In Feb of 2017 I bought a Dell XPS-15, 32G RAM, 4KUHD 15", 1TB PCIe SSD
The first thing I did after booting Windows 10 and running full
diagnostics was replace the PCIe SSD with a Samsung 960Pro 1TB and the
Killer AC 1535 BT/WiFi card with an Intel card (can't remember the
model) for better throughput and better driver support at that time. 
Having replaced the PCIe SSD allowed me to re-install the Win10 SSD for
low level firmware updates from Dell that wouldn't be coming from any
Linux repo. I've been running Ubuntu 16.04 on it ever since - even the
TB16 docking station works with Ubuntu. I hear that Ubuntu 18.04
doesn't run well on this laptop, yet.
If this small laptop is too large (14.1x9.3x0.6), Dell does sell the
XPS-13 (many similar specs to the XPS-15), and they used to sell a
developers edition preinstalled with (can't remember the distro) Linux.
When I did my research, I spent quite a bit of time creating a
spreadsheet to compare the following:currently owned 2008 Apple MBPro -
reference #1currently owned 2007 Lenovo T61p - reference #2currently
owned 2010 Lenovo W500 - reference #32015 Apple MBPro MJLU2xx/A
(11,4)2016 Apple MBProDell XPS-15 9560 max buildDell XPS-15 9560 min
build, aftermarket upgradeHP Spectre x360 max buildHP Spectre x360 min
build, aftermarket upgradeAsus Zenbook UX510VWLenovo Yoga 910Lenovo X1
Carbon 4th GenLenovo T5604 different builds from min to max of the
Lenovo P50
I settled on the Dell XPS-15 9560 max build for $2500 because it had
verified Linux installs and what it took to get Linux working on it
(very little), it had 1-SD, 1-HDMI 1.4, 2-USB3, and 1-TB3 port and with
the 97Whr battery, I get 6-8 hours of battery life. The two monitors I
use with this laptop are a 32" 4KUHD and a 40" 4KUHD, depending on
where I plug into which docking station. 
I've been very happy with this laptop, the Samsung 960 Pro is 400-1100
MB/s faster reads and writes over the OEM PCIe SSD, so this machine
boots to a usable logged in system in ~20 seconds, maybe less.
Hope that helps, Oh, and the keyboard on the Dell XPS-15 9560 has the
keys you listed
On Fri, 2019-02-15 at 11:29 -0800, Brian Wood wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 11:25 AM Brian Wood <woodbrian77 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> Also, I want something around 14 inches size, maybe smaller, but
> think it's 
> unlikely to have keyboard I like if it's smaller.
> 
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