<html dir="ltr"><head></head><body style="text-align:left; direction:ltr;"><div>In Feb of 2017 I bought a Dell XPS-15, 32G RAM, 4KUHD 15", 1TB PCIe SSD The first thing I did after booting Windows 10 and running full diagnostics was replace the PCIe SSD with a Samsung 960Pro 1TB and the Killer AC 1535 BT/WiFi card with an Intel card (can't remember the model) for better throughput and better driver support at that time. </div><div><br></div><div>Having replaced the PCIe SSD allowed me to re-install the Win10 SSD for low level firmware updates from Dell that wouldn't be coming from any Linux repo. I've been running Ubuntu 16.04 on it ever since - even the TB16 docking station works with Ubuntu. I hear that Ubuntu 18.04 doesn't run well on this laptop, yet.</div><div><br></div><div>If this small laptop is too large (14.1x9.3x0.6), Dell does sell the XPS-13 (many similar specs to the XPS-15), and they used to sell a developers edition preinstalled with (can't remember the distro) Linux.</div><div><br></div><div>When I did my research, I spent quite a bit of time creating a spreadsheet to compare the following:</div><div>currently owned 2008 Apple MBPro - reference #1</div><div>currently owned 2007 Lenovo T61p - reference #2</div><div>currently owned 2010 Lenovo W500 - reference #3</div><div>2015 Apple MBPro MJLU2xx/A (11,4)</div><div>2016 Apple MBPro</div><div>Dell XPS-15 9560 max build</div><div>Dell XPS-15 9560 min build, aftermarket upgrade</div><div>HP Spectre x360 max build</div><div>HP Spectre x360 min build, aftermarket upgrade</div><div>Asus Zenbook UX510VW</div><div>Lenovo Yoga 910</div><div>Lenovo X1 Carbon 4th Gen</div><div>Lenovo T560</div><div>4 different builds from min to max of the Lenovo P50</div><div><br></div><div>I settled on the Dell XPS-15 9560 max build for $2500 because it had verified Linux installs and what it took to get Linux working on it (very little), it had 1-SD, 1-HDMI 1.4, 2-USB3, and 1-TB3 port and with the 97Whr battery, I get 6-8 hours of battery life. The two monitors I use with this laptop are a 32" 4KUHD and a 40" 4KUHD, depending on where I plug into which docking station. </div><div><br></div><div>I've been very happy with this laptop, the Samsung 960 Pro is 400-1100 MB/s faster reads and writes over the OEM PCIe SSD, so this machine boots to a usable logged in system in ~20 seconds, maybe less.</div><div><br></div><div>Hope that helps, Oh, and the keyboard on the Dell XPS-15 9560 has the keys you listed</div><div><br></div><div>On Fri, 2019-02-15 at 11:29 -0800, Brian Wood wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex; border-left:2px #729fcf solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 11:25 AM Brian Wood <<a href="mailto:woodbrian77@gmail.com">woodbrian77@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div>Also, I want something around 14 inches size, maybe smaller, but think it's </div><div>unlikely to have keyboard I like if it's smaller.</div></div></div>
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