Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition gets certified for Ubuntu 22.04

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualOn the flip side, Dell has always been the best option if you want to keep your laptop for a long time. You can get up to 5 years of next-day business repair, anywhere in the world.

For me, this is like arguing against criticism of Microsoft's practises with "on the flip side, they got a really good support department!".

I realise this example is incidental to the point you're making, but Microsoft's support department is terrible. They pioneered having terrible support so that customers would never contact them for help, and now every mega technology corporation like Google and Facebook has followed suit. Have you tried contacting Microsoft's support department recently? I have.

I'm not saying that Dell's great support cancels out all they've done wrong but rather explaining why I made the choice to use them exclusively recently. It's not a counter-point but something additional to consider. I view the laptop market in general as an unfriendly industry, leaving people with terrible choices to make.

It was a lot of hard work trying to find a laptop WITHOUT a discrete GPU but with reasonable ports, like an ethernet port, 3+ USB-A ports, a headphone jack, and a HDMI port. I really don't want to play the dongle game. Dell has a business lineup of laptops that has good ports but no discrete GPU, which is exactly what I wanted. That was another reason I went for them.

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualI spent several hours looking for a replacement charger for my ASUS laptop, but no one sells one.

See, this is the point: You don't NEED a ASUS charger unless ASUS are jerks. You can use any multi-charger with the right output, make sure it's the right voltage and ampere and off you go. That's the whole point.

I have several multi-chargers at home (due to a unhealthy obsession with guitar pedals :D) and the charger connectors on laptops today are largely standard (inner and outer ring). Also on the Dell laptops. So you CAN use a non-Dell charger on that laptop, it will boot and run, the motherboard will just not allow the battery to be charged due to a tiny controller on the motherboard that checks this.

And no support department in the world justifies this, imo. It's bad practise.

As someone with...not much knowledge about electronics, I personally have no idea what to do here. Where do I even find a charger like this? How do I get the right output? I was looking for a charger compatible with the ASUS-supplied charger, but they don't exist (for a laptop sold 2 years ago). At least I know Dell won't leave me out to dry or force me to buy an entirely new product to replace it (Apple). Companies intentionally encumbering their products annoys me, and that's why I'm so vehemently against DRM. I'm not attempting to justify this behaviour.

I'm not sure how long I'll stick with Dell, but I'm definitely never going back to buying a laptop from a physical store location. That's when you get wrapped up in their customer support scams which are always worse than what the manufacturer offers. Even if you bought a Dell laptop at one of these locations, they wouldn't offer you the 5 years of next-day business repair service.

Quoting: DerpFoxBut for the onsite premium support you have to shell out a pretty big sum of money most of the time, nearly as much as the price of the machine itself.

This is certainly true. The 5 year support term was 1/3 of the price of the laptop, but I also think that it's completely worth it. I'd be spending more than that in 2-3 years when it breaks and I have to get a new laptop.

Quoting: DerpFoxThe big problem is consumer grade brands, they are inconsistent in their design and the warranty is subpar. Most of the time you can't just go buy spare parts. Or have to rely on third parties for that.

What I find surprising is how expensive business line laptops and parts are when they are so standardized and stream lined.

Completely agree on the low quality of consumer-grade laptops. As for the expense of business laptops...businesses are always willing to pay more for reliability. It's why Microsoft makes most of its money out of businesses, not consumers; they're a more reliable market.

While not all B2B companies treat their business customers well (Oracle), in general, they are treated far better than regular customers. If you treat business customers well, you will be rewarded with years and years of loyalty and guaranteed cashflow. You can also afford to knock up the prices a bit over time without fear of your customers jumping ship to whatever looks cheaper, because they'll start worrying about whether it's reliable as what they have now.

Quoting: tuubiThat said, next business day on-site support is available from most of the big business brands. Dell, HP and Lenovo for sure. Price and quality of support might differ though. And they don't usually cover anything outside of their business ranges of products.

Thanks for letting me know this! I did wonder why Dell appeared to be the only brand that did this for years, when their support is actually fulfilled by IBM's network, of all companies, given that Dell is the company that took the largest slice of IBM's PC market share way back when.

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualI realise this example is incidental to the point you're making, but Microsoft's support department is terrible.

Indeed you are right. So my example were highly, highly hypothetical. :D

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualAs someone with...not much knowledge about electronics, I personally have no idea what to do here. Where do I even find a charger like this? How do I get the right output?

You find the specs on the old power supply! V (voltage) and A (ampere). Every supply has this stated. Then just get the same specs (or, in the case of ampere, the same or higher).

But I do understand that for those who really don't want to look into this and play it 100% safe, your mentioned service regime do hold a most definite value.

They could however offer the same without going down the forced proprietary route.


Last edited by Beamboom on 26 July 2022 at 8:34 pm UTC

Quoting: BeamboomYou find the specs on the old power supply! V (voltage) and A (ampere). Every supply has this stated. Then just get the same specs (or, in the case of ampere, the same or higher).

Don't forget the polarity, too, which is also stated on the power-supply;



For example, this one means that the connector is centre-positive. Centre-negative has the symbols the other way.


Last edited by Pengling on 26 July 2022 at 12:22 pm UTC

Quoting: PenglingDon't forget the polarity, too, which is also stated on the power-supply;

Yeah true, it should be mentioned. Thanks.
Gotta say though that it is my impression it seems there is an established practise/standard to keep polarity like your illustration there, with positive in centre.
I have come across some exceptions to this on guitar pedals though.

Quoting: BeamboomYeah true, it should be mentioned. Thanks.

No problem - it's well worth knowing even outside of the realm of laptops, too, really.

Quoting: BeamboomGotta say though that it is my impression it seems there is an established practise/standard to keep polarity like your illustration there, with positive in centre.

Yeah, but there'll always be some company somewhere that wants to be the exception to the rule!

That's why I'm quickly starting to appreciate the USB-C power that some of my machines use - no more barrel-connector hassle, and it's easier than ever to get a compatible power-supply where necessary (which has only come up for me due to needing a spare so far, rather than due to any failures).