Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review(jx0.org) |
Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition review(jx0.org) |
Also 6hours of battery life seem a bit on the short side, though he had quite a few programs running. Id like to know how it would do in Windows8 though.
Id also be interested in how well it handles sleep/awake scenarios with an external display attached etc.
Edit: for non-retina screens (i.e. it's fine on my 14" 1920x1080 laptop.) For retina (not this laptop), it might not be ideal yet. I took a screenshot (XFCE4) with very high DPI, and you can see some GUI elements don't scale: http://i.imgur.com/2GpqyND.png
What am I going to do with 8GB of RAM? My mom has 8GB of RAM.
Seriously?
What are the native issues with retina (in Gnome 3, for example)? Are there GUI elements that don't scale along?
I might try and install Mate and see if it is any better. I have no interest in using Unity or XFCE so I can't comment on those.
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.
And apparently there is an update today! Can't wait to try this out.
Nice: - Good battery life. With screen on full, wifi on I can get between 3-5 hours depending on CPU utilization. With screen brightness turned down, wifi off, low utilization, ~6 hours
- Keyboard and mouse pad are great
- No issues with unsupported bits and pieces from ubuntu, with exception of video output via usb
- the battery strength indicator on the side is handy for quickly checking if i need to grab my power cable without having to turn the machine on as well
- Display quality (minus the glossy finish) is great, wide viewing angle, vivid colours
Naughty: - Glossy screen is a pain in the ass. Forget about using in sunlight, I also need to adjust mine to avoid getting the overheads in our office.
- Temperature management is pretty poor - the air vents on the bottom don't have much clearance even on a flat surface, and don't seem to move enough air. I worry about the long term lifespan of this machine because it regularly operates > 70c. When I can, I sit the machine on a laptop platform with a fan.
- (minor) the function keybind for adjusting the volume requires 2 hands - the fn key is on the lower left, while the volume up/down are on f11/f12.
- only 2 usb ports and no SD card reader.
Overall I've been happy with it.
So not the Haswell version the review is about?
This is just a standard high-end laptop. Disappointing.
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 one.
Numpads are nice for roguelikes as well :)
I thought the glossy screen would bother me. It doesn't.
Numpad? Never used one.
Trackpoint? Not my style - I mostly navigate with the keyboard and the trackpad just launches the pointer into the window I need active, and then focus follows it!
If it's on a desk and not your lap, buy a keyboard.
Although I cannot imagine doing any work on a laptop without external monitor and ergo KB/mouse, so I'm too fussy I guess.
With regards to wanting a 4:3 display over a 16:9/10; with 1920x1080 resolution do you really need the 4:3? Are you really going to make your terminal/editing window full screen height? I use my rMBP in 1920x1200 and my terminals rarely need to go full screen height in order to see all the lines of code I need to see.
- 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.
I only have a full-sized keyboard to get the arrow keys. Being able to smack "Enter" in the corner is a nice bonus.
They moved to a chiclet style keyboard in the previous generation, removed the top row of keys, and have now inverted the function keys so they perform media functions first. In order to get an F4 you have to press Fn+F4. Ridiculous!
Also they have removed the physical buttons surrounding the trackpad. Previously, one of the nice things about the trackpoint was the ability to have your finger moving the trackpoint while your thumb took a rest on the middle button. Being able to feel the physical buttons you always knew exactly which button you were going to click. Now with the Apple style trackpad, you get no textual feedback at all.
Well, a high end laptop with a low resolution screen...
The screen is glossy but for some reason, it's not actually catching too many random reflections (so it's much better than my MacBook which can hardly be used when sitting back to the window).
The touchpad feel isn't as good as a MacBook but it's large and much better than those from most other PCs I've tried. Overall a nice machine.
However, I think this year I'm probably going to bite the bullet and buy a 13" Retina MacBook Pro.
Aside from this, it seemed like a fantastic machine, but beware of the potential backlight issues if you spend a significant amount of time with dark or black windows / backgrounds. For me, this was 90% of the time between terminal windows and Sublime Text.
This isn't entirely true. While the color of the charger LED doesn't change, the LED at the middle of the bottom/front edge (below the trackpad) goes from orange to white when charged.
My biggest gripe with this (very nice, portable) laptop is that the wireless card is a bit flaky with 802.11n under (x)Ubuntu 13.04 - 13.10. I find that in some rooms of my (relatively small) flat I can't connect without disabling 11n (sudo modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=1). I get a very high "Tx excessive retries" value in iwconfig otherwise and the network connection is unusable.
It's not a failing of the laptop, but rather the bundled Intel wireless card and the drivers that ship with Linux 3.11.0-15. My Lenovo T430s has the same issue (it has a Centrino Advanced-N 6205).
I've seen numerous bug reports and kernel patches but haven't had much success in resolving the issue.
