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Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#451

Post by tlhunter »

NorwegianDude wrote: post #174

You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop. Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow" I really don't understand…

The only laptop I've had in the past decade with major Linux compatibility issues was an XPS 13. It had loads of screen artifacting, small squares of the screen that would retain a previous frame. After a dozen kernel updates the problem remained.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#452

Post by epage »

rickstanley wrote: post #266
epage wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a ROG Strix (12th gen intel) and no whine. Been using WSL so far but need to try again to see how well Linux runs on it. Overall, its been a solid machine so far and had sufficient battery life for me to program on flights half-way across the US without concern. My only regrets are I wish the thunderbolt port used the integrated gpu (never need discrete and sometimes windows gets stuck switching) and no webcam…

How long do you think you can get out of the battery life? IIRC they advertise 7-8 hours

I've not really tested it besides it working for me flying between Austin and Portland.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#453

Post by mlmonge »

horsawlarway wrote: post #434
readingnews wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do not understand the love the XPS 13 gets. We have several here at the office. We will never get them again. They break, the keyboard is not pleasant, the machine is not really fast, two handed openings are painful when you come from a different brand, charging it takes forever, we just leave them plugged in, switching wireless to wired in linux (several distros) takes too long, did I mention the keyboard m…

I have 2 in the XPS line - a relatively old 15 inch and a new(ish) 13 inch. They're perfectly fine machines. Dell officially supports linux on them (admittedly, only Ubuntu), you can get 32gb of RAM, and they perform just as well as any other intel based laptop (which is to say - I wish they sucked less power, but they're fine on the performance scale). I'm... not a clean person with my machines, and I've never notic…

I've had an eye on the Huawei Matebook X Pro on Swappa. My other eye is on the XPS, new from Amazon. The latter is certainly more expensive and yet, doesn't impress me as much as the Matebook. But as we all know, Huawei is not trusted much here lately in the U.S. Is this in fact another Chinese company that's best we avoid? I was considering starting an Ask HN just for Huawei given not much has been posted here on this topic for a couple of years now.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#454

Post by kylehotchkiss »

briandear wrote: post #376
Saphyel wrote: post #324

My personal laptop is Dell XPS13 Developer ed. It's nearly a year old and works like a charm I can install anything I want, I can watch whatever. Battery wise last a lot.. 5-8h average depending on what I'm doing. At work I'm force to use a MacBook, a lot of dev tools don't work very well or doesn't work, every dev has different weird issues, every other day we have a different thing that doesn't work some of us had…

2 hour battery life on a Mac? That’s approaching unbelievable unless they are a decade old.

My 2019 16' MacBook pro does about 2 hours of battery with only 488 battery cycles. i9 processor with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M. I'm just doing the most basic dev stuff. Generally a Chrome instance with ~20 tabs, VSC, and a Next.js process. I can't use it on my lap too long, it's hot. The fan never stops. Sometimes I look in the activity monitor to see why, but it's never something specific. A chrome tab using too much CPU or something. It's been the fastest self-depreciating machine I've used.

I recently switched to a M2 Air for personal laptop. Same exact workflow and tools results in zero heat, and the battery can do a few evenings of coding without needing to be charged. It's a gamechanger.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#455

Post by kylehotchkiss »

SpacePortKnight wrote: post #144

I've seen your post as a comment before. For India, I recommend buying Dell / Lenovo if you really want on-site repairs for cheap, otherwise I recommend Asus. I recently bought Asus Zenbook 14 Oled (12th gen) over M1 MacBook Air and I absolutely love it. It has 75Wh battery, excellent speakers and with a nice 90Hz 14inch display. However, I can't use Fedora on it since sound over speaker doesn't work yet. Dell's Insp…

Are you sure this is India? I thought India had an Apple-owned service center in Bangalore. And their company-owned stores are coming eventually (Apple's consistently been meeting the local manufacturing requirements)

Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#456

Post by ibejoeb »

fsflover wrote: post #56

Perhaps https://puri.sm/products/librem-14 should fit well for your requirements. I'm happy with their previous model, Librem 15.

I've posted positively about my librem 14 before. Initially it was pretty good. Now it's failing. I've got 3 dead keyboard keys, so without an external keyboard, it's unusable. I've been working with support for 6 days, and we're still negotiating. Good intentions, but it's just not there yet.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#458

Post by blep_ »

als0 wrote: post #211
ur-whale wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For 2022 I decided to buy a "gaming" laptop and switch to 100% Linux. I researched this option before opting for an LG gram. I might research it again soon. Would you care to share exactly what gaming laptop you picked?

If I may ask, what do you think of the LG Gram?

I have one too (17Z90N), and it's pretty nice, as laptops go.

~10h battery life on Linux with minimal tweaking, decent keyboard and touchpad, huge screen (I've tried to use the tiny laptops that are popular these days, and they just do not work for me).

Things I don't care much about and so explicitly won't review: camera, internal audio (I only ever use headphones), battery life when closed (I just go put it on my desk and plug it in when I'm not using it)

My one major complaint is that the edges are unreasonably sharp. Seriously, I don't know who designed this thing, but they apparently use laptop keyboards very differently than I do. I have been considering filing them down.

I also got it on ebay for what I now realize is significantly below the price it would've been new. I don't think it's worth $1800, but I don't think any (personal) computer is worth $1800, so adjust your weighting of this opinion as desired.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#459

Post by alkonaut »

mort96 wrote: post #181
NorwegianDude wrote: post #174

You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop. Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow" I really don't understand…

I've had a couple XPS laptops over the years, one XPS 13 and one XPS 15. Both have had issues with their trackpads getting wonky. They would just increasingly ignore inputs and react incorrectly to my finger. The XPS 15 (the 2-in-1 model) would also sometimes just not go to sleep and cook itself in my bag, and its keyboard has keys which just break over time under normal use, and that's not covered under warranty. Yo…

The keyboard/trackpad giving up is the battery swelling. And it happens to nearly all of them I think. At least if they run hot.

I had one plugged in 24/7 for 3 years and it’s usually a few months until the battery swells until the keyboard stops working. I had the battery replaced three times.

If only they allowed running without battery I’d get one again. Or if they started testing their machines properly. Great support, sloppy thermal design and testing by Dell.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

#460

Post by alkonaut »

Would love to find a well built high performance non gaming AMD 6x00H laptop. Bonus points if it’s really quiet and has good cooling so it will run without throttling (much). Weight, screen, keyboard and battery life not an issue I won’t unplug it or carry it around more than a few times per year (don’t ask, but yes it has to be a laptop).

All I can find is plasticky gaming rigs that some times don’t even have the pro/on-site support options, or lack option to not choose gaming GPUs.

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