Wonderful! I was excited when they announced they had finally moved the camera to the top, and was hoping for a Dev Ed soon. Didn't expect it so quickly! Good job Barton & team!
Weight-wise, it's under the Macbook Air... Feature-wise (and pricewise), it's closer to the MBP.
Sad to see the XPS 13 line going the same way as Apple and removing the USB A ports. On the plus side, it's at least possible to connect two monitors to the USB C ports now (the 2017 version I have has only one USB C port), but it's less overall ports now since the power jack is also replaced by USB C. The body seems the same size as previously, so the excuse of "more thinness" doesn't really apply.
That said, the XPS 13 has been the best experience I've had with Linux on a laptop. The bundled Ubuntu install works out of the box, but even on other distros it's not difficult to set up, and I've not encountered any driver issues, which have been common on every other laptop I've installed Linux on. It helps that it's a great quality laptop in general - anecdotally in my office, we see far more hardware issues with the latest Macbooks than with XPSs.So I'd recommend it for anyone who wants a Linux or Windows laptop, or is considering switching away from Mac without compromising on hardware quality.
I do own XPS 13 9360 and there are number of issues:
- coil whine under load;
- poor heat sink, under little load i7 goes to 100C and CPU throttling kicks in;
- sometimes 'w' button seems to be 'stuck' in pressed state even when it's physically un-pressed; seems to be a firmware keyboard bug, since I've seen same problem on another XPS 13;
- I've had to replace Killer WiFi card, because RTT for packets spiked up every time card was scanning for networks;
- that 'spidey-fingers' webcam;
- that 'Content Adaptive Brightness Control' when gamma-level goes off every time you switch from black to white image on the screen;
- unable to replace battery, since even when I've ordered battery from authorized service center they gave me non-official third-party battery which was not accepted by laptop;
- connecting 4K@60Hz is kinda problematic, since you need to find USB-C adapter which supports it;
I split my development time between a 2015 rMBP and a Precision 5530 (pro model of the XPS 15). I still can not switch fully to the Dell because of a few issues:
- The touchpad is just garbage compared to the MBP, to the point I have an even more keyboard centric setup on it than my desktop, because I want to drop it out of a window every time I use the touchpad.
- Fans. I've accepted that most laptops will run active cooling more than any radiative chassis MBP, but the issues are that while the fans run constantly, they also change speeds constantly in both Windows and Ubuntu. They'd be far less annoying if they ran at a higher, but steady RPM by averaging response over a large time window. Manually managing fans feels like 1998. Also, for a $3.5K laptop that runs fans constantly, these are some of the jankiest, most rattling prone fans I've heard. Most colleagues with XPS 13/15 have sent them in for fan replacement at least once.
A more niche gripe is that 16:9 is the wrong aspect ratio for a professional laptop.
Pros:
- Screen quality and brightness.
- Keyboard (why I can't just get a new MBP).
- Hardware configurability.
- Many hardware issues at first, especially in linux, were quickly and effectively fixed by Dell driver and firmware updates.
Why does a "developer edition" notebook come with a glossy screen?
I sort of understand why computer makers like glossy screens: because they just look better to the causal shopper. OK. But in a laptop that is aimed at professionals? People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better.
I'm often on the train and I do not envy the poor souls that work on an enterprise-bought laptop with a glossy screen and that have to swing their heads the whole time to avoid reflections from the train window.
The matte finish has horrible optical qualities, causing ambient light to scatter ("antiglare") washing out colors, and also causing light from individual pixels to scatter and refract back into neighboring pixels. This reduces the quality of displayed images, and in high density LCD displays it causes pixel-fine details (small text) to appear smeary.
By contrast, well-designed glossy displays minimize internal refraction and also cause light at high angles to reflect, reducing the amount of ambient light which pollutes the display. The result is that the display appears much brighter in any setting, black are blacker and do not get washed out by brights. Colors show higher dynamic range, and small details are crisper. In addition, well-designed glass glossy displays (such as those on the MacBook Pro) are actually visible and easy to use outdoors in full daylight. Even when reflections show up on glass displays, it's easy to see past them because they're full optical reflections with correct depth in stereo vision, meaning that you can correctly focus on the screen without focusing on the reflection.
Glossy displays are bad under basically two conditions:
* They are warped plastic, such as on older Dell laptops, causing weird shiny glossy glare at all angles that cannot be ignored.
