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Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#251

Post by Certhas »

eksemplar wrote: post #206
reacharavindh wrote: post #9

I have a Dell XPS 13 as my personal machine. It runs Linux. Everything works. But, I still find myself using my MacBook Pro (provided by work) for almost everything even at home. Two things that keep me in the Mac land. 1. Retina Display and the 16:10 aspect ratio. 2. Smooth, and usable touchpad. XPS13's display is too rectangle and I'm not watching movies in it. It feels too cramped for looking at code. GNOME out of…

This is the perfect description of why I’ll probably never leave Mac land. I want my technology to work out the box, and Mac does that. Sure I could probably setup the Linux trackpad to be Mac like if I threw plenty of hours at it, but I don’t want to waste my time like that, not anymore. I did in my youth, but now I’ll just buy the thing that works.

The thing is though, it's just not true (anymore) that Mac "just works" all that much better.

I use Linux and Mac daily and I probably spend a comparable amount of time on configuring both.

You just don't feel the pain that you're used to.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#252

Post by dboreham »

Costco are selling the 2018 model XPS13 (4K, 16G, 500G) in stores at present so you can head down there to take a look. I've been using one for a few months. The article is reviewing (I think) the old 2017 model. It seems odd to complain about the low resolution of the 1080p display, then also say that the available 4k panel isn't going to solve that problem. Mine works just great. According to Lisa on Mobiletechreview the 4K panel has a very wide gamut.

My only beef with my XPS13 (had the same problem with previous Dells) is the audio drivers are horribly buggy, and you have to fight it to not apply unpleasant frequency-domain distortion to the signal. The user experience had to have been designed by someone who never listens to music. It magically detects when you plug in an external audio sink via the 3.5mm jack. Sometimes that detection doesn't work, so the sound keeps coming out the internal speakers. Then, assuming the jack works, you now have the equivalent of a 1970's graphic equalizer turned up "to 11" in the signal path. Guess what? The application that allows you to control that signal degredation process IS NOT INSTALLED. You need to spend several hours pull hair before you discover the forum post where someone explains how to install the right version. Then cross your fingers it will stay working through the next Win10 or BIOS update cycle..

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#253

Post by BenoitP »

fuzzy2 wrote: post #95

I have a Precision 5520 (basically an XPS 15) at work. At home, I have a Retina MacBook Pro Late 2013. I still prefer the MacBook, even though it’s a lot less powerful. First off, the killer with anything Dell: The firmware is just incredibly terrible. Sometimes it takes 30 seconds for the initial Dell logo to show. Others have similar issues, too, but no firmware setting seems to help. The Latitude I had before also…

Same sentiment here with XPS 15.

The firmware is confusing the integrated Intel HD Graphics card with the nVidia GeForce; leading to a hugely yanky windows UI, while the CUDA cores are sitting idle. Independently of wether the laptop is running on battery.

The issue runs around the Desktop Windows Manager not wanting to be executed on the proper GPU. I don't know who to blame here, Microsoft, Dell or nVidia. Probably all of them as this seems like a common support issue no one wants to engage into.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#254

Post by gizzlon »

grimgrin wrote: post #220
Clubber wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Dell should fix their trackpad.

Who has a useful trackpad anyways? An actually great one, besides Apple? I have no idea why this is the case? Patents or too expensive to justify? Genuinely curious

I like my XPS 13 trackpad :) The mac ones seems too big, suspect it would be in the way and hamper the keyboard. (I haven't used a the newer Mac models enough to be certain). Dells works great on Linux (Arch + KDE)

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#255

Post by niedzielski »

procinct wrote: post #185

I have a 2015 MBP and a Dell XPS 13 (I forget the year) and the thing that blew me away the most with Dell is the support. One day I went to turn my XPS on and it wouldn’t start. After some research it seemed like a dead motherboard. I was concerned I was going to have to send my laptop away for months to have it fixed but surprisingly because the XPS is an enterprise grade machine it qualifies for their pro support.…

Although the machine has been working wonderfully, I had the opposite experience with support. My battery started swelling on my 2017 XPS after a year. Dell will not sell me the original 97 WHr battery, only a 56 WHr refurb. 56 WHr does not last long on my GNU / Linux configuration and it's really lowered the value of the machine for me.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#256

Post by nambit »

curt15 wrote: post #243
jakelarkin wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its probably insanely expensive/complex to revisit the cheap commodity touchpad hardware and the crappy drivers that already available. & doesn't pencil out with the razor thin margins for PC laptops

PC laptops don't cost that much less than similarly speced macbooks. Why would their margins be so much worse?

You need a lot of R&D to get there.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#257

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

tamatsyk wrote: post #101
ender341341 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do 16gb 13" macbook pros (I'm typing this on an early 2015 that came with 16gb). They don't have 32GB laptops which would be useful for some of my work though.

Oh, you are right, not sure why I was almost sure it does not exist. Good catch!

You can even get the MacBook itself with 16GB now. Looks like 32GB is next up for MacBook Pro.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#258

Post by abrookins »

gecko wrote: post #248
abrookins wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it was as recently as this very week! Running with all the latest updates on a new Surface Book 2, I ran into a variation of this open issue: https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/1982 . That was only the last and final blocking issue I ran into, after a series of minor (or at least, not serious) problems that I powered through during too many late nights. Couple of things: - Hyper-V. Was excited for this…

Actually, it was as recently as this very week! Running with all the latest updates on a new Surface Book 2, I ran into a variation of this open issue: https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/1982. Well that stinks. I'd swear I hit this and it got resolved with the inotify-related patches, but clearly I misremembered. Might be thinking of uwsgi or something. Re. Hyper-V: yeah, I do a Samba mount. This in my experienc…

That's okay -- I'm sure they fixed something like that issue! The WSL team has been crazy busy, and their work so far is super impressive.

VirtualBox shared folders had their own problems. `npm` wants to create symlinks for commands provided by packages, but VirtualBox doesn't support symlinks by default on Windows shares. So you have to execute an arcane command to enable that feature -- every time you restart the computer.

Interesting to hear that performance is decent with the Samba share. I presumed it would be otherwise. In that case, Hyper-V with Samba may be my last shot at getting the machine to work for me... we'll see if I can muster any more enthusiasm.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#259

Post by MrScruff »

codegladiator wrote: post #229
Clubber wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Dell should fix their trackpad.

I am really surprised with the down votes considering this is "hacker" news. I will soon loose all meaning for the term hacker.

I'm not sure configuring a Linux distro to work better really counts as 'hacking' either though.
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