Hi,
I have two alternative Dell options (unless more suggestions come in re: what I should get).
The employer's standard fare which entails:
#1. High Performance, Daily Use 14” Laptop: Latitude 7490 Processor: Intel Core i7-8650U Memory: 16GB Storage: 512GB SSD Graphics Card: integrated Wireless: integrated LCD: 14.0” LCD (1920x1080) Non-Touch Anti-Glare LCD with Camera Camera: Light Sensitive Webcam and Noise Cancelling Digital Array Mic
Comes with Windoze, but other than the fact that I will be paying the monopoly tax and stripping it off, it is not a big deal.
#2. Dell XPS 13 9370 Developer Edition Processor: Intel Core i7-8550U Memory: 16GB Storage: 512GB SSD Graphics Card: integrated
8th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.0 GHz) 16GB LPDDR3 2133MHz Thermal Plate for SSD 512GB Solid State Drive Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 13.3'' 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) InfinityEdge touch display, Killer 1435 802.11ac 2x2 and Bluetooth 52WHr Battery
Comes with Ubuntu 16.04 (no tax) but which will be used to boot and see if it is powers up before being stripped for Fedora 28.
The XPS13 has a slightly lower spec for the processor (maybe, because it appears to be of slightly earlier stock - 8550U versus 8650U) but the specs are fairly comparable. The resolution is no doubt better for the XPS13. This configuration will cost me $700 more than the Latitude. Which I am willing to pay unless there are technical reasons for preferring the Latitude. The XPS13 is about a pound lighter from what I can tell.
While we are at it, any other suggestions from DEll or others?
Many thanks in advance and best wishes, Ranjan
PS: I have a 5-year old XPS13, fabulous machine and I am typing this e-mail on it right now. But it is 5-years old and may die so in need for a replacement.
Ranjan
On 05/09/2018 07:49 PM, Ranjan Maitra wrote:
The XPS13 has a slightly lower spec for the processor (maybe, because it appears to be of slightly earlier stock - 8550U versus 8650U) but the specs are fairly comparable. The resolution is no doubt better for the XPS13. This configuration will cost me $700 more than the Latitude. Which I am willing to pay unless there are technical reasons for preferring the Latitude. The XPS13 is about a pound lighter from what I can tell.
My personal machine is an XPS 13 9370. My employer provides me with a Latitude 7390. Pretty close to the two models you're considering... Right now I'm waiting for a BIOS update for both, because the keyboard loses some key events and the fix is due out .. soon.
For my use, the two are extremely similar. I like the Latitude slightly better, since I'd rather have actual buttons for the mouse. I don't like clicking trackpads. Having some USB-A ports is useful, too. Other than that, there are no noticeable differences.
Your price note seems odd, though. My XPS cost about $850 , and a Latitude 7390 with similar specs was close to twice that much. If the Latitude were similar in cost or less expensive than the XPS, I'd have definitely purchased that one.
Thanks! Great to see someone who has almost both of my two competitors:
For my use, the two are extremely similar. I like the Latitude slightly better, since I'd rather have actual buttons for the mouse. I don't like clicking trackpads. Having some USB-A ports is useful, too. Other than that, there are no noticeable differences.
I agree with the XPS trackpad issue. There is no noticeable difference between the two otherwise? I think that the XPS is about one pound lighter. And also the screen resolution is HD as opposed to QHD for the XPS. I am told that the XPS has more bezel space.
Your price note seems odd, though. My XPS cost about $850 , and a Latitude 7390 with similar specs was close to twice that much. If the Latitude were similar in cost or less expensive than the XPS, I'd have definitely purchased that one.
The Latitude 7490 with specs that I quoted is priced at $1410 but that may be somewhat less because of bulk purchasing. This is the standard issue for our work. If we want XPS 13 with similar specs, it costs around $2000 with 4-year warranty (which is a requirement for a purchase to be approved). Are you sure that your specs are similar to what I am pricing -- 512 GB SSD, 16GB RAM? $850 seems a bargain, it looks!
Thanks again! Ranjan
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On 05/09/2018 10:06 PM, Ranjan Maitra wrote:
I agree with the XPS trackpad issue. There is no noticeable difference between the two otherwise? I think that the XPS is about one pound lighter. And also the screen resolution is HD as opposed to QHD for the XPS. I am told that the XPS has more bezel space.
As to the weight, that's probably correct. Remember, I'm using the Latitude 7390, the 13" model.
I'm looking at Dell's site right now, and it looks like the Latitude 7490 has HD (1366 x 768) and FHD (1920 x 1080) options, while the XPS has FHD and Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) options.
