When we started our tour three month ago, I replaced my trusty Lenovo Thinkpad T520 with a shiny new Dell XPS 13 (9360). The reasons where many fold: As weight and volume are premium while travelling half the weight and less than half the volume is awesome. As I didn’t intended to do a lot computer stuff, I settled for a 13 inch screen instead of a 15 inch screen. The other main reason is definitely the battery life. 10 hour of light work or browsing is easily accessible. My previous laptop seldom stayed alive longer than three hours, even with the bigger battery pack.

Obviously I had to make sacrifices somewhere: I already mentioned the smaller screen. Also, I traded power with battery life. Before I had a Intel i7 Quadcore. Now it’s “only” a dual core (although a faster one). I also had to omit a dedicated graphic unit which I had before. But my main drawback is the missing trackpoint. I know people either love or hate them and I loved it.

Configuration Out of the different configuration I had chosen the 8Gb, Core i5, Full-HD No-Touch display with 256Gb disk and Ubuntu pre-installed. Because I did not know if I would use this laptop after our travelling as much as while we were travelling, I tried to keep the costs as low as possible. Although I knew I would install Windows, I used the Ubuntu installation a while. A quite nice experience I have to admit. Nonetheless I installed Windows. After some start problems (the WiFi card was not supported from scratch by windows, so I couldn’t download other drivers…) I installed Windows 10. I also installed “Dell Update” for up-to-date drivers.

(Not really a) review I would love to do a review of my machine, but I do not use it enough to call it a real “review”. I use it for to keep track of my balance, booking of tours and for some light gaming. Also the occasional programming task when ever an idea struck me. Nonetheless can I say that I am (was) very happy with the laptop. The battery life is fantastic. The display is crisp and the fan spins up only while gaming (or Windows Update running wild…). The bezel of the display is slim and gives the laptop a very good size to display ratio. smaller drawbacks are the missing “roll” button (which I never use, but was activated on Windows by default; Use on screen keyboard to toggle it) and the Fat-Chin-Camera (The camera is located in the lower part of the bezel).

So all in all: A good laptop and I’m looking forward to give Ubuntu another try when I’m back :-)