Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

I have had an XPS13 for the last three years, running Linux. Absolutely love it. At home, it is hooked up to a 27" 4k monitor. While travelling, it is very light and has reasonable battery life. The only limitation is the fixed 8GB RAM (note: the 2018 XPS13 has a 16GB model).

As the new 2018 XPS15 was announced 5 days ago [1], I'll probably trade up now to get the Nvidia GTX1050 GPU and RAM user-upgradable to 32GB.

[1] https://www.techradar.com/reviews/dell-xps-15-2018

Yeah, I have it. Linux works great, except the function key layer and stereo sound on the built-in speakers due to the unusual audio chipset.

Performance is fantastic, the keyboard is passable, the screen looks beautiful, and build quality seems on par with my 2010 MacBook pro, and definitely better than my Lenovo Thinkpad.

I have last year's Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Excellent Linux support (great battery life, everything works out of the box except for the fingerprint reader) and a fantastic machine. Screen is good, it's quite a bit lighter than a MacBook Pro 13" and has a good selection of ports (2 x TB-3/USB-C, 2 x USB-A, full-size HDMI). But I can't judge if it meets OP's performance requirements (it is somewhat thermally limited due to the small form factor and thinness), maybe check out the T480 / T480s instead if you need more power.

One of my colleagues has a two-year old XPS13 and is very happy with it, too. I think they're both great choices.

Very satisfied with my work Dell XPS 15, model 9560. My colleagues mostly use MBPs, and I always feel sorry for them if I have to use the latest model's keyboard. The XPS's build is rigid and it's possible to work full day with the integrated keyboard. Only downside is my model does not have the touch screen, which could be helpful if you need to run Android emulator on the laptop (as opposed to deploying to a real phone).

I am an Android developer myself and have to use Windows for corporate reasons, but with WSL the developer experience is very similar to Linux. I can see that Dell XPS 15, model 9560 with 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD retails for 2100 EUR in my country. You can later expand it to 32 GB of RAM, as there is a free expansion RAM slot (nothing is enough for Gradle ...)

I've switched last year to Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu, and then Fedora 27 (now also installed on my 2011 iMac).

Difference in performance when running a Linux based OS on both machines is quite noticeable, with a surprisingly much superior smooth and performante and stable Fedora 27... no glitches, and a pure GNOME experience...

My only criticism against moving away from Apple, is customer support. I bought mine in Switzerland (customer center is based in Germany). The experience was overwhelmingly inferior. There's really ZERO responsiveness from Dell when facing even the most easy problems to solve.

The response I got for complaining that I received a machine with a "Swiss" keyboard, was "that's your problem". Literally.

I'll be very happy to provide the names of the customer support representative and her Superior, if anyone from Dell is interested in picking this up.

My next machine will probably be a SlimBook (Spanish company).