* You have positioned your screen so that there is a small but very very bright reflection behind you, and cannot tilt your display.
> People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better.
I always enjoy it when someone arrogantly poses a subjective statement as fact from a position of arbitrary authority. I like it especially so when there are a plethora of reasons against their position as in this case.
> But in a laptop that is aimed at professionals? People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better.
Way to stereotype..? I guess I am not sophisticated enough because I prefer a glossy screen.
> I'm often on the train and I do not envy the poor souls that work on an enterprise-bought laptop with a glossy screen and that have to swing their heads the whole time to avoid reflections from the train window.
We unsophisticated commoners work from desks and where I don't seem to have this problem.
I used to have this reaction, but these days I go between matte and gloss screens without really noticing. Apple's got the best one, and a backlight on the ones I've got doesn't bother me at all. Dell's are also okay (though there are other reasons I don't like the XPS line).
> Why does a "developer edition" notebook come with a glossy screen?
Not all glossy screens are bad, just the ones released relatively recently are.
Sony was making near perfect high end LCDs with glossy screen, glass surface, AND real AR coating.
In comparison, later design panels simply had glossy polycarbonate with poor still poor surface finish.
Laminated and "one glass" screen also do come in varying quality levels. One glass screens with AR coatings are very, very good, but ones with poor lamination, and mismatched refraction indexes are horrid.
People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better.
"The group I'm conveniently in is more sophisticated." Mmm, hmm. Matte screens suck because everything is blurry and smeared. I mean, if your work/life balance is out of whack and you have to work in moving vehicles, I could see the need. But professionals that work someplace other than sweatshops prefer glossy screens with sharp pixels.
"People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better."
A matte screen isn't just better. You get that weird prism-like diffraction of light, that turns a white pixel into coloured dots. Personally I much prefer to maybe have to move my machine occasionally to avoid a reflection than to have that weird fuzziness. For a laptop screen, anyway.
I've been looking at a screen for probably 8-9 hours a day on average since I graduated college 11 years ago and I can honestly say I've never once thought about glossy v. matte screens.
There is a lot to of good to be said about the XPS series. I love them for all my coding tasks.
The only problem is that you cannot open the display up fully. They block at 160° or so.
In many situations it would be super useful to have the laptop opened up 180°. In a plane for example. Or when it sits on a desk in a laptop stand and you use an external keyboard.
Running a laptop comparison site myself (https://www.productchart.com), I wonder if we should add '180°' to the filter list. It seems like an odd feature. It's super useful to me. Never heard anybody else talk about it though.
I personally can't think of the last time I wanted to open a laptop 180* or more.
Obviously both our experience is anecdotal but if it was driving purchasing decisions you'd see more laptops that can open 180 since the design trade-offs are relatively minor in the overwhelming majority of cases.
If 180° opening angle is an important feature for you it might be worth it to go towards the XPS 2-in-1 series which features a 360° opening angle. In a car, on a plane or on foot that can be an awesome feature to have.
In addition to 180 I would add Thinkpad as a separate option to Lenovo. The security issues have been separate between the 2 systems and frankly I would never consider another lenovo but certainly a Thinkpad.
I bought an XPS15, and have had nothing but trouble with it. Every time there's a Windows update, the hard drive "can't be found" and it wipes GRUB on every reboot. I've been spending half an hour every morning getting it to a state where I can use it again, and had to mess around with firmware downgrades to get it usable (until the next Windows update).
Never buying a Dell again. Their support were worse than useless, insisting that somehow installing Linux had caused the problem.
I'm eagerly waiting for my first Purism laptop, then I can get 30 mins of my day back.
Why are they still using Killer WiFi NIC's on these things. They are absolutely terrible. We have a bunch of XPS 13 and 15's at our office (9360's up to 9570's) and every single one of them has random connectivity problems on our office WiFi and people's home networks.
We've had to replace all of them with Intel 9260's and the problems instantly disappear. I don't know how this is not a customer support nightmare for them, and why they continue using them given the relatively low cost of the Intel cards.
It is a real shame they use the Killer (Atheros) WiFi. The developer edition used to have an Intel WiFi - have they changed that?
That said, I haven't seen any issues with Killer WiFi (XPS 15 9570 with Ubuntu 18.04.01), but I do have an Intel WiFi card if the Killer needs to be replaced.
Also I do use a USB3 to Ethernet adapter at work (I have always prefered a wired connection for work when available).
