Initial Hands-On & Benchmarking With The Dell XPS 9380 Pre-Loaded With Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

[rene]

Are there any "premium" laptops that have all the navigation keys? Mine (a 17" gaming laptop, which I didn't buy) has almost every one except End.

as I say in the video, I do not even need "all the keys", that they have the half size stupidly placed page-up/down over left and right is exactly the problem. I would be more happy with less keys, and using fn+Arrow left/right/up/down for page-up/down/pos1/end. They are usually hard to hit without looking on some alien top row anyways. Fn+arrows is perfect for laptops, but not keys that make your document jump back and forth when one accidentally and constantly keeps pressing them, ...!

[GrayShade]

as I say in the video, I do not even need "all the keys", that they have the half size stupidly placed page-up/down over left and right is exactly the problem. I would be more happy with less keys, and using fn+Arrow left/right/up/down for page-up/down/pos1/end. They are usually hard to hit without looking on some alien top row anyways. Fn+arrows is perfect for laptops, but not keys that make your document jump back and forth when one accidentally and constantly keeps pressing them, ...!

Ah, so it was your video :-). Coming from a MacBook, I'm sure you don't mind using Fn combinations, but I've recently had to use one for a while and I hated the keyboard layout. And I don't see the point of using half-size keys when there's space for full-size ones.

I'm just wondering whether -- when the time comes to retire my current laptop -- there will be any options left for me. I imagine 17" laptops might still be an option, but the premium ones have been moving to smaller sizes because of Apple's influence.

[Vistaus]

> Virtually nobody getting "serious text (code) editing work done" is using the arrow keys for navigation.

Really? How do you move between adjacent lines then? Touchscreen? Touchpad? Serious code editing takes extensive keyboard work, and it can't be done if the layout is problematic.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe a lot of Linux coders are either using Vi and its keyboard shortcuts or some IDE with Vi-like keyboard shortcuts.

[Vistaus]

Are there any "premium" laptops that have all the navigation keys? Mine (a 17" gaming laptop, which I didn't buy) has almost every one except End.

My Lenovo ThinkPad L380 Yoga has a lot of the navigation keys (including Home, End, Delete, PrtScr and Insert) and also properly sized arrow keys. And the F keys (F1-F12) have double functions, so you can re-assign them for whatever navigation keys are missing and still have access to the F functions. It does have PgUp and PgDn above the right and left arrow keys though, which, IMHO, is the only small downside of this otherwise awesome keyboard.

[GrayShade]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe a lot of Linux coders are either using Vi and its keyboard shortcuts or some IDE with Vi-like keyboard shortcuts.

A lot of people aren't that much into vi. I'd rather have my navigation keys be usable, since they're there on the keyboard. For example, my laptop has "Home, Page Up, Page Down, Power" placed one next to each other.

[Vistaus]

(

A lot of people aren't that much into vi.

I don't think you understood my comment. I said "Linux coders", not people. That's a specific type of people and everywhere I read about people who do their coding on Linux (i.e. "coders"), they always say they use Vi or at least Vi-like keyboard shortcuts in their IDE.

[GrayShade]

(

I don't think you understood my comment. I said "Linux coders", not people. That's a specific type of people and everywhere I read about people who do their coding on Linux (i.e. "coders"), they always say they use Vi or at least Vi-like keyboard shortcuts in their IDE.

I do my coding on Linux and I can use vi, but I wouldn't say it's my favourite editor. I could use it full time if I had to, even without my arrow keys, but I'm not going to do that.

Also think about the other tasks like editing an Office document where vi is not an option.

[Vistaus]

I do my coding on Linux and I can use vi, but I wouldn't say it's my favourite editor. I could use it full time if I had to, even without my arrow keys, but I'm not going to do that.

Also think about the other tasks like editing an Office document where vi is not an option.

Yes, my bad. I thought the person you initally quoted said "text code editing", but I now see that he said "text (code) editing". Sorry 'about that!

[leledumbo]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe a lot of Linux coders are either using Vi and its keyboard shortcuts or some IDE with Vi-like keyboard shortcuts.

Vi also supports arrow keys, along with hjkl. I prefer using arrow keys as I only use vi(m) when managing my remote servers. I'm so upset to see that a lot of well spec-d laptops either have all arrow keys half size, or the worse only up/down is half size, while having ridiculously gigantic shift key. Even my 10.5" tablet can fit all 4 in their full size, how come a 13.3", 14" or even 15.6" (this is the most ridiculous, and I've seen some) can't?

[andrei_me]

I would love a version of it using AMD instead