could use a 15" brother with a bigger screen -> lets you see more lines of code and run side-by-side editors more efficiently.
Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
81–90 of 169 posts
Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#82A laptop targeted to developers should have a TrackPoint to move the cursor without taking the hands off the keyboard, a non-shortscreen monitor to see more lines of code, a matte screen to read the code better, and a numpad to, well, type numbers. OK, I guess I'm asking too much for today's standards, even if all these things were common ten years ago (sigh...), but when I saw "developer edition" I thought I would s…
I don't think a numpad is necessary, developers normally don't type that many numbers (except maybe 0 and 1).
I agree that a numpad isn't really necessary. The keys I miss on a laptop keyboard are:
- Home, end, pgup, pgdown
- Delete
- Function keys that are just F-keys, not volume/brightness controls that act as F-keys when you press a 'function' modifier key.
Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#83I have one of these and think it's pretty good. I am really happy to have been able to give my money to someone selling me something with Linux on it.
Hi David, I have one of these too! But which one, that is the rub. As far as I can tell there are now three versions of project Sputnik. I too am so happy to throw my € in Dell's direction. I have the second because I bought mine just before the recent Haswell refresh, gah :( Please correct me if I am wrong. Original version ... November 2012 1: http://bartongeorge.net/2012/11/29/sputnik-has-landed-introd... Brings 1…
The reviewer mentions they're reviewing the November 2013 Haswell Refresh. My work laptop is the Feb 2013 1080p version, and as an Apple fan I must say I'm very impressed with the quality of this machine... and the 1080p screen is really fantastic.
Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, but not one that thin (small battery).
It's not particularly thin. It's about the same thickness at its thickest point at the MBA. In terms of size and weight, it's about in the middle for an ultrabook. It's battery is a little smaller than the MBA's, but not that much smaller (47 watt-hours versus 54 watt-hours). Dell's own XPS 12, which has a very marginally larger battery (50 watt-hours), gets almost 9 hours of Wi-Fi surfing at about 50% brightness.
I've never seen a laptop actually get 9 hours. Even a Netbook or Air won't last much past 6. I think people tend to exaggerate. If you say 9 hours, I'd believe 4.5 hours.
I mean if I left it to idle for 9 hours yeah it would last at full charge, actually using it....nah. I don't think I've ever seen a laptop work at it's advertised battery life.
It's thickest point is where the fans are, its about a thin as an air where the battery is.
In either case, a Macbook Pro doesn't get any better, I've not seen any laptops that get anything past 6 hours without having a low power Atom or ARM based chip in it.
Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Serious question: aside from data-entry people and accountants, who uses numeric keypads anymore? As a developer, I don't exactly type a lot of numbers. And they're too far away from the home position of the hands to make the numpad efficient to use for numbers in mixed alphanumeric text. It really seems like they are rightly turning into a very niche input product, like Wacom tablets, instead of a general-purpose on…
I must say I'm probably quite biased regarding the numpad, because much of my programming is about experiments that give numeric results, which then have to be processed and/or reported... so typing lots of numbers always ends up being a part of the equation in my particular case, but not on the code itself. Numpads are nice for roguelikes as well :)
This is why I always need a numpad as well!
Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#86No matte screen though :(
You don't need one, it's got gorilla glass, it's basically the same screen you'd get on a high end tablet.
Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#87Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never really understood the attraction of focus follow mouse, and it's especially confusing to me when the preference comes from someone who professes to mostly navigate using the keyboard.
If you're using the mouse, not having focus follows mouse means you have to click twice to activate something in a window without focus, which from my point of view as someone who uses focus-follows-mouse, is pointless and irksome. When I'm not using the mouse, I change the focus with the keyboard (In my setup, focus follows mouse only when the mouse moves).
That depends entirely on your window manager. I generally run a customized Fvwm2 setup, so that's all easy to tweak.
In my setup, focus follows mouse only when the mouse moves
That makes much more sense to me.
Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't used any retina screens, but I use scaling in XFCE for my 27" 2560x1440 monitor and for a 14" 1920x1080 laptop screen, and it works without any issues on both of those. What are the native issues with retina (in Gnome 3, for example)? Are there GUI elements that don't scale along?
Many GUI elements do not scale. For example apps like Chrome and Skype render very small, almost unusable. I'm guessing these apps are not going through X to render. Others like Firefox render ok, but the icons are a bit on the small side. Even Gnome 3 itself doesn't do a great job, when you are in the Workspaces view the taskbar on the left is a bit small. The Settings/Sound menu in the top right doesn't correctly g…
Ah yes, I see. I just tried it out, here's GIMP with a 256 DPI:
http://i.imgur.com/2GpqyND.png
The title-bar size is configured in pixels, so that could be fixed easily by the user, but icons, both in the GIMP and in the native window don't resize well. It seems the DPI scaling is only applied to text, and only text-containing elements are scaled accordingly.
Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think a numpad is necessary, developers normally don't type that many numbers (except maybe 0 and 1).
I agree that a numpad isn't really necessary. The keys I miss on a laptop keyboard are: - Home, end, pgup, pgdown - Delete - Function keys that are just F-keys, not volume/brightness controls that act as F-keys when you press a 'function' modifier key.
My work provided Lenovo w530 has all these. The F-keys do have volume and brightness controls on them, but you have to hit the Fn key to do that, pressing just F4 gives you 'F4'.
It's not as stylish as a MacBook Pro though.