The card in the 9370 is not replaceable, and despite having bought a card and opened it with the intention of replacing it after I bought it, it hasn't actually been an issue for me in my apartment or dozens of wifi networks across Seattle.
Maybe somebody on here knows. Is there a (mostly) Linux compatible laptop that offers the following?
- 10-11 inch (preferably the size of the 11" Macbook Air or 10.5 inch iPad)
- Good touchscreen (with Linux support)
- Good keyboard with hinged display (2-in-one would be awesome, but I doubt that's possible given the other constraints I already have)
- Solid CPU options (i.e. no Atom)
I bought a Chuwi Surbook Mini and installed Linux on it but while the Hardware works fine, the touchscreen is so-so and the attached keyboard cover is awful. I'd buy a Microsoft Surface 10" but Linux on there doesn't support hibernation and that's a must for me (and I won't go with Windows. I tried that with the Chuwi, that OS is just not for me, I loathe it). I'd also maybe go with a Pixel Slate but 12.3 inch sounds too big for me and Google doesn't sell it here so I can't even preview it.
I really want to buy a "Linux laptop" like this because I want to vote with my money and I don't want to be paying for a Windows license that I'm not going to use. But why don't they sell an XPS 15 Developer Edition? Surely there's a lot of professional types wanting a bigger laptop right? Is there some hardware difference between the two that causes problems? What's the deal?
Tempting but how is the coil whine on the new model? I had a 9370 for two days last year but the coil whine was irksome to the point of returning it.
Also what is the point of 4K on a 13" laptop? Honestly the 1080p model needs scaling to at least 1.25 as 1.0 is just painful even with perfect vision. Am I missing something obvious or is it just so Dell can tick the 4K marketing check box?
Providing it has no coil whine the only potential issue I see is the crappy SOLDERED(!) Killer wifi card. Damn shame you can't get it with an Intel one.
Why is the 16GB RAM + FHD screen (1080p) variant not available in the US and Canada? It seems like this has been a long-standing issue since at least the 9360.
This is very frustrating since I don't need the 4k panel (in fact I don't want it for resolution scaling reasons) however I absolutely do need the 16GB of RAM.
Never again a Dell. XPS 15 was such a huge disappointment, not the least of which was capped by the near constant CPU voltage throttling down to 0.8GHz despite reasonable temperatures.
Specs are awesome. Reality over 1.5 years was way below according expectations. Apple may make really annoying decisions regarding function keys, RAM limitations, ports, etc., but their stuff largely works as promised (ok, keyboard aside).
I have a 2017 13" XPS running Solus Linux. I have come to abhor this machine. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to reboot the computer due to frozen or halting apps. I only have 8GB of RAM so that might be it but I can't run Slack app or the Google Play app at the same time without definitely causing problems.
I have a desktop with Solus and 16GB at home and never run into any issues with it.
Do you have a swap partition? If you don't have a swap partition enabled, then your computer will freeze when your RAM fills up.
I have the XPS 16" and this happens to me under Arch Linux, but thankfully not very often because I have 16GB of RAM. If you really have to break out of the freeze, then you can try switching to another terminal window (eg. ctrl-alt-F3 or some other function key), then try to kill the offending process. It might take a minute for your keyboard inputs to take effect, but it generally can be done.
I am guessing here but Solus Linux isn't probably officially supported by Dell on the Developer Edition of this laptop (you have the Developer Edition, don't you?)
I had a (first version?) XPS 13 running first Gentoo and then later Linux Mint and I never had problems with it. Once I even let it run for 2 months without rebooting and making it go into suspend-to-RAM from time to time and it never crashed.
But then I still sold it because I could never get used to its cursor keys and absolutely hated the impossible-to-deactivate-embedded-automatic-brightness-control.
I have a 2017 13" XPS running Ubuntu. It's a 9360 and I made sure to order one that actually shipped Ubuntu. It works perfectly and I'm very happy with it. I also have 8GB of RAM. I recommend this laptop to everyone, though of course I haven't tried the newer ones that are available today.
Perhaps OS support is your problem? Did you order it with Ubuntu or with Windows?
tl;dr -- add
`nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0` to /etc/default/grub in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter, run `update-grub`, reboot. Verify with `sudo nvme get-feature -f 0x0c -H /dev/nvme0`.
Totally agreed that this shouldn't happen. I hope that's your issue.
