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It used to be very difficult to find a Linux laptop. I had to turn to small, specialized Linux-compatible PC vendors such as Purism, System76, or ZaReason. Now, Lenovo is launching nearly 30 Ubuntu Linux PCs and laptops. And in a few days, Dell will release a new XPS 13 Developer Edition preloaded with Ubuntu 20.04 Long Term Support (LTS) Linux and an 11th Gen Intel Core Tiger Lake processor faster than ever.
Tiger Lake is Intel’s new system on a chip. Take over from the previous Lake Field chip. It is based on Intel’s Willow Cove Core microarchitecture. In the new Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition, you can get a 4.8 GHz Tiger Lake Core i7 quad-core processor.
These high-end CPUs also come with Iris Xe, Intel’s newer and much faster integrated graphics. How much faster? Intel claims that Iris Xe is twice as fast as Intel UHD Graphics.
To make things even faster, the Developer Edition XPS 13 comes with 4,267MHz LPDDR4 RAM. The previous generation came with 3733MHz memory. You can also get up to 32GB of this blazing-fast memory.
For ports, the new Dell Linux developer machines come with a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports. With these ports, you can power external devices, transfer data at 40Gb / s throughput, and run a pair of external 4K DisplayPort monitors.
If you choose to use the 13.4-inch screen, you can get 1080p HD or 4K resolutions. In my experience with the latest XPS 13 Developer Edition, I would go for the 1080p model. Even with a somewhat larger screen, thanks to Dell reducing the bezel so that the screen-to-body ratio is 91.5%, the 4K resolution is too much for this screen size.
For networking, the XPS 13 uses Killer Wi-Fi 6. It is built on Intel’s W-iFi 6 chipset. It is a 2 × 2 module, which supports 160MHz channels and Bluetooth 5.1. In theory, it can deliver up to 2.4 Gbps of throughput.
For storage, these are PCIe solid state drives. You can get this from 256GB to 1TB.
Dell claims nearly 19 hours of battery life from the XPS 13 Developer Edition. In my testing of the latest version, which Dell made similar claims about, I didn’t see as much battery life. Still, I can get a solid workday with my older model and maxed out.
However, let’s say you have a box of Windows Dell XPS 13. No worries. Dell can help you fix this problem. Dell stated that you can easily switch your Windows system to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. This is done simply by downloading and installing Ubuntu Linux, even if you didn’t originally purchase the Developer Edition. Any XPS-13 can run both operating systems side by side, or it can let Ubuntu take over.
Dell has yet to release pricing for the latest XPS 13 Developer Edition. I hope it’s in line with the latest version. Previously, pricing started at $ 1,199.99 for an i5-based Developer Edition with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, an FHD display, and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS preloaded.
