XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available • Hacker News Board

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#181

Post by lloeki » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

zbobet2012 wrote: post #166

kingosticks wrote: post #80

My XPS 13 9350 is undoubtedly the best computer I've ever owned. I don't seem to have this coil whine thing or I just don't notice it. The 8GB of RAM has served me well and I'd never want to sacrifice any of the battery life for increasing that - it's an ultrabook after all. I've always run Ubuntu and while I did have problems with WiFi and resuming when it first came out, they are both rock solid now. I have never t…

I have an XPS 15 9560 and I _love_ it. Never had coil whine or any of those problems. I did spend a bit of time re-pasting the CPU* when I noticed CPU throttling during gaming. That fixed it. I put 32GB of ram and (now) Fedora 27 on it . I love everything about it. LOVE! The comment I get the most is "that screen is incredible" from mac users. * https://www.ultrabookreview.com/14875-fix-throttling-xps-15/ (PS, unlike…

> I did spend a bit of time re-pasting [...] unlike a mac this is something you can do

Why couldn't you? [0][1].

[0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Image/meta/6JoCTCytFZE4gSOU

[1]: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function...

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#182

Post by dsego » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #37

Still has a nosecam

You mean chincam?

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#183

Post by herf » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #162

torgard wrote: post #98

Max 8gb for regular display... I mean, who uses touch screens for development? I can't really imagine a scenario where it would be helpful for me. Maybe when doing work in Illustrator and Photoshop, but I usually use a different machine for that anyhow, because of Adobe's lack of Linux support. I don't want to pay for something I won't use. I am otherwise actively looking for a laptop. System76 does not have European…

> I mean, who uses touch screens for development? Web developers who want to test using real touch input events rather than the quirky emulation found in a few browsers. If you're developing for touch, in particular things like drag & drop, you want a real device. Even if you have an iPad or smartphone test device too, it is nice to have that ability on your main development machine rather than jumping around.

It's kind of amazing in the browser (both Chrome and Edge, not Firefox). For regular apps it doesn't matter as much.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#184

Post by claar » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:44 PM UTC

Comments on this thread say that less memory helps battery life.

Are there motherboards that would allow the OS to power-save memory modules at times, and power them back up at others (perhaps user-configured)? If not, I wonder why..

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#185

Post by Tepix » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

andor wrote: post #90

dingo_bat wrote: post #52

Where's the fucking USB ports?!? I have literally used or observed zero USB C devices till now. I've seen newer phones but who plugs phones into computers anymore? The main issue is flash drives, external HDDs, mice, keyboards, LTE modems, Kindle, and so on. None of those are available in type C variants and I don't want to be inconvenienced by my new laptop. If I wanted to hurt myself I'd just buy from Apple!

I'm really happy about USB-C. Since I got a new Macbook I only carry a single power adapter when traveling, plus an adapter dongle for legacy devices (Headphones, Kindle, Shaver, ...). Same for use in the office: a single cable connects you to power, an external display, Ethernet, etc. It's true that most external devices are still USB-A, but that's not Dell's or Apple's problem. It's a chicken-and-egg situation and…

One of the best things about the Dell XPS 9350 is that it has both USB C and USB A connectors.

I still need to carry some dongles to get HDMI and LAN ports... but i don't need those all the time.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#186

Post by Tepix » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

cevn wrote: post #28

Why can't I get 16gb ram and have a 1080p screen? Is the touchpad still terrible? Does it still have coil whine?

The (slight) coil whine on my XPS 13 9350-4891 stopped completely after the first BIOS update.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#187

Post by pritambaral » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

ndesaulniers wrote: post #178

torgard wrote: post #98

Max 8gb for regular display... I mean, who uses touch screens for development? I can't really imagine a scenario where it would be helpful for me. Maybe when doing work in Illustrator and Photoshop, but I usually use a different machine for that anyhow, because of Adobe's lack of Linux support. I don't want to pay for something I won't use. I am otherwise actively looking for a laptop. System76 does not have European…

There's no simple/easy way to disable the touchscreen in Linux distro's, too.

If you're okay with scripting it, you could just `xinput disable ...` the touchscreen's input device.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#188

Post by cptskippy » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #128

cptskippy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most vendors are looking to prolong battery life and increasing RAM will do the exact opposite. Most software is still 32 bit and can't take advantage of the added memory. Even apps that can still don't really need that much. Workloads requiring gobs are RAM are niche and 8GBs works well for most people. My personal server with 16GB of RAM runs at around 48% utilization hosting 16 sites, multiple databases, a transco…

Two 32-bit apps on a 64 bit operating system (and everyone is running a 64-bit OS now) can each use 4 GB of physical RAM. They're each in virtualized address spaces. A typical example of a workload that would use more RAM would be a bunch of big Excel documents open, a couple Chrome windows each with a bunch of tabs, Outlook and a chat app running in the background, and a profession-specific app like Visual Studio, L…

I think you're describing very atypical usage.

Labview, Photoshop, and Solidworks are not typical applications, they're highly specialized and the only apps on your list that require 64 bit. I would expect anyone using them to have a high spec machine.

Quickbooks and Visual Studio are 32 bit only apps and typically very memory efficient. I currently have Visual Studio open with a 17 project solution running the Interactive Debugger and it's only using 450 MBs.

Office comes in a 64 bit flavor but Microsoft recommends you use the 32 bit version. They only recommend 64 Bit if you're using exceptionally large datasets or handling large image assets. Office Apps are very memory efficient and typically use less than 200 MBs each unless opening exceptionally large documents.

The biggest memory hogs these days tend to be browsers and even then you have to open a lot of tabs.

That being said, on Windows you need to look at Available Memory and not Free memory when calculating utilization, I believe it was Windows 8/2012 where they hid Free memory and only display Available Memory because Free Memory is a misleading metric. Windows will also always page certain things to disk even if you have plenty of Free/Available memory.

Boosting Disk I/O and CPU speed is where a user will see the biggest benefits these days.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#189

Post by kbutler » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #157

kbutler wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The graphic minimizes the apparent difference by splitting it between top and bottom and maintaining the same diagonal size. 3:2 gives 18% more vertical space in the same width https://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2013-02/lets-get-rid-... If you're doing primarily vertical tasks (coding, web pages, etc.), the taller aspect ratio can be really helpful. That said, I've mostly made my peace with 16:9. Write shorter fu…

Aren't screen sizes typically based on that diagonal size (i.e. a 15" screen is a diagonal 15")? If so, doesn't that make parent's link more accurate?

Screen sizes are reported on the diagonal, but the makers are not constrained to maintain the same diagonal size with different apsect ratios. For instance, the pixel Chromebooks have 12.82" and 12.3" diagonal screens. I've never seen a 16:9 laptop with those sizes.

And specifically for an xps 13 device, where they trim excess bezels, etc., the keyboard width becomes the limiting factor.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#190

Post by KirinDave » Thu, Jan 04, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

torgard wrote: post #98

Max 8gb for regular display... I mean, who uses touch screens for development? I can't really imagine a scenario where it would be helpful for me. Maybe when doing work in Illustrator and Photoshop, but I usually use a different machine for that anyhow, because of Adobe's lack of Linux support. I don't want to pay for something I won't use. I am otherwise actively looking for a laptop. System76 does not have European…

Anyone doing mobile or web development?

It's sorta unfortunate that folks consider touch screens to be a useless luxury. I suspect if folks didn't, a lot of small X11 utilities would be easier to write.