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

261–270 of 300 posts

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#261

Post by 72deluxe »

nonuby wrote: post #215
mingmecca wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upgrading to the latest and greatest Macbook is absurdly cheap since you can sell your old model for close to the original price Oh how I wish that were true. I have a 2012 15" Macbook Retina (8gb/256gb) that I bought for $2200. The typical price on eBay is around $1200. So, I can get about half, which is your lament about the XPS 13.

For a three year old, out of warranty, used, old laptop thats pretty impressive

I forget that 2012 is now 3 years old. My MacBook is a mid2012 non-retina MBP (with all the ports on it) and it's still absolutely fine but I know in the fashionable computer world, it's ancient.

Still fetches a good resale value though.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#262

Post by 72deluxe »

hsitz wrote: post #46
whitecat wrote: post #39

This turned out to be a longer first post than I though it would be. I don't know why people are comparing these "good" laptops to Apple laptops in specs. Apple laptops really have not been better than the best laptops. For every MBPr that has come out there has been a better laptop by one of the tops Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer. The reason is I buy Apple is I need a stable operating system. The last 4 Windows based…

I've heard people say this about Windows but it certainly hasn't been my experience. Since 1999 I've had nine (I think) different Windows machines, eight laptops and one tablet. They're from varied manufacturers: Dell, Compaq, Lenovo, Acer, Asus. I still have all of them and they all still run. I've never had resume problems or crashing problems on any of them. (Well, maybe I did with my 1999 Dell running Win98, don'…

I've never ever ever had problems with Windows machines (admittedly ones that I built myself) in 15+ (?) years. The only problems I did have were: 1. Virus (Win95.CIH if I recall correctly) 2. Bad RAM 3. Hard disk died 4. Windows XP didn't recognise my SATA motherboard (no drivers) when I upgraded my machine and just took my old IDE disk and put that on it; my problem expecting it to know about SATA (when XP was released, it hadn't been invented yet). 5. nVidia drivers were duff / GPU was faulty

So none of those problems have been actual Windows problems.

Maybe I've been really fortunate but I don't remember having any problems or deaths of items. I have never had problems with the Macs I've had either, even the minis that I installed Linux on and used as tiny convenient Linux boxes back in the day when miniITX and Atom boards didn't cut it (and when PCs with the same power as the Mac Mini were significantly larger).

I have had to clean up virus-ridden machines from others though; if you fill your machine up with junk and aren't careful browsing the web things go wrong apparently.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#263

Post by MikeTV »

72deluxe wrote: post #225
matthewmacleod wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that because Apple is by far the biggest laptop manufacturer? Comparisons with the market leader are often useful.

I didn't think they were? I thought they had a very niche market and are outsold massively by Windows laptops? Unless that position has changed? I couldn't find any figures on the Internet (admittedly I didn't do an exhaustive search); someone else might do better.

Though the analysis in this article I'm linking is disingenuous ( it compares Apple laptop+iphone+ipad+ipod sales to Windows laptop sales...) its graphs tell the story pretty clearly: http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/2/12/apple-passes-mi...

Look at the little sliver of black that represents Mac computer sales (looks like ~5m sales/quarter) and compare with the orange line that represents Windows computer sales (just under 80m sales/quarter).

Even if 100% of the Macs are laptops and only 10% (as a pessimistic guess) of the Windows machines are laptops, sales are still heavily in the Windows territory.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#264

Post by 72deluxe »

virtue3 wrote: post #48
whitecat wrote: post #39

This turned out to be a longer first post than I though it would be. I don't know why people are comparing these "good" laptops to Apple laptops in specs. Apple laptops really have not been better than the best laptops. For every MBPr that has come out there has been a better laptop by one of the tops Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer. The reason is I buy Apple is I need a stable operating system. The last 4 Windows based…

Honestly (and really, hear me out here). Alot of those crashes were device drivers for graphics cards. Windows 8 (I know... 8.1 isn't bad) actually moved the display drivers out of kernal space (at the chagrin of every game dev ever) and now at least the system/applications recover from a graphic driver dump. Although I will say I'm having issues with 8.1 that I can't really peg down. Sigh. We've had a string of issu…

What problems have you had with Mavericks and Yosemite?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#265

Post by 72deluxe »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #4
jkot wrote: post #3

This laptop will most likely get official support for Ubuntu 14.04.

