* XPS13 - Ubuntu: 1599€ / 1819$

* XPS13 - Windows: 1729€ / 1967$

* MBA - i5 - 2089€ / 2377$

* MBP - i5 - 2489€ / 2832$

* MBP - i7 - 2849€ / 3242$

Entry models (256GB, 8GB, i5): * XPS13 - Ubuntu - HD : 1289€ / 1467$, has a i7 instead of an i5 !?!

* XPS13 - Windows - HD: 1309€ / 1490$

* XPS13 - Windows - UHD: 1479€ / 1683$

* MBA - i5 - 1599€ / 1820$

* MBP - i5 - 1999€ / 2275$

* MBP - i7 - 2359€ / 2685$

I noticed that dell doesn't offer customization. They have many different configurations but some combinations are missing e.g. no 256-16-UHD option.

That being said I find it difficult to rationalize Apple's prices. I'd like to replace my ancient MBA but I'm not willing to pay 400€ for their new MBA, just to get an inferior CPU. Not to mention the huge price difference for higher-end configurations.

I'd be very interested how well dell notebooks last - do they have similar 'design flaws' as the current gen Apple notebooks (keyboard, display cable)?

I have 9360, it has pretty annoying coil whine. The touchpad has some play which is extremely annoying, for almost a year I always used a trackball instead. Now I've gotten used to it somewhat, but still it irks me every day when I have to use it. Headset port stopped recognizing dedicated microphones at some point, probably some driver/software problem on the Windows side.

For work it is okay and I chose it basically because the Macbook Pros of the time already had the horrible keyboards and touchbar. In retrospect I should have gone with Lenovo, at least their keyboards are much better and they have actual docks, which are very convenient for work. Touchpads are still crap, though they may have improved since T440s.

Compared to the late 2013 Macbook Pro I have the MBP has better hardware, but I prefer Windows and Linux to OSX.

(512GB SSD, 16GB Ram, i7, UDH)

* XPS13 - Ubuntu: €1820

* XPS13 - Windows: €1899

* MBA - i5: €2119

* MBP - i5: €2589

* MBP - i7: €2949

Entry model (256GB, 8GB, i5):

* XPS13 - Ubuntu - HD (with i7): €1429

* XPS13 - Ubuntu - UHD: Not offered in this config

* XPS13 - Windows - HD (with i7): €1399

* XPS13 - Windows - UHD: €1599

* MBA - i5: €1629

* MBP - i5: €1800

* MBP - i7: €2159

Apple is a bit more competitive here, mostly because Dell raised their prices, though interestingly the high end Apple options cost more here and the low end Apple options cost less.

My current laptop is a 2017 XPS 15. The Windows wifi drivers were rubbish on launch, but they finally patched it early last year. Durability wise it's been fine (Though not yet at usage levels of lifespan that I can say much about long term wear), as were my previous Dell laptops (An Inspiron and XPS Studio in the 2000s)

It's just one data point, but I have an XPS 13 model 9350 that's now 3 years old (used daily) and I haven't had any faults develop yet.

I'll pass it onto the kids once I get one of these shiny new ones and will be replacing the keyboard and fan when I do. Some of the plastic covering on a few of the keys is starting to come off and the fan bearings are starting to go so sometimes it's louder than it ought to be.

The screen isn't covered with Gorilla Glass and gets marked up the way Macbooks used to. The monitor hinge has a little slack in it and the power connector is a bit loose.

The trackpad has been surprisingly good. The keyboard is decent. I also like the fact that I was able to swap in 32GB of memory and an NVME SSD of the make and model of my choice.

Mine came with a Fujitsu SSD, I think. I swapped in a much larger Samsung 960 Pro. I've ordered several of these for others and they all came with a Samsung OEM unit of equivalent performance.

In summary, the hardware doesn't suck and it runs Linux, which is the best part.

It runs really well, there's a minor issue with the touchpad but it does still work well enough that I haven't done anything about it.

