Ask HN: Is Dell XPS Developer Edition a Good Replacement of Macbook Pro?

[kornakiewicz]

Hi, I've been waiting few months for yesterday's MacBook upgrade and I'm dissatisfied, as most of you. I read many comments about alternatives and one of recurring favorite is Dell XPS Developer Edition. Could I ask you about your experience with this model? I'm interested in high-end version (16gb and UltraSharp screen). Is it worth this money (less than Macbook, but still)? I actually want to buy "best machine money can buy", which is powerful (for JVM development, besides personal stuff like movies and web), but still easy to carry-on while traveling. Most of the machines are Windows-oriented, which doesn't fit my workflow and there's a limited choice of laptop fully compatible with Linux. Dell XPS 13 seems like one. Do you have positive experiences with this? Would you recommend it?

I just get rid of normal desktop and use mainly my office machine - heavy, powerful ThinkPad W541 with 32GB ram and i7, but it's plastic and the screen is so-so.

Thanks!

[zeusk]

Yes,

I've been using a Retina MacBook Pro 13" (early 15) and 15" (mid 15) and just picked up the xps 13 9350 with iris pro.

There are definitely some quality control issues but once you get a working model with no faults (I had one that wouldn't reboot and had terrible coil whine, one that had loose trackpad and yellow tint on screen but this could also be because of Amazon's shitty packaging where the laptop was in a box with only some brown paper crumpled in) - atleast they took them back no questions asked. I'm amazed how far windows laptops have come along.

The only real downsides are that it power throttles (and thermal too, but I placed my own aftermarket thermal paste and it doesn't cross 66 C on full load now) due to the iris GPU itself consuming 18W at it's rated turbo boost with the SoC's TDP being 15W (long turbo) and 25W (short turbo). Perhaps go with the i5 model that has the HD 520 or the new 9360 that has kabylake with better thermal and power consumption (HD 620 is roughly similar to HD 540 but won't throttle). You can also use Intel's XTU to undervolt and better battery life and throttling if you're going to use windows.

Linux runs flawlessly, infact so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card. AMA

[caconym_]

> once you get a working model with no faults (I had one that wouldn't reboot and had terrible coil whine, one that had loose trackpad and yellow tint on screen

I never understood how people can deal with multiple rounds of RMAing (or whatever) a defective product and still turn around and recommend it to other people. If a company can't consistently deliver their products intact and functional, why should I waste hours of my time (which effectively increases the price of the product by hundreds of dollars) picking up their mess?

The fact that this is still a thing kinda says to me that PC laptop OEMs still aren't ready to go toe to toe with Apple in the customer experience department, despite the overall improved quality of their offerings.

[th0br0]

A recent Linux kernel (4.9.0-rc1) even gets you 9-10hrs of battery life after 9 months of heavy usage!

[jseliger]

I'm surprised no one has linked to this already, but Ars: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/the-xps-13-de-dell-co... has a pretty thorough review.

If we're talking about MBP replacements, Purism also has an interesting one: https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-13, but they're much smaller than Dell.

[rloc]

> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card

How do you install OS X on this machine ? Any tutorial you can recommend ?

[toyg]

> so does OS X if you can replace the wifi card

Please tell us more! What card am I supposed to replace it with, and is it anything involving soldering or just sockets and switches?

[caleblloyd]

> xps 13 9350 with iris pro

Do you mean Iris Graphics 540? I think Iris Pro Graphics 550 included on-chip eDRAM and isn't available on any of their 15W Skylake CPUs, it's a 28W only part.

[gaara87]

What version of linux are you running on it?

What do you primarily use it for?

[wolfkabal]

I went with a ThinkPad P50. It's not nearly as bulky as some think. I specked mine with the Xeon processor, and 1080p screen (but 4k is an option). Also specked everything else as low as possible (HDD/SSD, RAM). I upgraded these items myself after. I now have a server grade processor, have put two 512 SSD in it (one M.2 NVMe), and 64GB of RAM. It's a beast. I can also swap out the LCD panel directly for the 4k panel if I so choose with an after-market one later if I so choose. Initial base price was only around $1400 (was on sale), and about $500 for the SSD/RAM on my own dime (would have been well above $1000 on lenovo's site).

So for ~$1900 I have something that blows the MacBook Pro out of the water.

[wolfkabal]

P.S. I do own the a 2014 MB Pro as well, so not being ThinkPad bias. Just stating the options and route I chose as a replacement.

[emilburzo]

Is that Xeon CPU specifically designed for mobile?

I'm asking because, AFAIK, Xeons need proper cooling (think datacenter conditions).

It would be really cool if they made them for less climate controlled environments.