14.04 is almost a year old?

The LTS one is the one to install if you want a system to use and do stuff with for an extended period of time. I don't miss the days of reinstalling the bleeding edge version of Fedora every so many months, only to find that they'd changed things and that the GNOME preferences in $HOME no longer worked or meant anything etc.

How do others cope with the incessant wheels or progress/reinvention?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#266

Post by mrjatx »

josteink wrote: post #237
mrjatx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I finally a few years ago got completely comfortable with OSX and scripted so much stuff that I can set myself up basically anywhere in 5-10 minutes. Now I'm stuck on a MBPr and get to watch all of these amazing new PC laptops come out that are so innovative. All of the hybrids, convertibles, detachable convertibles, rotatable convertibles. I'm so envious. Come on Apple, seriously.

> Come on Apple, seriously. By depending on one non-standard HW supplier, you are building your own jail. Have you considered breaking out? Get out there. Try these wonderful gadgets you want so badly. Taste freedom. Freedom feels good.

I'm actually not a fan of the hardware at all. I hate that I can't buy an actual dock to dock, so I'm unplugging ghetto caddy every time I want to take my laptop home from the office.

Thing is I love OSX, and actually, not even specifically OSX, I love some of the apps MADE for OSX only. If these damned developers would make webapps or linux ports I'd LOVE to migrate back to either a thinkpad carbon X or some sort of cool new Surface Pro/convertible deal.

I'm going to go through all of my apps at some point and see what I REALLY need that is OSX only. I just realized Intellij has a Linux version and so does Unity.. so, as long as I can virtualize efficiently with virtualbox or something to get .net 4.5+ stuff going I'm totally game to start working from Linux.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#267

Post by 72deluxe »

Artemis2 wrote: post #170
micv wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Very informative, thanks! I didn't realise how much I enjoy the trackpad (that is, don't fight it and curse at it) until I come to use a Windows laptop and pinch to zoom, swipe left/right etc. doesn't work.

In fact, using a MacBook in Windows is a frustrating experience as the touchpad doesn't work as it does under OSX.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#268

Post by 72deluxe »

micv wrote: post #34
at-fates-hands wrote: post #8

As much as I love SSD's, is 256GB actually enough for power users? Or are they assuming the OS will be on the SSD and you can hook up an external HD for more space? Just curious.

What are your usage patterns? I've found 256GB to be a bit of a sweet spot. I can't get everything I would ever want on the disc, but it's enough with maintenance and uninstalling things I'm no longer using to any great extent. And the performance advantage of an SDD is so ridiculously nice that I would never give it up for a bit of extra convenience. If you're doing things that are seriously space heavy like video e…

Perhaps I am a niche but I can't live in something that tiny. I have a MacBook with a Windows VM for developing on, compiling C++ in OSX and then also Windows. I also use it for recording audio, so disk space gets eaten quickly.

I really wish I could live in less space (I am constantly looking for stuff to delete) because then backups wouldn't be so painful.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#269

Post by zhte415 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #7

The interesting difference between this review and that of most others is that Anandtech endorsed Dell's claims of 15 hours of battery life. Reviews like at The Verge[1] measured the battery life at 6.5 hours. I trust Anandtech more than The Verge to conduct properly controlled tests, but it really does illustrate the point that usage has a far bigger impact on battery life on modern notebooks than it did in the past…

I have never met a laptop review where dividing by 3 is not a more credible estimation of actual battery time.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review

#270

Post by mrjatx »

72deluxe wrote: post #264
virtue3 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly (and really, hear me out here). Alot of those crashes were device drivers for graphics cards. Windows 8 (I know... 8.1 isn't bad) actually moved the display drivers out of kernal space (at the chagrin of every game dev ever) and now at least the system/applications recover from a graphic driver dump. Although I will say I'm having issues with 8.1 that I can't really peg down. Sigh. We've had a string of issu…

What problems have you had with Mavericks and Yosemite?

Oh, I got this! Worst wireless reliability I've ever seen in a business. They keep putting out 'fixes' to wpa2 authentication and we still have constant issues in our office when going from WAP to WAP.
Post reply on HN