Luckily I didn’t buy it as it has major compatibility issues with the Nvidia Optimus chipset. Essentially the laptop can flip between a low performance intel video card and a high performance nvidia video card when using either 2d or 3d apps. Unfortunately, if you don’t run windows and use the special windows drivers, you’re in trouble. Linux does not support this video card flipping as the design for the drivers has not been released by nvidia, add to that nvidia has not released a compatible binary driver for linux either.

Short story, the video for the Dell XPS 15 is not very well supported in linux:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=161471
“You can’t use the card with Linux since you have Optimus. You’re stuck with Intel. Should’ve researched before you bought.”

So I dodged this bullet, but now I need to find an alternative laptop with the specs I need that is compatible with linux.
I run debian or ubuntu.

So I ask the lazyweb, what’s the best laptop that has all of the following features?

• 15″ screen
• Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution
• Video card that’s not entirely garbage nvidia or ati (read: not intel junk)
• Definitely NO Nvidia Optimus video chipset/config – not compatible with linux
• 9cell battery
• Core i5 2nd Generation
• 4gig ram minimum – 1333Mhz
• 7200rpm HD
• Wireless-N Wifi chipset supported in linux (probably Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 or Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 630, any well supported chipset)
• USB 3.0
• Good battery life
• Supported drivers under linux
• Preferably not a cramped keyboard layout (right shift key and arrow keys not crammed with other keys)

I’m open to suggestions for good laptop make/models, leave a comment on this post or email me at pete at geekpete.com

Thanks.

I had a basic idea of what I wanted in a phone and so I thought I’d take a look at what good smart phones were available. I wanted to know more about the iPhone. Was it over hyped? Was it as evil as some people say regarding vendor lock in? Or was the iPhone simply a great piece of technology that solved many problems in cool and interesting ways?

Steve, a colleague of mine, bought his 3g iPhone when it was first officially release in Australia about three months ago. I thought Steve would be the best person to ask about his experiences with this device because he’s been using it and patching it for the past bunch of months and he’s also a geek like me so I knew he would provide the perspective I was after. (No offence, Steve… *grin*). Ok, lets get to the QA…

Compatibility

Pete: How does it work with windows in general?

Steve: Only works with iTunes, but you get a shared camera in My Computer. It is read only.

Pete: How does it work with linux (if you’ve tried)?

Steve: Haven’t tried, but I would say only the read-only camera. Need iTunes.

Pete: How does tethering go?

Steve: Do you mean connection? Got bluetooth & wireless, and a usb cable.

Pete: How well do file/app transfers and installs work in windows/linux/mac.

Steve: Everything is sync’d with iTunes on Windows / Mac. iTunes handles everything including backing up the existing software. Only syncs via the usb cable.

Pete: How did you get around the lack of MMS.

Steve: I never used it. If you want you can email a picture.

Pete: How does an mms look on your phone when sent by another user.

Steve: I don’t get MMS messages

Pete: Does it do bluetooth fairly well?

Steve: Haven’t tried, but you have to turn bluetooth on in the settings.

Pete: Does it have a bluetooth minikeyboard you could use with it maybe?

Steve: Don’t know.

Pete: Are you majorly disadvantaged using it with linux or will you need a pc at a minimum to do stuff with it or preferably a mac?

Steve: You would need Windows or Mac.

Performance

Pete: How’s speed of the menus and transitions between stuff in the UI?

Steve: Pretty fast.

Pete: I heard the keyboard is slow to use.

Steve: You get used to it. I use my iphone keyboard faster than my old phone keypad. If you hit the wrong key, the iphone guesses what you meant. It is pretty accurate.

Pete: How is typing out a long text message or writing a long memo note?

Steve: No problems.

Pete: How is the sync times, I heard people whinge about it taking ages?

Steve: It does take a while. get a cup of coffee

Pete: How is battery life?

Steve: The same as a PDA. Lasts about a day if you use the apps a lot. I haven’t tried using it much without apps, but it can last a few days if you just use it as a phone I think.

Usability

Pete: What did you find to be the main usability problem when you first got your iPhone?

