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There's always this option...if you happen to want to buy a Dell with neon accents.
http://www.dell.com/content/pr...

I have the same laptop and upgraded to Windows 10. The only snag was the Intel Graphics driver/Nvidia driver issue.

A quick google and voila:

1 – After installing Windows 10, go to the following Dell’s homepage:
http://www.dell.com/support/ho...
On the topic View all available updates for Windows , and click on Choose Your OS
A list of drivers will appear.
2 – Select BIOS – do the download of the file and excecute it. You have to upgrade the BIOS firmware.
Your machine will restart (it will take a little time)
After restart, if you access Device Manager on Control Panel, you’ll see that Windows 10 now recognize your video card.
3 – On the same link over, download the graphics driver (Intel HD 3000/2000 Graphics Driver) and excecute it.
Do the same with nVIDIA GeForce GT 525M/GT540M Graphics Driver
5 – After that, access Device Manager on Control Panel, right click over the nVIDIA GeForce GT 525M/GT540M Graphics Driver and choose Update Driver..

It is easy to understand once you see the price they demand. The problem is specifically that use proprietary connectors and then demand absolutely insane prices for the docks.

New ones for $172 CAD: http://accessories.us.dell.com...,

I wouldn't call that insane pricing.

I would. They are port extenders. Anything above 100$ is crazy, 172$ is insane. 50$ from new would make more sense for what they are.

It is easy to understand once you see the price they demand. The problem is specifically that use proprietary connectors and then demand absolutely insane prices for the docks.

Ummm, no.

Dell sells refurbished docking stations for $59 CAD: http://dellrefurbished.ca/en_C...

New ones for $172 CAD: http://accessories.us.dell.com...,

I wouldn't call that insane pricing.

We have lots of them at our office. People like that you just snap in and that's it - you get power, network, monitor, keyboard, mouse, all with one motion. Easy peasy.

And Dell hasn't changed the Latitude E-series docking station connector in a long time - we have some that are many years old. They don't have usb 3.0, but otherwise work fine.

They're not that non-standard. Lots of them are USB3 nowadays, and the prices aren't THAT insane (e.g. $100-$300 depending what you need).

I've had a comparable one for my notebook and work notebook, it's two cables to be up and working with the high-res screen, mouse, keyboard, anything else USB and a GbE. It's almost easier than a model-specific dock because you don't have to work out where the locating pins go (but you do need to deal with the 4-dimensional USB connector). It's a short step from that to USB 3.1 single cable, with the dock delivering power and connectivity, and I fully expect Targus or their ilk to produce a "one size for all" - an adapter for the notebook power into the dock, and a single USB to the notebook.

Ummm - http://www.dell.com/us/p/alien...

Don't think there is too much that wont play.....

I speak from experience: I'm typing this on a keyboard & screen that are connected to my XPS 13 with a Dell USB type C dock (WD15)... and it's obviously working. :-)

There are two points to note however:

1. 1. You will probably have to install a recent kernel yourself (Linux 4.5 with Fedora in my case).
2. 2. The issues with Dell's dock that are mentioned on their forum may refer to their Thunderbolt dock, the TB15.
   For more information on the difference see http://www.dell.com/support/ar....

Personally, I'm starting to prefer computer monitors to Televisions. "Smart TVs" aren't nearly smart, nor configurable enough, for my taste - why not just get a simple monitor and hook up a real computer that you have some measure of control over?

At this point in time, a monitor over 55" is prohibitively expensive eg http://accessories.us.dell.com...
My TV cost less than half this price (even though it effectively a monitor since I don't use the tuner, speakers or anything else).

There's a comment on the 10 Zen Monkeys article that links to a Dell forum post about the exact same issue *in 2014*

http://en.community.dell.com/s...

Maybe Dell *can't* fix this problem -- so their only solution is to hope nobody notices...

Anyone notice that that the link is to a forum post from SIX MONTHS ago? And here's a post in Dell's forum about the problem in 2014 -- so, *18* months ago.

http://en.community.dell.com/s...

Is Dell unable to address this problem -- so they're just hoping it goes away?

Macs

Dell Ubuntu

I imagine more options will start appearing soon enough, at least for Linux/BSD given the nonsense MS is pulling with Win10.

I don't know about everyone else but I haven't owned a TV in at least 10 years. I've never been a big TV person.

That said, I did buy a small projector that I use for watching movies and documentaries on Netflix.

It is low power, very portable and displays in HD (720p). It will literally fit into a large coat pocket.

Details here.

I'm not a big fan of Dell, but I highly recommend this device if you are in the market for a projector/TV.

