In the last month, I got me two Dells.
1st is a Dell Latitude 7275 which is a Surface Clone. Core M5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. Almost perfect laptop. 12.5” with two Thunderbolt 3 ports ONLY. Nothing else which is my preference because I have multiple Thunderbolt 3 docking stations (Belkin, Caldigit) and all USB-c SSDs storage. Simply, I moved over to USB-C and have no legacy stuff so dongles is not an issue.
The laptop was so perfect except one thing.... 2 hour battery life with my workload. 4 hours average. 4 hours is what most reviewers will tell you. I got it for $400 refurb and the battery was 25600 (tested) and new is 26000. I still have it. I swapped out Windows 10 for Ubuntu 18.04 and Thunderbolt 3 works with it. I use an external battery pack USB-C pack to charge it. It weighs 1.5 lb but once you add the Dell keyboard, it is 4lbs and add another 1 lb for USB-C battery. So perfect except battery life.
Next, I got me a Dell Latitude 5490 8th gen i5, quad core, 8GB/256gb ssd. 14” screen with ThinkPad style keyboard. Cool. 1 USB-C port , 3 USB A, Ethernet, HDMI. I dont need all that. But it is light. But rather thick. 4lbs. Low nit 200 screen. Lighter than my 15” Retina Touchbar. I had that for a week, then the company swapped it out for a MacBook 13 Pro which is lighter and more solid.
It didn’t have Thunderbolt but I used the lone USB-C. I never carried the Dell legacy charger or plugged directly into the legacy ports (HDMI/gigabit). I was always connected to a USB-c docking station. Just goes to show, USB-c is the future. Since this is a business laptop, it had a VGA port and built in Ethernet. Understandable this was design for business/office use. Just not developer friendly.
The price I think was $1500 so Dell is making a killing on bland hardware. I would have preferred an issued XPS 13 but since it wasn’t a Latittude, I got the 5490.
I really like the Dell 7275 as it was perfect for me. 12.5” is a great size. Like a MacBook 12. But the keyboard folio added weight and made it thicker than the MacBook Pro 13”. So there were trade-offs.
Two Thunderbolt 3 ports like the MacBook Pro 13”. It worked for me because I already had the TB3/USB-C ecosystem in place. I like swapping out my 15” from my Caldigit and the Dell would power two of my 4K/Curved Ultrawide 34” screens. Price was killer for a refurb at $400.. But the battery life is horrible. Windows 10 just didn’t cut it too for my work which is mostly LINUX DevOPS. I tried the whole Windows WSL, Hyper-V docker but the workflow meant I had to re-do everything when 99% of the shop were running Ubuntu, RHEL, and OSX. I was the lone Windows 10.
1st is a Dell Latitude 7275 which is a Surface Clone. Core M5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. Almost perfect laptop. 12.5” with two Thunderbolt 3 ports ONLY. Nothing else which is my preference because I have multiple Thunderbolt 3 docking stations (Belkin, Caldigit) and all USB-c SSDs storage. Simply, I moved over to USB-C and have no legacy stuff so dongles is not an issue.
The laptop was so perfect except one thing.... 2 hour battery life with my workload. 4 hours average. 4 hours is what most reviewers will tell you. I got it for $400 refurb and the battery was 25600 (tested) and new is 26000. I still have it. I swapped out Windows 10 for Ubuntu 18.04 and Thunderbolt 3 works with it. I use an external battery pack USB-C pack to charge it. It weighs 1.5 lb but once you add the Dell keyboard, it is 4lbs and add another 1 lb for USB-C battery. So perfect except battery life.
Next, I got me a Dell Latitude 5490 8th gen i5, quad core, 8GB/256gb ssd. 14” screen with ThinkPad style keyboard. Cool. 1 USB-C port , 3 USB A, Ethernet, HDMI. I dont need all that. But it is light. But rather thick. 4lbs. Low nit 200 screen. Lighter than my 15” Retina Touchbar. I had that for a week, then the company swapped it out for a MacBook 13 Pro which is lighter and more solid.
It didn’t have Thunderbolt but I used the lone USB-C. I never carried the Dell legacy charger or plugged directly into the legacy ports (HDMI/gigabit). I was always connected to a USB-c docking station. Just goes to show, USB-c is the future. Since this is a business laptop, it had a VGA port and built in Ethernet. Understandable this was design for business/office use. Just not developer friendly.
The price I think was $1500 so Dell is making a killing on bland hardware. I would have preferred an issued XPS 13 but since it wasn’t a Latittude, I got the 5490.
I really like the Dell 7275 as it was perfect for me. 12.5” is a great size. Like a MacBook 12. But the keyboard folio added weight and made it thicker than the MacBook Pro 13”. So there were trade-offs.
Two Thunderbolt 3 ports like the MacBook Pro 13”. It worked for me because I already had the TB3/USB-C ecosystem in place. I like swapping out my 15” from my Caldigit and the Dell would power two of my 4K/Curved Ultrawide 34” screens. Price was killer for a refurb at $400.. But the battery life is horrible. Windows 10 just didn’t cut it too for my work which is mostly LINUX DevOPS. I tried the whole Windows WSL, Hyper-V docker but the workflow meant I had to re-do everything when 99% of the shop were running Ubuntu, RHEL, and OSX. I was the lone Windows 10.