Steve: My biggest problem was that you could only send an SMS to one person at a time, but Apple fixed that in version 2.1, allowing you to add more than one person to an SMS.

Pete: What other quirks and fixes have you seen with different patch releases on the iPhone?

Steve: In version 2.0, when a 3rd party app crashed, the whole phone would restart. Since 2.0.1, you just go back to the desktop. Also, in version 2.0.1, heaps of apps didn’t work, but since 2.1 they seem to be fine now.

Pete: Can you rig shortcuts for things? I guess you can set the icons on your home page on the phone and have shortcuts that way?

Steve: You can make shortcuts for web pages, and all applications get a shortcut.

Pete: How is email from the phone?

Steve: I use gmail, and it works pretty well. You can set it to check for you messages every 5 min, 30 min, hourly, daily, manual etc.

Pete: How easy is it to take a photo and email it somewhere?

Steve: Very simple.

Pete: How’s the web look on the phone, are most sites ok or is it a bit of a hassle?

Steve: It’s a bit slow to download, but better than nothing. Viewing a site is very easy for zooming, moving around, filling out fields etc.

Pete: How would blogging go from the phone? probably use a client app to interface with a blog i spose is the best way?

Steve: I think there is some blogging software you can download. I don’t have a blog.

Pete: I heard it doesn’t do streaming video calls, do you even need this though?

Steve: Don’t need it, don’t use it. The camera faces away from the screen so you can’t do video phone anyway.

Pete: How’s video playback?

Steve: Podcast videos are really good, but the download on youtube is pretty bad even on wireless.

Pete: How hard is it to get non-applestore apps onto it?

Steve: Haven’t tried yet.

Pete: Is the applestore the only way to get new software, or does jailbreak get you in?

Steve: Haven’t tried jailbreak, apple store is the only way.

Pete: Can you put open source software on it, ssh I think you said you got working?

Steve: No jailbreak, no open source.

Pete: Have you tried the latest patch?

Steve: Yep, 2.1 works better than 2.0.1, most of the apps work again (they broke in 2.0.1).

Pete: How’s battery life (talk time vs standby.)

Steve: See above.

Pete: What things/apps/features do you really wish it had that it is simply missing?

Steve: SSH (hehe) and camera in video mode.

Pete: What stuff did you expect it could do but couldn’t? (like sms to multiple people when you first got it,etc)

Steve: The SMS thing I mentioned in pidgen. 2.1 has fixed – you can sms many people.

Pete: What things is it just totally kickass for?

Steve: Music, calendar.

Pete: What stuff “works” but really bugs the hell out of you and could do with some improvement?

Steve: Have to pay to sync your calendar and contacts with your machine.

Pete: What functions/apps do you find yourself using the most?

Steve:

• Stanza, I have been using it a lot lately to read free ebooks.

• iPod I use heaps of course.

• Notes – a notepad app that comes with the iphone – you can email your notes too.

• Calendar – so useful.

• Maps – google maps with gps, missing streetview.

• Clock has world time (great for hawaii), many alarm clocks, eg. I have week day alarms (5, 5:30) and a weekend alarm.

• timer – good for cooking

• Labyrinth is a pretty cool game.

• Flixshop – a free shopping list app (I think you have to pay for it now…)

• Bloomberg – tell it which stocks you have, and how many and it will tell you how much money you have invested

• Free voice recorder (VoiceNotes), like the old handheld cassette voice recorders – pretty cool.

• VNC

• Remote – remote control itunes (good for my lounge pc).

• Pocketpedia – keep track of what books you have, and when someone borrows one of your books.

• Shazam – tells you want song is playing, eg. on the radio or in a shopping centre – it works in Kmart!

Well thanks Steve, for answering my questions about the iPhone. I know  Steve is totally chuffed with his choice of phone and it gives me things to think about before I buy my next phone.

Show Steve some love by taking a look at his Amazon wishlist, it would totally blow his mind if someone on the internet randomly bought him a book  because he answered my stupid questions about his iPhone.

Steve’s Amazon wishlist:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2S0QIADHGMLOE/

UPDATE: After much deliberation, I’ve purchased the Nokia E71 mobile. A blog post will appear about it in time.