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Comment by _xerces_ | Hacker News Reader

I personally just can't be productive on a tiny 13" laptop, though perhaps a lot of people just plug in a monitor and keyboard. I much prefer the 15" XPS with more screen real-estate, upgradable memory (at least when I purchased mine) and trackpad/function keys that actually click. I get how the 13" could be nicer if you're lugging it around a lot or trying to use it on a plane, but is the 15" really that hard to carry?

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Eh, I go the other direction. At this point, my laptops are mostly just "easily carried workstations" that really only plug into a monitor/dock for real use.

I do occasionally use them on the couch or in bed, but for anything productive... I don't really ever want to work with just a laptop screen (13/15/17 inch - who cares, the form factor sucks for this).

So in that case, the 13 inch machines are great because they're light and portable. Much prefer the 13 inch XPS to the 15 inch XPS. It fits in many more bags and the only real component downgrade is the GPU, which I don't really care about in a work machine anyways.

I also find - surprisingly, they tend to get better battery life, simply because they aren't powering as much screen real-estate (and are doing it without a discrete GPU).

So yes - the 15 inch really is a lot harder to carry (I own both - older gen XPS 15, new gen XPS 13). It weighs literally twice as much and requires a much larger bag.

I'll admit, trying to find a portable 15" is why I caved in and bought the (slightly better) pre-ARM MacBooks Pro. Unfortunately, Apple acted as if you had to compromise a lot to make 15"s trully portable.

I'm in the same boat. I've got a monster i9, always ON PC with 128gb ram, linux desktop and a 40TB nas at home. The 80% of the time I'm WFH, it's amazing.

For the other 20% time when I'm on the go, I want the smallest , sturdiest laptop I can have, with the best battery life . I've got a Dell latitude. Although Linux is just BAAAAAAD wet battery life. I can't stand windows OS though.

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