[runamok]

Probably a silly question but I imagine its battery life is pretty short with that much power...

[pbohun]

One gem I found when I was shopping for a laptop is the Dell Inspiron 7559 (part of their "gaming" series). I bought the most expensive $1300 version last winter and it's been great.

- 4k touchscreen

- i7 Skylake processor w/ identical stats to that on the $2400 15" macbook pro

- 16 GB RAM

- 128 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD (I replaced the HDD with a 500 GB SSD from Amazon)

- NVIDIA GTX 960m w/ 4 GB GDDR5 RAM

It's sturdily made, I take it everywhere. The only thing I miss from my mac is the trackpad. You can't beat mac trackpads. However, the trackpad on the Inspiron is great, much better than many of the others I've tried. When you take into account it has better graphics acceleration than the $2800 macbook pro, you find that dollar for dollar, it's one of the best value laptops out there. (Seriously, compare it to even Dell's XPS 15, you'd have to pay ~$1650 for an XPS 15 to get comparable specs to the $1300 Inspiron 7559. The Inspiron even has double the graphics card RAM of the $2550 XPS 15!)

[hxegon]

Wow, those are great specs for 1300. what's battery life like?

[oxymoron]

I carried a 2013 Dell XPS Developer Edition and a MacBook Air in parallell for a while this year. Note that not all of this necessarily applies to more recent versions of the XPS.

* My XPS has a really awful touchpad. When I first got it, it was definitely my main reservation. I tried a 2014 model and noted that it wasn't much improved.

  * The battery life is much, much worse on the XPS, which is probably the main reason why I find myself reaching for the mac. I've kept Ubuntu 12.04 on it, so Linux power management has likely gotten better but there's still no comparison.

  * other than that, I've loved my XPS. It's super light, has a brilliant keyboard, excellent specs and still works well after three years.

[TYPE_FASTER]

Yeah, touchpad is crap if you're used to a Mac. I think the battery life is because the OS config is not optimized.

[t0mas88]

I have had a few models of the XPS 13 now and each one seems to get better and better. They're both light enough to carry around and they are still quite strong, I have seen a lot of them dropped without any damage.

Initially I though I would never use the touch-screen, but it is actually quite useful when reading things (scrolling) or quickly clicking basic things when not really sitting behind the keyboard on a desk. Same for the light in the keyboard, very useful when working at night and on airplanes etc. The screen in general is really really good, some colleagues have the 1920x1080 screen, I would pick the 3200x1800 screen again next time since it's much nicer to read from and allows you to use smaller fonts (= more code on one screen)

Linux support is generally much better than other relatively new notebooks I've had, but still sometimes things break. The Developer Edition is released a bit later than the Windows models, probably to stabilize Linux support. I've only used it with Ubuntu, but I see others use several other distros which seems to work without much issues.

[criddell]

Does Linux use the touchscreen?

[kminehart]

My girlfriend recently bought one for her daily driver. We decided to go with Arch Linux to gain access to packages as they release, rather than wait for the next iteration of Ubuntu or Fedora to get updates.

Here are my pros and cons:

Pros:

1. The hardware is great; the developer edition favors more Linux-compatible hardware (obviously), and for us, it didn't require very much setup. Usually the default configuration will be enough. The touchpad, like the MacBook, has a glass surface and feels excellent.

2. Like the MacBook, it's very light. The screen looks great, and honestly on Linux I prefer 1080p.

3. Dell has a very reasonable warranty, and is very quick to respond. Example: You can install whatever Linux distribution you like, replace the SSD (so long as you don't ruin anything while you're there, of course).

Cons:

1. It's fragile. Unlike the Macbook, you have to be at least (more) careful with this thing. We ended up breaking the screen without much effort; I wager it was the fact that it was in a backpack that got dropped somewhat aggressively.

That being said, we also bought the $60 accident protection, and Dell sent out a technician from a local repair shop to fix it for us within that week. If the technician can't fix it, they will over-night you a shipping box and a FedEx label to send your laptop back in.

Just be careful with it; treat it like the $1000+ machine that it is.

2. No replacing the RAM. It's soldered onto the board. That's not a problem for me because I barely push ~4GB.

Conclusion: I use a MacBook now; my XPS 13 is actually coming in tomorrow and I'm very excited. I think it's a great machine and a great MacBook replacement, and has excellent Linux compatibility. Dell's customer support is great, just be careful with it; it's not an aluminum body or several layers of glass in front of the screen. Make sure to buy the one with the right amount of RAM so you don't regret it later. If you're worried about storage, there's a $150 500GB M.2 SSD on Amazon, buy the lowest storage version and upgrade it. Get the protection plan. It's cheap compared to the cost of buying a new device.

