Make this for developers, not just freelance web coders

May 11, 2012

Posted By:  nixternal

3 Votes

Status: Acknowledged

Promote

I know you are using developer broadly, but I can tell you this, with my XPS 13 experience and why I returned it:

  • 4GB is not enough. Don't expect to compile anything Android in a timely fashion.
  • Even the i7 ultrabook processors aren't strong enough, especially for the Android emulator or anything virtualized
Those are the 2 reasons I returned my XPS 13 immediately (well after 2 days). VBox & Qemu were horrid when doing anything other than running Windows XP with IE for site testing. Compiling CM & an Android app here and there was painful.

Here is what I did like or didn't bother me:
  • SSD
  • Screen size & resolution (you only need more resolution if you are doing web development only. If you can't figure out how to control the default font sizes, then get a huge external monitor. I can comfortably code in either Eclipse or Vim with splits and rock out side-by-side at 1366x768.
  • External ports
This isn't only an XPS 13 issue, it is an Ultrabook issue. Ultrabooks were designed for doing mundane tasks with Windows, not for any sort of development that takes you out of Notepad++ (sarcasm) and a web browser.

What would have made the XPS 13 or any ultrabook for that matter perfect for me:
  • At least an i5 2540, but would love an i7 with both VTx & VTd support. I know that isn't going to happen because they draw more power and an ultrabook doesn't have the space to cool either of those CPUs
  • At least 8GB of RAM, expandable to at least 16GB of RAM. If I need more than that, than I need a workstation, not a laptop, especially one that is meant to be portable.
People who are posting their ideas, remember this is a "Portable Light Development" solution. If you really want to hack on Android, Java, C/C++, you need a much more powerful computer, unless of course your apps are tiny. You can also make this work if you do have to build Java/Android/C/C++ and have another powerful desktop/server/laptop near by, by offloading processes with a distributed compiler. I could have attempted to make this system work, but I do a ton of on-site work, and utilizing a proxy connection to my home builders would have been just as painful.

To be honest, I would rather have something a tad bit bigger. I settled for an HP dm4-3550. 16GB of RAM, decent CPU, nice small form factor, with a price that couldn't be beat last month when I purchased it. Don't waste your time with backlit keyboards, you are Dell, not Apple with a bunch of Starbucks junkies writing RoR in the dark.

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  • May 11, 2012     Comment Link

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    Posted By: AlfromRoke

     
    Btw, despite not having done too much android development, just a small tip, it's possible to set up quite a good workflow with a physical mobile phone rather than the android emulator (which is a horror to use according to most comments I have heard about it (and the 10 minutes I have played around with it myself)).