I've been using these for years and love them. I've had to use a MBP for work for the last few months and boy is it ever torture to use. You know why? Mostly it's just about what you're used to. The quality of both computers is pretty good, but the Linux computer is set up exactly the way I want.
I've switched to a Pixelbook and like it for many tasks. The Pixelbook is lighter and has a taller 3:2 screen, both positives. The Chrome OS security model seems stronger than Ubuntu out of the box. My development environment now runs in the safety of a VM.
I had the XPS 13 9333 and later replaced it with the XPS 13 9730. It's about a year old now and is currently back with Dell to repair two USB-C ports that stopped working about the same time-- around the time I got the Pixelbook.
The Crostini software and integration on the Pixelbook still needs polish, but overall I'm happy with the Pixelbook as an XPS 13 alternative for a Linux development environment.
[+] [-] AceJohnny2|7 years ago|reply
Weight-wise, it's under the Macbook Air... Feature-wise (and pricewise), it's closer to the MBP.
Starting weights:
Screen resolution: Ports: And pricing (for closest equivalent HW I could find, not quite equal, XPS with 4k screen, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD): And with 16GB Ram, 512 SSD (max for XPS13): [1] https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook...[+] [-] wjoe|7 years ago|reply
That said, the XPS 13 has been the best experience I've had with Linux on a laptop. The bundled Ubuntu install works out of the box, but even on other distros it's not difficult to set up, and I've not encountered any driver issues, which have been common on every other laptop I've installed Linux on. It helps that it's a great quality laptop in general - anecdotally in my office, we see far more hardware issues with the latest Macbooks than with XPSs.So I'd recommend it for anyone who wants a Linux or Windows laptop, or is considering switching away from Mac without compromising on hardware quality.
[+] [-] timeattack|7 years ago|reply
- coil whine under load;
- poor heat sink, under little load i7 goes to 100C and CPU throttling kicks in;
- sometimes 'w' button seems to be 'stuck' in pressed state even when it's physically un-pressed; seems to be a firmware keyboard bug, since I've seen same problem on another XPS 13;
- I've had to replace Killer WiFi card, because RTT for packets spiked up every time card was scanning for networks;
- that 'spidey-fingers' webcam;
- that 'Content Adaptive Brightness Control' when gamma-level goes off every time you switch from black to white image on the screen;
- unable to replace battery, since even when I've ordered battery from authorized service center they gave me non-official third-party battery which was not accepted by laptop;
- connecting 4K@60Hz is kinda problematic, since you need to find USB-C adapter which supports it;
[+] [-] aschampion|7 years ago|reply
- The touchpad is just garbage compared to the MBP, to the point I have an even more keyboard centric setup on it than my desktop, because I want to drop it out of a window every time I use the touchpad.
- Fans. I've accepted that most laptops will run active cooling more than any radiative chassis MBP, but the issues are that while the fans run constantly, they also change speeds constantly in both Windows and Ubuntu. They'd be far less annoying if they ran at a higher, but steady RPM by averaging response over a large time window. Manually managing fans feels like 1998. Also, for a $3.5K laptop that runs fans constantly, these are some of the jankiest, most rattling prone fans I've heard. Most colleagues with XPS 13/15 have sent them in for fan replacement at least once.
A more niche gripe is that 16:9 is the wrong aspect ratio for a professional laptop.
Pros:
- Screen quality and brightness.
- Keyboard (why I can't just get a new MBP).
- Hardware configurability.
- Many hardware issues at first, especially in linux, were quickly and effectively fixed by Dell driver and firmware updates.
[+] [-] gioele|7 years ago|reply
I sort of understand why computer makers like glossy screens: because they just look better to the causal shopper. OK. But in a laptop that is aimed at professionals? People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better.
I'm often on the train and I do not envy the poor souls that work on an enterprise-bought laptop with a glossy screen and that have to swing their heads the whole time to avoid reflections from the train window.
BTW, a thorough (p)review of the 9380: https://www.ultrabookreview.com/24336-dell-xps-13-9380/
[+] [-] LeoPanthera|7 years ago|reply
By contrast, well-designed glossy displays minimize internal refraction and also cause light at high angles to reflect, reducing the amount of ambient light which pollutes the display. The result is that the display appears much brighter in any setting, black are blacker and do not get washed out by brights. Colors show higher dynamic range, and small details are crisper. In addition, well-designed glass glossy displays (such as those on the MacBook Pro) are actually visible and easy to use outdoors in full daylight. Even when reflections show up on glass displays, it's easy to see past them because they're full optical reflections with correct depth in stereo vision, meaning that you can correctly focus on the screen without focusing on the reflection.
