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Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review

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Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review

#21

Post by ch4s3 »

wazoox wrote: post #15
kayoone wrote: post #5

does Ubuntu use some kind of DPI scaling on this or is it just native FHD ? That could be pretty small for some people. How does it handle setting to lower resolutions ? Also 6hours of battery life seem a bit on the short side, though he had quite a few programs running. Id like to know how it would do in Windows8 though. Id also be interested in how well it handles sleep/awake scenarios with an external display atta…

No DPI scaling, but it's OK for me. I always loved small fonts in term windows anyway :) 6 hours is a minimum for quite a heavy use; I myself found that mine easily does 8-9 hours when programming (Flash is a terrible battery and CPU hog).

how does it do with video playback?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review

#22

Post by annnnd »

surge wrote: post #19
mkhattab wrote: post #11

I'm conflicted about the price being in the range of MBPs and Dell competing with Apple, supposedly, based on quality and design. I think they would be much more competitive if they were to price this laptop significantly cheaper than MBPs without sacrificing too much quality. I think Dell has the resources to do this. It's difficult for me to ignore brand image and I guess this makes me a fan boy. Although, I really…

I compared this to a Macbook Pro 13", which is the closest comparable hardware. It came out better in features and cost ($300 cheaper then a Macbook Pro with similar SSD and memory), and was thinner and lighter. I wanted the Macbook Pro, but I didn't see the $300 difference in the Pro.

One difference: you can't legally develop for iOS with non-Apple hardware. Which is IMHO an extortion, but there you have it.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review

#23

Post by davb »

> If the laptop is turned off (or sleeping) and the battery is charging, there's no way for you to tell whether the batter is full or not based on the color of the LED. It stays white.

This isn't entirely true. While the color of the charger LED doesn't change, the LED at the middle of the bottom/front edge (below the trackpad) goes from orange to white when charged.

My biggest gripe with this (very nice, portable) laptop is that the wireless card is a bit flaky with 802.11n under (x)Ubuntu 13.04 - 13.10. I find that in some rooms of my (relatively small) flat I can't connect without disabling 11n (sudo modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=1). I get a very high "Tx excessive retries" value in iwconfig otherwise and the network connection is unusable.

It's not a failing of the laptop, but rather the bundled Intel wireless card and the drivers that ship with Linux 3.11.0-15. My Lenovo T430s has the same issue (it has a Centrino Advanced-N 6205).

I've seen numerous bug reports and kernel patches but haven't had much success in resolving the issue.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review

#27

Post by Touche »

computer wrote: post #18
kayoone wrote: post #5

does Ubuntu use some kind of DPI scaling on this or is it just native FHD ? That could be pretty small for some people. How does it handle setting to lower resolutions ? Also 6hours of battery life seem a bit on the short side, though he had quite a few programs running. Id like to know how it would do in Windows8 though. Id also be interested in how well it handles sleep/awake scenarios with an external display atta…

Many desktop environments can do scaling well enough, in my experience. Not sure about Unity, the Ubuntu default. Edit: for non-retina screens (i.e. it's fine on my 14" 1920x1080 laptop.) For retina (not this laptop), it might not be ideal yet. I took a screenshot (XFCE4) with very high DPI, and you can see some GUI elements don't scale: http://i.imgur.com/2GpqyND.png

AFAIK no linux environments handle HiDPI well at the moment. Gnome 3 added support in a recent support but it's still not great. Also many apps that don't use native APIs look bad, Chrome for example is almost unusable.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review

#28

Post by rsynnott »

smackfu wrote: post #20
wazoox wrote: post #14

I had one of these for some months and I'd say the only culprit is that there are only 1 mini DP and 2 USB ports and nothing else: no SD card slot, no Thunderbold or Firewire. Even a third USB port would have been nice. There isn't any kensington lock port, either. The screen is glossy but for some reason, it's not actually catching too many random reflections (so it's much better than my MacBook which can hardly be…

Hasn't the PC world moved on to USB3, ignoring Thunderbolt? And even Apple has dropped Firewire at this point.

Thunderbolt is seeing some take-up on the high end; it solves a different set of problems to USB3.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review

#29

Post by Touche »

rsynnott wrote: post #28
smackfu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't the PC world moved on to USB3, ignoring Thunderbolt? And even Apple has dropped Firewire at this point.

Thunderbolt is seeing some take-up on the high end; it solves a different set of problems to USB3.

Where is it seeing take-up outside of the Apple ecosystem?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review

#30

Post by bluedino »

davexunit wrote: post #12
mkhattab wrote: post #11

I'm conflicted about the price being in the range of MBPs and Dell competing with Apple, supposedly, based on quality and design. I think they would be much more competitive if they were to price this laptop significantly cheaper than MBPs without sacrificing too much quality. I think Dell has the resources to do this. It's difficult for me to ignore brand image and I guess this makes me a fan boy. Although, I really…

Thinkpads make rock solid GNU/Linux machines. I highly recommend the X220. It has some issues such as not being Coreboot compatible and needing nonfree firmware to drive the wireless chip. The former has no fix, but the latter can be fixed with a little hack and an Atheros chip.

As an X220 it's a very nice machine but it's no in the same realm as the XPS or the Air/rMBP.

It has a great keyboard and underlying hardware. But it's also stuck with a low-resolution screen with terrible viewing angles, and is also as thick as a brick. The touchpad also leaves a lot to be desired but it does have the TrackPoint which is great.

The X240 will supposedly have a 1080p IPS screen but I'm not sure what the holdup is.

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