Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dell XPS 13 Review

anandtech.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 300 posts

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#161

Post by vacri »

bwilliams wrote: post #98
chiph wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MBP is not all that "pro" any more. Soldered components, the bare minimum of USB ports, no RJ-45 ethernet jack. I'd be more than willing to add thickness & weight to one in return for those features, and better thermal management.

I don't think those features are what make it "pro". I prefer it being thinner and lighter with soldered components rather than heavier without. RJ-45's are terrible on laptops, they're ugly, bulky, and hardly used. I'd much rather just use USB -> RJ45.

You can point to any feature (excluding reliability) and claim that feature doesn't make something 'pro'.

I know one senior sysadmin - the kind of guy other sysadmins go to for advice - who's getting a Novena laptop as his next machine for work. That thing doesn't come with a keyboard and exposes the motherboard when the screen is up.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#162

Post by Encosia »

jmcdowell wrote: post #131
Encosia wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I traded in my MacBook for an i7 ATIV Book 9 Plus about a year and a half ago. The Samsung was (I think) thinner and lighter than my Air, but had a higher than MBPr resolution display and i7 processor. Basically like a high end MBPr in an Air form factor. The Samsung was a pretty dramatic upgrade and I sold my MacBook almost immediately. I only miss it occasionally when I'd like to be able to build an iOS app. Today,…

I haven't used the Suface Pro 3 myself but I'm wondering, can it become your sole/main dev machine? Or is it only good for some light coding?

I use a desktop as my main dev machine, and I haven't tried to supplant it with any of these portable machines, just supplement. I do run Visual Studio, WebStorm, Photoshop, etc. on the Surface though, no problem, to code and push real features.

The docking station and a large display or two would probably be a must for using it as a primary machine. I haven't tried the docking station myself, but I've heard lots of good things about it.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#164

Post by ninkendo »

Someone1234 wrote: post #63
jakevn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently simply disabling Windows Indexing increased battery life from 7.5 hours to 9.5 hours in some tests.

If you have a Pro or Enterprise edition of Windows, you can configure this: 1) Launch mmc (Win+R, "mmc") 2) File -> Add/Remove Snap-In 3) Group Policy Object Editor -> Add -> Local Computer -> Ok 4) Expand Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Search 5) Find "Prevent indexing when running on battery power to conserve energy" 6) Enable -> OK -> Close If yo…

You can change steps 1-3 to just "Win+R, gpmc.msc"... which will take you straight to the group policy editor.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#166

Post by Adaptive »

Encosia wrote: post #109
Adaptive wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 15 hours of battery was only for the FHD (1920x1080) display. I scanned The Verge review but wasn't clear if they tested battery life on the FHD or QHD+ display. Toss up some terminus and vim and the FHD model sounds like a great all day coding machine.

On my Samsung ATIV (QHD+), I found that running the display at half the native resolution dramatically increased battery life and didn't seem to look any worse than a normal panel with a ~72 DPI native resolution.

That's a clever battery hack. I'll be using it on my sp3. Nice.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#167

Post by sk5t »

thanksgiving wrote: post #160
hippich wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

FWIW, I got nothing but grief from the Lenovo Windows 8 / 8.1 installation on my Thinkstation--Windows booting into repair mode for no apparent reason, janky addon software, etc. A clean, fresh install made it all better, although finding the right storage drivers was a chore.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#168

Post by IvyMike »

driverdan wrote: post #127
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?

What do you use more than 8GB for? Only things I can think of are massive Illustrator files and large Windows VMs.

I have another OS installed in a VM, an admittedly ridonkulous number of open tabs (that's just how I work) and an IDE, and that puts me at around 11GB in use.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#169

Post by pascalo »

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…

In a way I am glad there's issues.

My mbp gave up and I was over the whole apple thing, so I went for a previous revision one just around xmas and installed Ubuntu myself (Australia doesn't get the Developer Version).

It's a great machine, and I love it, but then I got miffed when they rolled out a new revision just after I decided to buy. However, I had a feeling that Linux on the previous revision would be a lot more solid, and your post confirms that.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#170

Post by Artemis2 »

micv wrote: post #115
sliverstorm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nice little thought-terminating stance. Considering Dell computers can never have Apple parts.

If, after years of trying, OEMs still can't produce a trackpad on par with Apple's offerings, that's on them, not their potential customers who are turned off by the absence.

Maybe it's because of patents?

https://www.google.com/patents/US8049736

Post reply on HN