And then Dell's software re-enables it, or reinstalls it if you delete it. And if you remove the software that does the reinstall and ever factory-reset your PC, it in turn gets reinstalled. It's like malware, except that it's from a commercial vendor.

Unless you... you know... follow the instructions Dell provided to remove it properly or get the update that fixes this bug.

Definitely a real dumbass move on Dell's part, but this happens in all big companies; someone thinks they're doing a really great thing by simplifying some process without giving any thought to the security ramifications.

Dell Precision M4400 in 2012, I, naturally went to download the service manual for it, and found there was no such thing anymore..

You mean this?
http://downloads.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_precision_mobile/precision-m4400_Service%20Manual_en-us.pdf

Sure it looks like it was badly converted from a web page, but it is usable.

As far as I can tell, the newest models have service manuals too (sometimes called "Owner's Manual").

Their official blog post actually has a PDF link - not sure if they've updated it since releasing the (weird) DOCX file, or if the DOCX came from another source.

Heh, as pointed out at the bottom of that article someone in Dell marketing needs to eat some serious humble pie:

http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-1...
"Dell is serious about your privacy
Worried about Superfish? Dell limits its pre-loaded software to a small number of high-value applications on all of our computers. Each application we pre-load undergoes security, privacy and usability testing to ensure that our customers experience the best possible computing performance, faster set-up and reduced privacy and security concerns."

Youch.

Considering - At least the Dell Steam Machines have been built with help from Valve Id say the specs of them would differ quite vastly from two year old machine. http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alien...

This bracket mounts between the monitor and the VESA attachment point.

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd

Who's your daddy now ?

They even make a developer edition running Ubuntu. The problem is, all the reviews point out the poor keyboard and trackpad. Deal breaker for me. I'll stick with Macbooks until I can get something at least as good. Why is it so hard for anyone else to build a trackpad that good?

Did they finally fix annoying coil whine? Dell wasn't able to do that for their top XPS models in last 2.5 years. Replacement boards also had this issue and Dell didn't care.

Here is 56 pages thread: http://en.community.dell.com/s...

Qualiity is crap these days :-(

How's the weather in 2008?
A decent gaming PC (read: as good or better graphics/framerate vs. consoles) w/ HDMI output on a midrange graphics card is $500 now.

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspi...

£445 and I haven't added a fucking graphics card yet.
Or just pay £270 for the Xbox One.

I greatly prefer PC games and don't own a console, but do try and have some fucking balance in your response to someone that's looking for useful guidance.

Want Android? Pay M$.

Wrong. Head over here and grab Android, no payment necessary to anybody.

Want Apple? You're probably paying M$.

Wrong again.

Want a PC? Unless you build it yourself, you're paying M$.

Nope. Still wrong. Even from the biggest vendors you can buy Linux laptops and there are plenty of ChromeOS-based systems from laptops to desktops. Even if you buy a PC pre-loaded with Windows you can contact the manufacturer for a refund of the license cost.

Even if you don't, they're still controlling the hardware specs.

No. No they aren't.

This is extortion and monopolization at its finest.

No it isnt extortion and certainly in today's realm of personal computing that includes everything from smartphones to tablets to PCs Microsoft does not have a monopoly by any definition. There are a wealth of personal computing options: Windows, various Linux distros, OSX, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, FirefoxOS, ChromeOS, etc.

Meanwhile, my blood ran cold when I read this knowing that LadyAda sold out. I guess she needed the money. So much for Adafruit.

Nobody "sold out", you're just upset at choice and competition. Competition is a good thing, we have it in personal computing and we should have it in the embedded space too. If you don't like Windows on embedded devices then by all means choose Linux instead, nobody is stopping you.

Want Android? Pay M$.

Wrong. Head over here and grab Android, no payment necessary to anybody.

Want Apple? You're probably paying M$.

Wrong again.

Want a PC? Unless you build it yourself, you're paying M$.

Nope. Still wrong. Even from the biggest vendors you can buy Linux laptops and there are plenty of ChromeOS-based systems from laptops to desktops. Even if you buy a PC pre-loaded with Windows you can contact the manufacturer for a refund of the license cost.

Even if you don't, they're still controlling the hardware specs.

No. No they aren't.

This is extortion and monopolization at its finest.

No it isnt extortion and certainly in today's realm of personal computing that includes everything from smartphones to tablets to PCs Microsoft does not have a monopoly by any definition. There are a wealth of personal computing options: Windows, various Linux distros, OSX, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, FirefoxOS, ChromeOS, etc.

Meanwhile, my blood ran cold when I read this knowing that LadyAda sold out. I guess she needed the money. So much for Adafruit.

