This is anecdotal, but we’ve been buying the 13" XPS laptops and have been pretty happy with them thus far. It’s only about half a dozen copies, but they’ve been solid. The only thing I don’t like is the new ones drank the USB-C kool-aid and ditched all of the other ports, which makes them much less convenient. We have specifically been buying the older models but the stocks are definitely going to run out at some point.
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As someone who spends their time tabbing between MacOS and Windows, the idea of switching to a Windows PC on the grounds of user experience seems, you know, fucking insane. But I realise that when people say that, it’s meant more as a rhetorical tantrum than an actual statement that they’d rather use Windows. And it is good that Apple knows when people are angry about their decisions. And while lighter is always better, they really don’t need to make their stuff thinner (they do seem to be belatedly easing up on that fetish).
That said, I think their quest to standardise key travel at less than 1mm is a separate thing. They are right that moving between mechanical keyboards and Mac or iOS keyboards is a worse experience than sticking to either one alone. I stopped using my Filco, not because I didn’t like it, but because sooner or later I’d have to use a Macbook keyboard (not to mention iOS), and getting used to one always makes the other annoying.
As to whether the new Macbook keyboards have reliability problems, I hope they don’t (I will probably want to replace my 2015 MBP within the next 3 years), but at this point, the internet’s usefulness as a source of information on that has reached zero. If the Verge says the new MBP keyboard is certain to kill my whole extended family, all that tells me is that ten or more people have had keyboard problems worldwide.
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Considering that no touch typist will be able to use such a device, I am exceedingly doubtful that even Apple is so stupid as to try doing that.
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I have a 2017 MacPro. I had a bit of the sticky key issue at around six months but I was able to pry out the bits of glurp without disassembling anything and haven’t had any problems for a while.
During the summer, I spend a lot of time working outside at parks. Hell, I’ve worked outside near a beach. And the keyboard’s still doing fine.
I really miss the battery life of my Air, though. I’m still not entirely sure the Retina screen was worth going from ~8h to ~2h; it’s effectively half again as heavy as the Air was since I have to carry around a charger when I go out.
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I don’t see myself ever getting a Windows machine, but I will switch to Linux if Apple doesn’t have something to sell me that I want to buy, when the time comes.
Fair point, and worth remembering. Unhappy customers are always the loudest.
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I suspect they may try to do a taptic touch type setup. Dunno if such a thing would be acceptable but I can definitely see Apple trying it.
A few years ago, the Dell XPS was the first laptop to have a close to bezel-less display and the impression it made was incredible. I went to check out the latest models at the Microsoft store and felt no spark of joy. I was tempted because of how inexpensive last year’s models are on craigslist and eBay. Now I know.
It’s a good pair of sneakers being sold as shoes, if you see what I mean.
This year’s darling is the Huawei Matebook X. I haven’t had a chance to check it out!
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Naw fam, that was Zenith Data Systems (ZDS a division of Zenith electronics of Zenith TV fame) . Lenovo didn’t start making Sapper’s Thinkpads until later. In 2005 Lenovo acquired the IBM personal computing division which gave them IBMs more advance production tech.
Side note: ZDS was originally Heath who made IBM PC compatables and where IBMs biggest competition circa1984 in sales of PCs (second only to Compaq). Heath was a major pioneer in the portable computer market
“Everything including clothes in a WOW Airlines ‘personal item’ bag” light. 17"x13"x10"
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Lenovo is taking this lil’ fella to a second generation about now:
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Yeah, you got me beat. I don’t travel much by plane, but I like the idea of just not having that much to carry around.
I think its more that even with units that’ll get weird on ya. It doesn’t happen during the review cycle. So Dell doesn’t even have to sort units. How long does a reviewer actual use these things for? Couple months.
My glue issue apparently comes about through heat from the monitor breaking down insufficiently applied adhesive. Allowing a nearly unnoticable gap to form where the bezel begins to seperate from the frame, and providing acess for bugs to get into the screen panel. Like not even between the panel and its matt cover. In the lcd.
Reviewers not going to use that screen for a year and eight months before publishing. And that’s the sort of quality issue Dell is getting known for. They take a bit of time to crop up, they aren’t tied to specific models or even parts. And aren’t guarenteed to show up in any given unit known to have the issue.
The bugs and what have tend to come with Dell’s own system updates or mishandling of updates from others. Think dad’s issue was one of the spector/meltdown updates from intel or windows. As packaged by Dell for driver and chipset updates it bricked a bunch of mostly brand new laptops.
None of that is gonna typically happen during a pre or early release review window.
No its an actual statement that I’d rather use windows. A lot of people dislike macOs on usability grounds. On simple day to day stuff there’s not a large amount of difference these days. MacOs doesn’t have the stabiloty it uses to. And Windows doesn’t have the instability it was once known for. But going back years every time I’ve experienced fixing shit or doing things more complicated than light use on macOs. It was not only much, much more unpleasant than Windows, but often actively impossible.
My line has always been sometimes Windows breaks, but you can fix it. If macOs breaks you aren’t allowed to.
That’s before you get into the fact that Apple’s supposedly simple and straight forward UI ethos often over simplifies things to the point where they become vastly more difficult to accomplish. I could scream for hours about trying to work email attachments on iOs.
That’s pithy, but it absolutely doesn’t map to my experience on either platform since the 90s.
