Dell dropped the ball by giving this laptop two TB3 ports and one that only does USB.
I didn’t realise at first, this was due to the difference in USB vs Thunderbolt.
It's definitely confusing and a bit frustrating that it's different if you're in a scenario where the bandwidth matters, but at least it's just numbers rather than devices outright not working.
Some of us do work in actual offices and not in some coffee shops down the street. ;)
Whoah, what's up with that? Not sure why you're inferring this coffee shop story or why you're doing this smug posturing thing but it's pretty obnoxious.
USB-C adds additional pins for alt-mode as well as a higher power delivery allowance, but the USB data protocol part of it is the same as any other type of port of the same spec.
That was a serious miss on Dell's part. I'm not sure why they did that?
Makes it a little annoying for users.
That would effectively mean I have zero ports free when charging and with my permanent Yubikey plugged in. It's never been an issue in practice, but I also wish that Dell would remove the ambiguity and make them all TB3 ports.
You can't transfer data between two Macs using USB-C to USB-C cable that comes as a charger...
I anticipate that 2019 will be the year when we'll get monitors that are the "dock", so in practice most users will use at most a single port.
I plug in my laptop and the monitor comes on, my keyboard and mouse start working over USB, my speakers start working because I turned the builtin soundbar off and enabled the in USB-C/3.55mm DAC that's also built into some Dell monitors, and even my printer and a synthesizer that I use as a practice (piano-)keyboard are are ready to go.
In the past, when I was connecting a laptop to a monitor I had two options:
1) Use a proprietary dock. This is as convenient as the usb-c cable, but you can use it with a single brand of devices. Also, in the case of the usb-c cable you are free to move the laptop around the desk. Not so easy with a dock.
2) Plug the monitor and the peripherals directly the ports of the laptop. When you have to switch laptops frequently, it feels like this process is taking ages. It also looks ugly to have an octopus laptop on the desk.
Having said that the dedicated usb-c docks are notoriously problematic. I have tried a lot to find a single one with more than 3 star reviews, but it seems impossible. At least, I have not heard complains about the built-in docks inside monitors. In this case though, you have to make some sacrifices in the number and variety of ports. For example, in my case, I do not have ethernet.
I'm more hesitant in practice because the USB3 hub in my current Dell display didn't get along with my computer and would cause blue screens when used. Easy to avoid, I just don't have the USB hub plugged in.
As things get more and more integrated, a problem anywhere in the system means the whole thing doesn't work and you can't avoid the busted parts.
That's a general issue: laptops are pretty integrated and even in your tower it's pretty hard to patch the mobo (and let's not get into the issue of upgrading your L1 cache.
I started computing on a machine (PDP-6) on which you could add instructions with a wire wrap pencil. That's clearly impossible today, but with modern manufacturing, increased integration typically means increased overall reliability.
On the plus side, issues like mine ought to become less common with an integrated device, since it would become impossible for Dell to not test their USB hub when they plug in the display cable.
And I suppose I've considered a thunderbolt hub for the convenience and decided against it just because of what they cost. If that sort of integration were "free" with displays, yeah I'd probably take it.
I wouldn’t recommend buying one if you saw one — the power delivery spec only goes up to 100 W!
I'd either go with a hardware combination that you or a trusted reviewer has tested, or wait another year or so for the bugs to get worked out.
EDIT: Or just avoid Dell, they seem to be behind the curve on figuring out Thunderbolt 3.
[1] https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-15/spd/xps-...
[2] https://medium.com/@kemra102/linux-on-the-dell-xps-15-919e6d...
Personally I want a 15-inch laptop with Linux preinstalled or perfectly supported, a great trackpad, a bright screen so I can work outdoors, and USB A so I can plug in my mech keyboards without dongles because I lose them all the time.
I do not use Linux on my XPS15. It's just a personal preference but I prefer Windows on my personal machines. I use many virtual machines on the laptop, and those have no issues, but that is a bit different than running it as a OS ;).
But I do love the laptop a lot! That is quite annoying that there are some Linux problems and that you pay a bit extra for MS. I stick with using Linux at work when I am purely doing development work, and at home when doing casual stuff, like a little coding, gaming, and web browsing I prefer Windows.
I do use a mech portably...I like to carry one in my laptop bag and set up at a picnic table at a nearby park. I'll use the built-in keyboard for light work but with heavy typing I need the mech for ergonomics.
The only thing I'm really missing is an ethernet port on the laptop itself, but that's hard in this form factor.
What issues do you have? I do not notice a difference from the xps13 quality.
Poor USB-C support (sometimes ethernet died, sometimes screens changed resolutions...). The problem kept changing from BIOS update to BIOS update.
Then the USB-C harware failed: I could use it only if my laptop stayed perfectly still.
Only a few hours of battery life.
Drunk touchpad.
Speakers died after 3 month.
The 2 first points were fixed after years of hit and miss BIOS updates. It felt like beta testing the product.
Tons of complains from many users on Dell forum, with zero help from Dell.
Given the price of the machine, it's a damn shame.
That said, the XPS 13 has been the best experience I've had with Linux on a laptop. The bundled Ubuntu install works out of the box, but even on other distros it's not difficult to set up, and I've not encountered any driver issues, which have been common on every other laptop I've installed Linux on. It helps that it's a great quality laptop in general - anecdotally in my office, we see far more hardware issues with the latest Macbooks than with XPSs.So I'd recommend it for anyone who wants a Linux or Windows laptop, or is considering switching away from Mac without compromising on hardware quality.