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Dell Brings 4K InfinityEdge Display To XPS 15 Line, GeForce GPU, Under 4 Pounds (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: There's no doubt that Dell's new XPS 13 notebook, when it debuted earlier this year, was very well received. Dell managed to cram a 13.3-inch 3200x1800 QHD+ display into a 12-inch carbon fiber composite frame. Dell has now brought that same InfinityEdge display technology to its larger XPS 15, which the company boasts has the same footprint as a 14-inch notebook. But Dell didn't just stay the course with the QHD+ resolution from the smaller XPS 13; the company instead is offering an optional UltraSharp 4K Ultra HD panel with 8 million pixels and 282 pixels per inch (PPI). The 350-nit display allows for 170-degree viewing angles and has 100 percent minimum Adobe RGB color. Dell also beefed up the XPS 15's internals, giving it sixth generation Intel Core processors (Skylake), support for up to 16GB of memory and storage options that top out with a 1TB SSD. Graphics duties are handled by either integrated Intel HD Graphics 530 or a powerful GeForce GTX 960M processor that is paired with 2GB GDDR5 memory. And all of this squeaks in at under 4 pounds.
What "either integrated Intel HD Graphics 530 or a powerful GeForce GTX 960M" means is that the nVidia driver will make regular windows, and apps like Firefox/Chrome use the slow Intel card for all your regular stuff. Google maps or anything that uses WebGL will slow to a crawl. Only games are "allowed" to run on the real GPU.
At least, that's how the last laptop I got a year ago with a setup like that worked...
I have a Core i7-4500U, 16GB RAM, and a GT735M, and it is absolutely painful to use certain things like Google Maps.
Morphing Software
The best laptop screen resolution ever is 1920x1200.
Of course 3840x2400 would also be accepted :)
It's all about the ratio: 16:10.
Excellent for real work - not just video!
And yet all of this will be covered with crap in the form of McAfee and a hundred other apps you don't want, but take hours to remove. Or, you can try installing Windows from scratch, which also takes hours, and then your fancy new hardware won't work until you find Dell's special drivers for each device.
My company's purchases are too small for a business account, so we end up buying consumer hardware. We were only buying from the Microsoft Store, since that at least is junkware free. Now, the Microsoft Store has very little in stock, so the last time we had to buy a new PC we wound up with a Macbook Air. That was to replace a 2013 Dell XPS 13 that somehow is still broken after 2 motherboard replacements, and is now at Dell's repair center.
Dell really should have their own version of the Microsoft Signature program, the cost of the time it takes to clean a "new" machine makes a $900 PC cost more than an $1100 Mac. (For those of you thinking "you can get a PC for $500!", time = money, including time spent waiting for a 5400RPM spinning disk. My minimum specs are Core i5/8GB RAM/128GB SSD/13 inch screen.)
Windows 10 made it worse, now that you have to uninstall the "Get Skype" and "Get Office" apps. Plus switch the privacy settings to prevent Microsoft giving away the Wi-Fi password. I doubt we'll buy any PCs going forward.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.