Nobody "sold out", you're just upset at choice and competition. Competition is a good thing, we have it in personal computing and we should have it in the embedded space too. If you don't like Windows on embedded devices then by all means choose Linux instead, nobody is stopping you.

I can second this. My Dell XPS 13 "Developer Edition" that came preinstalled with Ubuntu is the best Linux laptop I have ever owned. I hate the crap Broadcom WiFi card in it, but it does work fine out of the box with Ubuntu and Linux Mint. I did have to replace the preinstalled Dell version of Ubuntu as it was horribly corrupted somehow (if you ran anything other than trivial programs, they would crash). I also own a System76 Linux laptop, but I think the Dell "Developer Edition" XPS 13 model and the M3800 model are better built machines. Check http://www.dell.com/ubuntu or http://www.system76.com/ as both options do ship with Ubuntu preinstalled.

I have Dell Precision M3800 for my work and it has been fantastic. It comes pre-configured with Ubuntu and thus saves you a hundred dollars vis-a-vis the Windows LIcense cost. I am very happy with the machine and use it has a workstation replacement. I push it hard and it has been fine. I would suggest that if you use it as a development machine to purchase a stand to allow it to cool properly. The graphic device drivers are great and it is an actual working touch-screen which I honestly don't use (emacs users) but does make the Unity interface actually usable. Link is here; http://www.dell.com/us/busines... Lenovo's have been good in the past but Lenovo is reducing quality fast and thus I would not suggest such a machine. HP also would not be a good choice. (Thanks Fiorina!)

I saw this link in another thread, but I haven't used it. Anyone care to comment?

Read the comment you originally responded to again. He wasn't comparing Apple to Microsoft. He was comparing Desktop to Laptop. It doesn't matter how powerful Apple's desktops are, desktops are inherently more powerful than laptops. The Mac Pro is more powerful than the Macbook Pro, and always will be (for the same generation). You can't get 32 or 64 GB of ram in a laptop (yet), you can't get 4 hard drives in a laptop (likely ever).

You came up with the relative power, it was a strawman that wasn't in the original post you replied to. There was no need to respond to the strawman you came up with.

This is one point s/he made:

windows is still king of compatibility

This is the other point:

For desktops on the other hand, where you might actually need some power

The point was that desktops are more powerful than laptops, not that Windows is more powerful than Unix. The other point was that Windows is still king of compatibility. Can you refute either of those points? Your response didn't address either of them, and I attempted to point that out to you.

I know all about what Apple designed, but that has 0 bearing on the comment you replied to.

As far as the Dell $600 computer, it depends, at different times Dell has come out with $600 computers that run circles around the current at the time Apple models, so just writing them off as POS is silly. Also, why would you compare a $600 Dell instead of a $2000 Dell that would beat the pants off of the $3000 Macbook pro?

http://configure.us.dell.com/d...

I use a Dell Latitude 7440 and absolutely love it. i7, 16GB RAM, 256 SSD, 14" 1080p, backlit keyboard, great battery life with Win 7. There's no way I would pay double for a Mac with similar specs.

You're right - there's no way you'd pay double for a Mac with similar specs. Let's compare the baseline models, for example - even though the Mac has twice the RAM and twice the SSD space, as well as a faster processor. Oh, and by the way it appears the 7440 has a low-end 1366x768 display, not 1080P like you stated...

Dell Latitude E7440 w/ 2.0GHz i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 14" screen - $1202.55 (after $687 "instant savings")
Retina MacBook Pro w/ 2.7GHz i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 13" screen - $1299.00

Bumping the MacBook Pro up to 3.1GHz i7, 16GB RAM raises the price to $1799. Unfortunately the Dell page doesn't seem to let me configure the E7440 with options you've listed, so I can't give you their quoted price for the upgrade - but I doubt they're selling it for $400 less than the barebones version, which would have to be the case for your statement to be true.

I did find one on Amazon that was spec'ed more like what you say - except it still has that 1366x768 display, and doesn't have a backlit keyboard. Even that is selling for $1500.

People buy apples because so many PC laptops and desktops suck. Take a walk to any Best Buy, Wal Mart, or even Microsoft Store and you will see stacks of cheap, plastic underpowered suckage. Apple has an incentive for their machines to run their OS well or they won't sell. PC manufacturers have the luxury of getting to sell junk to people who don't know any better. To Microsoft's credit, Windows 10 seems to work pretty well on underpowered PC's, but at the cost of substantial privacy issues.

There are some good PC laptops out there. I really like the new Dell XPS 13, for example. But pound for pound, it costs about the same as a comparable Mac, particularly if you go with an SSD, which is standard on all Macs (e.g., Dell XPS 13 with 256 GB SSD and 8GB RAM and Windows Home is $1599; a 13-inch Macbook Pro with similar specs comes in at $1499).

