Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by tannhaeuser on Saturday May 12, 2018 @09:06AM (#17053877)

I've got a Dell XPS 13", and I'm absoluting loving it; especially the keyboard works great for me as a touch typist/vi user, which I didn't expect since the keyboard is what ThinkPads are acclaimed for. That said, battery mileage is no match to Apple notebooks in my experience. I can get 3 to 4 hours max, though I'm occasionally doing CPU-intense stuff which will reduce this to 1-2 hours. If Apple actually would produce a "Pro" notebook with a usable keyboard and without the TouchBar thingy, and with actual "Pro" port options and replaceable parts, I'd be considering Apple again since I had a good experience with my PowerBook back in the day.

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Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by mattbreeden on Saturday May 12, 2018 @11:26AM (#17054465)

> I've got a Dell XPS 13", and I'm absoluting loving it; especially the keyboard works great for me as a touch typist/vi user

This is insane to me. My XPS 13 caused me excruciating pain to type on. I try to warn people every chance I get. Hurt my fingers more than any laptop I've ever used, to the point where I could not even use the laptop keyboard, I would only use it with an external keyboard.

Best keyboards I've used was my Dell Chromebook 13, followed by coworkers thinkpads.

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Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by tannhaeuser on Saturday May 12, 2018 @11:44AM (#17054566)

That's strange indeed, and goes to show that keyboard preferences are highly subjective. I guess its best if the buyer checks out for his/herself in a shop.

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Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by smhg on Saturday May 12, 2018 @09:22AM (#17053938)

My XPS 13 (second gen) had much better battery life with (what sounds) similar usage.

- you have a recent kernel? Also, 4.17 should bring battery-related improvements

- did you install TLP[0]?

[0] http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-man...

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Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by tannhaeuser on Saturday May 12, 2018 @09:35AM (#17053995)

Thanks, I'll be checking it out. I've bought my XPS early in 2016 when the Skylake CPUs were new and kernel support/power management was flaky, so I had to install custom kernels and do BIOS patching, etc. I've upgraded to 16.10 since but I guess I need to check out if my kernel is up to date.

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Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by greggarious on Saturday May 12, 2018 @09:11AM (#17053884)

Does it have a replacable battery? I'd be less annoyed about 4 hours of battery if I could swap.

(Also if anyone knows of a model that's got more of a focus on battery life for someone who is SSHing into external machines for most CPU intensive tasks I'd be all ears)

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Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by tannhaeuser on Saturday May 12, 2018 @09:25AM (#17053954)

No, the XPSs don't have replaceable batteries either. The XPS 13 is a very tiny notebook/subnotebook, yet with full-size keyboard and all the performance of a larger notebook (it's very noticeably faster than my 2012 MacMini which also has an i7).

I guess battery mileage is mostly a function of the O/S and drivers, and your power settings and what you actually do on the notebook.

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Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by dzjkb on Saturday May 12, 2018 @09:24AM (#17053948)

I have the Dell XPS 13 9350, bought used. When doing standard programming stuff (firefox + sublime + spotify, no CPU intensive tasks), I usually get around 8 hours of battery, so in practice it's never a problem.

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Re:Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development? by yhylord on Saturday May 12, 2018 @11:16AM (#17054412)

Maybe try to replace the battery with a new one. My previous one's capacity dropped to ~40%, which would be ~4 hours max under light use, but after I installed a new battery it bounced back to 8~9 hours.

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