I can personally speak to the fact that Barton means what he says. When Sputnik first came out in Beta, I bought a developer edition that had some keyboard issues. I dropped a casual note on Twitter and Barton went out of his way to make sure the issue got resolved.

I keep contemplating a full transition to Ubuntu as my work machine, but there are still certain environment impacts (like connected devices and the need to run some Mac-only software on occasion) that has prevented it.

But if I could convince myself to take the dive and go Linux-only, I wouldn't hesitate to run with the XPS line.

Disclaimer: Absolutely none other than Barton is a great guy who helped a random stranger that once complained on Twitter.