There is a lot to of good to be said about the XPS series. I love them for all my coding tasks.
The only problem is that you cannot open the display up fully. They block at 160° or so.
In many situations it would be super useful to have the laptop opened up 180°. In a plane for example. Or when it sits on a desk in a laptop stand and you use an external keyboard.
Running a laptop comparison site myself (https://www.productchart.com), I wonder if we should add '180°' to the filter list. It seems like an odd feature. It's super useful to me. Never heard anybody else talk about it though.
I personally can't think of the last time I wanted to open a laptop 180* or more.
Obviously both our experience is anecdotal but if it was driving purchasing decisions you'd see more laptops that can open 180 since the design trade-offs are relatively minor in the overwhelming majority of cases.
On a plane is pretty much the only time for me. I've been on planes where my intention to get work done on the trip was shot because with the keyboard on the tray I wasn't able to open the screen far enough to get a good view.
But typing on a vertical keyboard is probably not awesome.
If 180° opening angle is an important feature for you it might be worth it to go towards the XPS 2-in-1 series which features a 360° opening angle. In a car, on a plane or on foot that can be an awesome feature to have.
You can search for "Antiglare Touch Screen Protector" in Amazon and some suitable products will appear.
Why would you do such atrocity and how can you really keep clean a non-smooth surface which you constantly touch with your fingers are two issues that I better not think too much about.
Yes, we hopefully get there at some point. I have categorized over 1600 feature requests so far. A 'Comes with Linux preinstalled filter' is not yet at the top, but it is in the top 5% of requested features.
In addition to 180 I would add Thinkpad as a separate option to Lenovo. The security issues have been separate between the 2 systems and frankly I would never consider another lenovo but certainly a Thinkpad.
I bought an XPS15, and have had nothing but trouble with it. Every time there's a Windows update, the hard drive "can't be found" and it wipes GRUB on every reboot. I've been spending half an hour every morning getting it to a state where I can use it again, and had to mess around with firmware downgrades to get it usable (until the next Windows update).
Never buying a Dell again. Their support were worse than useless, insisting that somehow installing Linux had caused the problem.
I'm eagerly waiting for my first Purism laptop, then I can get 30 mins of my day back.
I have an XPS 2-in-1 and I open to 180 degrees sometimes when laying down and using the touchscreen. It sometimes works in economy seats as you can rest the laptop on your lap and then the screen is kind of like a seatback IFE. But if you opened it flat on your lap, the screen can't open that far because of the restrictions of the seat in front of you. I also will put it in "tent mode" e.g. over 270 degrees open and the screen upside down on the tray table to watch a movie.
About the only thing I don't do much is use it as a tablet as its kind of heavy, even though I have the Dell pen for it.
In fairness, there are literally an infinite number of laptops out there (if you take into account the never ending cycle of new laptops being released). Cataloguing every make and model for a hobby project is simply not going to be possible.
The only problem is that you cannot open the display up fully. They block at 160° or so.
In many situations it would be super useful to have the laptop opened up 180°. In a plane for example. Or when it sits on a desk in a laptop stand and you use an external keyboard.
Running a laptop comparison site myself (https://www.productchart.com), I wonder if we should add '180°' to the filter list. It seems like an odd feature. It's super useful to me. Never heard anybody else talk about it though.