Good laptop, excellent response, poor linux support
I contacted support pre-sales and was surprised by the fast and good response. Try contacting Dell or HP..
The configuration of the laptop on the web page is excellent` Thank you *a lot*.
I was happy to get a laptop that looks repairable. The matte screen is exactly what I need. Perfect resolution for me. The keyboard is not bad, but not exactly my taste. Will get used to it.
I was disappointed by the installed linux (xubuntu 24.04).
Configured was deep suspend. Laptop goes off, and never comes back. Not even alt-ctrl-prtscr+b reboots. Only press&hold power key.
Hibernate was not available, because the swap file was too small, and the grub cmd line (resume=UUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX resume_offset=XXXXX) was missing.
I now have that working, too.
Machine drew 15-20W idle. That empties the 99Wh battery too fast. And the fans go on all too often. I upgraded to 24.10, which improved the situation *a lot*. Added tlp, tweaked some kernel parameters and was down to about 10W. I turned off the cursor blinking in the gnome-terminal, which was about 1W. That makes me think that something with the chipset support in linux is not good. I wonder if it is too young.
As it came, the advertised "battery life of up to 8 hours" are unrealistic.
What is still open is the (right, I believe) fan. As soon as the CPU reaches 45 C (I think), it goes on, and quite fast. Instead of very slowly cooling, there is an annoying "swoosh".
If I buy a laptop with linux preinstalled, I expect these things, and decent power usage. Otherwise, I can as well shop with Lenovo or HP and go with models that have positive reviews in the internet.
I would not like to imagine the disappointment for a linux newbie.. Or my disappointment if I would have been in a situation where I needed that laptop to be up & usable fast. Happily, I have had some time to read, learn and tweak, but in an "emergency situation" during a stressful project, where I quickly need a new laptop. OMG, no, thanks.
