Dell laptop
Ranked 12 of 63 laptops by recommenders
People recommend Dell laptops for reliable Linux support, long working lives and easy parts, with frequent complaints about overheating, loud fans and flimsy build quality.
People recommend Dell laptops for reliable Linux support, long working lives and easy parts, with frequent complaints about overheating, loud fans and flimsy build quality.
115 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 37
- criticize it
- 78
- approval share
- 32%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 6.9 years
Median of the 12 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 37 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works well with Linux
“I never had any serious problems in Linux with any of the many Dell, HP and Lenovo laptops that I have used during the last 2 decades.”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 6.19” “For laptops, I just buy from Dell, with Ubuntu preloaded, and everything works.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Apple Just Lost Me” “Dell has sold laptops with first-party Linux support for nearly fifteen years”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence – Coming Fall 2026 – Googlebook” - Comment from 24 Dec 2025 in “I'm returning my Framework 16”
- Comment from 24 May 2026 in “Your Dotfiles Are Not a Distro”
- Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Dell Admits It Made a Mistake When It Abandoned XPS”
- Comment from 6 May 2026 in “StarFighter 16-Inch”
Long life for many owners
“Dell, HP and Lenovo have been phenomenally resilient for us, going back more than 2 decades.”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” “I had a Dell Laptop in 2008 that had 8GB RAM and was my Plex server until 2018.”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and download official updates” “my 16 year old Dell laptop I used for work back then. Runs great”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop” - Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Chromebook Leads for K-8 School In Need?”
Handles everyday work reliably
“It's fine for a lot of progamming work (I have built kernel on this).”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo” “it does everything I actually need flawlessly”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “Better to Skip a Year for Hardware Upgrades?” “They make cheap devices that just work.”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO” Good on-site service
“Go with Dell and get their on site support for 3 years”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: I haven't had to buy a Windows computer in 20 years” “The service quality was good.”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Recurring hardware and driver faults
“There are so many issues with it - keypresses being 10-20 seconds delayed, random window tearing/partial display updates”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop” “The straw that broke the camel's back was a Dell laptop that wasn't working with the Wifi until I turned off IPv6.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “MacBook Neo Is So Popular That Apple Doubled Production” “the cause of the issue ends up being a connector not being fully plugged in from the factory”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Surface Laptop Ultra: Made for World Makers” - Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Dell Admits It Made a Mistake When It Abandoned XPS”
- Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?”
Overheats and runs fans constantly
“The other one overheats no matter what, and I have to unplug it for a couple minutes every few hours”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?” “is heavy and has the fans running full speed all the time and only technically works unplugged”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO” “I had a Dell laptop near kill itself waking up while in my backpack and near melting itself.”
Comment from 26 Dec 2025 in “Asahi Linux with Sway on the MacBook Air M2” - Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?”
Flimsy case and hinge
“except for the terrible battery life and the fact that the structure was so poor”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO” “I dropped one onto the carpeted floor of my office because I thought it was going into my padded sleeve of backpack and that cracked the case, and broke the screen.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Apple introduces the new MacBook Air with M5” “the plastic part of the bottom cover holding the metal hinge mechanism is absolutely terrible”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 on Hacker News Battery life falls short
“except for the terrible battery life and the fact that the structure was so poor”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO” “lots of things are breaking down and that's not counting the battery which barely last 2 hours now”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Apple to focus on 'quality and underlying performance' with iOS 27 next year”
Other laptops people recommend
The four most recommended other laptops, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple MacBook Pro | 928 | 688 | 57% | 13 | 5 yrs248 owners | — |
| Apple MacBook Neo | 707 | 355 | 66% | 9 | 1 mo8 owners | — |
| MacBook Air | 633 | 209 | 75% | 12 | 5 yrs130 owners | Approved |
| Apple MacBook | 499 | 348 | 59% | 12 | 9 yrs77 owners | — |
| Dell laptopThis page | 37 | 78 | 32% | 8 | 6.9 yrs12 owners | — |
What people said
40 of the 122 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“buying replacement parts on eBay is both very easy and highly affordable”
“they've had orders of magnitude more time and money than Framework has to throw at BIOS development, and it shows.”
“the hardware and firmware design is so poor that the fans always operate at near full speed”
“The straw that broke the camel's back was a Dell laptop that wasn't working with the Wifi until I turned off IPv6.”
“the cause of the issue ends up being a connector not being fully plugged in from the factory”
“valid competitors in battery life and size and weight from Dell”
“I've had decent experiences with most Dell, Lenovo and Asus laptops”
“Dell has been selling machines with official Ubuntu support for ages iirc”
“Not fast enough for all I need to do but covers 80% of my needs.”
“Dell has sold laptops with first-party Linux support for nearly fifteen years”
“Dell laptops have always worked great with Linux IME”
“For laptops, I just buy from Dell, with Ubuntu preloaded, and everything works.”
“They make cheap devices that just work.”
“is heavy and has the fans running full speed all the time and only technically works unplugged”
“except for the terrible battery life and the fact that the structure was so poor”
“I tend to always advise friends who want Windows/Linux laptops to buy from the business lines, especially if a 1- or 2- year refurb will work.”
“It's fine for a lot of progamming work (I have built kernel on this).”
“I dropped one onto the carpeted floor of my office because I thought it was going into my padded sleeve of backpack and that cracked the case, and broke the screen.”
“it does everything I actually need flawlessly”
“solid Dells or ThinkPads with no faults whatsoever”
“I never had any serious problems in Linux with any of the many Dell, HP and Lenovo laptops that I have used during the last 2 decades.”
“I had a Dell Laptop in 2008 that had 8GB RAM and was my Plex server until 2018.”
“Dell, HP and Lenovo have been phenomenally resilient for us, going back more than 2 decades.”
“it's extremely broken for software reasons. I see this across multiple Dells and ThinkPads”
“You can install Linux on Dell laptops, or Dell will do it for you”
“I bought a brand new Dell laptop with Windows 11 25H2 at the end of November 2025.”
“my 16 year old Dell laptop I used for work back then. Runs great”
“I had a Dell laptop near kill itself waking up while in my backpack and near melting itself.”
“This has been a non issue on Dell machines for almost 20 years.”
“I'm not a massive fan of the hardware or anything, but most Dell laptops”
“I've never had trouble with Dell laptops with any Linux distro I cared about”
“There are so many issues with it - keypresses being 10-20 seconds delayed, random window tearing/partial display updates”
“Go with Dell and get their on site support for 3 years”
“The service quality was good.”
“The other one overheats no matter what, and I have to unplug it for a couple minutes every few hours”
“teething / niggling issues which I have had to face in pretty much every Dell I have owned”
“lots of things are breaking down and that's not counting the battery which barely last 2 hours now”
“the plastic part of the bottom cover holding the metal hinge mechanism is absolutely terrible”
“the frequent security firmware updates for one of the Dell laptop that I had”
“the frequent security firmware updates for one of the Dell laptop that I had makes me think it might make a good candidate”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.