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Comment by mseebach | Hacker News Reader

I currently have a previous-generation MBP 15" (the last one before the retina), as far as I can tell pretty max'ed out on the specs. I really don't like OSX and want to run Linux instead, and running Linux with poor hardware support on the MBP is not really appealing (This is my primary work machine, I don't have time or patience to fiddle with things, I particularly don't have time to deal with something acting up in a meeting -- works out of the box is a deal breaker, this is why this offering is appealing).

What am I going to miss if I get the XPS 13 with the 1080p screen?

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Assuming you have the Early 2011 Macbook Pro, the change will be as follows:

CPU - Quad Core 45w to Dual Core low voltage (big change for CPU intense work, but for 90% of what people do you won't notice the difference)

GPU - The Dell only has integrated Graphics - so any gaming will be worse than on the Macbook.

Screen - Increase in resolution from either 1440x900 or 1680x1050 to 1920x1080, and gaining the IPS panel. Going from 16x10 to 16x9 (this really annoys some people)

HDD - change from traditional drive to SSD (assuming you didn't put an SSD into your Macbook). If you already had an original Apple SSD in the Macbook, then it will just be faster.

Memory - lose the potential for 16gb, limited to 8gb.

Optical bay - lose the optical drive, lose the potential for dual drives.

Battery life - can't give you a good answer on this, without a review in Linux. In Windows, the Dell can loop video for 325 minutes, which is similar to the Macbook Pro. Under heavier load, the Dell would last longer but do less processing work during that time. Once you add Linux to the mix, I'd guess a 30% decrease in battery life.

Build quality - the Dell is good, but not great. I would give a slight advantage to the Macbook.

Without seeing the XPS 13 dev edition, Dells in general have significantly worse trackpads and keyboards than MacBooks. If you don't use them often, not such a deal breaker.

However, Linus himself uses Linux on a MacBook so the support mustn't be too awful now. I'd recommend giving it a try inside Bootcamp first.

> Dells in general have significantly worse trackpads and keyboards than MacBooks

I would agree with the trackpad, however I don't use it (I prefer trackpoint). But significantly worse keyboard? No way. I assume we talk about "business" notebooks when comparing to apple, not some plastic media books with glossy screen.

That's a fair comment, I have used a number of the Dell business level laptops and found that for my tastes the keyboards have been significantly worse. I really like the Macbook keyboards, I find they've got just the right amount of travel to resistance and clickyness for me.

Keyboards are possibly the hardware equal of text editors.

I got a Dell Latitude E5520 (http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201011-6894/) about 18 months ago. The screen is better than what I could get from Apple at the time.

I wish I had gotten a Mac Pro instead, mostly for stupid hardware details like the sensitive power contact (the mac magnetic one is superior) and the too sensitive trackpad. Apple is the only competition for Thinkpads, imho.

If I had gotten a Mac I planned to run Linux in a virtual machine all the time, mostly because apt is superior to the native alternatives.

Why is that not an alternative for you?

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