Dell continue to push out firmware updates. I bought a USB-C monitor (that acts as a USB-A hub) and I power it via that.

Screen is beautiful, of course in certain light conditions the gloss is a negative, but it looks beautiful often and has great brightness.

My next laptop will either be a System76 or another XPS Developer Edition. I really appreciate what they have done.

512GB/16GB i5 2239€ 512GB/16GB i7 2599€

Are you looking at the same thing?

bt didn't work with wifi, changed the wifi card, but still troubles

weird display dimming when reading white on black and no official patch (can link you an unofficial one)

coil whine

speaker blown (don't eq them)

battery bloated (replaced for free even out of warranty)

hard to get to sleep

very short screws, can get lost if you don't use lock tight after opening it once

I was starting to regret my recent-ish purchase of a System76...until I saw even this new XPS maxed out at 16Gib. I specifically bought my Galaga Pro because it was the only 32GiB + matte-screen (well, not _that_ matte) laptop I could find, though it was a bit more expensive than this new XPS.

If you're looking, I think its great, though one big bummer is there's no good dock (single-connection, 2x2k displayport out), in part because its USB-C can't charge it. I literally have 6 things I plug into it at work each morning (power, keyboard, mouse, headphones, HDMI monitor, miniDP monitor). Some docks would cut that down, but I feel like if I can't get down to 1 it's not worth it.

The W-series isn't nearly as sleek as the XPS, although the T-series ones are looking pretty good these days!

T450 (has 2 dimm slots) but not T450s (smaller, has 1 dimm slot + 1 soldered module)

4= display size (14’) 5= cpu generation (here: Broadwell)

So an equivalent to the new XPS would be a

T480 T480s

Thunderbolt is only available from T470 onwards (not in the x270)

The Reddit ThinkPad forum is your friend here.

I also swapped the Killer wireless for an Intel unit.

I've never bought anything from them since.

[1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018...

I could not disagree more with you as a developer.

- The X1 Carbon lets me use Nvidia GPUs using an eGPU.

- It has a much, much better keyboard. On my MBP, I hit this problem: https://youtu.be/4QDsqWkUvXQ

- The high end models don't force you to get a touchbar.

- I love having more port diversity and number of slots vs. the MBP. No dongle life for me.

- As an added bonus, I got the X1 Carbon Yoga, which has an OLED display. The display is gorgeous with fabulously dark blacks.

The one thing that I miss from the Macbook pro is it has a much better trackpad. But overall, I am very happy with the switch, and it's overly simplistic to just say "Macbooks stand on their own".

Though overall, I couldn't be happier with the switch.

I completely agree that the lenovo is a better laptop, for similar reasons to the ones you've mentioned.

I think the 'Macbooks stand on their own' comment is more along the lines of "you either operate in the macOS space, or the 'everything else' space. There isn't much crossover due to the large shift in workflow between macOS and windows". This rings true for me - I have the option of using a mac for work, but I prefer to run windows on a lenovo because the hardware is just better. I can deal with windows 10's quirks, and I just run a VM for all my linux needs - no half-assing it with the BSD terminal in macOS.

Besides that, how does linux work on your macbook?

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/92unvp/my_guide_f...

I think Google has swung more towards Linux laptops, but honestly, this, the T or X series from Lenovo, maybe System76 are the only realistic choices I see there personally. And at the end of the day, Linux and Mac offer pretty similar programming experiences.

While I understand the merits of supporting everyone's toaster, it would be nice to see an unofficial truce around a couple of key laptop models. If I could get a ThinkPad X1 Carbon or a Dell XPS13 and absolutely know it would work, I would seriously consider moving on from my launch-day original 2012 rMBP. Unfortunately, that's still the best available option for someone who's primary job is something other than writing code but writes code and admins servers sometimes.

