Been holding out for word on a new Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition preloaded with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS? Well you’re in in luck as Dell has announced one!
You likely don’t need much in way of introduction to the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition. This laptop series has, throughout its many incarnations, become as popular with Linux developers as IBM’s famed ThinkPad line (which was recently blessed with Ubuntu too).
The latest iteration of Dell’s developer laptop ships with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS pre-loaded. The device touts a built-in fingerprint reader that “just works” with Ubuntu (and devs are backporting newer fingerprint login improvements) plus a bevvy of other features.
Specs wise this laptop offers a 13.4″ InfinityEdge display (1920×1200, 16:10) (non-touch) in the standard config. This can be swapped out for a touch version of the same panel or replaced with a pixel-packed 13.4″ UHD+ (3840×2400) InfinityEdge display with touch, though this switch bumps the price up a fair bit.
The base model touts a 10th Gen Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor @ 1.00 GHz (up to 3.6GHz turbo boost). A bit more money gets you a bit more oomph in the form of the 10th Gen Intel Core i7-1065G7 processor @ 1.3GHz (up to 3.9GHz turbo boost). Both CPUs are quad-core.
Graphics performance varies depending on the processor you opt for. The i5 config comes with integrated Intel UHD graphics, while the 10th Gen Intel i7 config offers integrated Intel Iris Plus graphics.
The laptop ships with 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM as standard but this can be expanded to 32GB if you want (and yes, you probably do want — this thing runs GNOME Shell after all).
There’s also up to 2TB of storage (M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive), the aforementioned fingerprint reader, and a battery life which — get this — Dell say is good for up to 18 hours.
Ports-wise the connectivity options are svelte with two Thunderbolt 3 ports for video and power; a regular 3.5mm headphone jack; and a flush microSD card reader. There’s Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 (2 x 2) and Bluetooth 5.1 on board, both “just work” in Ubuntu 20.04.
Style isn’t compromised either. The Dell XPS 13 developer edition is available in a sleek ‘platinum silver with black carbon fiber palmrest‘ or a more refined ‘frost white with alpine white composite fiber palmrest’ (albeit for $50 more).
“We’re delighted to see the first Dell systems ship with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Enterprises are increasingly equipping their developers and engineers with the operating system of their choice ensuring high end-user productivity,” Martin Wimpress, Ubuntu desktop lead, says of the new unit.
Pricing for the newly Ubuntu certified model starts at $1,099.99 in the US. Price will vary depending on configuration and locale.
Dell’s OEM version of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ships with a few extra things preinstalled and preconfigured including recovery tools, recovery partition, any relevant drivers, the Dell OEM repo, and (perhaps less welcome) the Google Chrome web browser.
Interested in getting one? Head over the Dell website to learn more.