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Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

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Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#13
post #3

It runs Ubuntu and costs about the same of a ChromeBook Pixel here a few weeks back. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9185526 ). Seems to be limited to 8 gigs ram, Pixel gives you 16 but has less HD space. No USB Type-C either... How does the keyboard compare to a MBP? Love that keyboard. Do they also include free Ubuntu stickers to cover up the Windows logo on the keyboard? :) Would love to hear from real devs…

get them from here - http://www.unixstickers.com/stickers/linux-keyboard-stickers

wow these exist, amazing!

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#14

8GB max RAM kind of rules it out for any heavy duty development.

:( 8GB rules out me.Fitting inside that with constant swap file writes will kill the SSD quickly.

16GB is fine for now but it wont be long beofer I need to look for 32GB. Multiple VMs, Docker clusters with several memory heavy JVM apps (Scala), too many browser tabs, etc. just don't play nice with 8GB anymore.

A nearly $2K laptop aimed at developers with 8GB is a bit of a joke to be honest. Shame, as otherwise it seems like such a nice piece of kit.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#15
post #2

This looks like the perfect laptop for me at this moment. I just worry that a ceiling of 8GB of RAM means it won't be the perfect laptop for me next year. And I'd like my laptop to last me 2-3 years.

Second that, 8GB of RAM is a bit meager.

Google Chrome takes up at least 2.5GB on my Mac, 8GB is a complete joke

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#19
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.

I'm pretty sure web-apps sucking that amount of resources was caused by giving web-devs machines with 8GBs+ of RAM to begin with. Giving them more, wont fix the problem. It will only make it worse.

As for a developer-anecdote: Almost all bugs post-shipping bugs I've experienced and had to fix, more than 50% has only been reproducable on low-resource constrained environments.

By super-specing your dev-environment, you are shipping bugs you cannot detect. You just don't know it.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#20
the lack of a native ethernet port rules it out for any operations work that requires working on the datacenter floor.

actually this is a frustrating trend, native ethernet adapters are 0 cost to CPU instructions, I know you can use thunderbolt (and I've not looked at the spec in detail) but USB ethernet controllers use the CPU when plugged in- and I'm not a large fan of that honestly.

what happened to the very small, fold out ethernet ports? like the one on the old XPS 15 (or: http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/201304/sam540U3C_edge2....)

Maybe I'm too much of a power user for a 13" but for me this feels like a step back from netbooks from a functionality and mobility standpoint, and not far enough a leap forward for performance to justify stepping "up" from a Thinkpad X201. (which I have loaded with an SSD and 8G ram)

but, I agree that my use-case is significantly different from most peoples. I'm still left recalling a time where manufacturers were reluctant to stop shipping with 56k modems- but seem to have dropped Rj45 pretty quick.

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