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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

#311

Post by threeseed »

shittyadmin wrote: post #197
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…

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I really don't see what anyone likes about Macs or macOS, I bought a rMBP a few years back and it's to this date one of the worst purchases of my life, I hate the touchpad (the clicking thing is much slower than tapping), I hate the keyboard (feels really cheap) and macOS too, mostly due to Finder and Objective C being absolute garbage like nothing else I've seen. Wound up bootcamping it…

> the clicking thing is much slower than tapping

System Preferences -> Trackpad -> Tap To Click

Are you sure you had a Mac because this isn't hard to find.

> Objective C

Why are you using it ? Swift has been the default and its a fantastic language.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#312

Post by jandrese »

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 switch between Windows and Linux all day long. I use my wife's Mac fairly regularly too. It's not that hard.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#313

Post by sundvor »

Schaulustiger wrote: post #148
fleebjuice wrote: post #133

I'd really like to buy an XPS, but I'm after a US keyboard layout, and I'm in the UK. You seemingly can't request a layout that is not your locale. This has been my experience with every laptop I've been interested. Damn shame; I have a Happy Hacking Keyboard Pro2, and it's the best keyboard I've ever used, I want as much of that experience as I can get on my laptop. Being a touch typist, its (not infuriating but sli…

I was looking at buying an ultrabook and had the same problem (but living in Germany). In the end I decided on a Lenovo X1 Carbon, though, but faced the decision to either get one from the Lenovo store (which allows you to get a US keyboard) or buy with an education discount from a retailer. Since the discount for the latter was really steep, I saved 500€ and settled on a DE keyboard, although its layout is a major p…

The X1 Carbon is a beautiful laptop, with the best keyboard in business. I am still using my original (i7/8/256) one from 2012, and it's holding up incredibly well. Build quality is second to none.

I would love to upgrade to the latest quad core goodness, and better energy saving tech, but as long as it works I'll keep on using it.

It would be good to see a toughness comparison of the MBP against the X1 Carbon, especially in a "milspec" dusty environment. I hear they're not having the best run with their keyboards in less than pristine environments.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#314

Post by arh68 »

aetherspawn wrote: post #289
arh68 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worse. I'm not going to say it's pretty bad, but it's not quite up to par with Macintosh. - You get three clipboards in OS X. Windows gives you 1 - all of the UNIX utilities work (find, grep, xargs, they're all there), all the syscalls work. Because it really is UNIX - readline shortcuts are available everywhere out of the box. Windows confines me to Cygwin and Emacs - Cygwin is okay ($PATH versus %PATH%…

I run Visual Studio on my Mac and full proper VS Ultimate on Windows and both are fine. For C++ it works well.. IMO a lot better than XCode IDE, Code::Blocks, Eclipse or any other out-of-box that I’ve tried. Interested to know why you say that VS is a disaster?

I'm doing C#. It's better than Eclipse, sure, but the gold standard imo is IntelliJ.

- I can hit C-F and count to 2 before Find in All Files opens

- "9 build errors. Build successful" [0]

- random pain points [1]

- intellisense is often not what I want (though sometimes it is) so I alternate between Esc & Tab

- you can't make this stuff up [2]

Maybe I just need to reinstall. The window/panel layout is great, I will say. It's easy to use. It's familiar for a lot of people.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17703004/visual-studio-d...

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24468370/linker-cannot-o...

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=visual+studio+has+stopped+wo...

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#315

Post by finolex1 »

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…

Interesting, I've been using a non-touch XPS for about a year now and the feature I've unexpectedly grown to love most is the matt screen, which has great viewing angles and and much less glare.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#316

Post by finolex1 »

gxs wrote: post #76
tamatsyk wrote: post #55

Good summary, I share most of the points provided in the post. Also, I think a few more things worth to mention. Pros: - XPS has a decent hardware (I got 16GB, i8Gen, 500GB SSD and forgot about having a few docker containers running on the background which was an issue with my MacBook Pro 15 (8GB, 2.5Gh) - It is really 1k$ cheaper than the same config MacBook model. Apple's Retina and Touchbar are really cool, howeve…

The trackpad is what kills me. On the Mac, the non-mechanical touchpad is so efficient, at least as a pointing device can be. It's spacious, I don't get erroneous output, and most importantly, you get a uniform click no matter where on the trackpad your finger is. In the hinged trackpads, it's a pain to click at the top - often you have to slide your finger down. This is less of an issue if you're more of a keyboard…

You could switch to tapping the touchpad to select (instead of clicking it), which in imo is a lor more convenient.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#317

Post by partiallypro »

lallysingh wrote: post #179
cannam wrote: post #137

I recently sold an XPS 13, an i7 9543 model from 2015, which was the first laptop in a long time that I regretted buying. I got it as a Windows machine and never ran anything else on it. Technically it was broadly fine. The specs were OK, it was reasonably repairable, I had a hi-dpi screen, the case was solid. But the keyboard felt really dead, the wrist rest was smeary, the screen had a grainy impression, the machin…

I got a surface for my wife, and it works well for her. Excellent screen. But the keyboard is too small, my giant meat sticks can't squeeze onto it.

On the Surface Book? There are two versions, the 15" and the 13." I think the keyboards are both full sized. Maybe you mean Surface Pro. I love my Surface Pro, but I have long skinny fingers.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#318

Post by RachelF »

finolex1 wrote: post #315
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…

Interesting, I've been using a non-touch XPS for about a year now and the feature I've unexpectedly grown to love most is the matt screen, which has great viewing angles and and much less glare.

The matte screen is one of the main reasons I got an XPS 13.

In many environments I don't like the reflections of a bright window behind me or the ceiling office lights.

You can buy matte stickers to put on glossy Mac screens, but they can be hard to apply well without bubbles.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Review from a lifelong Mac user

#319

Post by PeCaN »

bdcravens wrote: post #121
Apocryphon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's a market for a PC OEM about making their laptop convenient to convert into a Hackintosh.

I don't think any hardware manufacturer will touch Hackintoshing; previous company in that space (Psystar) was sued out of existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psystar_Corporation Obviously if a company isn't selling product with OSX installed it's different, but any marketing that suggests it would likely be problematic. Besides, the community has done a pretty good job of identifying compatible hardware http://…

The difference is Psystar:

1) Was kind of a scam

2) Sold computers with OS X already installed

2 is the real violation that got them sued. Obviously it's legal to sell computers that are compatible with OS X. Selling them with OS X installed in violation of Apple's EULA is a good way to end up in court.

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