Yet another Hacker News

XPS 16 Creator Edition Laptop

17 points mudil 4 days ago 48 comments

solatic 1 hour ago | parent

> 128 GB RAM

> $7k

heavy sigh

josteink 1 hour ago | parent

It’s unified RAM like on a Mac, so it also counts as VRAM. Go check what a 128GB VRAM GPU costs. I’ll be waiting.

And a similar spaced MacBook Pro (128GB RAM) is like $9k+.

It’s not like this is a horrible deal in that regard.

Foobar8568 1 hour ago | parent

On Apple website, US one, M5 Max with 128GB is $7000. So yeah? lulz

dannyw 22 minutes ago | parent

You get 614GB/s of memory bandwidth on the M5 Max (full chip), more than double the N1X / GB10 (DGX Spark). For decode, that'll directly translate into ~2x faster token generation.

max-privatevoid 51 minutes ago | parent

It's just LPDDR5X, standard modern laptop RAM. Sure, it's quite a bit faster due to the way it's connected, but comparing it to the VRAM on a dedicated GPU is absurd, especially considering memory on laptops has been "unified" in this way since forever.

slartibardfast0 1 hour ago | parent

$7k Windows XP Home

Already__Taken 1 hour ago | parent

I boggles the mind they do this.

pjmlp 1 hour ago | parent

Yeah, not only it is ridiculous to have a laptop targeting devs to be Home edition, the oldie XPS Linux variants are long gone, yet Dell gladly sells server racks with Linux.

LoganDark 1 hour ago | parent

Why would Dell selling server racks with Linux be the reason they should also sell laptops with Linux? Apple doesn't sell Macs with iOS despite selling iPhones with iOS. I get that Dell used to sell laptops with Linux, and that they should in general, I just don't see how selling server racks with Linux is in any way related.

pjmlp 50 minutes ago | parent

For one, folks have to reverse engineer the same hardware, kind of.

thenthenthen 1 hour ago | parent

Where is it saying ‘devs’? I mean the title is “Creator Edition” (as in ‘content creator’ as in doomscroll marketing bs maker)

pjmlp 49 minutes ago | parent

Missing reading abilities?

I guess we are on an age that only the title gets read.

> Engineered for creators, developers, and gamers

thenthenthen 27 minutes ago | parent

So creators first? (But yes, sorry i have been awake for 48 hours)

pjmlp 26 minutes ago | parent

Alphabetical order, get some rest.

thenthenthen 23 minutes ago | parent

Wow. I would never imagine any promotional text would consider that order tbh. But it seems you are at least not wrong. Nice observation :D

gib444 1 hour ago | parent

Swing and a miss from Dell, yet again. Did someone just go "It's not got more than 128GB RAM right? OK Home is fine then" ??

chasd00 59 minutes ago | parent

I don’t use windows so what is the difference between home and pro versions of windows? My understanding is the pro version enables device management features needed by a corporate network. Is there a performance difference that would affect an individual developer?

pjmlp 27 minutes ago | parent

Yes, plenty of developer tooling is only available on Add/Remove OS components for Professionals, besides several OS configurations regarding scheduling, containers management, OS limits,....

jwilcoxson 24 minutes ago | parent

Not exactly performance, but features. For example, you can’t use Remote Desktop to connect to a machine running Windows Home.

Also, there are industry specific apps that can require Pro.

ktallett 1 hour ago | parent

Pricey. I do miss the days when the first Dell developer laptop was released.

bestouff 1 hour ago | parent

Mandatory Windows.

Pass.

jwilcoxson 1 hour ago | parent

And not even Windows Pro

jwilcoxson 1 hour ago | parent

Is this for developers with a humiliation fetish?

jadbox 1 hour ago | parent

What does this even mean

jwilcoxson 27 minutes ago | parent

It means what it says

jkahrs595 7 minutes ago | parent

Publicly announcing they don’t know the definitions of words is a part of the humiliation fetish lol

chvid 1 hour ago | parent

Why are these running Windows? If you are targeting AI engineers surely you would be better of offering some kind of unix.

thenthenthen 1 hour ago | parent

They target (slop) creators

weird-eye-issue 1 hour ago | parent

Don't worry there's lots of people out there that will think this will make ChatGPT run faster

voidfunc 49 minutes ago | parent

Creator Edition doesn't imply engineering lol.

This is for people to create more doom scroll slop.

pjmlp 29 minutes ago | parent

Because most corporations require Windows as the client OS, and Apple doesn't do CUDA.

IlikeMadison 1 hour ago | parent

Imagine paying $4K to use Windows in 2026

greatgib 1 hour ago | parent

They completely wasted their XPS brand. The XPS 13 dev was the peak of dell and now it is horse shit. I haven't had a Dell laptop be bought for work since then.