When my machine started refusing to charge, my "next day on-site service" extended warranty turned into "you called 20 minutes too late, so it's actually in 2 days" and then "Oh, while we confirmed the appointment time with you, we never did with the tech, we'll find out when they're coming" and then "Oh yeah, they're not actually coming today, you have to take another day off work too". Then, after the tech managed to replace my main board without any ESD protection and it started completely hard locking up every 5 minutes (even in their own diagnostic tool and the EFI setup tool) it took me several days worth of phone calls and emails before they swapped it out.

Of course, about a year later, I started having problems with the SECOND laptop they'd sent me and had to send it back to have parts replaced. A few months later, right after the warranty expired, the screen started going crazy. I've found the right place to hit it to fix it whenever that happens (about once a month).

Next machine I get, I'm going back to an X1 Carbon.

I'm pretty careful about turning everything off -- for example bluetooth, etc. For maximum power savings I use a very high contrast colour scheme and turn the backlight down using xblacklight. Indoors, in the library for instance, I can happily turn it down to 7-11%. Outdoors, I usually need 70%. If I'm on the train or bus (I often work on the go), then I'm usually about 20%. The backlight is really the biggest thing to consider. It helps to spend some time in Powertop and see what's draining the battery.

Another important thing is that I run as little disk access as possible. Even with only 8 gigs of memory, I have no swap partition or swap file. I try to stay out of the browser and do as much as possible with TDD -- files will be cached by the OS. As much as possible I have no VMs running (obviously with the lack of memory) and as we've pretty much moved over to Docker this has helped out.

Apart from that I'm pretty anal about my machine. I don't allow anything to run that I'm not completely aware of. I've got a processor monitor running and if I notice it spike when I'm not doing anything, I track down what's going on. Same thing with memory.

Ah.. One more thing. I almost always have the WIFI turned off, unless I'm actually communicating with someone. I tend to work using pomodoros and spend 5 minutes every half an hour checking my email, etc. But I try to keep offline documentation, etc available.

I'm going to be replacing this machine soon (I think it's 3-4 years old now). I'll probably end up buying the V63's replacement (I forget the model number). It's supposed to have about 10% more battery, so I'm looking forward to seeing if I can relax some of my habits. If I'm not grinding the machine too much I can usually get 9-10 hours. However some days I only manage 6, which is a pain.

What does affect me is the glossy display...

Mostly though, I'm jealous of a friends' macbook keyboard and trackpad. My particular xps is not amazing in those areas

The trackpad of the XPS is worse than the macbook, but at least it feels OK. Overall, I prefer the input methods of the XPS.

However, the battery life is terrible after upgrading Ubuntu LTS from 16 to 18 as it doesn't sleep properly. I wrote a more detailed review of it here (2018 version, not the new one just released): https://unop.uk/dell-xps-13-ubuntu-review/

Now I know where to put the tape! ;)

For the rest of the specs, seems to make the MBA look like a pretty fair deal so long as you like the Apple ecosystem.

Also worth looking at the Lenovo X1. Similarly light and powerful.

Edit: My only complaint with the XPS13 is the ports ... it's definitely one short (power, monitor, USB peripherals) which forces you to get the expensive dock. Not cool.

I am waiting for the right time to buy an ubuntu laptop, but it still seems like a MBP is the better choice. You're just much less likely to run into some weird hardware driver issue.

I guess it used to be quite a bit cheaper to get a non-apple laptop, but it seems like the other companies have figured out that you can charge more for a "premium" product..... Looking at the above comparison, price would not be a differentiator for me. ( Do I really care about what amounts to a ~$300 price difference if we were looking at literally same specs? )

It's too bad because I'd love for there to be a real, price conscious alternative to an apple laptop, but that doesn't seem to be the way the industry is going. It seems like every year dell and lenovo creep closer to apple pricing.

Similar specs to the XPS13 and weighing in at around 1KG.

But for some reason Asus don't sell the 16GB models in the UK :/

The MBA is a weird machine, to me, as it's almost as heavy and almost as expensive as the Pro, with far worse specs.