Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition • Hacker News Board

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#81

Post by paulbennett » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:01 PM UTC

jraedisch wrote: post #43

Having a lot of ram is nice, but every time I read that people need at least 8gb for development, I ask myself what it is that they are running. I am running chrome, sublime, docker, hbase, redis, memcached, mongodb and probably some more stuff and I hardly swap with 4gb, or maybe I just do not realize it because of my ssd. Am I missing some ultra useful, memory annihilating dev tool?

People sometimes seem to forget that development is not a synonym for web development. I use a laptop (Macbook Pro) to develop on a fairly large Unity game - I am currently sitting at 15.78GB/16GB used.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#82

Post by tluyben2 » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:02 PM UTC

djhworld wrote: post #15

SuperKlaus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second that, 8GB of RAM is a bit meager.

Google Chrome takes up at least 2.5GB on my Mac, 8GB is a complete joke

I moved to Safari because of that. I like Chrome better functionality wise but Safari seems to be better optimised at least for Mac OS X.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#83

Post by MichaelGG » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:02 PM UTC

skizm wrote: post #64

userbinator wrote: post #32

It seems almost every manufacturer is trying to make their laptops look like Macbooks, but what I'd really like to see is some Thinkpad clones.

I just want the older style Lenovo keyboards back. I'm sad they switched to island style keys.

My daughters have X201s and while helping them out the other night I remembered what a great design ThinkPads used to have. Even on a 12" body, they had a full, no-compromises keyboard. Today it's like they're just experimenting at random. Printscreen between Ctrl and Alt? Sure! Fn key required to get Ins or End? Why not? Lenovo must be struggling. They even flipped the logo the wrong way, to mimic Apple.

And my favorite offense: they removed Fn+Arrows as media control. Didn't replace it or have any justification. Just removed it to spite users. Or because they somehow forgot. Sigh.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#84

Post by _halgari » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

Sadly I can't get too interested in a machine like this. What I want in a work machine is the following:

1) 16GB RAM (or more) 2) High density display 3) SSD drive 4) Quad core or better CPU 5) Small and thin 6) Discrete NVIDIA GPU (not the Intel integrated crap)

Apple's MBP is the only machine I know of that fits this bill. I'm becoming less and less a fan of OSX, but you can't argue against the hardware. Can anyone point me to a non-Apple machine that does these things?

EDIT:

Thanks for the pointers! I'll look into the Dell and Lenovo machines mentioned here. It's been a year or so since I've looked for machines comparable to my older MBP, so it's cool to see some new options.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#85

Post by Alupis » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #77

userbinator wrote: post #32

It seems almost every manufacturer is trying to make their laptops look like Macbooks, but what I'd really like to see is some Thinkpad clones.

How exactly this resemble a Macbook in any way ? It is not unibody, it is not aluminum, the screen is basically without bezel. This is the first non-Apple ultrabook that is genuinely interesting to me, design wise.

Comparatively, the bezel on the macbook {pro,air} looks ridiculous. Being bezeless, even though the screen size might be the same 13", the XP13's screen looks gigantic and very slick.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#86

Post by endlessvoid94 » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

skynetv2 wrote: post #69

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #27

Devil's advocate time! What's to keep Dell from heavily customizing and releasing / packaging a version of Ubuntu in the same vein that apple customized, released, packaged nextstep as OS X? The only thing I can think of would be "talent at the company". And I know next to nothing about the internals of dell, let alone what they've done since being repurchased and privatized. Kind of a fun thought, even if it's a lit…

Long ago, Dell initially had plans to develop their own version of Linux, hired a bunch of Linux developers. Most of them are still there and things like DKMS came out from that team. But Dell will never ever have their own customized OS and definitely not like OS X. Dell focuses heavily on Profit & Loss for each team and that drives the investment. Their focus is to keep OpEx as low as possible. Unless the company c…

Good insight, thanks.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#87

Post by more_original » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

meritt wrote: post #21

I'm continually shocked at the lack of options when it comes to having 16GB of memory in a MBP Chromebook Pixel System76 Galago Anything else that even exists?

There's also the T450.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#88

Post by userbinator » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #77

userbinator wrote: post #32

It seems almost every manufacturer is trying to make their laptops look like Macbooks, but what I'd really like to see is some Thinkpad clones.

How exactly this resemble a Macbook in any way ? It is not unibody, it is not aluminum, the screen is basically without bezel. This is the first non-Apple ultrabook that is genuinely interesting to me, design wise.

From the link:

Machined aluminum construction means the XPS 13 is precision-cut from a single block of aluminum for a sturdy, durable chassis.

The keyboard picture there...

http://i.dell.com/sites/imagecontent/products/PublishingImag...

...also looks very similar to that of the old plastic-bodied black Macbook:

http://old.javconcepts.com/modules/blog/media/4/keyboard.jpg

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#89

Post by scoj » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #19

To ask those complaining about 8gb not being enough... Please name one thing that won't allow you to do which is crucial in your day to day workflow. I'm not saying i don't believe you, I'm just genuinely curious. Edit: Looking at this thread, I have to say there has to be a cause and effect here somewhere. You have a million web-developers saying they need more than 8GB to use Chrome to surf web-pages and web-apps.…

I am running a Dell XPS 15 (nice machine btw) and currently using 11GB of the 16GB RAM. I'm running way too many Chrome tabs (20 at the moment) and have a few VS projects open with one running, SSMS, an RDP session, a few other apps. The one VS solution is >100 projects (we're working on getting more into nuget packages), so that is the primary killer.

Re: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition

#90

Post by andrewchoi » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

_halgari wrote: post #84

Sadly I can't get too interested in a machine like this. What I want in a work machine is the following: 1) 16GB RAM (or more) 2) High density display 3) SSD drive 4) Quad core or better CPU 5) Small and thin 6) Discrete NVIDIA GPU (not the Intel integrated crap) Apple's MBP is the only machine I know of that fits this bill. I'm becoming less and less a fan of OSX, but you can't argue against the hardware. Can anyone…

How small? I've got a Dell Precision M3800 (I think same chassis as their XPS 15) which ticks all of the boxes you mentioned but in a 15 in form factor.