But as some other poster already said, the reputation of PC's generally stinks because the quality, and after-market support, is so spotty. A lot of people are posting that ThinkPads kick ass (and I can attest that they used to be awesome), but I've seen just as many people post ThinkPads have gone steadily downhill since Lenovo took over. Right now, the XPS 13 is the only laptop I have confidence recommending to people. And PC desktops? Roll you own, lest that retail box come with a two-year-old Celeron and a 90 Watt power supply.

Throw 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD into one of the new Dells, and I think you might find they outperform your MBP...

Depends on usage; a CG render engine eats CPU, which no amount of RAM or I/O speed will affect.

By the way, trying to match a new Dell what my 2012-model MBP has winds up costing a mint...)

Slap in a 1tb SSD and it really makes a difference I run 2 VM's daily on 16gb on a late 2011 MBP and the SSD make it faster than any brand new dell I have seen come in the office.

Try spending a quarter as much on the dell next time you compare.

Hmm. 1tb SSD going on newegg today for $477. Quarter of that is ~$120. What would $120 buy to dramatically speed up an office-grade dell?

I think the point is swapping out a spinning hard drive with an SSD is the single best way to show dramatic improvement to your rig, and SSD's are cheaper and more reliable than ever (plus, that whole TRIM thing with macs is now solved). OTOH, spinning drives and 4GB RAM are still the standard on all the cheap new dells for sale out there. Once you deck out a dell with similar features to a mac, the prices become pretty comparable (e.g., Dell XPS 13 with 256 GB SSD and 8GB RAM and Windows Home is $1599, whereas a 13-inch Macbook Pro with similar specs comes in at $1499). The rule applies: fast, reliable, cheap (choose two).

Same problem here, same problem for my parents. I owned a HP colour inkjet printer years ago, cartridges always dried up and I ended up using over half the ink via "cleaning mode" just to make the damn thing work again when I wanted to print a page again after a few weeks. Even worse for my parents, they bought an inkjet printer, I helped set it up, it worked, a couple days later it already had missing lines in the printouts due to clogged-up print heads. Of course my father was pissed, "every time I just want to print out one or two pages, I have to clean the damn printer for five minutes before it works again!"

So I bought a €100 black and white laser printer for my parents, they are happy with it and the 3000 pages toner cartridge will last them forever. I myself had already switched to laser printers years earlier, I bought a colour one last year (previous model to this: http://accessories.us.dell.com... ). Cost me €250, the toner lasts a long time, print quality is very good even for pictures (of course not suitable if you REALLY want to print out glossy photographs on high quality photo paper) and a third party set of toner (all colours) costs about €30.

So?

I work for Dell and am remote. I travel some, but that varies by role. Many of the people I work with are remote. http://jobs.dell.com/united-ki...

My current laptop, a Dell Precision M3800 has it all: light weight, powerful, reasonable (if not fantastic) battery life, 4K screen, and native support for Linux, out of the box but it's hard to figure out what something the same size would be like at 1/4 the weight.

But I'm agreeing with other comments: I'd rather have this exact weight laptop with 3 days of battery life.

A few years back, I bought the phone with the very best battery life and I don't regret it one minute. Now on its third year, the phone still easily powers through a day with 50% or so battery life, and never leaves me high and dry when flying commercially which is when battery life is most important.

My next phone will be the phone with the best battery life Now that I finally have a powerful laptop that isn't also dreadfully heavy, battery life will once again be #1 for my next purchase.

It isn't anywhere close to impossible.

System 76 has laptops.

Dell has Linux laptops.

HP has linux laptops.

And that's just the first three places I looked. On Dell and HP, I just went to their website and typed "linux laptop." Prices start under $300. How is that impossible?

But in the real world, this is a silly question right from the start. Who ever uses the OS that came pre-installed on their laptop? The first step is always to wipe the OS and get rid of all the pre-installed malware. Then you install the OS of your choice clean and fresh. That's true for Linux, Windows, or whatever.

So if you prefer Asus or Toshiba or Lenovo or whoever, by all means, buy one and wipe it and install the OS of your choice.

Really? Let's ignore the fact taht just about any modern laptop will support Linux with maybe needing to download some Video drivers (or with Optimus, changing a setting in BIOS to disable the dual Optimus setting)
http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspi...

https://www.google.com/search?...

Not as many Windows laptops, but plenty out there.

