Live data from Hacker News

New XPS 15 Laptop

dell.com

201–210 of 339 posts

Re: New XPS 15 Laptop

#201
post #181
post #139

i feel like a new trend is emerging with these nice, 15 inch non-apple laptops. i say non-apple because they are attracting the pro crowd that used to buy apple exclusively. my personal fantasy is a laptop that isnt shy about being thick, affording it a huge battery, tons of ports, OLED screen and solid state trackpad like the macbook. with very reliable linux drivers for all the hardware. a very utilitarian machine.

I used to think that was what I wanted. But I think at this point a thin laptop can be good enough, and being able to get away from having a dev laptop and a travel netbook is a huge win. Moving all the ports onto a dock - provided it's a first-party fully-supported dock - is also a win, since it enables me to leave everything plugged in at home and take my computer travelling without having to unplug and replug ever…

I've been surprised by my attitude over this. Either I want a honking 10 pound brick of capability or my Surface Pro 4 with dock. I really appreciate the convenience of being able to just grab the computer and go (nowithstanding the idle==shutdown-without-saving bug), but there are times I'd like to go heavy on the horsepower and battery.

Re: New XPS 15 Laptop

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i wouldnt touch ubuntu with a barge pole Just curious what makes you say that?

Not the parent either...I'm not a fan of Ubuntu proper, even variants like Xubuntu (and I adore Xfce). I do, however, really enjoy Elementary OS which is Ubuntu based but has an amazing UI and all sorts of helpful little features baked in. I get the same feeling of "whoa, I didn't know an OS would do that and I don't know how I got by without it!" as I did 12 years ago when I started using OS X for the first time. So…

[deleted]

Re: New XPS 15 Laptop

#205
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that was what I wanted. But I think at this point a thin laptop can be good enough, and being able to get away from having a dev laptop and a travel netbook is a huge win. Moving all the ports onto a dock - provided it's a first-party fully-supported dock - is also a win, since it enables me to leave everything plugged in at home and take my computer travelling without having to unplug and replug ever…

I've been surprised by my attitude over this. Either I want a honking 10 pound brick of capability or my Surface Pro 4 with dock. I really appreciate the convenience of being able to just grab the computer and go (nowithstanding the idle==shutdown-without-saving bug), but there are times I'd like to go heavy on the horsepower and battery.

If you want a computer with capability that you don't have to carry around, why not get a desktop?

Re: New XPS 15 Laptop

#206
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been planning for my next laptop purchase next year, and for some reason, I can't pull the Alienware 13R3 off the top of my short list. It's big (for a 13"), heavy, ugly and adorned with hideous gamer bling (WHY, WHY, WHY??), but it also has all the ports and features (discrete trackpad buttons!) I want in my work machine. Right now, it's basically between the new XPS 15 and the 13R3 (or R4 if it's out by the ti…

the gamer bling thing is so funny. why does nobody in the laptop business understand that people are buying those laptops despite the bling, not because of it? every ad that i see for a gaming laptop emphasizes the competitive advantages that these laptops offer, letting "gamers" "dominate" and so on. how could they be so disconnected that they don't realize that what everyone wants is to enjoy their crispy, high def…

Yep, when work asked what laptop I wanted a while back, I was embarrassed to send them a list of these "gamer" laptops, because they were the most powerful and adequate for what I need. Hate the bling and gamer tag.

Re: New XPS 15 Laptop

#207
post #35

So can it run triple 4K displays when combined with a dock or not? That's the only feature for which I still need a desktop computer and I would loooove to do without one.

Many of the new, slightly chunky gaming laptops with the 1060 will let you drive three 4K monitors without a dongle.

Re: New XPS 15 Laptop

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i barely trust my own programs to have access to the root account, why should any old script be able to access the entire machine in 6 letters? "you should never run anything as root" yet on ubuntu everything as good as runs as root by default. even windows ussually has a seperate password to create user accounts, but with ubuntu make the mistake of leaving your machine unlocked and unattended and any little script k…

No operating system can protect your machine if it is left unlocked - even allowing physical access makes you vulnerable. A worthy concern, but not in itself an "Ubuntu problem".

most you can get to on a normal unlocked linux machine in normal use is the see browsing history.

you cant even copy files to a usb stick because mounting it requires a password.

that is very different to making the machine yours via remote access.

and very very different than letting browser plugins create user accounts that can be accessed remotely (that have root access by default). then theres the fact that selinux seems to be a right state on ubuntu

plus what everybody else said. basically put there are several nicer and more secure distributions of linux i would choose before ubuntu.

Re: New XPS 15 Laptop

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like they block access to the US store from outside the US? No VPN here, just a DE IP and it's blocked. Incredible to see the price differential between the US and DE stores though, on top of the 18% VAT you expect

That seems to be the case here. Visiting http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/ from my german IP yields the same result. Unbelievable. Frankly, the whole site looks like a mess to me.

Greece here, both URLs work fine.

Re: New XPS 15 Laptop

#210
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the gamer bling thing is so funny. why does nobody in the laptop business understand that people are buying those laptops despite the bling, not because of it? every ad that i see for a gaming laptop emphasizes the competitive advantages that these laptops offer, letting "gamers" "dominate" and so on. how could they be so disconnected that they don't realize that what everyone wants is to enjoy their crispy, high def…

In fairness, I think ASUS gets it - they make non gamer versions of their thin gamer machines. My main problem with ASUS - they make nice machines - is that for a work machine, I want to buy a decent extended warranty where I know I'll get OK service, so that narrows it down to the bigger vendors like Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc.

AFAIK Asus doesn't yet have the Kaby Lake - Pascal combo out but they are coming https://www.nextpowerup.com/news/32428/list-of-asus-laptops-... in droves and soon. Some Belgian retailer already has some of them listed http://www.2compute.org/Product_Detail.aspx?prod=ASUS694149 http://www.2compute.org/Product_Detail.aspx?prod=ASUS695109 etc
Post reply on HN