Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

bartongeorge.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 412 posts

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#91

Post by nkkollaw »

saycheese wrote: post #66
nkkollaw wrote: post #61

Very cool, but as an owner of the Cube Thinker/i35--which has the same exact 3000x2000 3:2 aspect ratio display as the Surface Book (but costs $500)--I can't imagine why any developer would put up with a 16:9 display. Specially if you have "developer" in your product name, why can't they figure out that 16:9 is not the best aspect ratio for everyone? I write code the whole day, not watch movies. That huge extra verti…

Not seeing a major difference between 3:2 and 16:9 aspect ratio displays, what am I missing? http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-lx100/z-lx10...

Huge difference.

If you're in a country where they sell the Surface Book, go take a look and you'll immediately notice that there is a _lot_ more vertical space.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#92

Post by dr_zoidberg »

saycheese wrote: post #66
nkkollaw wrote: post #61

Very cool, but as an owner of the Cube Thinker/i35--which has the same exact 3000x2000 3:2 aspect ratio display as the Surface Book (but costs $500)--I can't imagine why any developer would put up with a 16:9 display. Specially if you have "developer" in your product name, why can't they figure out that 16:9 is not the best aspect ratio for everyone? I write code the whole day, not watch movies. That huge extra verti…

Not seeing a major difference between 3:2 and 16:9 aspect ratio displays, what am I missing? http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/panasonic-lx100/z-lx10...

Just a bit more vertical space (a few? a dozen? more lines of code per screen) vs slightly wider screen (better for movies, and games maybe). It may be nitpicking, I actually grew used to 16:9 aspect ratios and don't really mind it.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#93

Post by randyrand »

FBISurveillance wrote: post #27

IMO, it does not make sense to buy any of those new models: whether it's Dell, HP, or else--before we see models with 32Gb of RAM. It's been told here over and over since 2016 when first Touchbar MacBook got released. It's 2018 and all of us, including manufacturers, are locked with 16GB of RAM and those upgrades look like a joke. Within last month I noticed myötähäpeä when someone asks me for laptop advice. Hopefull…

I really don't need 32GB, but considering my 15" Lenovo W520 from 6.5 years ago has 16GB too what on earth has happened to computer innovation!?

6.5 years without a DRAM increase for 15" laptops is bonkers.

It was $1500 for the laptop, it wasn't even crazy expensive back then.

On top of that it even supported 32GB. All in a rather sleek 15" form factor. (6.2 pounds vs 2018 XPS 15 4.6 pounds).

Sources: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-P-and-W-Series-Mobile/...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih3rD2ccGkM

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#94

Post by mort96 »

jerf wrote: post #36
bhouston wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will take a year no?

A year would be a fairly aggressive timeline. Ultimately SPECTRE et al are just exemplars of a class of exploit that I'm not sure anybody has seriously thought about how to deal with systematically. I've done the "daydream off for five minutes and try to solve the problem" a couple of times and I generally get to "let's design a new CPU from the ground up, using an entirely new set of formalisms"[1] pretty quickly, w…

My day dream for fixing Spectre is as follows: Basically double the amount of L1 cache (where the second half doesn't need to be as fast as actual L1 cache), make only the first half usable as cache. When an instruction the CPU speculatively executes an instruction which would replace the content in its L1 cache, first copy the existing content to the second, usually unused, half, and _then_ replace the content of the first half with the new data. Then, if the CPU decides that the branch was correct, just do nothing; if the CPU decides that the branch was incorrect, just copy back the "backup" of the original cache. Copying the cache to and from the "backup" would obviously have to be done really quickly with dedicated hardware, and not be done by going through each byte and copying it, but that should be possible.

Another solution I've thought of, which should probably be easier and/or cheaper: When speculatively executing an instruction, just don't write to cache at all. This would potentially make the speculatively executed instructions slower, but I can't imagine it would have a big effect.

Of course, both of those solutions would just mitigate this specific attack. You're probably exactly correct that timing attacks are going to continue to be a big problem.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#95

Post by rootbear »

cptskippy wrote: post #64
rcpt wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a global RAM shortage now. 32G would likely put too much of a sticker shock on the price tag.

When was the last time RAM prices were low? 2006 after the US DoJ got done suing everyone for price fixing? Maybe I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist but I wouldn't at all be surprised if DRAM manufacturers weren't colluding to limit supply to inflate prices rather than competing with one another on the open market. I think the same of Flash prices too.

