I forgot to mention in my first post that I don't want the touchscreen and consider it a waste of money. But I do want the higher horsepower and RAM for development work and visualization of Windows. I gave up dual booting a long time ago. I have been a long time Dell user, and have found the hardware to last a long time and work well with Linux. I know many people disagree, but my experience with Dell has been great over the past 10+ years.

Oh, I also need a backlit keyboard....I am surprised not all high end laptops have them.

I need great graphics for gaming....have to keep up with my middle daughter who is really very good....;) I believe the card in the XPS 15 is better suited for gaming. So I need to run Windows in vmware player to compete with her online.....my old dual core Vostro 1520 struggles to keep up, the fan goes crazy and it get rather warm. Hence my original question about heat.....I don't need another toaster on my desk!

Thanks for the Aleinware recommendation.....a longer battery life is far more important than the touch screen!! I will look into them.

I really don't want to carry around a 17" screen....and 13" is getting too small for my older eyes, so I am looking at 15" screens. I use an external monitor on my desk.

I also had a recommendation to look at EmperorLinux machines. Anyone have any experience with these laptops?

Thanks to everyone for their recommendations!

Mark


On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 8:31 AM, Lisa Kachold <foobar@it-clowns.com> wrote:
Hi Mark,

Those two are virtually identical.

Things to consider:

1) QHD+ doesn't work in Chrome
2) You won't have any use for the touch screen
3) The M800 comes with two 500G drives (SATA and SSD)
4) The M800 is available with a lot of options and customizations that the 
XPS15 does not provide.
5) If you need professional 3D graphics requiring the Quardro chip, get the M3800.

I am wondering why you are not considering a system without the high end graphics (for AutoCad or Architechs/Gamers) and without the touchscreen or something from Alienware (17 is 1/2 the price with optional overclocking and LONG battery life).

These choices are comparable to a Mac PowerBook in price!


References:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/371429/using-a-qhd-display-with-ubuntu-13-10
 


On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 5:25 PM, Mark Phillips <mark@phillipsmarketing.biz> wrote:
Does anyone use an Dell XPS15 or M3800 laptop? I am looking at these two models, or perhaps the developer edition with Ubuntu pre-installed. I have read that these machines get really hot...to the point of the machine crashing. Just wondering about anyone's personal experience.

Also, any recommendations for other brands? I am looking for a core i7, at least 8 GB or RAM, and a large SSD to run Debian. Many of the "native linux" machines are huge and thick....I liked these two Dell models as they have a sleeker design and don't weigh 10 lbs. 

Any thoughts on whether to have a small SSD for the OS and a companion hard drive for data, or just blow a wad on a huge SSD (1 TB) for both OS and data?

Thanks,

Mark

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