The specs seem fine on that. The screen is tiny but I guess if you are coming from a MacBook air you probably won't mind. Probably a fine choice.

You will definitely miss the clarity of your Mac screen. Screens are one of the main ways that low end windows machines manage to be so much cheaper than Macs with comparable internals. It has display ports though including HDMI so you could always hook it up to a monitor (or even a TV) if you need more space.

Yeah, although I don't know that it will much matter for QuickBooks and Excel. ;)

I find that text is the thing I want the high resolution for the most. Crisper fonts.

I'm interested in buying a super basic cd player for my mother. Any recommendations?

I'm having a couple of issues. The most annoying is that, while I'm in the office, I can't get my iPad to connect to the office WiFi. I reported that it might be down to a manager working at home, she contacted our external tech support who checked and said it was fine. And I was able to connect. However, it's not connecting now. It's annoying because I can't download an e-book I ordered. I'm hesitant to contact tech support directly, since it's a personal issue and doesn't seem to be affecting staff's ability to work from home ... but it's an annoyance. Any suggestions?

Well, the WiFi kicked in ... got my e-book, so I'm set (until the temptation to buy another e-book hits). bah!

Glad you got it working, Toddson!

I find myself in need of a laptop, and while I haven't used Windows 10 much yet, I'm, uh... not liking it. I'll probably get used to it if I make myself use it more, but right now I'm debating whether I want to go with a MacBook or get a laptop with Ubuntu preloaded like the Dell XPS 13. I've never tried installing Linux on my own and I'm not super eager to try.

Thoughts on pros and cons?

A) Windows 10 might grow on you. I have come around to it pretty thoroughly and no longer miss much of anything in Mac/Linux. It has its annoyances, but so do both of the others - it's all about which annoyances you're used to, y'know?

But also...

B) Installing Linux is VERY easy on most modern PC's including almost all laptops. Installing Ubuntu on my XPS 15 for dual boot was like a four click process.

My vote? Get a laptop that you confirm in advance supports Linux - the XPS 13 is great though I am partial to Thinkpads in the smallish laptop market - but get it with Windows. Install Linux in dual boot config (not hard I promise), but keep the Windows too. Some software will still run best that way, and if you ever want to factory reset and sell it, Windows makes more sense.

Alternatively, I can sell you a 1.5-year-old MacBook Pro soon for a good price, but full disclosure my wife is selling it because she hates it and wants to go back to Windows! She is, in fact, getting a thinkpad. My take is that Macs have taken a dive in quality in recent years as Apple is moving more and more focus to iOS.

The hardest part about installing Linux is if the hardware isn't well supported (typically the WiFi adapter). If the hardware is supported it's super easy with Ubuntu and most distros.

You could also look at System76. They they a variety of laptops with Linux-preinstalled. Thinkpads tend to be pretty popular for Linux as well.

I think Windows 10 is fine for the most part, but it makes software development more awkward (unless you are using a Microsoft toolchain), and you have to deal with anti-malware software a lot more.