Glossy displays are bad under basically two conditions:
* They are warped plastic, such as on older Dell laptops, causing weird shiny glossy glare at all angles that cannot be ignored.
* You have positioned your screen so that there is a small but very very bright reflection behind you, and cannot tilt your display.
[+] [-] coldtea|7 years ago|reply
Because developers like sharp text (as opposed to smudged due to the diffusion filter) and better color and saturation too.
Not all of us work under back lights we cannot avoid...
I mean, it might be a personal preference, but it's not like some objective law that developer === matte screen (like eg. 3D artist === discreet GPU).
[+] [-] h3throw|7 years ago|reply
I always enjoy it when someone arrogantly poses a subjective statement as fact from a position of arbitrary authority. I like it especially so when there are a plethora of reasons against their position as in this case.
[+] [-] rifung|7 years ago|reply
Way to stereotype..? I guess I am not sophisticated enough because I prefer a glossy screen.
> I'm often on the train and I do not envy the poor souls that work on an enterprise-bought laptop with a glossy screen and that have to swing their heads the whole time to avoid reflections from the train window.
We unsophisticated commoners work from desks and where I don't seem to have this problem.
[+] [-] eropple|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliken|7 years ago|reply
However on a laptop it seems silly. Last thing I want to see in my new expensive screen is my ugly mug reflected back at me.
[+] [-] TomVDB|7 years ago|reply
I just love how good it looks. That makes it better for me.
Suggesting that people who like glossy screens are unsophisticated is just unwarranted gatekeeping.
[+] [-] baybal2|7 years ago|reply
Not all glossy screens are bad, just the ones released relatively recently are.
Sony was making near perfect high end LCDs with glossy screen, glass surface, AND real AR coating.
In comparison, later design panels simply had glossy polycarbonate with poor still poor surface finish.
Laminated and "one glass" screen also do come in varying quality levels. One glass screens with AR coatings are very, very good, but ones with poor lamination, and mismatched refraction indexes are horrid.
[+] [-] mikestew|7 years ago|reply
"The group I'm conveniently in is more sophisticated." Mmm, hmm. Matte screens suck because everything is blurry and smeared. I mean, if your work/life balance is out of whack and you have to work in moving vehicles, I could see the need. But professionals that work someplace other than sweatshops prefer glossy screens with sharp pixels.
[+] [-] robocat|7 years ago|reply
Non-touch-screen models are matte.
At least that was the case for my XPS 15, and I was told it is a fairly general rule that touch screen laptops are glossy.
[+] [-] ClassyJacket|7 years ago|reply
A matte screen isn't just better. You get that weird prism-like diffraction of light, that turns a white pixel into coloured dots. Personally I much prefer to maybe have to move my machine occasionally to avoid a reflection than to have that weird fuzziness. For a laptop screen, anyway.
[+] [-] pc86|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NightlyDev|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] no_gravity|7 years ago|reply
The only problem is that you cannot open the display up fully. They block at 160° or so.
In many situations it would be super useful to have the laptop opened up 180°. In a plane for example. Or when it sits on a desk in a laptop stand and you use an external keyboard.
Running a laptop comparison site myself (https://www.productchart.com), I wonder if we should add '180°' to the filter list. It seems like an odd feature. It's super useful to me. Never heard anybody else talk about it though.
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|7 years ago|reply
Obviously both our experience is anecdotal but if it was driving purchasing decisions you'd see more laptops that can open 180 since the design trade-offs are relatively minor in the overwhelming majority of cases.
[+] [-] wongarsu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ti_ranger|7 years ago|reply
Taking into account the context of this story, does it make sense to add "Linux" to the OS list?
With that, your site would be very useful to me, without it, not so much.
[+] [-] limeblack|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcus_holmes|7 years ago|reply
Never buying a Dell again. Their support were worse than useless, insisting that somehow installing Linux had caused the problem.
I'm eagerly waiting for my first Purism laptop, then I can get 30 mins of my day back.
[+] [-] wbkang|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] berbec|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] felix_nagaand|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mscrivo|7 years ago|reply
We've had to replace all of them with Intel 9260's and the problems instantly disappear. I don't know how this is not a customer support nightmare for them, and why they continue using them given the relatively low cost of the Intel cards.
