Powerful ultrabook

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Enderman said:

You think a different model will magically increase it's battery life by 200%? lol

The model I linked has a larger battery.......because you know, no TouchBar

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

The model I linked has a larger battery.......because you know, no TouchBar

And they are both rated with the same battery life by apple.

Benchmarks show a bit better battery life than the touchbar model, still less runtime under load than the XPS13.

 

Battery Runtime

WiFi Surfing v1.3 9h 26min

Big Buck Bunny H.264 1080p 8h 03min

Load (maximum brightness) 1h 06min

 

BTW I'm comparing to the high end XPS 13, with i7 and QHD touch display.

The lower end i5 model with 1080p gets more runtime than any of the 13" laptops mentioned.

I would suggest you research it yourself, you will be surprised how mediocre MBP battery life is these days.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

And they are both rated with the same battery life by apple.

They are not the same capacity......the non Touchbar model has a physically larger battery and uses a 18 watt CPU not an 28

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

They are not the same capacity......the non Touchbar model has a physically larger battery. 

I know.

Read the rest of the post.

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

I know.

Read the rest of the post.

it doesn't change the fact that your numbers are inaccurate for the MacBook that I linked. The model you linked has a smaller battery, a TouchBar to power, and a significantly more power consuming CPU. 

[Guest lilbman]

XPS 15 9560 gets my vote.  Most engineering programs are Windows only and you can always add more storage to the XPS 15 down the road.  

[Enderman]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

it doesn't change the fact that your numbers are inaccurate for the MacBook that I linked. That model has a smaller batter, a TouchBar to power, and a significantly more power consuming CPU. 

Can you not see past the first two lines??

I posted the numbers for the one without the touchbar and larger battery.

At this point it seems like you're just trying to derail the thread to defend your precious macbooks or something...

 

Seriously, their battery life is not the best, as I showed multiple times, and they suck for engineering applications like solidworks.

Please go waste someone else's time.

 

XPS13/15 is a much better choice for Engineering school.

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Enderman said:

Can you not see past the first two lines??

can you site sources? 

[Enderman]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

can you site sources? 

The links are in EVERY POST....

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Enderman said:

The links are in EVERY POST....

lmao you only linked the wrong models!

[Bzdougie]

15 minutes ago, lilbman said:

XPS 15 9560 gets my vote.  Most engineering programs are Windows only and you can always add more storage to the XPS 15 down the road.  

Would i5 suffice?

[Guest lilbman]

58 minutes ago, Bzdougie said:

Would i5 suffice?

Depends on what programs you use.  If you use something like Autodesk Inventor, which is mainly single threaded, then I would prefer an i7 for its higher clock speeds.  If it is a more multi threaded program, then there won't be too large of a difference between the i5 and i7.

[kirashi]

2 hours ago, Bzdougie said:

What do you use your machine for? Any thermal issues or anything like that?

I went a little overkill with my model because I only use it for web development and hobbyist photography, with the occasional casual game and video editing session thrown in. Probably would have been fine with the i5 model and 8GB RAM still, but for whatever reason Dell doesn't allow you to custom configure a 512GB NVMe SSD with that build. (On their Canadian site, at least.) This is why I went overkill with the i7 and 16GB RAM, but hey, just means it'll last longer.

 

So far in my totally unscientific tests I have not had any throttling issues running AIDA64 over a 20 minute period, although I've already disassembled mine and replaced the factory thermal paste with Arctic MX-4 on both the CPU and GPU because I trust it to do a much better job. I really should have tested AIDA64 before swapping the paste, but what's done is done. The keyboard does get warm, and it can sound like an air conditioner when you're running everything at max load, but otherwise it's quiet whenever I'm browsing the web, even on garbage JavaScript heavy websites.

 

You'll want to search around on the Dell Subreddit for XPS 15 9560 tips and tricks to get the most out of your model, assuming you purchase one. The speakers definitely can be very loud, so you'll either want to turn off MAXXAudio, or at least tweak the settings as some users have in the following reddit thread. Remember, they're still laptop speakers, and as such, will always sound abysmal compared to even the cheapest set of $30 craptastic desktop speakers from a reputable brand. No laptop exists with decent speakers, IMO, simply because there's not enough room in any laptop to properly provide a decent sound experience. But sound is subjective, so don't listen to me - use your own ears.

 

 

Below are the reddit threads I looked over during purchase and after I received my unit. KEEP IN MIND that a lot of these issues probably won't apply to anyone who purchases an XPS 15 now, as these were people having problems during the first few weeks of production. The only other modification I had to make was the manual install of Intel's Graphics Drivers because fuck nVidia Optimus Technology. It's not quite as bad as some of the ASUS laptops I've dealt with where one update can leave you unable to login or logging in only to see a light grey screen, but it can still be annoying if you're not willing to manually install Intel's updated drivers yourself.

 

[Pendragon]

7 hours ago, Enderman said:

EVERY

My condolences.