Lenovo are quite good at the moment.

ivolimmen 1 hour ago | parent

I bought the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14" with Ryzen 9900HX and 96GB running Linux and it's even better than my previous Dell XPS 15. Smaller, lighter and faster. And it only costs something like €2K.

sgc 1 hour ago | parent

Please stay away from Dell. Posting from the worst laptop I have ever owned, my Dell XPS that cost over 2.5k usd new. Yes, I hate it enough to rage-post about it on HN.

At least it sort of works after using the best thermal compound available, adding thick feet, and using it only on a cutting board to make sure an uneven surface like my lap doesn't reduce flow. Also, never place the charger on the carpet or it will shut itself off from thermal overload. Everything still randomly overheats with minimal workloads, but mainly it sort of works now :)

8cvor6j844qw_d6 49 minutes ago | parent

My impression has been that Dell generally provides better long term support such as firmware security updates than Asus. Curious what is recommend instead, Lenovo perhaps?

meteyor 47 minutes ago | parent

I've owned several generations of XPS and whenever I need a new laptop XPS is my choice. So far I've loved them. :) Haven't run into any overheating issues so far, but I'm sure we use ours differently.

the_real_cher 47 minutes ago | parent

Every Dell XPS Ive ever had has broken within a year or two. However the warranty is amazing and they fixed it within a few weeks.

I have a Dell Precision that's a tank though.

Maybe QC differences in consumer vs business models.

as1mov 34 minutes ago | parent

FWIW, I've used their Latitude line of laptops and they've been excellent on Linux.

But that could possibly be an exception, and the rest of the company is staffed with shit flinging monkeys, at least that's what I infer from the horrid design of the XPS product page.

loloquwowndueo 29 minutes ago | parent

To each their own my dude. I’ve been on XPS13 since 2014, all three have been solid and are still working. Latest one is from 2023. Developer edition with Ubuntu preinstalled.

trentnix 12 minutes ago | parent

My own experience doesn't match yours. I've bought 6 XPS laptops and a couple of desktops (including Alienware) over the last 20 years and have had a pretty good experience with all of them. They always had nice screens, good performance, and held up to the stresses and strains of travel and heavy usage.

That doesn't mean I haven't had a handful of issues, such as several swollen batteries that caused problemss with the touch pad and keyboard. But Dell fixed the ones (onsite!) that occurred during the warranty period and I was able to fix the ones that occurred outside the warranty period.

The only issue that really sticks with me is one I had with motherboard fan controls (not lights, but fan speed) in an Alienware R6 that could only be engaged and adjusted via Windows software. Thanks to proprietary Dell bios shenanigans I couldn't get control of the fan via Linux no matter what I tried.

That said, I don't find this "Create Edition" model appealing for so many of the reasons other posters have pointed out (price, Windows preinstalled, etc.). And I really dislike monitors that use uncommon resolutions (I think this one is 3200x2000).

pfooti 12 minutes ago | parent

I have an xps15 that yes, runs hot when I really use it, but it is otherwise fine. May be a model year situation. I have a 9510 from 2021 and it still suits fine as a daily driver for node / angular / postgres etc running in containers as I do dev work.

sega_sai 2 minutes ago | parent

I had a Dell latitude E6400 for many years, and it was rock solid for me with zero complaints. After that I had an XPS 9550, and it had a lot of issues over just ~3-4 years: issues with power connector, audio stopping working, touchpad issues, etc. Since then I decided to go back to Thinkpad.

Foobar8568 1 hour ago | parent

More expensive and worse than a MBP , congratulation. What type of jokes is this shit?

Dell Price $3,799.99 Processor NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X, 18 Cores Operating System Windows 11 Home Graphics Card NVIDIA Blackwell RTX 5120-core GPU Memory 32 GB LPDDR5X Storage 512 GB SSD, TLC Displays 16" Touch 3.2K (3200x2000)

weird-eye-issue 1 hour ago | parent

How would this be for gaming compared to something like a Razer laptop with RTX 5070?

2III7 38 minutes ago | parent

There aren't many arm native windows games.

Theodores 33 minutes ago | parent

Dell have a different range for gaming, with the obligatory LED lights and whatnot. This is for 'content creators', which mostly means video editing, and it promises the benefits of the RTX Spark SoC with ARM-based CPU. This means extended battery life and being able to do editing in half the time.

Given that editing is a bottleneck and cost in the production process, this laptop, with its huge screen and Spark CPU is a no-brainer, however, there is also the ASUS ProArt range, which also comes with RTX Spark, but an arguably better screen, it is not as if there is anything new here for the 'content creator'.

But this does not answer your question, however, I am sure that FAFO applies, so you can expect a glitchy experience, up to the point of unplayable. Honestly, running an obscure North Korean linux on a Microsoft Surface gadget that has been specifically designed with closed source, Windows only drivers would be a preferable challenge to getting your games to work on this.

Therefore, dive in and be an early adopter, the prices will be double next year.

assimpleaspossi 34 minutes ago | parent

The site blocks Chromium on FreeBSD.