[+] [-] robocat|7 years ago|reply
That said, I haven't seen any issues with Killer WiFi (XPS 15 9570 with Ubuntu 18.04.01), but I do have an Intel WiFi card if the Killer needs to be replaced.
Also I do use a USB3 to Ethernet adapter at work (I have always prefered a wired connection for work when available).
[+] [-] colemickens|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhasse|7 years ago|reply
Reception is perfect, even better than the Intel card my previous latptop had.
(running Fedora Linux out-of-the-box btw)
[+] [-] terhechte|7 years ago|reply
- 10-11 inch (preferably the size of the 11" Macbook Air or 10.5 inch iPad)
- Good touchscreen (with Linux support)
- Good keyboard with hinged display (2-in-one would be awesome, but I doubt that's possible given the other constraints I already have)
- Solid CPU options (i.e. no Atom)
I bought a Chuwi Surbook Mini and installed Linux on it but while the Hardware works fine, the touchscreen is so-so and the attached keyboard cover is awful. I'd buy a Microsoft Surface 10" but Linux on there doesn't support hibernation and that's a must for me (and I won't go with Windows. I tried that with the Chuwi, that OS is just not for me, I loathe it). I'd also maybe go with a Pixel Slate but 12.3 inch sounds too big for me and Google doesn't sell it here so I can't even preview it.
[+] [-] RomanPushkin|7 years ago|reply
"Up to 16GB" in 2019 means it's not upgradable, and not worth buying, because developers like hardware that they can upgrade in 2-5 years if needed.
[+] [-] mikenew|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samcday|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] satysin|7 years ago|reply
Also what is the point of 4K on a 13" laptop? Honestly the 1080p model needs scaling to at least 1.25 as 1.0 is just painful even with perfect vision. Am I missing something obvious or is it just so Dell can tick the 4K marketing check box?
Providing it has no coil whine the only potential issue I see is the crappy SOLDERED(!) Killer wifi card. Damn shame you can't get it with an Intel one.
[+] [-] nwlieb|7 years ago|reply
This is very frustrating since I don't need the 4k panel (in fact I don't want it for resolution scaling reasons) however I absolutely do need the 16GB of RAM.
Mind boggling.
[+] [-] Tehchops|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blunte|7 years ago|reply
Specs are awesome. Reality over 1.5 years was way below according expectations. Apple may make really annoying decisions regarding function keys, RAM limitations, ports, etc., but their stuff largely works as promised (ok, keyboard aside).
[+] [-] jhack|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wildmindwriting|7 years ago|reply
I have a desktop with Solus and 16GB at home and never run into any issues with it.
I don't recommend this laptop anymore to anyone.
[+] [-] rashkov|7 years ago|reply
I have the XPS 16" and this happens to me under Arch Linux, but thankfully not very often because I have 16GB of RAM. If you really have to break out of the freeze, then you can try switching to another terminal window (eg. ctrl-alt-F3 or some other function key), then try to kill the offending process. It might take a minute for your keyboard inputs to take effect, but it generally can be done.
[+] [-] rehemiau|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zepearl|7 years ago|reply
But then I still sold it because I could never get used to its cursor keys and absolutely hated the impossible-to-deactivate-embedded-automatic-brightness-control.
[+] [-] rlpb|7 years ago|reply
Perhaps OS support is your problem? Did you order it with Ubuntu or with Windows?
[+] [-] jhasse|7 years ago|reply
Wouldn't this happen with any 8 GB laptop? Not sure what you blame the XPS 13 for that.
[+] [-] jeffmcjunkin|7 years ago|reply
tl;dr -- add `nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=0` to /etc/default/grub in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter, run `update-grub`, reboot. Verify with `sudo nvme get-feature -f 0x0c -H /dev/nvme0`.
Totally agreed that this shouldn't happen. I hope that's your issue.
[+] [-] gao8a|7 years ago|reply
Does this mean a newer version of this will be out in a few months?
[+] [-] davidw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markstos|7 years ago|reply
I had the XPS 13 9333 and later replaced it with the XPS 13 9730. It's about a year old now and is currently back with Dell to repair two USB-C ports that stopped working about the same time-- around the time I got the Pixelbook.
The Crostini software and integration on the Pixelbook still needs polish, but overall I'm happy with the Pixelbook as an XPS 13 alternative for a Linux development environment.