Turns out it's a problem with the kernel in 12.04 and the Intel 4400 chipset. The only solid fix is to simply update to a non-LTS release. Since updating to 13.04 I've been okay. I shouldn't have to wait much longer for 14.04 so I should have an LTS release soon with the updated kernel.
The only other problem I've had is some updates deleting my firmware for the wireless, I've had to re-download it. But I did not have this problem when upgrading Ubuntu.
Despite these issues, otherwise it's been a very solid laptop.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-XPS-13-Ultrabook-La...
I love their review because they go into very much detail and some of the information is hard to found elsewhere, like real measurements of screen contrast and brightness, the one parameter that already eliminates 95% of laptops every time I look for one, and of loudness.
I'm currently looking for a laptop and it will be either the XPS 13 or a rMBP 13 inches. I'm currently favoring the rMPB a little bit because it seems it get less hot than the XPS. It kinds of scare me when the review says the laptop gets somewhat warm while surfing and I've had really bad experiences with overheating Dell laptops.
What's your experience XPS 13 owners ?
How many external monitors can be connected?
I found some information here: http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-031040.htm , but it looks as if most of the info applies to Windows.
Have you tried connecting more than one external monitor?
When I use the wife's Mac I'm always fumbling around the keyboard shortcuts. However, the screen is amazing. If this Dell had a bit more DPI I'd be sold.
I've made a deal with myself to get this once I've paid my loans off. C'mon, baby, just two months..
I would seriously love to buy it but the new keyboard changes put me off (see comment on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7016535). It's a shame, because otherwise it is really a nice machine - will as well go with T440s.
Does Dell XPS 3 DE work fine with external monitor on ubuntu ?
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 1080p (after much clamour and feedback) ... February 2013 2: http://bartongeorge.net/2013/02/18/spuntik-2-is-here-xps-13-...
Brings Haswell ... November 2013 http://bartongeorge.net/2013/11/15/introducing-sputnik-3-and...
Not sure which version the original poster is reviewing, I always meant to review mine and haven't done so yet. I upgraded from Ubuntu 12.04LTS to 13.10 and had to futz about a bit with backlight keys. Wifi drivers kept glitching out until recently. I had to add TRIM support myself (I had thought it was there, it wasn't!)
Might be an idea to set up a Sputnik User's site unless one exists :) as opposed to a Dell forum or employee's blog.
tip o' the hat ...
Other than the touchpad still being too sensitive for my preferences (this gripe not limited to the XPS) it's been a awesome machine. It was my first SSD machine and still boots so fast. I'm jealous of the newer CPUs especially if battery life extends.
Dedicated ethernet would be nice. Thunderbolt would be nice. Firewire would be nice. A DVD/blu-ray drive would be nice. Ultrabooks seem not to have these things. Make no mistake, I would not have bought one if it had been USB2.
-[0000:00]-+-00.0 Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller
+-02.0 Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
+-14.0 Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller
+-16.0 Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1
+-1a.0 Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2
+-1b.0 Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller
+-1c.0-[01]----00.0 Qualcomm Atheros AR9462 Wireless Network Adapter
+-1d.0 Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1
+-1f.0 Intel Corporation QS77 Express Chipset LPC Controller
+-1f.2 Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode]
\-1f.3 Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus ControllerDell doesn't have the resources to make a MacBook Air type computer in volume. Apple's bought the gear, invested heavily in the suppliers to get them up to speed, and starves competitors of the equipment and supplies needed to produce similar computers.
Secondly, Apple focuses on a handful of models and makes a lot of them. Dell tends to produce dozens if not hundreds of models and can't get the volume on any single one up to the level required to really slash costs on exotic manufacturing processes.
HP has tried on a few occasions to produce something close, but they never stick with it long enough to really gain the benefits of scale.
It has a great keyboard and underlying hardware. But it's also stuck with a low-resolution screen with terrible viewing angles, and is also as thick as a brick. The touchpad also leaves a lot to be desired but it does have the TrackPoint which is great.
The X240 will supposedly have a 1080p IPS screen but I'm not sure what the holdup is.
- Small & noisy fan - Awful trackpad (but awesome trackpoint) - Low resolution wide screen
I cannot understand why Lenovo is destroying the x2 series. Now they:
- Replaced the standard processor with a ULV one - Removed trackpoint buttons - Introduced island-style keys - Removed ThinkLight
They should have simply improved a bit the glitches i mentioned.
But I have a T410 at home and I am not very happy with it. The dock is unstable, it disconnects, USB dies. The stupid dock blocks the fan, and you do anything cpu intensive and it end shutting the system down because of temperature. The NVIDIA graphics never worked reliably with nouveau + dock + suspend (I have to use the binary driver).
And worse, it is an i7 (x220 is an i5) and it feels so slow compared to the x220.
I wanted the Macbook Pro, but I didn't see the $300 difference in the Pro.
That's worth $300 to me...
