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Notebooks Reasons *not* to buy an XPS 13?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Gareth Halfacree, 10 Oct 2017.

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  1. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    Thought you'd have gone for "Le no vote", myself. Disappoint.
     
    bawjaws, 11 Oct 2017
    #41
    Guest-23315 likes this.
  2. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Dammit, that is better.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 11 Oct 2017
    #42
  3. jinq-sea

    jinq-sea 'write that down in your copy book' Super Moderator

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    ...and that's a win right there.
     
    jinq-sea, 11 Oct 2017
    #43
  4. lancer778544

    lancer778544 Multimodder

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    I have a XPS 13 9360 with a 7th gen i7, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD and the QHD+ touchscreen. It's absolutely lovely. Apart from the lack of ethernet and HDMI out (Which I guess you're used to with the Macbook air) which I solved with a second hand USB C Kensington hub thingy off ebay, I can't think of a reason why I couldn't recommend it.
     
    lancer778544, 11 Oct 2017
    #44
  5. The_Crapman

    The_Crapman World's worst stuntman. Lover of bit-tech

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    Work is such a varied term that quite clearly can't be defined to specifics. Like the woman I sit next to at "work" thinks that "working" involves spending half the day on your phone talking to various family members about her spoiled brat child.

    Those muscle bound munchkins could can be used to do your bidding, especially for the precise jobs your now shakey hands are unable to do.
     
    The_Crapman, 11 Oct 2017
    #45
  6. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    Well I've just updated and restarted and I'm not really impressed with the result. Already had it click away while replying to another thread. Uname -a says: Linux xps 4.4.0-97-generic. My bios was also recently updated. I'll swing back into windows and check again, but I doubt it will have changed in the interim. Who knows maybe 4.5 will bring something different.
     
    theshadow2001, 12 Oct 2017
    #46
  7. Omnislip

    Omnislip Minimodder

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    Clearly it's not working well for you, but I do many of these things that you say should be impossible! (and most I've been doing since 2012)

    If there weren't so many excellent programs written exclusively for macOS I think I'd make the jump too. edit: to Linux, that is. Windows can go stab itself with a rusty, diseased knife.
     
    Omnislip, 12 Oct 2017
    #47
  8. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Such as? 'Cos the only things in that list that have been fixed in the four years I've owned that POS are the 20-pixel stripe and that I got Google Calendar working by completely ignoring Apple's instructions and the "Tick this box to make Google Calendar work" tickbox.

    Look at this shite:

    [​IMG]

    That's a demonstration of how Apple's software can't even handle highlighting and overtyping text properly - something my Commodore 64 can do - reported back in 2016 and still not fixed. The flaw itself is years older - as far as I'm aware, as old as OS X itself. It's certainly been an issue with my MacBook Air since I bought it in 2013, despite numerous upgrades to - at the time of writing - macOS 10.13.1 Developer Preview.

    I got in touch with Apple's support team about it, incidentally. A couple of hours later the only suggestion they could offer was "try completely reinstalling your operating system from scratch, but to be honest we have no idea if that'll fix it." Nice.

    The only software I use on macOS which isn't available elsewhere:
    Mail.app - out of stubbornness, and literally the only built-in Apple software I haven't replaced.
    CleanMyMac - had to shell out £30 to fix Mail.app's desire to eat ALL THE DRIVE SPACE.
    ForkLift - because Finder is horrible. That's another £25-ish eaten by Apple's inability to make software.

    That's it. Literally everything else I use is available cross-platform and, typically, works a lot better on non-Apple platforms: Chrome, Firefox, LibreOffice, The Gimp, Skype, Syncthing...
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 12 Oct 2017
    #48
    edzieba, Guest-23315 and MLyons like this.
  9. MLyons

    MLyons 70% Dev, 30% Doge. DevDoge. Software Dev @ Corsair Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    That has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
     
    MLyons, 12 Oct 2017
    #49
    edzieba and Omnislip like this.
  10. yuusou

    yuusou Multimodder

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    You think macOS is bad, try IOS 11...
     
    yuusou, 12 Oct 2017
    #50
  11. MLyons

    MLyons 70% Dev, 30% Doge. DevDoge. Software Dev @ Corsair Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    I've got it and it doesn't seem that bad. What do you not like about it?
     
    MLyons, 12 Oct 2017
    #51
  12. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    Looks like there's a race condition going on. But your clearly just highlighting it wrong ;)
     
    theshadow2001, 12 Oct 2017
    #52
  13. yuusou

    yuusou Multimodder

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    The fact that the "desktop" has crashed on me some 10 times, twice of which requiring a home+power button salute.
    The inconsistent UI. It looks literally "half way between IOS 10 and IOS 12." I guess they didn't have time...
    Not having a list of installed apps in the App store.
    The fact that disabling bluetooth and wifi doesn't actually disable these, it just stops them from connecting.
    Powering phone back on turns on bluetooth again.
    It completely borked the fingerprint sensor. I have to caress and rub the home button and hope it works.
    After updating, needed to reapply all permissions (camera, contacts, etc.)
    After updating, needed to reapply accessibility settings.
     
    yuusou, 12 Oct 2017
    #53
  14. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    iOS was written by monkeys on typewriters, has been from day 1... the most well-known iOS bug i can recall was 'February 2013', where the entire device would hang if you went to Feb 2013 in the calendar... This bug was present and known about since iOS 3... Apple eventually fixed it in iOS 7 which came out in... September 2013...

    ...if you want proper 'catastrofuck', iCloud is your thing... iCloud is one colossal, 'probably unfixable' [their words, not mine] ****ing mess...
     
    RedFlames, 12 Oct 2017
    #54
  15. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Bit the bullet and placed the order: 7th-Gen Core i7-7560U (2C/4T with Iris Plus 640 graphics, the one with 32MB eDRAM nobody ever knows how to use), 16GB DDR3, 512GB SSD, 13.3" Full HD display, and Commie Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS. Found a £100-off voucher, so it came to a still eyebrow-raising £1,413.60 including VAT (though, naturally, it's a business expense, so I'll get a chunk back come tax time.)

    Excite - and so long, macOS, you shan't be missed!
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 12 Oct 2017
    #55
    The_Crapman, MLyons and RedFlames like this.
  16. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    Random derail now you've actually gone and bought it...

    You gdone any tinkering/playing around with WSL on your surface Gareth?
     
    Last edited: 12 Oct 2017
    RedFlames, 12 Oct 2017
    #56
  17. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    A little bit, but mostly just to SSH into a Real Computer. To be honest, the Surface rarely gets used. S'handy for annotating PDFs with the stylus and for taking screenshots when I'm documenting stuff for Windows users, but other than that it pretty much just sits in a corner. Too heavy, too low battery life, gets too warm, and is too darn Windowsy for much else.
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 12 Oct 2017
    #57
  18. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Gareth Halfacree, 12 Oct 2017
    #58
  19. Mister_Tad

    Mister_Tad Will work for nuts Super Moderator

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    It's great, isn't it? The instant I realised that a laptop that would both fit in my bag and not require a mobile powerstation to feed could match my desktop punch for punch (with the same 5 year gap), that was pretty much it!
     
    Mister_Tad, 12 Oct 2017
    #59
  20. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Might see how loud the fan is under load, then if it's not too obnoxious look at picking up a USB Type-C dock and just using the laptop for everything. My electricity bill'd be lower!
     
    Gareth Halfacree, 12 Oct 2017
    #60
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