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Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

dell.com

71–80 of 140 posts

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#71

Devil's advocate time! What's to keep Dell from heavily customizing and releasing / packaging a version of Ubuntu in the same vein that apple customized, released, packaged nextstep as OS X? The only thing I can think of would be "talent at the company". And I know next to nothing about the internals of dell, let alone what they've done since being repurchased and privatized. Kind of a fun thought, even if it's a lit…

Nothing? Isn't that the point of open source software?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#72

Having a lot of ram is nice, but every time I read that people need at least 8gb for development, I ask myself what it is that they are running. I am running chrome, sublime, docker, hbase, redis, memcached, mongodb and probably some more stuff and I hardly swap with 4gb, or maybe I just do not realize it because of my ssd. Am I missing some ultra useful, memory annihilating dev tool?

yes, its usually IDE's emulator's for me. Put xCode and Android Studio on there and run an emulator. Also, I've had a similar experience running Visual Studio + SQL Server.

That iPhone Simulator is an insane memory hogger.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#73
post #11

does ubuntu really handle HiDPI? i have a 4K screen at home and it is a disaster.

Ubuntu itself may handle it, but lots of applications look terrible. Chrome is one of them, last time I checked. Firefox had certain scaling issues as well. Sadly, Apple is still the only game in town when it comes to automatic and correct resolution scaling.

well the kernel has no trouble :)

i would consider the file explorer nautilus to be part of ubuntu and it's broken too.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#74

To ask those complaining about 8gb not being enough... Please name one thing that won't allow you to do which is crucial in your day to day workflow. I'm not saying i don't believe you, I'm just genuinely curious. Edit: Looking at this thread, I have to say there has to be a cause and effect here somewhere. You have a million web-developers saying they need more than 8GB to use Chrome to surf web-pages and web-apps.…

Run two Android emulators at the same time.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#75

Having a lot of ram is nice, but every time I read that people need at least 8gb for development, I ask myself what it is that they are running. I am running chrome, sublime, docker, hbase, redis, memcached, mongodb and probably some more stuff and I hardly swap with 4gb, or maybe I just do not realize it because of my ssd. Am I missing some ultra useful, memory annihilating dev tool?

virtual machines. For custom kernels, clusters, both, and other reasons. Having more than 1 vm running gets to be a pain with 8gigs or less.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#76
Why oh why does it have a buttonless clickpad? I've got a ThinkPad T440p and it's terrible. I despise every minute of working on it and have to bring a mouse around. Is this just copying Apple for looks?

I'm dying to buy a laptop that's as good as my X201 (and keeps 12" format, though thickness doesn't matter much), but with modern specs. I'm probably gonna break down and get an X250, which is limited to 8GB of RAM for no good reason, but I've heard newer processors can handle IM's 16GB SODIMM, so that particular problem might be solved. The X250 is the first gen ThinkPad after Lenovo partially realized they had destroyed the ThinkPad line and started, albeit slightly, listening to customers again.

Any other suggestions? I've tried using a macbook, and the screen is great, but the keyboard, clickpad, and hot metal are very uncomfortable.

I'd spend hundreds on a conversion kit to drop new guts into an X201. (And to mod it with mechanical switches... I'd spend a lot.) It seems you can't spend as much on a ThinkPad these days. My X201 was over $2000 without WWAN, but the X250 tops out around $1600.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#77

It seems almost every manufacturer is trying to make their laptops look like Macbooks, but what I'd really like to see is some Thinkpad clones.

How exactly this resemble a Macbook in any way ?

It is not unibody, it is not aluminum, the screen is basically without bezel.

This is the first non-Apple ultrabook that is genuinely interesting to me, design wise.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#78

Having a lot of ram is nice, but every time I read that people need at least 8gb for development, I ask myself what it is that they are running. I am running chrome, sublime, docker, hbase, redis, memcached, mongodb and probably some more stuff and I hardly swap with 4gb, or maybe I just do not realize it because of my ssd. Am I missing some ultra useful, memory annihilating dev tool?

Compiling webkit with 4gb of ram is... not ideal.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#79
I've been using the previous gen XPS 13 and my 2009 MacBook Pro for the past eight months. My experience with the XPS 13, and Dell in general, has been disappointing.

If I had to make the decision again, I'd definitely get the M3800 instead of the XPS 13.

1. Google about trackpad configuration (palm detection, etc.) on the XPS 13 Dev Edition, it seems to be a combination of the hardware and Linux driver support. Maybe it's fixed in this new rev, I'm not sure.

2. There are known issues with audio popping and crackling when you plug the XPS 13 Dev Edition into speakers.

3. When you're sitting in a quiet environment, like a home office at night, you can hear electrical noise coming from the laptop. It's a known issue, maybe it's resolved in this new generation.

4. One of our XPS 13s was DOA. It happens. It took eight weeks to get a replacement, starting from the first time I contacted support. Once I was connected to somebody in USA on-shore support, they were very helpful, and told me much of that turnaround time is based on their suppliers.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#80

Having a lot of ram is nice, but every time I read that people need at least 8gb for development, I ask myself what it is that they are running. I am running chrome, sublime, docker, hbase, redis, memcached, mongodb and probably some more stuff and I hardly swap with 4gb, or maybe I just do not realize it because of my ssd. Am I missing some ultra useful, memory annihilating dev tool?

Chrome, IntelliJ IDEA, and 4 Java modules running simultaneously goes through 8gb without any hesitation. Hell, IntelliJ alone uses over 4gb sometimes.
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