I hate 16:9 screens, just because manufacturers robbed me of 120 pixels on the screen (1920x1200 vs 1920x1080). 4:3 fascination was always strange to me - I never saw 4:3 laptop with more than 1200 pixel rows, and more pixels before my eyes is always better in my book.
The question is how much text needs to be on your screen at once. Sometimes you need a lot but I find most of the time I don't need 1200 pixels of height worth of text on my screen at once.
It's not as stylish as a MacBook Pro though.
Numpad = No deal.
I still curse the trend of putting them on laptops. May it soon pass.
> Do you use both the internal display and external monitor?
> Have you tried connecting more than one external monitor?
A few people seem interested in a third-party forum so maybe...
sudo iw dev wlan0 set power_save off
If this is for developers, pixels matter.
I thought the newer W-series Thinkpads would have better res then "HD" (AKA "short screen") but last I checked they're still stuck selling "business" machines with entertainment-consumption screens. Plus a numpad that shifts the main keyboard over.
On the bright side they still have dedicated trackpoint buttons instead of the clacky thing built in to the trackpad that some of the other other recent models have.
I'm sure that if I had learned windowing system on a Mac or Windows PC, I'd find that natural and I'd have developed different work styles. But I've got thirty years of experience with highly flexible window managers and miss these features on less capable systems.
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).
In my setup, focus follows mouse only when the mouse moves
That makes much more sense to me.
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.
I'm describing tested battery life, not anecdotal estimations. E.g. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Update-Dell-XPS-12-9Q33-....
Battery life obviously depends on your usage scenario, but the one described in the article is very light. Moreover, he's using a very low brightness setting, and seems to be using wi-fi intermittently. These points are important to note because on most workloads, the display and the wireless adapter are the major sources of power draw.
The usage described in the article is:
> I get about 6 hours of usage from a full charge (or more if I leave my desk for breaks and the screen shuts off after 5 minutes, which saves battery). As I mentioned earlier, that's usually on the lowest (or second to lowest) screen brightness setting, with the keyboard backlight enabled for about 50-75% of the time, and having Firefox open with 5-10 tabs, sometimes YouTube running in the background for some music, some Terminal windows open, Steam open in the background, Skype running in the background and a few text editor windows open.
Since idle background apps should take up very little battery, this seems even lighter than Anand's "Light Workload" scripted test, on which the MBA gets 11 hours (close to its rated 12). See: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7085/the-2013-macbook-air-revi.... Anand's test is at 200 nits (80% screen brightness). The author of this article says he's running at the lowest or second-lowest screen brightness, so maybe 10-20% or 30-60 nits. Even with the heavy workload test, which involves constant Wi-Fi activity and 1080p video playback, the MBA gets 5.5 hours.
If you mimic the usage in this article, with some apps open in the background, the brightness turned down, and typing into some terminal windows, the MBA would probably get 15+ hours: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9/18/#battery-b....
If it had internal style latency, there would be GOBS of devices pushing to jump on it, but it simply doesn't. You can't even respond correctly to interupts... compared to internal PCI -- it is painfully slow.
On a PC, I'm not sure what else there is to plug in to a Thunderbolt port other than storage.
The W530 still has the proper trackpoint buttons. But it's a 1080p screen with a numpad that displaces the main keyboard.
Lenovo sells USB trackpoint keboards (with and without a trackpad). I already had one for my HP desktop box and ordered another on the assumption that sooner or later Lenovo will turn to the Thinkpad line to shit and I'll want that keyboard for whatever laptop I get next.
That said, I suppose I'm the audience that Lenovo's changes are targeted to. As a current owner of an early 2011 macbook pro, I just ordered a T440p yesterday, but for a long time I was deciding between it and T540p. I prefered T540p to the very similarly priced and equipped w530 (for my price range) because of the new trackpad.
I eventually settled on the T440p because of its greater portability and centered keyboard.
There's just more people who care about a good trackpad than a good trackpoint. I've used lenovo trackpoints and just can't get used to them, so I suppose it must be similarly difficult for trackpoint users to learn to use trackpads effectively, but I don't think either is inherently better.
I get that maybe more people are interested in the trackpad but I don't see why Lenovo improves the pad at the expense of the trackpoint. I disable the trackpad on my laptops so there's a net loss for me when they degrade the trackpoint buttons.
If they insist on degrading what distinguishes a Thinkpad then they'll be yet another generic laptop provider.
Fn+Escape turns on Function Lock, and it stays on permanently through reboots.
I agree with you that the clickpad buttons are inferior. It's much harder to drag and drop, for example.
Just because it was originally conceived and created then, doesn't mean there hasn't been a fair amount of evolution in those products since that time.
For an IDE for, say, C/C++, Visual Studio beats it soundly. For Java, Eclipse.
All that said, these tools are quite useful despite being old--I don't mean anything pointing out their age other than that a somewhat old laptop is probably still quite sufficient.
Nothing has shown itself as significantly better yet.