DDR3 RAM was dirt cheap just a few years ago. I maxed out several of my systems.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#96

Post by cptskippy »

solotronics wrote: post #79
cptskippy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most vendors are looking to prolong battery life and increasing RAM will do the exact opposite. Most software is still 32 bit and can't take advantage of the added memory. Even apps that can still don't really need that much. Workloads requiring gobs are RAM are niche and 8GBs works well for most people. My personal server with 16GB of RAM runs at around 48% utilization hosting 16 sites, multiple databases, a transco…

multiple VMs

The average user won't be doing this.

What sort of workloads are you running on your VMs? My VMs are typically provisioned for 512-2048MBs of RAM and given 16GB of RAM that's more VMs then I'll ever need running at once.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#97

Post by ebbv »

nkkollaw wrote: post #61

Very cool, but as an owner of the Cube Thinker/i35--which has the same exact 3000x2000 3:2 aspect ratio display as the Surface Book (but costs $500)--I can't imagine why any developer would put up with a 16:9 display. Specially if you have "developer" in your product name, why can't they figure out that 16:9 is not the best aspect ratio for everyone? I write code the whole day, not watch movies. That huge extra verti…

I learned to code in the era of 3:2 displays, and I don't miss them. I never code using the full width of my display. If your lines are that long you have issues. I also don't really need any more vertical space. On my 15" laptop and my 27" display I can see plenty of code at once. Having a few more lines on the top of bottom would not magically alleviate the need to scroll.

I'm all for people using the tools that suit them, but you seem to indicate that 3:2 is just flat out better and 16:9 has no advantages and it's just not the case. I like being able to do more things side by side.

It's personal preference like anything else. The reason 16:9 displays are now common is not because of movies. When they came on the scene most people said "Wow this is nice."

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#98

Post by torgard »

Max 8gb for regular display...

I mean, who uses touch screens for development? I can't really imagine a scenario where it would be helpful for me. Maybe when doing work in Illustrator and Photoshop, but I usually use a different machine for that anyhow, because of Adobe's lack of Linux support.

I don't want to pay for something I won't use.

I am otherwise actively looking for a laptop. System76 does not have European keyboard layouts, otherwise I would go with them.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#99

Post by baseethrowaway »

I'm a happy XPS 13 9360 (i7-8550U, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) user and have mixed feelings about the latest XPS 13. Biggest reason why I opted for the XPS 13 is the size -- it is literally the smallest 13.3" laptop on the market.

My 2 cents based on the stuff I read online:

- The new one is even smaller and lighter, a big plus in my book.

- USB-C exclusively seems good and bad at the same time. Three USB ports on 9360 all charge my phone at different speeds (two USB-A, one USB-C): Android reports "charging slowly", "charging" and "charging rapidly" depending on the port, and I _love_ having the option of charging my phone slowly, as the battery loses less capacity over time that way (due to reduced stress and heat). I don't mind having USB-C dongles around, but it would be great if all peripherals moved to USB-C, therefore having a USB-A port would be convenient, despite USB-C being progressive and pushing the market to switch. I see it as a good intent on Dell's part.

- Dislike microSD port. SD cards are faster and cheaper compared to microSD and with the new laptop one physically can't fit an SD card in it. So one would have to use an SD -> USB adapter, which most likely has USB-A on the other end, plus a USB-A -> USB-C dongle. Ugh.

- 4K screen not really needed. Not a big difference on 13.3", uses more power and QHD+ on 9360 can use nice 2X integer scaling -- shady fractional not needed.

- Equivalent configuration of my 9360 costs more than 2000 USD, tax excluded. I paid ~1400 USD for mine with the tax included, a non-refurbished model.

Re: XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available

#100

Post by eropple »

ReverseCold wrote: post #86
eropple wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I find Razer as a company to appeal to the "x-treme gamer" set in ways I wouldn't want to support, but I also think their branding is childish and would not walk into a meeting with a client with that huge gross logo on it. It would look bad. I'd rather get a laptop with no branding at all, but the Alienware logo is at least really small. (And the keyboard on the Alienware 13 is good , my brother has one.)

You could just put a sticker on it, company logo or something. There's only one place where the logo is visible anyway.

I'm an independent consultant: the "company" is me. And I think stickers look silly.
Post reply on HN