vin

Vin, named after a character from the Mistborn Books by Brandon Sanderson, is my daily driver for work: a XPS 13 laptop running Arch Linux with KDE Plasma.

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The Laptop is the Dell XPS 13 2017 model (9360). I upgraded the disk to a 2 TB NvME at some point, and in 2022 I replaced the battery, which was suprisingly easy.

Currently, I'm running Arch Linux with KDE Plasma, installed via the Xero Linux scripts.
I started with Ubuntu with the Gnome Desktop because I had used Ubuntu some years back and it's easy to get used to. I then switched to hardcore mode (Arch Gnome) after one year because I wanted to know how everything works under the hood and then used Manjaro Gnome after another year. After 3 years, I switched back to Arch, but this time with KDE Plasma.

I love the USB-C port: either at home or in the office I just need one cable to connect power, display, sound, keyboard, mouse and webcam. The keyboard is pretty decent for a laptop keyboard (and I am a bit spoiled as far as keyboards are concerned), the trackpad is as good as it gets if you don't have a MacBook. The webcam is garbage, but I don't use it that much and it's better than having no webcam at all. Headphone jack (which also takes a microphone, or even a headset), SD card reader, two USB 3 ports, one USB-C port that can be used to power the laptop - what more do you need when you are on the road? And when I'm at my desk, everything is connected via the USB-C port anyway. It even has one of those buttons you can press to see how much battery is left, even if the laptop is closed and powered of. I also have one of those big power banks that can provide enough power over USB-C to charge the laptop. Or if I have no charger with me, one of those fancy usb-c macbook chargers my friends carry around works perfectly. And it has a 4k touchscreen. I never thought I would use a touchscreen on a laptop, but sometimes when reading articles I use it to scroll, which is pretty nice. Nothing that you really need, but if it's there anyways it makes life a bit better.

Both in the office and at home I have a 38" monitor, a selfmade keyboard, a decent mouse and a webcam. I only need to connect one USB-C cable to link up all the peripherals and also charge the laptop.

Best computer for work I ever owned. Unfortunately, the new revisions of this model lack a lot of the useful features, so when it's time to upgrade, I'll have a closer look at the Framework Laptop instead - but hopefully this is still a few years away.