[vladimir-y]

I used Arch Linux for a few last years, but recently switched to the Manjaro (Arch Linux based distributive). Manjaro has a little better stability than pure Arch Linux since Manjaro before shipping packages does (I hope) some testing and verifying that core system components are not broken after updating. When you know what to do having you laptop not bootable after system update (not so likely, but it happens), then Arch Linux is for you :)

[dolguldur]

No. I had the Dell XPS 15 9550 and there were several issues.

• Trackpad much worse than on a Mac

• Coil whine

• Bad fan control means it was sometimes noisy in near-idle contitions (though in idle it was very silent)

• there were some flicker issues with the GPU (might have been resolved though)

• one key was bouncy, meaning it sometimes triggered twice

• it woke up from sleep randomly, sometimes while in my bag, often completely emptying the battery

In the beginning it also crashed very often, however this was resolved with an update.

So all in all the quality wasn't on the level of a Mac.

And I wouldn't even start speaking about the OS. If you're used to macOS, it's still such a day and night difference.

Connecting a normal low dpi display to the 9550 with HIDPI display lead to so many annoyances with Windows and all the programs that won't support this for the years to come. I'd barely consider it useful. Although the display itself was quite nice.

[rstuart4133]

This I think is the Windows perspective. The Linux perspective (Debian in my case) is somewhat different:

- Hardware wise the Trackpad is identical in performance to the Mac. All the same gestures are recognised - but the software doesn't use most of them. In fact the software side was terrible until libxinput took over from the old synaptics driver. Now if it works, it works well - but it's still a little lacking on the gesture front.

- Coil whine should be no different - but I've never heard it.

- Fan control is perfect, which is weird. Maybe it was old BIOS?

- Intel's GPU firmware & driver has been a 18 month long cluster fuck. It's the same cluster fuck on Windows and Linux. It still isn't perfect, but it's much better. At the rate they are going, they may get it right 2 years after the initial release of the CPU. Here's hoping. I don't know how Apple could escape this mess. Maybe they knew they couldn't, so escaped it by not upgrading the CPU's for donkey's years.

- Oddly the wakeup problem happened on Linux too. Once I opened by bag and it was so hot I though I'd destroyed it. The issue has gone now.

- Linux has the same issues a Windows when it comes to mixing HIDPI and normal displays. In Linux it's a fundamental limitation of X. It can be fixed in Wayland.

One piece of advice: update the BIOS religiously. At least until Intel fixes their Skylake GPU issues.

[086421357909764]

14" Razer Blade 1060, grab a dbrand matte skin to cover the hideous Razer logo. No problems with Ubuntu 16.10 currently installed. Also have a 13" Dell XPS dev edition used for specific work. It's a nice system as well. The Razer def has more power if you want a full replacement.

[troyk]

I'm considering moving from a macbook pro to the blade and adding the core to get a beefed up desktop experience with the ability to unplug and take work anywhere it needs to go. I'm assuming I would need to stay in windows land with linux via Hyper-V. Besides iMessage, all my apps run on linux (more-so) or windows (less-so). Any thoughts?

[sliken]

Any idea on battery life? Can't find anything printed about it.

[ryanlol]

How do you live with the bezel?

[sbrother]

I have a new XPS 13. It's impeccably built, you can use it comfortably on an airplane, and it runs Linux with no issues. But I wouldn't use it for daily development. The 13 inch screen just doesn't have enough real estate, and it often feels like it's struggling to drive the 4k screen whenever I try to switch applications.

If you don't mind something heavy, check out the new Thinkpad P50 or P70. They have actual desktop-level performance, terrific screens (matte, color corrected 4k IPS!) and the new NVMe SSDs. I do most of my daily development on a P70, and increasingly just lug it along when I travel even though travel was the reason I bought the XPS 13.

[KerrickStaley]

I don't own a P50 or P70, but one complaint I would have is that having a numpad on laptop ends up putting your hands in an awkward position. I almost never use the numpad anymore since I can touch-type on the number row and my main laptop (a Mac) doesn't have one.

[mkroman]

The XPS 13 was recently upgraded to Kaby Lake, so if you're fine with the smaller display, I'd say go for it, I've heard great things.

Also, do realize that the UltraSharp model will have a significant impact on battery life. The comments I've looked at for the XPS 15 9550 (4K display) say that the battery life is basically halved, but it's supposedly still around 4.5 hours of battery life.

If you prefer the 15-inch, you might want to wait for a while - they still only feature Skylake CPUs and I think an upgrade is imminent (given the recent XPS 13 upgrade and all.)

I don't have any personal experience with the machines, but I'm planning to buy the XPS 15 once it gets an upgrade.

