Hardware Recommendations / older Dell XPS Laptops

[WhiteAirLock]

I want to upgrade from my  6 years old Lenovo ThinkPad to something newer from Dell but I don't have a lot of experience with this brand.
I only know that the XPS line is something for me and that I need something that does have proper I/O. Not some BS Laptop that only has USB C ports and forces you to use stupid dongles. I already stopped this clown trip after downgrading from 2019 mbp (with AMD GPU) to a mid 2012 MBP, where I can even wipe MacOS completly and just run Linux (or Windows)

Would prefer it to have at least 9 gen Intel or 5gen Ryzen CPU, m.2 NVME PCIE SSD slot (since SATA bottlenecks if I compile Android AOSP firmwares to any of my Samsung SATA SSD's),  something up to 500$ and a XPS 13 or 15 variant of this product line and preferably user replacable RAM.
Does anyone have any recommendations for me?

 

 

 

 

[Kilrah]

Dell/XPS has kinda gone down the drain and is precisely that "just USB-C ports" now.

Avoid anything Intel at least up to 11th gen included, terrible power efficiency.

 

Got rid of the 10th gen one I bought in 2019 quite quickly. Happy with my Asus Zenbook with 5th gen Ryzen and its longer battery life, way better performance, useful ports, yet being more "thin and light" than the XPS.

[WhiteAirLock]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

Dell/XPS has kinda gone down the drain and is precisely that "just USB-C ports" now.

Avoid anything Intel at least up to 11th gen included, terrible power efficiency.

 

Got rid of the 10th gen one I bought in 2019 quite quickly. Happy with my Asus Zenbook with 5th gen Ryzen and its longer battery life, way better performance, useful ports, yet being more "thin and light" than the XPS.

In other words, it's not rly possible to do to get one with "normal" usb ports?

Well, it doesn't seem that I can avoid that. At least I still have a UGREEN USB C 7-1 Hub that I use with my steam deck and could be also compatible with TB3 port.

I saw a XPS 13 9300 in my area that was posted for sale today. It has a i7-1065G7, 32gb RAM (dual Channel) and 128gb m.2 nvme SSD but I still have a Samsung m.2 pcie nvme 2tb OEM SSD that I got from my friend after I did a RAID config on his machine since he's doing art and records some audios and it seems to be still fine since it only was used for 54h/139gb data written/919,42gb read. 

They want 300usd for it and it seems to be bought from some rest old stock since it has valid Dell Extended Battery Service (whatever this means) and 3 months of Dell Premium Support Plus.

The only downside is that the charger is broken (works if usb connector cable is bend at certain angle (probably can solder this) and it's running Windows 10 S but I have a Win11 key which probably works, since I obtained it from the BIOS of a broken Razer laptop that I used for parts.