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Dell XPS 13 Review

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Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#151

Post by FlyingLawnmower »

Someone1234 wrote: post #100
FlyingLawnmower wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm giving this a try, and I'm having trouble following step 4. Once I add the Group Policy Object Editor to the right side of the GUI, I can click on it and get a pop-up, but I can't seem to find the expansion option.

Are you still in the "Add and Remove Snap-Ins" dialog by any chance? If you click ok on that dialog after having added the snap-in, it should appear in the main mmc UI on the left hand side. https://i.imgur.com/ZHzEDrC.png I've updated the original instructions a little to be more clear.

I feel very silly -- thank you very much for the help!

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#152

Post by seanwilson »

jbk wrote: post #13

It seems great, but I really need a 16GB RAM option. (At least they have the 512GB SSD) With a couple of VMs, and a webbrowser, 8 GB can get tiny, and those machines don't evolve, so I'd like to plan for a couple of years...

I'm in a similar boat and couldn't go back to a laptop with less than 16GB of RAM. To develop a mobile app for example, sometimes I need to be running a couple of Android emulators, an iOS simulator, Vagrant and VirtualBox for a local server, a couple of IDEs, a browser and more.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#153

Post by nhanb »

cgag wrote: post #145
jbk wrote: post #13

It seems great, but I really need a 16GB RAM option. (At least they have the 512GB SSD) With a couple of VMs, and a webbrowser, 8 GB can get tiny, and those machines don't evolve, so I'd like to plan for a couple of years...

I'm using 16 gigs of ram right now, and I'm upset by the idea of only having 8 gigs, but just out of curiosity, why do you regularly run multiple VMs? I almost never run any VMs, but occasionally one to play around with other distros. I see a lot of people talking like running multiple VMs is the norm for devs, and I'm curious what people are doing that requires it on a regular basis.

As a web developer, I use VMs to have a completely isolated and reproducible development environment for each project. Vagrant [1] is a popular tool to achieve this, so take a look if you're interested :)

[1]: https://www.vagrantup.com/

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#154

Post by joshuapants »

JamesMcMinn wrote: post #60
jdonaldson wrote: post #23

I had been trying to find a decent developer's laptop for some time, and it led me to the xps 13 "developer edition" (the predecessor to this one). Keep in mind that I really wanted to like that laptop. However, in the end, I went back to my macbook air. There were just too many small headaches to deal with. I'll list them here. I'd like to know if there are any improvements this time around. I'd be curious to know i…

I've got a 2014 Dell XPS Dev. Edition, and for me the TouchPad sensitivity is fine and the Wifi range is good (even using 5Ghz networks). I can get about 7 hours out of the battery so long as I'm only browsing the web or editing text - probably still not as good as a MacBook Air, but I'm never more than a few hours from a socket. Ubuntu still isn't great at HDIP displays, although things are getting better. Balance s…

If you're using display scaling it might make sense to go with FHD anyway; from what I understand the scaling gives you effectively the screen space of a 1600x900 display, 1080p might not be as rich but it can give you a bit more workspace.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#155

Post by estebank »

currysausage wrote: post #138
MetaCosm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was excited until I read 8GB max... that can't be right can it? What modern developer machine would have an 8GB cap?

The 3rd Gen ThinkPad X1 Carbon has 4GB (soldered) by default, and the biggest configuration that I can find has 8GB. What are they thinking?

Know that the most it can go to is 12GB.

If you want more memory you have to go to the T4XXp series, and probably buy the RAM yourself as the premium charged is considerable: 16GB on NewEgg is $120, while the premium payed for 16GB out of the box is $340. The T440s also maxes out at 12GB.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#156

Post by georgemcbay »

jbk wrote: post #13

It seems great, but I really need a 16GB RAM option. (At least they have the 512GB SSD) With a couple of VMs, and a webbrowser, 8 GB can get tiny, and those machines don't evolve, so I'd like to plan for a couple of years...

Yeah this is exactly how I feel.

I was actually recently (in the past couple of weeks) in the market for a laptop and heavily considered this device as an option based on the very positive CES reports but the non-upgradable 8GB ram was a dealbreaker and I ended up with a bigger, uglier Toshiba (with more memory).

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#157

Post by nfoz »

stcredzero wrote: post #95
hsitz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current 13.3" Macbook Pro weighs 3.46 pounds. The Dell XPS 13 weighs 2.6 pounds. The MBP thus weighs 32% more (0.8 pounds) than the Dell. That's a big difference to me, and to lots of people.

Something a bit bulkier, but a lot lighter and more durable would be great.

You'll never heard about it in North America, but the most gorgeous laptop right now IMO is the Panasonic CF-MX3: http://panasonic.jp/pc/products/mx3s/

It's tragically expensive to import, though.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#158

Post by aragot »

driverdan wrote: post #132
cies wrote: post #72

A Developer Edition (with Linux preloaded) will come at some point. Currently there are driver issues of which the non-working audio is most persistent. Most elaborate info on it here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1413446 In this Reddit thread... http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2u0jjd/linux_support_... ...you find comment from barton808, who identifies himself as the Team Lead of Sputni…

sigh Linux on good new laptops always tends to be 85-90% of the way there. I'd like to switch back to Linux from Apple products but it's never 100%.

If I pay 1900-2200$ for a deluxe laptop, I would be keen to pay about 300$ more and have a deluxe Linux. Please Canonical, charge me but give me the deluxe experience ;)

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#159

Post by thanksgiving »

sliverstorm wrote: post #124
thanksgiving wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a sane default would be to pause Windows Indexing by default when on battery? Defaults matter.

That's not really ideal though... for example, Windows Indexing is responsible for indexing email in Outlook. If you've been mobile for the last two days, that's potentially a lot of email you can't search.

Reminds me of a somewhat unrelated scenario in Android world. Auto backup of photos in Google+ Photos has a setting where you can have backup only happen when connected to power (and/or on Wi-Fi). Perhaps Microsoft could add something like this in their settings as well?

Yes, I understand this could be seen as feature creep but I think if the savings in battery life are as much as the grandfather says then it is worth the extra complication of a setting. What do you think?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#160

Post by thanksgiving »

hippich wrote: post #142
dmm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the link: you could replace the bluetooth/wireless card with a different one. Can you really? Many laptops have whitelists and if a device doesn't present the correct pci id it won't be enabled by the bios.

I would be surprised to see that kind of setup from Dell. From my experience they produce work horses and don't mind people tweaking their laptops. You can disassemble, replace memory, hard drive, clean CPU/GPU fans, assemble it back, and still have valid manufacturer warranty. And yes, I personally replaced wifi and bluetooth cards on my inspiron, precision, xps15 laptops without problems before. So unless they dras…

Probably not Dell (I have no idea) but Lenovo apparently has a white list for these things. I don't mean to pile on the recent carp storm that they are in... I just happen to have a idea pad y510p. (I am contemplating removing everything and installing Windows from scratch.)
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