[AdmiralAsshat]

Confirmed on the battery life. With Linux on my Dell XPS 13 9343 QHD+ version, even running tlp and powertop, I'm lucky if I get more than 6 hours. If I do music streaming or any kind of video, it plummets to 4.

[mirekrusin]

I'd love to see some real competition with macbooks but I haven't seen anything close yet... Alternatives do exist but they are still very expensive... I mean really, they are bloody expensive. When I'm thinking about putting this kind of money on the table, I just go to apple store, no?

Why on earth there's no startup which just puts together linux laptops? I'm sure you can grab Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean whitelabelish product customised with linux friendly peripherals or just put the box together yourself with engraved penguins here and there. Half of devs would love it, another half would hate it - but that should be enough to survive, no?

[xenomachina]

> Why on earth there's no startup which just puts together linux laptops?

Do System76 or ZaReason count? They even have non-Windows super keys. (Ubuntu logo or Tux, respectively)

I have no experience with their laptops, but I have a System76 desktop, and have no complaints.

[manav]

Consider the outgoing Macbook Pros. You can probably get a good deal on one.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Apple sell refurbished MacBooks directly and they come with warranty and full accessories.

[rbanffy]

They are still being sold, much like the previous one.

[pyrophane]

I personally prefer the XPS 15 for the quad-core CPU and discrete graphics, but it looks like getting it to play well with linux could take some work, and there might still be some issues: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2317843.

Out of curiosity, what has you disappointed with Apple's new laptops?

[piptastic]

I had a laptop from System76 at my previous job, which runs Ubuntu: https://system76.com/laptops

I liked it, but I didn't travel with it so not sure how carry-able it is. Current shop is Mac oriented but I would have gotten another one if it had been up to me.

[dhruvtv]

Quite interesting that no one has mentioned the Microsoft Surface Book here. Anybody has any thoughts on it?

[jaxn]

That's where I am headed.

I bought a Surface Pro 3 to play around with and to use for my one .NET project. I loved it, but I gave it to my assistant b/c I didn't really want to use two computers.

Well, time to buy a new computer and I think I am going to ditch my MacBook Pro and switch to a maxed out Surface Book. I'll keep the MBP around in case I need to do any iOS dev.

I am hoping that the Linux on Windows 10 stuff will make the terminal feel familiar enough.

[revicon]

Question for the iOS developers on the thread thinking about switching (or have already switched) away from macs as you dev machine. How do you plan on continuing to do iPhone/iWatch/iPad dev given apple's requirement to use their hardware?

[bnewton]

Unfortunately XPS Developer Edition does not support external 4k displays @ 60Mhz like Dell's own P2715Q. If that kind of thing matters to you.

Otherwise I think it a great machine.

[Bigsy]

I think people are talking new gen XPS here right? Think all of them have supported 4k external @60hz as they have nothing older than broadwell.

I'm sitting here now with a gen1 xps 13 2015 pushing a 4k monitor at 4k 60hz.

My xps 15 in work also supports 4k @60hz although needs an annoying usb-c to displayport dongle.

[Tepix]

Afaik, the 6th gen XPS 13 supports even two 4k 60Hz monitors...

[CyanLite2]

Best developer laptop is a Dell Precision 5510. Up to 32GB ram, thinner and lighter than a Macbook, SSD that does >1.5GB/sec, and has a docking station.

[hunterr986]

Half of my my company i.e. ~2000 developers and ~2000 other associates switched to the dell 5510(dell xps 15) this year and its absolutely amazing. Its carbon fiber !!!! 32GB ram, 512 SSD. Amazing edge to edge display. So far the best trackpad (after apple) with gesture controls. Superb laptop! Definitely a MBP replacement. I am not a big Windows fan but with the recent windows 10 update i am warming up to it. I hope Microsoft will soon support Linux completely within windows.

I wish there was a well funded linux operating system like the macOS or whatever so that we all could switch over from MBPs. Apple has been mocking us for the past few years with its lame products and specs and extremely high prices.

[chrisbennet]

My last 2 laptops have been MBPros but given the latest changes to that line, I'm looking for my next non-MBP laptop. I had no idea that the Dell 5510 existed. Thank guys!

[thijsvandien]

If only it had ECC like it should with a Xeon. Of course, no MBP has that either.

[gerbal]

XPS 13 is well worth it. Its only downside is the webcam looking up your nose. It's lighter than a macbook pro and is about as sturdy.

[crbelaus]

I have one for the work. It is absolutely wonderful. I am currently using Ubuntu 16.04.1, and I feel it lightweight and performant. The battery lasts about 9 and a half hours (doing web browsing and light programming).

I suppose that the thing will only improve with future Ubuntu Hardware Enablement Stacks that include new kernels and so...