I've got 2 questions.

1. Are there any laptops better than a maxed out Dell XPS 15 for a similar price?
2. Once I buy my new laptop I want to experiment with Linux (never used it before). Is there some really good tutorial out there to help me get it working and figure out how it works and what the best way to use it is?

What kind of development are you doing?

@m0fo well right now it's just stuff for high school, but I'll have the laptop through college and I want to be able to work on it and not worry about lack of performance because it's a laptop and not a desktop.

Get a MacBook if you want to do development in the future. Search for the article where IBM is explaining that, on the long run, Macs are less expensive than other machines.

As per virtualization and Linux: macOS IS "linux". You have bash, you have everything you need. Additionally you can just install Parallels and you will have a VM (Win or Linux) up and running in no time. VMWare is expensive, Virtual Box is a stupid thing that must die etc.

No mactard here. Just pointing out what can be better for you.

PS: get the maxed out 15" version of 2015 MacBook. Best bung for the buck.

@MonsieurMan: Say no more...

X201, X220 and T430. Those are in the appartment at the moment. I have a wide variety from T42s if i remember correctly to T450. 10 or 12 in total :).