Dell Precision 5510

I'm still using my decade-old Precision 5510 (the XPS 15 at the time was a variant of it), and I've rarely felt the need to replace it, beyond Nvidia no longer supporting the discrete graphics as of last year. There was a period around Project Sputnik where they were making really good machines. Years of abuse, and it's still in good condition, though the battery has been showing its age lately. It's rather sad that things have gone downhill since then, as there was a period there that Dell were really good.

I really think articles like this can help drive Lenovo to go back to their old superior keyboards. However, apart from the missing [2019], should there not also be a [Sponsored] tag? The author's review can't reliably be seen to be unbiased (emphasis mine below). I just spent the better part of this past year year struggling with the Thinkpad P1, Lenovo's latest effort to compete with Dell's XPS 15 and Precision 5500 line. I had had a Precision 5510 in the past, which had been my favorite laptop of all time, except for some small issues that led me to explore Lenovo's latest. I was talking with the Dell folks recently about my experiences with (and general fussiness regarding) Linux laptops and **they offered to send me a new Precision 5540 to give them constructive feedback.** After a few days with the new machine, it was obvious that it was the machine for me and I shut down my Thinkpad P1 for good.

I am very happy with a Dell Precision 5510. I bought it as replacement for my MacBook Pro, maxed out late 2016, (MB) when it needs butterfly keyboard service (twice so far). It came with a Xeon processor and 32 GB RAM. for under 1000 USD. I run it with Ubuntu and compile software all day. My MB fans were blowing a lot and once even the battery swelled (service). My replacement Precision beats the MB in any aspect.

My Precision 5510 (last year's) gets almost 7 hours, and I have the high res screen too. I also have the GPU but only run it for compute. I did go for the m2 drive so I could fit the upgraded battery, which is about the max size you can fly with. I love that laptop and to me it's the closest you can get to an MBP.

Dell Precision 15" with 4k and 97Wh battery. One of the few laptops that ship with Ubuntu if that's your thing. I personally own a Precision 5510 and use a 5520 everyday for work. Both run Arch with no issues other then minor display scaling issues that can be blamed on the state of Linux desktop environments, not the laptop.

Interesting to see this here, I was actually looking at the Dell website for the last few months considering a Precision 5510 to replace my macbook pro (2011) and my now bricked Thinkpad X201s (coreboot fail).. when recently I saw the 5520 appear, sadly no option to buy direct. (I'm calling in favours with friends to get me a price) I hope they continue the tradition of building insanely good hardware (look at the insides of a 7510[0].. holy crap) and allowing expandable batteries as an option. The 5510 for instance can be specced without a SATA drive and that space can be used for a 6 cell (rather than a 3cell) battery. The fact that these machines can be shipped with Linux is really the icing on the cake for me, even if there was no price drop I would purchase them because I have some confidence that the hardware will be supported. [0] http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Precision-7510-4K-IGZO-Mob...

Of the two listed: 5510 hands down. The reason why doesn't have much to do with the specs. I've rocked Thinkpads for years, but I just can't get behind Lenovo anymore. Anecdote time: Couple years ago (in the T410 era) I was on an IT team looking for new laptops for a small company. We got a guarantee from a Lenovo sales person and someone from their support side that we could pay for NBD repairs and they'd fix machines with Linux. When our first repair need came up, they refused to do anything until we re-installed Windows. For a bad display (it was all pink), nothing to do with Windows! We ended up keeping a spare, vanilla Windows 7 HDD around for when we needed it, but it left a bad taste. Couple that with their more recent headlines about spyware in Windows machines, and back doors on some their mobile devices, and well... Fuck Lenovo. My vote for Thinkpad would be fueled by nostalgia at this point. I'd give Dell the money for just trying and doing a damn fine job making Linux laptops people want to use. I've come across threads where they're supporting alt distros like Arch.