The XPS has a much smaller bezel, but that comes at the cost of having the webcam below the screen rather than above the screen where pretty much every other laptop puts it. Personally, I don't care about the bezel *or* the webcam. :)
The Latitude 7490 with specs that I quoted is priced at $1410 but that may be somewhat less because of bulk purchasing. This is the standard issue for our work. If we want XPS 13 with similar specs, it costs around $2000 with 4-year warranty (which is a requirement for a purchase to be approved). Are you sure that your specs are similar to what I am pricing -- 512 GB SSD, 16GB RAM? $850 seems a bargain, it looks!
No, my specs aren't those. What I meant was that at my spec (8th Gen i5, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD), I recall the XPS being *much* less expensive. The warranty might actually explain that, since adding a 4-year on the XPS is, by itself, more than $400. The Latitudes look like they default to longer warranties.
A couple of weeks ago, I got an XPS 13" 9370 with the 8th generation i7 and the same screen, SSD, and memory as the OP shows. On our university contract, I couldn't get the one with Ubuntu and had to take Windows (but Dell adjusted the price a bit so we didn't pay the full Microsoft tax). I deleted Windows and installed Fedora. (It was a bit of a headache; I had to Google how to reset the way it sees the disk before I could repartition, etc.) And I have to switch a lot of things to USB-C now. ;-)
But once I got it configured, the only issue is that the webcam doesn't work under Linux. There's a lot of discussion of this on the Dell Linux community forum (https://www.dell.com/community/Linux-General/Dell-xps-13-9370-Webcam-support...). Apparently, at least on the ones that shipped with Ubuntu, Dell is willing to come out and replace the whole screen (which downgrades the firmware on the webcam to something the linux kernel knows about). And it sounds like they may have an actual software fix very soon. I hope that they'll release that upstream and it will get to Fedora quickly... In any case, the webcam works in a Windows VM (I'm using VirtualBox; you need to enable USB 2/3 and then tell it to use the webcam), so it's definitely not a hardware problem. The issue seems to involve UVC 1.50 and maybe the infrared camera. (But, at least for now, I don't have to put a piece of tape over the webcam.)
I don't like the keyboard and trackpad as much as my 5-year-old Lenovo X1 (on which the battery is dying and keycaps are falling off, but it has real mouse buttons). But the battery life on the new Dell is really good, much better than the X1 ever was. And the screen is very nice when you do the appropriate HiDPI scaling. If you carry it around a lot, I would go with the 13" for the weight advantage.
George
On Wed, May 09, 2018 at 09:49:28PM -0500, Ranjan Maitra wrote:
Hi,
I have two alternative Dell options (unless more suggestions come in re: what I should get).
[ ... ]
While we are at it, any other suggestions from DEll or others?
Yes: Dell Alienware.
Machines in this series are probably some of the fasted portables - I got myself an Alienware 17 in 2014. Runs up until 3.8 GHz, without problems.
Cons: Weight.
Lousy battery, it seems: after four yrs. of usage it runs with small loads only ~75 minutes now. And I had to re-train the battery to last at least that long. I used the machine at home, battery plugged in, but most of the time on AC/power cable.
Trackpad surface slightly peeling off now.
Price.
On Fedora 26 xorg the mini-Display port doesn't work here for an external monitor setup.
Pros: After all the years (the first two or so with MS Windows): still fast. And reliably so.
Display cloning works reliably with the HDMI port - after a little help by and tuning with xrandr.
I use the machine both with a testing version of Debian (not often) and most of the time with Fedora, still 26 - just works.
I can open the case and add or remove hardware, including the battery - definitely something I wouldn't like to miss ..
Speed. Think about Fedora updates worth half a Gb or more, and the time it probably takes to install them on slow hardware: on this machine dnf install messages run down so fast I can barely read them ...
But careful: Dell - at least when I look at their pages - do seem to offer Nvidia only for their new machines - and I wouldn't recommend to use Nvidia GFX. (I bought this machine with an AMD/Pitcairn GPU back then)
But the AMD card option is still described here: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/19/help-me-choose/hmc-aw-video-card-laptops Still I couldn't find it in their current hardware configuration options ...
Given the overall hardware performance - despite the glitches I described, and perhaps a few minor ones that turned up sporadically - I'd buy easily again another machine like that - provided the current one keeps going for at least another four years as reliably as it has done so far, and provided I can have an AMD card, or one even better than that ..
Oh, nearly forgot that: the current AW's even look lots better than mine ... ;)
HTH Wolfgang
On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 01:05:40AM +0200, Wolfgang Pfeiffer wrote:
But careful: Dell - at least when I look at their pages - do seem to offer Nvidia only for their new machines - and I wouldn't recommend to
Correction: should say: "for their new Alienware machines"
Sorry ..
-
George Avrunin -
Gordon Messmer -
Ranjan Maitra -
Wolfgang Pfeiffer