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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

#301

Post by dboreham »

bootloop wrote: post #262
dboreham wrote: post #252

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 Mobiletechrevi…

Do you have the 2015 XPS13 and are you using it in dualboot Win/Linux? I love this thing but the audio problems are killing me as now I need it a lot for video calls. It bothers me that the only reason I would have to update is because of the audio.

No, I only have the 2018 XPS13. I have other older Dell's that are similarly afflicted audio blight, but they're not XPS. I haven't dual-booted in 10 years so can't help with that.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#302

Post by markmark »

kayoone wrote: post #24

For me it's the little things that keep me on mac. - Amazing touchpad, no need for a mouse at all - Light, yet powerful and great battery life - best in class display - being able to easily copy and paste between iphone macbook - being able to easily send files between all osx/ios devices with zero hassle - being able to take calls on my macbook and transfer them to the phone if needed - bluetooth headphones working…

I would say there is plenty of competition for best display these days (I say this typing on a current model mbp15).

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#303

Post by heyoni »

abrowne wrote: post #117
morley wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned keyboard portability. I find it incredibly hard to switch from ctrl on Windows to cmd on Mac. In college I had to switch frequently between Windows and Mac, and it was a nightmare. Since then, I've committed to only use MacOS on a Macbook and Windows on a real keyboard. That seems to preserve my muscle memory the best. But things can be rough when I use a Windows laptop or a standal…

I am the same, but with the Mac command layout burned into my brain (and thumbs). My solution when I switched to Linux from Mac is to make the control key the one next to the space bar, like command is. Luckily it's super easy to swap control and super or alt (depending on Mac or PC layout) using xkbd on Linux. In MATE and KDE it's in the keyboard settings; in GNOME it's in Tweaks (with Xfce you need to use a config…

Weird. I just switched the command to the outermost key and alt/ctrl with each other and had no issues with it.

Fixed some wrist pain I was having though from cmd-tabbing with the default layout!

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#304

Post by ericsoderstrom »

eknkc wrote: post #36

What I'm mostly curious about these posts is, how the heck do you guys switch operating systems that easily? I guess it would work if you are already using Linux or Windows on a Mac hardware but that's gotta be rare. I mean, hardware is nothing compared to the OS.. I can switch to any other Mac and it would take me a couple hours to be comfortable. That would be it. If I'm switching to a Dell XPS, I don't really care…

Web-based applications will all be the same, CLI programs will mostly be the same between any nix operations system, homebrew is conceptually not that different from any other package manager. Most IDEs are very portable. What's the main hurdle in switching from macOS to any other nix?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#305

Post by eropple »

eknkc wrote: post #36

What I'm mostly curious about these posts is, how the heck do you guys switch operating systems that easily? I guess it would work if you are already using Linux or Windows on a Mac hardware but that's gotta be rare. I mean, hardware is nothing compared to the OS.. I can switch to any other Mac and it would take me a couple hours to be comfortable. That would be it. If I'm switching to a Dell XPS, I don't really care…

I'm not a Mac user or a Linux user. I'm a Unix-like user, and pretty much everything else is gravy. Switching from iTerm2 to Tilix doesn't faze me; zsh still works the same. Literally the only apps I use that are Mac-constrained are Logic Pro X (I have a dedicated machine for that) and the occasional Adobe app--and I dual-boot my desktop and my primary laptop with Windows, so I care much less about that there, too.

Oh, and Keynote is nice, but web Keynote is fine for my purposes. But everything I use for my actual job is either a web app (LucidChart, etc.) or is eminently portable (Unix tools, VSCode, etc.).

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#306

Post by tootie »

eknkc wrote: post #36

What I'm mostly curious about these posts is, how the heck do you guys switch operating systems that easily? I guess it would work if you are already using Linux or Windows on a Mac hardware but that's gotta be rare. I mean, hardware is nothing compared to the OS.. I can switch to any other Mac and it would take me a couple hours to be comfortable. That would be it. If I'm switching to a Dell XPS, I don't really care…

Most stuff I use is the same across OSes. Chrome, Slack, IntelliJ, VS Code. I use WSL on Windows 10 to get my linux command line and then terminal is about as good as any other.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#307

Post by CoolGuySteve »

shasts wrote: post #189
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need RAM, battery life, and a matte display above everything else, so it really bothers me that Dell refuses to sell a 16GB XPS13 with the 1080p display. So much so, that I think I'm going to go with Asus for my next ultrabook.

If you are in Europe you can get one with 16GB and HD display. http://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-notebooks-and-2-in-1-... £1,498.99 GBP one in above list.

Wow, $2000! That's quite expensive for what it is. I didn't realize Dell costs so much over there.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#308

Post by restalis »

pxeboot wrote: post #165
pmontra wrote: post #155

> Windows 10 spends about 5 minutes (literally!) identifying a bunch of new devices and adding them to the system, with a notification popping up for each thing Really, does anybody knows why Windows needs all this time to identify USB devices? The same PC does it instantaneously when running Linux.

Here is a partial explanation that was posted on HN in the past: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041110-00/?p=...

That looks to me like an apology for a lousy job on the requirements engineering side. Of all possible use-cases the port-tethering behavior stroked them as the most logical? The question that should have been considered is how often can it happen for users to plug the same device on different port vs. to plug two identical devices? Microsoft here gave more thought to the case with a leaser likelihood, in my opinion. How about remembering my device regardless of the port I choose to plug it in and give me the new-device treatment only when I'll actually deserve it by actually plug a(n additional) new device?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#309

Post by FireBeyond »

abrookins wrote: post #233
gecko wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would I be correct that you tried WSL in late summer/fall last year? I'm asking because WSL got a pile of new syscalls, a couple of which (if I recall correctly) fixed the unicorn issue you hit. Likewise, there are now standard GPOs you can distribute that exempt WSL from Defender. I 100% agree that running a Linux VM can sometimes be a lot better (and it's not exactly hard, given that Hyper-V has been in Windows for…

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!

Which WSL distro did you use? Perhaps only works under, say, Ubuntu 18.04... (not perfect, but better, perhaps)?

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#310

Post by jtreminio »

eknkc wrote: post #36

What I'm mostly curious about these posts is, how the heck do you guys switch operating systems that easily? I guess it would work if you are already using Linux or Windows on a Mac hardware but that's gotta be rare. I mean, hardware is nothing compared to the OS.. I can switch to any other Mac and it would take me a couple hours to be comfortable. That would be it. If I'm switching to a Dell XPS, I don't really care…

I recently switched from a 2015 MacBook Pro to a Dell XPS 15" 9570 running Fedora + Cinnamon

The following shifts Ctrl/Win/Alt one to the left:

    clear control
    clear mod4
    clear mod1
    
    keycode 37 = Super_L
    keycode 133 = Alt_L Meta_L
    keycode 64 = Control_L
    
    add control = Control_L Control_R
    add mod4 = Super_L
    add mod1 = Alt_L Alt_R Meta_L
Add this to `~/.Xmodmap`, add it to autorun (KDE and Cinnamon will autostart, Gnome needs a kick in the pants): `xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap`

You can't use this on Wayland, has to be on X11, which is fine with me because Wayland has other issues.

Now you can copy/paste/cut/etc using Alt key (which is now mapped to Ctrl).

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