I have Dell XPS 13 2015 (9350). It gets fair abuse and fell on floor couple of times. Over years I replaced keyboard, battery, charging port, bottom plate from case (display hinge broke). All parts are on ebay for like $50 and can be replaced with a screedriver and YouTube video. I decided to keep this laptop indefinitely and just keep replacing parts. I also have spare laptop of the same type, so I can just swap SSDs or parts if it breaks. It is still decent machine, 7 hours on battery, 1.2 kg, nice touch display, excellent keyboard, 16GB RAM, USB-C charging.... From my workstation I need 64GB RAM, good cooling and many ports (4x displays etc). I do not feel any current laptop provides that. And I do not want to pay $7000 premium for decent machine. So at end I decided for mini PC (Asus PN 52). It is 1kg tiny box, can be carried daily and is very cost effective.
Likes itOwned 5 yearsStill going
My older laptops died quickly, with pretty bad hardware faults within 2-3 years. After those first few laptops, I have a 2011 MBA that's chugging along fine (manually replaced the battery), as well as a ~2016 XPS 13 9350 (also manually replaced the battery) and a 3 year old Gigabyte gaming laptop that are all working fine. So for me I'd say mean time to failure has been increasing.
Likes itOwned 0.67 years
I bought the Dell XPS 13 (9650) about 8 months ago. It comes preloaded with Ubuntu so you don't have spend too much time debugging drivers. This was my main concern since I was going to be running Linux as my only OS. I've only had a few problems with wifi drivers and ethernet over USB C so far. Costco occasionally has the high end model (preloaded with windows of course) on sale for $400 less than the dell site which is a great deal. Resources: 1. http://www.dell.com/ca/p/xps-13-9350-laptop/pd 2. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350)
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I use a Dell XPS 13 9570 with Ubuntu and I am absolutely smitten with it. My last laptop was an XPS 13 9350, and I loved it too, but I did find it a bit too small for my liking so I ultimately ended up selling it and buying the 9570. Let me know if you have any questions about this specific model, and I'll be happy to help as best I can.
Doesn’t like it
This is the annoying thing - I've got the 9350 and I had to swap the Broadcom card for an Intel card to get any kind of stability in Windows. Well known error: https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/bcm... At one point, the crashes even managed to corrupt my filesystem. What I will say is that it's super easy to swap out the wifi and M.2 SSD - took 2 screwdrivers and about 10 minutes. I may have lost Miracast but does anyone actually use that?
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I've been using an XPS 13 (9350) with Arch Linux for a while, and been very happy with it. Good battery life, and good performance. Only goofy issue is that sometimes on AC power the CPU gets stuck at the lowest frequency, but unplugging for a moment fixes it.
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Dell XPS 13 9350 qhd+ running arch Linux. The battery life is fantastic! I used to average 6.5 hours on windows with thermal issues but on arch without a de, I’m getting a solid 10 hours and my laptop stays cool!
Doesn’t like it
Which version? I've got XPS 13 9350 and it's been a constant pain. Boot time is very slow [0], bluetooth connectivity is weak, I've got constant graphic glitches when on battery. Latest update of the video driver introduced annoying coil noise, I had to downgrade. Actually I have two XPS 13s at home and both of them have some issues. I'm also using Dell Thunderbold Dock TB15 and it drops video output and USB connections after 3h (because of heat) [1]. Of course I've got everything updated. I had an excellent experience with XPS 12 years ago but this 9350 is constantly driving me crazy. I would certainly not recommend it. [0]: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/... [1]: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/...
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I have to agree the XPS 13 is perfect for linux. I have been using the XPS 13 9333 for about 3 years now. I run debian, 7 but now 8, and it just works for most things. I had to install the firmware for the wireless card but that was simple enough.
I just got the new XPS 13 9350 a couple of months ago and am using that daily running Debian 8. I had to add the firmware for the wireless, base broadcom controller, and it works great. USB-c works well too. I also have the Dell TB15 thunderbolt 3 dock but that does not work unfortunately. Once the thunderbolt 3 drivers for the dock are working I will have the prefect laptop. Right now I have to manually connect montitor/keyboard/power. Once the dock works its one cable to plug in at the office. There are lots of posts on the dell forums with steps to get linux installed on the XPS. The current developer edition is not supported on the latest hardware, 9350. Once the thunderbolt drivers are done they are supposed to release a new developer edition with Ubuntu. The dell Sputnik team posts on the forums regularly so you can stay up to date on the progress. They are fostering a very good community for linux enthusiast.