When Windows (or, increasingly, something installed on Windows, like Outlook) breaks, the usual approach is a reinstall. I’ve had to do this several times on the Dell I bought 18 months ago.
I have literally NEVER had a problem with a Mac that required this, and I’ve been using OSX/MacOS as a daily driver since its introduction.
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It’s a darn shame that this underdog of a company doesn’t have the financial and intellectual resources to immediately address the fact that their bad design decisions are creating a ton of detractors.
What can you even buy with a quarter TRILLION dollars these days anyway?
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Lucky you. I’ve unfortunely had to maintain or fix multiple mac based editing stations, or try to make them work outside of Apple only ecosystems. When they’re having a serious problem you often don’t have the access needed to do so if its possible at all. Once upon a time that was offset by such things happening less often but that just isn’t the case anymore.
It works for certain software and driver issues. And it something I’ve had to do a lot on macOs as well (its often the only thing you can do on macOs). But generally what you aren’t going to be doing on mac is digging into the system itself to find out what the actual problem is to prevent it from happening again. Or fix an issue that’s OS based rather than some software weird.
I don’t think you’ll be fixing conflicting registry entries on macOs, hand editing the start up order, or typing shit into a comand prompt to force network behavior. Preventing the updater from pulling outdated drivers.
Well I mean both my previous comments on this thread are about what a shit show Dell is, inclusing software issues.
A lot of the instability in Windows has traditionally been down to driver and software conflicts. Thanks to the much larger number of things Windows needs to deal with software and hardware wise. And an awful lot of the routine jank you see on Windows these days is the result of OEM specific settings and software. Dell and most other OEMs distribute proprietary versions things like bios and drivers. Not only do these tend to be months or sometimes years behind the current revision from the people who actually made the chips. But they’re often a lot buggier. So bios’s should always come from mobo manufacturers. Chipset drivers should always come from amd/intell or mobo manufactuers. GPU drivers should always come from AMD/nVidia not from Dell or the manufacturer of the specific card. And so forth.
Windows knows that and its current functionality for keeping that all updated automagically tends to pull from the right source of update. But Dell (and other brands), redirect that to their own driver distributions.
Then you’ve got the assorted crapware, and brand specific software like Dell support/update center bullshit, tweaks, and overlays. All of which bogs shit down and causes conflicts and bugs. I’ve mostly been building my own PCs since I was a kid. And where I couldn’t do that I’ve mostly stripped as much of that bullshit out as possible, and run clean installs of Windows. Or worked places where the IT guys were empowered to do the same. So for the most part I’ve never really seen the same level of issues other people report with Windows. Especially since Windows 7 and Windows 10.
I haven’t used Outlook in a long while but I don’t recall it being particularly stable. So while its possible its an Outlook issue. Its more likely to be a Dell issue. There’s likely a way to stop that from happening again. And it probably involves removing as much Dell associated horse shit as possible.
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From the user reviews it sounds like the 2017 XPS 15 was a pile of heat throttled garbage. it sounds like the 2018 handles thermals better (Assuming you stick with the i7 and don’t get the i9) but that they still suffer from other non-thermal issues. I guess maybe before 2017 they had some good years?
I’ve been watching reviews videos for 2 months and haven’t felt confident in any model of any maker to to be worth forking over several thousand dollars. That is until the Lenovo X1 extreme. The early reviewers seem to genuinely like it but I will wait a bit to see how consumers respond.
Huawei Matebook X looks sexy. if I went that route i’d get the pro though for a bigger screen. Not crazy about the nostril cam but honestly don’t use web cams that often. I will take another look at how they compare to the X1 for 4k editing which is my long pole.
My impression is that it is usually a week at most. So likely they are not hitting issues that take time to manifest.
My comment about the machines quality and PR is that users seem to either love their machine or hit a bunch of issues out of the box on day 1 and yet none of the reviewers are hitting this that I have seen. To be fair, If I was sending hardware to a reviewers, I sure would make sure the the hardware was functioning.
I’m the type of consumer that is willing to pay a premium for a product that is made well and gives me a minimum of grief. But it seems many “premium” products these days spend all their budget on aesthetics and scrimp on build quality and QA.
That was mostly a rhetorical question. Most of the better ones seem to cite how long they use things. Longest I’ve seen is 2 months.
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I don’t know what this means. Are you saying you haven’t been given root or admin access, or what?
And it something I’ve had to do a lot on macOs as well
I gently suggest it might not’ve actually been required.
its often the only thing you can do on macOs
This is not true, at least not in the sense it is in Windows, because even if the OS gets horribly pear-shaped, the in-place reinstall will correct most troubles without requiring apps and data be wiped and replaced as well.
MacOS is more fixable in large part because of the absence of the system-crippling, ever-growing, absurdly-hostile Registry, and also in part because MacOS doesn’t do the whole DLL-tracking thing that results in inexorably expanding C:\Windows folders on long-running Windows installs.
The Outlook problem I noted is an artifact of that. There’s no fucking reason for Office or Outlook to be so tightly coupled to the OS that wipe-and-reinstall is the Official Path Forward for persistent Outlook crashes. I mean, that’s just fucking absurd.
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Until Lenovo fixes the infuriating key rollover problem the dates back to IBM era Thinkpads I’ll never choose a Lenovo product (I was assigned a T480 for work and I hate it). The goddamn thing constantly beeps at me for typing on it too quickly.
