Screen resolution + type / more power / good keyboard / good pointing device / battery life / portability + fit and finish / open-source friendly + support

July 29, 2012

Posted By:  Nitsujca

4 Votes

Status: Archived

Promote

This is an open-source developer laptop.  Not a desktop replacement.  Not a gaming laptop.  Focus on that.

Screen resolution:  More pixels please.  Everyone can use more real estate.  Matt finish.
More Power:  more RAM (or at least the option to upgrade)
Good keyboard:  Good layout (with ability to remap to alternative layouts) / full keys / no alt - function - combinations / backlit
Good pointing device:  Make it as good as the fruit company's touchpad
Good battery life:  Enough said
Portability + fit and finish:  Use of materials that don't attract dirt and oils, small, well thought out design and lightweight power accessories
Open-source friendly + support:  Ensure that internal components are 1.  In the kernel (thus guaranteed to JUST WORK), 2.  Provide open-source drivers / support so that we don't have to jump through hoops to make it work.  Support from Dell needs to be fast.

Comments:

  • Those who don't like Ubuntu will re-install with whatever they prefer.  Hence, please focus on Open-source friendly - not Ubuntu friendly.
  • Yes this is a portable developer laptop.  But the lack of gigabit ethernet is very disturbing.  Many work environments / client locations / non-North American locales do not have easy access to wireless.  Please seriously consider adding hard wire connectivity.
  • The ability to purchase a Windows license separately (and after the fact would be even nicer) would be helpful to devs running Win7 in a VM
  • Focus on making our hardware user experience flawless, and we will handle the software developer environment on our own.  The fruit company is exceptional at not only hardware, but the entire user experience.
  • $$ talks and [redacted] walks.  We will pay for flawless stuff that just works, that is supported fast and efficiently by people who know their stuff.

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  • Aug 14, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: iandouglas

    From what I've seen of the XPS13, the keyboard is also already backlit.

    As far as gigabit ethernet, buy an adapter and plug it into the USB 3.0 port. It would probably also increase the thickness of the system.

    Since their hope is to make the whole package no more expensive than the cost of an XPS13 with Windows, I think they should just give us the Windows license key and an ISO image on the disk for those who want a Win7 VM, but still install Ubuntu by default. But still, with only 4GB of RAM, Win7 is going to want at least 1GB of that, limiting what else you can do on the XPS13 natively.
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  • Aug 2, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: thesheep

    You get the ability to remap keys for free from the fact that it runs Linux.