth. http://www.techradar.com/reviews/razer-blade-stealth-2016 It's basically a rip-off of the (2015) macbook machined aluminium body design. It has the 7th gen processors rather than than the 6th of the new macbook, and a similar price. Not sure about linux support, from what I've read there may be an issue with the webcam.
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Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#46I have had a few models of the XPS 13 now and each one seems to get better and better. They're both light enough to carry around and they are still quite strong, I have seen a lot of them dropped without any damage. Initially I though I would never use the touch-screen, but it is actually quite useful when reading things (scrolling) or quickly clicking basic things when not really sitting behind the keyboard on a des…
Does Linux use the touchscreen?
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#47Yes, I've been using a Retina MacBook Pro 13" (early 15) and 15" (mid 15) and just picked up the xps 13 9350 with iris pro. There are definitely some quality control issues but once you get a working model with no faults (I had one that wouldn't reboot and had terrible coil whine, one that had loose trackpad and yellow tint on screen but this could also be because of Amazon's shitty packaging where the laptop was in…
> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card Please tell us more! What card am I supposed to replace it with, and is it anything involving soldering or just sockets and switches?
If it's anything like the 9343 model from 2015, a T5 Torx driver and a wedge tool can pop it open. I swapped the Broadcom card for an Intel 7620 in mine.
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#48Yes, I've been using a Retina MacBook Pro 13" (early 15) and 15" (mid 15) and just picked up the xps 13 9350 with iris pro. There are definitely some quality control issues but once you get a working model with no faults (I had one that wouldn't reboot and had terrible coil whine, one that had loose trackpad and yellow tint on screen but this could also be because of Amazon's shitty packaging where the laptop was in…
> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card How do you install OS X on this machine ? Any tutorial you can recommend ?
If you google for 'hackintosh' that should set you well on your way.
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#49Does it run macOS? No? In which case no its not a good replacement for a MacBook Pro.
Jesus Christ...
There are other OSes that are just as good as macOS!
Re: Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?
#50I recently got a Dell Latitude 12 7000 Series for $work and I was surprised by how good it is:
- Plays 4k video under Windows 10
- Runs Arch linux without any hardware compatibility problems
- Silent, portable, fast (pick all three)
It sounds like an advert but this was a machine I didn't pick myself and it is the best computer I have ever used. The next time I spend money on my own laptop I will move from Thinkpad to Dell. This is after using Linux on Thinkpads for the last 13 years or so.
I thought this was worth mentioning as the Latitude is probably a bit cheaper than the XPS.