I just upgraded my XPS 15 to 32GB, 2400MHz RAM. Unfortunately with the XPS 13, it seems the RAM is soldered to the motherboard. Personally I wouldn't get the XPS 13 for work, but go for the more powerful XPS 15.

An MBP with the same configuration as the Dells priciest model costs $700 more.

I've got last year's model and the ram has never been an issue for me, in fact I manage to run 6 to 7 workspaces, each with a chrome window with a few hundred tabs, terminal windows and an atom window all running really well. I do have the great suspender installed which obviously helps.

You have 1800 tabs? How do you cognitively manage that?

It becomes a problem when you need to do integration tests with several VMs and data stores + video conf.

Is Ubuntu substantially lighter on system resources than macOS? I used a MBP for a few years during the OS X Lion/Mavericks era, and the system struggled on a 4GB/500HDD machine whereas a comparably specced Linux laptop would just fly.

I haven't run Linux on my MB's, so I can't say how same-same hardware performance would compare between the two. I always have a Linux machine around, though, and have for the last 20+ years (Slackware on floppies!) -- and it always runs faster than Windows. Much of that probably has to do with the fact that it's simply running a lot less code, and that a lot of what I would do with an app you do from the shell in Linux.

Regarding the narrow question of memory usage, I'd be surprised if Linux uses as much memory as MacOS, again because of the more extensive set of system services that runs in MacOS.

But wait: this XPS actually has 'only' 16GB RAM.

Why doesn't this seem to be a problem now? Is it replaceable?

Dell also make laptops with far more ram, so it's not a choice of ">16GB or dell" it's just with this specific line of laptops.

The current gen XPS 15 can be upgraded to 32gb. Not sure about the 13.

I have one of these at the moment, with 32GB of ram.

Definitely the fastest machine I've ever owned/used.

How's the extra ram affect the battery life? Recent HN discussions seems to point toward a heavy battery penalty because of the type of ram needed. (NB: I am not a hardware nerd, looking for actual information here, not just an idle question)

I'm honestly not sure, good question though.

I guess it's difficult to test, would also be interested to know if somebody has tested the different versions against each other.

Good point—I guess a better question would be "hows your battery life?" :)