If you're a consumer or developer looking for a great laptop and you're wondering what to choose between Microsoft's Surface Book, Apple's MacBook Pro, and Dell's XPS 13, but you'd love to have it come with Ubuntu pre-installed, the new XPS 13 Developer Edition may be the best option for you.
Dell's CTO, Barton George, has recently announced via his blog that the company's Project Sputnik laptop line refresh is now available, marking the 5th generation of the XPS 13 Developer Edition with three new i7 configurations, with a fourth i5 configuration in the works:
- i7/8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, QHD+T (3200 by 1800) display, Intel 8260 Wireless
- i7/16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, QHD+T (3200 by 1800) display, Intel 8260 Wireless
- i7/16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, QHD+T (3200 by 1800) display, Intel 8260 Wireless
- i5/8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, FHD+T (1920 by 1080) display
Because it comes with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, you can rest assured that you won't get any bloatware headaches as you would with the Windows 10 variant, but the price, however, is another story, with the cheapest i7 option running you $1550, so keep that in mind if you are looking for a budget-oriented device.
In addition to that, Dell's Ubuntu-based Precision line offers a somewhat wider range of options, from an affordable ($876) 15" Skylake i5, 4GB of RAM, with HDD storage and a lower-quality display, and up to a 17" mobile workstation with a Xeon processor, 64GB of RAM, professional AMD graphics, and a calibrated 4K Ultra HD display that will break your bank.
George says that Dell plans to upgrade the laptops to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS starting next month, and that the Sputnik line of laptops is the "perfect platform for Docker", a technology that even Microsoft integrates with Azure, as it has proven very popular with cloud developers.
Source: Barton George via Liliputing
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