Laptop choice, of course

[MrSha256]

Hi guys

I'm gonna get a laptop quite soon, and I got down to 2 options which are:

the dell xps 13 developer edition (cause linux goodness)

and the asus rog gl752vw-something 

I really don't know which one to choose between these two, one is an ultrabook that I will probably need for school and the other one is more of a desktop replacement.

I'm going to program a bit, game a bit (more if I get the asus), do schoolwork on both 

The keyboard is very important to me, and battery life is important only if I have to go to school with it.

That's all, let me know what you think.

 

 

[8-Bit Ninja]

xps has much better battery life, and a nicer keyboard, but the trade off is that it doesn't perform any way near as well in games. So it bottles down to a simple choice

- Primarily Gaming (Asus Rog gl752vw)

- Primarily Work (Dell Xps 13)

[HeadsUpHigh]

Ok so from my personal experience laptops that tip the 2.5 kg ( 5,5 pounds) are pretty hard to carry around on a daily basis. From the activities you mentioned the most demanding one would have to be gaming. Developing isn't that much of a big deal and is not as demanding as many people tend to think. So for these reasons I think the asus one is complete overkill, especially given that you will also have to carry the charger with you all the time which adds to a total of almost 3.4 kg. On the other hand the xps is not as powerful as you want it to be.

 

Since you mentioned linux, I have to recommend the thinkpad line for a good linux experience. They are not ultraportables really( those which are sacrifice endurance and build quality) but due to their business nature they are very durable( they have military specifications for resistance to shock, vibrations dust etc). From all the models I would recommend the t460p. It is less than 2kg + charger. Battery life is very decent, and there is an external swappable battery dock that you can swap batteries without turning the device off. According to tests it can reach up to 10h of battery life with the external battery on. There is a model with an  quad core i7 gtx 940m for about the same cost as some xps 13 configurations. Keyboard is great, thinkpads are renowned for their keyboard, and the clit mouse is actually an excellent pointing device if you get used to it. Screen is pretty good for anything but editing so it will do the trick for coding.( notebookcheck has a good review of it)

 

The drawback of this machine is that in order to achieve 45 watts tdp on the cpu +30-40 watts on the dgpu on less than 2kg is that they have limited the tdp of the cpu to 35 watts, which isn't really noticeable, and the dgpu will thermal throttle by about 10%. That's the price you have to pay for not making the machine too bulky. The 940m is a bit old by today's standards but it is still waaay faster than the hd 520 on the dell xps and if you can be patient enough till CES 2017 they will most likely announce the next generation with kaby lake+pascal.

 

If you want to get a machine that is not throttling at all so you get all the performance that you pay for I suggest the p50 workstation( thinkpad too).

[MrSha256]

Hi, the t460p is too expensive for what it offers, it has 4 gigs of ram, which is not enough, and a slow, cheap HDD (in my country).

I'm not sure yet if I'll have to carry a laptop with me, so having the asus would be preferable option if it acts as a desktop replacement.

I considered the xps 13 (kaby lake) cause a lot of people claim it's the best laptop on the market, though its price/performance is not that great but I heard a lot of good stuff about it. I think it will suit my needs perfecly if I want a schoolwork, development (and very light gaming) machine. Even that one is like twice as powerful as the one I'm using right now (2010).