Well after spending all afternoon with this new Dell XPS 13 9315 I absolutely love it. The fit and finish feels exactly like a Macbook Air.
I have Linux installed (Pop_OS) and the only two issues I had were getting the webcam running and the fingerprint reader. I managed getting both of them up and now the hardware is 100% operable! I am so happy I kept giving Linux a go and found a great laptop with few compatibility issues.
Thanks to all of you who recommended Dell laptops. There were a couple minor problems, but both were solvable with a bit of ddg searching.
EDIT: I've decided to return this Dell XPS 13 based on some of your replies about the 12th gen intel being out of date for the price and build quality issues with Dell in general. I went with a Lemur Pro i7 Raptor Lake, 40gb ram, 1tb storage System76 build for only $200 more. Only downside is I have to wait a bit for them to confirm my order, assemble, and ship. It'll be nice to have a machine built exclusively for Linux!
I’m really happy to be reading your posts. I kind of forgot about the xps line and have been wanting a “cleaner” computer and something with better hardware.
I was looking at Mac’s but you get so little for the money you spend on them.
I think it’s similar cost with the xps line, but you get at least double the ram and storage.
I’ll probably go the XPS 15 when I’m ready to upgrade at this point.
I got an XPS 15 last year, running Kubuntu and I love it except for one design flaw. The wifi card will randomly disappear from the hardware inventory and the only thing that fixes it is a reboot. It's a $20 replacement part that should be user-replaceable... except for the fact that they soldered it to the motherboard for some inexplicable reason. So I'm stuck using a USB dongle wifi chip. But otherwise it's great (even plays Baldurs Gate 3 pretty well since the latest hotfixes).
I don't know what the extended warranty price is in your region but for me with my XPS 15 9500 I would recommend it. The repair guy has been at my home like 5-6x. Stuck pixel screen replacement, factory trackpad defect > replaced > which caused the fingerprint reader to stop working> in the end it magically fixed itself. Use the phone line with your "premium" support the whatsapp helpline fucking sucks.
Besides that it is an amazing laptop, I love it.
Also check out Thinkpad z13 and z16, they are very fine similar machines as well