Less of an issue among people/organizations who exclusively buy new, from manufacturer or authorized retailer; but (at least on the PC side, I don't deal much with mac procurement), refurbished off-lease units are an enormous market. Very, very, popular with organizations that can't afford to ride the latest-and-greatest. It's not glamorous (something like the Optiplex 780 is nothing to write home about; but if you need a few computer labs or a cube farm on a tight budget, the fact that you can get units with an adequate 3rd party warranty, no DOA, 4GB of RAM, and an adequately punchy CPU for ~$150, sometimes a little less, each, is pretty compelling.

"Previous owner" isn't a scary vulnerability for exploits that live at the OS level; all the refurb stuff typically gets wiped once by the refurb house during their testing process, and re-imaged when it reaches the customer; but it is damn scary for firmware-level exploits. Especially motherboard firmware(HDD firmware exploits are scary; but taking out the HDD and shredding it, then replacing it with another low-capacity-everything-is-on-the-network-anyway boot disk is at least cheap); which compromises the system at a scary-deep level, and also compromises the component that makes up most of the value of the computer.

Without a good OS-level vector, preferably with a nice internet infection capability, it isn't a good candidate for a pandemic; but if this sort of firmware fuckery makes the used market about as reliable as buying street drugs, it will have a major impact.

Who approved this "article"?

This is great news for many of us who run Linux desktops. As this is one of the 2 laptops Dell delivers preinstalled with Linux in the dell.com/ubuntu program.

About 4 months ago I got an XPS 15, with almost identical specs ( 256 SSD, 16GB Ram, 4-Core i7 CPU, etc. ). But I had to void my warranty minutes after I opened the box to replace Windows with Ubuntu, so I'm basically on my own support-wise after spending north of $2K.

This laptop would have been perfect for someone like myself and hope its Linux configuration makes enough sales so that it's still around when I need a new computer 2-3 years from now.

Notably, this is one of the two "developer edition" laptops produced under Project Sputnik. It's available with Ubuntu, and no Microsoft tax.

http://www.dell.com/ubuntu

https://sputnik.github.io/

Ummm... I have no idea what you consider equivalent of a "unix workstation" but most VFX facilities are nearly exclusively linux and they just buy commodity workstations from companies like:

Boxx http://www.boxxtech.com/
HP http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campa...
Dell http://www.dell.com/us/busines...

etc..

"Workstations" are generally servers in a desktop case these days. See:
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campa...
http://www.dell.com/us/busines...
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/w...

Dual Xeon processors, lots of RAM, capacity for lots of disks & PCIe cards.

The Dell XPS 13 was released today.

If Apple's recent stream of security failures has not convinced you to switch to Linux or BSD, you are basically hopeless.

Just HOW MANY & which games ARE pure 64-bit nowadays?

There is a reason why most games are still 32-bit apps.

The big advantage of 64-bit instructions is that they can handle large amounts of RAM. If you aren't using a ton of RAM, there's little benefit to switching instruction sets. Until recently, most high-budget games were targeted at consoles with tiny amounts of RAM.

Even today, brand new computers are shipping with 4GB ram. I'm not just talking about Surface Pros and Macbook airs... Alienware is selling a dedicated gaming PC with only 4GB.

PC game developers know that requiring more than 4GB would sacrifice a chunk of their audience. So why bother porting to 64-bit? They can't really take advantage until all those 4GB machines go away.

Things are starting to turn around, though. Sony and MS have finally released consoles with 8GB ram, so we should expect to see 64-bit games appearing in the form of console ports.

Dual core should be fine for most day-to-day use. An SSD is almost a must-have. But most importantly: a good high-res display for looking at stuff.

This should be about right if you're going for a mac: http://store.apple.com/us/buy-...
This is more lightweight, but the CPU might be too slow: http://store.apple.com/us/buy-...
This should be OK if you can live without the apple: http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-1...

At the top end:
https://system76.com/cart/conf...
http://www.dell.com/us/busines...
(customizable with Ubuntu 14.04)

What do you recommend for running Linux?
The latest Ubuntu LTS is a good start.

For a C++ development environment?
I really like Code::Blocks, but I'm thinking that wi'll be up to her...

An nVidia GPU helps accelerate the only "gravitational wave" program I've ever run (https://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/). Likely not relevant, but hey you did ask Slashdot.

As AC said, YES \o/

http://opensource.dell.com/rel...

The question is if it does make an electric noise like the 2013 model did. http://en.community.dell.com/s... Otherwise I think even the 2013 model is a good laptop and runs Linux great. I own one of those and it makes that noise but it's not that bad. It's just that 1k5€ laptop shouldn't have such issues.

http://pilot.search.dell.com/c...
http://pilot.search.dell.com/l...