You can spend about $350 and get a high quality 13" IPS 1080p display Chromebook that weighs under 3 pounds if you're willing to spend 5 minutes putting in an SSD and installing Linux natively on it.

I've been using the above set up for half a year now roughly and it's great. I can do all of my development work, writing, browsing, etc. without feeling like I'm giving up much for those sorts of tasks and the price is very reasonable.

Details can be found at:

https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo...

Its physical profile is really small too. Perfect for putting into a backpack and doing some traveling with it.

I've switched out HDDs and installed Linux a few times and it's never taken me 5 minutes. Not even 50 minutes.

Sure, it's a one-time "cost" and nearly insignificant over the course of the lifetime of the machine, but please be honest about the time spent.

It's 5 minutes to unscrew a couple of screws, slide out the SSD card, put in the new SSD card and screw it back together.

The GalliumOS installer is also really straight forward. You pretty much run 2 commands and hit ok a few times. This part is more than 5 minutes, but it's mainly just twiddling your thumbs waiting for things to download and install.

Then you boot up and you're in.

From experience, it's just annoying to have to do things like that. It really is nice to have a machine that I can just use out of the box without tweaks and such, not worrying about updates breaking my drivers, things like that.

However at this point it's not worth paying Apple for that pleasure, when I can get a Windows machine from Microsoft that gives me all that. Hell, I can even get that Developer Edition Dell XPS with Linux.

Thanks for the update. That sounds pretty awesome actually.

I developed on one of those for a year. It was awesome for basic web development. I did a lot of react and ruby development on that thing.

However, my workload eventually evolved to require running several docker containers (micro-services), which really killed overall performance. React-native development was similarly painful. Ultimately, I was forced to upgrade to a thinkpad, but I will always have much love for that little chromebook.

Did you have the same exact model (down to the year and everything), because the earlier version of the one I linked was a lot worse.

I've ran some pretty heavy work loads on the one I linked without issues (and this is comparing it to a high powered i5 desktop).

For example in the blog post, I mention running this:

- Google Chrome with 6 tabs open

- Youtube playing back a video (streaming music is important!)

- Docker daemon

- Dockerized Rails app with 28 gems

- Dockerized Sidekiq background work

- Dockerized Action Cable server

- Dockerized Postgres and Redis

- Sublime Text 3 with about 30 plugins

- 2 terminal windows, one with 2 tabs and the other with 3

- 1 PDF open with the native PDF viewer

- A 2nd workspace with another Google Chrome window and 3 more tabs

And it took it like a champ. No severe slow downs or thinking "meh, I should be on my workstation, this sucks!".

I just got myself a Dell precision 5510 with Ubuntu out of the box. A lot more capable than the most power full current macbook pro, weighs slightly less then the macbook pro from 2009 I am typing this on (moving files across to the new dell)

After 16 years of Mac use I don't regret the switch.

Is this a 15" laptop?

I recently realized that a modern 15" can be much more ergonomic yet almost as small and light as a 13" from a couple of years back.

It is 15" screen wise. Lighter than a 2009-2013 13" MacBookPro.

I've seen the precision 5510 and while I wouldn't say it is beautiful, it is really small for a 15". At 2Kg (with the large battery), it is still heavy, though.

What is the battery life of the smaller-battery configuration?

I wouldn't care less about its beauty if it has a good keyboard, a good screen and not awful battery life...

With that said, you are the first one ive heard saying the new dell is not good looking.