Dell XPS or Mac book pro

[jetbox]

As per the title, which to choose?


I am after a new laptop, mainly for editing photos and GoPro video etc and general surfing and stuff. Lots of work friends rave about mac but I have never had one.

My current Dell intel i5 laptops seems to struggle with video editing and playback and I am told a mac is much better for this kind of thing.

Also, will all my current photos which are stored on a portable hard drive be readable in their current file format if I got a mac.

Any advice welcome

[anonymous-user]

I have an XPS15 from early 2015. Still running like new and I use it 8-14 hours a day, every week day. Very powerful and never struggles, lovely 4k screen (although I think I have only used the touchscreen by mistake). I run photoshop, illustrator, gopro software all the time and no issues.

Build quality is excellent.

Only issues are some driver compatibility, and upscaling of very few programs that are not designed to run in 4k. I would recommend because I had the same question when I bought it. "Mac or XPS?".

I chose XPS for two reasons:
1) I have about 25 years of knowledge invested in Windows and can't be arsed to learn another system. I use it for work so needed something I could instantly get into.
2) Price. Not really an issue but the spec comparison was a no-brainer at just over half the price for a far more capable machine. At the time the spec of the XPS was vastly superior to even the top spec Mac. Mac fan boys will argue this is not why you buy a mac etc but I don't care.

I may revisit the same question next year after three years of ownership to see whether I make the switch to Mac, or buy another XPS.

[jetbox]

Many thanks, that's helpful.

[mikef]

I have both a MacBook Pro 15" 2016 (i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, touch bar) and XPS 9350 13" (i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, touchscreen).

The Mac feels like more of a premium laptop and is noticeably more responsive, I think that is down to the incredibly fast SSD

Given a choice I'd take the Mac - but it did cost over a grand more than the Dell

[Murph7355]

I have an XPS13 9360. Same spec as Mike except the processor is a smidge better I believe (latest Intel job).

I don't have a new Macbook. The XPS replaced a 2011 Macbook Air.

I use Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements and it handles them fine. (Two main reasons for not using the full fat Adobe products are (1) I loathe rental software and (2) Elements is so good now that very few will really need the full fat version IMO).

I have had a couple of problems. The first was the power circuit failed such that it wouldn't recharge (it could be used on mains). Engineer came to my home and fixed it. Yesterday I noticed the webcam isn't working - it's not something I use with any regularity so not sure when it failed. Am waiting on a call back on this. This isn't the best advert on a machine bought late November, however it's worth noting I had an issue with the microphone on my old MBA within a month of ownership, and the power adapters on every Mac I've owned have been woeful, so they are not immune to issues (and it could, of course, be me ).

I did try a new Macbook (non-Pro) and really don't like the keyboards Apple are persisting with. I also see the touchbar as a gimmick. If you acknowledge this sort of thing as useful, make the screen a touchscreen (my XPS is the touchscreen version and at times it is handy).

The kicker for me is cost. I bought the XPS at the right time with a decent discount which made it almost exactly half the price of the Macbook Pro 13" I would have gone for. Despite using a computer for many hours a day the Apple is simply not worth that sort of cost disparity on any sensible measure. Keyboard aside if they're half as good as the previous Mac laptops I've had (x4) they will be nice machines to use. But the premium is now excessive.

if I were in a position where I must have a Mac, I'd look to see if I could find a previous gen' 13" Macbook Pro.

[bloomen]

Why an XPS? There are no shortage of other PCs with just as high a spec for considerably less.

[Murph7355]

bloomen said:

Why an XPS? There are no shortage of other PCs with just as high a spec for considerably less.

For me, none had the weight, footprint (massively helped by the screen architecture) and connectivity on top of the basics.

Razer do some interesting machines but didn't ave chance to try one.

[mickytruelove]

I am slightly bias as i own an xps 13 i7. I have tried a few of the competing windows machines and i think its the screen bezel and footprint that does it for me. Never had a problem with performance, My only gripe is the touch screen on the i7 version is pretty reflective where as the non touchsceen HD is a matte finish better for working outdoors.

I have a thing about macs that i cant get on with but thats a personal thing. But if i could use them i would refuse to pay the price they ask.

[ZesPak]

If you really NEED OSX, go for the Mac, otherwise it's near impossible to justify the premium.

[Murph7355]

ZesPak said:

If you really NEED OSX, go for the Mac, otherwise it's near impossible to justify the premium.

I'd also say that with Windows 10 it's impossible to justify needing OS X.

Windows has become better, and OS X worse IME. So the two are not that far apart.

If you have a load of software invested in one or the other then that may seal it. Otherwise...

[NorthDave]

I used to have three Dell laptops in the business and they all slowly crumbled - none would hold a charge which was a pain when working on site or the train. They all felt very plasticy.

I upgraded them all to mac versions with extended warranty. They were more expensive but the warranty meant I knew I was covered for the next three or five years (can't remember the length of the extended warranty!). I've never used the warranty and they all work as well as they did when we left the shop.

I run windows on them all due to the software we need to run.

[mikef]

Murph7355 said:

I'd also say that with Windows 10 it's impossible to justify needing OS X.

Leaving aside stuff that only runs on Mac (in my case Xcode for iOS app development and Final Cut Pro), there is still a difference in usability

In the last week I have updated the OS version on my two OS-X machines and five Windows 10 machines. The Mac update is painless - click on Update and let it do its thing for 20 minutes, then everything runs as before. With Windows 10 (creators edition), 2 out of the 5 windows machines just flat refused to complete an update - after an hour of restarting they just decided to give up and roll back to the previous version (OK, that's an improvement in itself). After a couple of hours with MS support remoting in, trying everything I had already gone through, their only advice was to reinstall Windows and then reinstall and re configure all my apps. Which I did, at the best part of a day per machine. After doing that, some programs were starting up up to 10 times faster than before the reinstall, which suggests that even now and with Windows 10, it's a good idea to reinstall Windows at least once a year. On the machines that did update to Win 10 Creators Edition, a fair number of my third party programmes started to hang. In some cases I could get around this by adding Run as Admin to the shortcuts - in other cases I had to update to new versions, which meant paying to upgrade some licenses.

ps: the Dell XPS 13 did upgrade to Win 10 creators edition OK

[anonymous-user]

You can also get extended warranty service with Dell.

[ZesPak]

mikef said:

Leaving aside stuff that only runs on Mac (in my case Xcode for iOS app development and Final Cut Pro), there is still a difference in usability

Indeed.

The difference is they are different. Making assumptions from the macs doing 2/2 on updates, and the windows doing 3/5 is just .

We ran an office with about 500 windows computers and 4 macs. I can assure you, the ticket distribution and hardware failure wasn't in favor of the Macs. But maybe two of them were just build on a Monday morning, or staff wasn't properly educated on the Macs.

A lot of applications require Windows, some require OSX. You can run Windows fine on a Macbook, I've done it for ages but it just felt silly. OSX never got any use as I was in a Microsoft-heavy business, so a big USP of the MacBook just fell away.

That said, you have to approach any OS with an open mind (something that seems very hard these days?). If you're used to Windows, OSX will frustrate to no end in the beginning, vice versa, Windows may look overwhelming and "in your face" technical.
A good tip is to start off with learning some important shortcuts and gestures for either, makes life a lot easier on both systems, when multitasking (tbh one of the only moments the OS takes center stage).

[mikef]

Thanks for the tips, if they were for me

I've been using Macs since 1984 and Windows since 3.1 (and have managed sys admin teams) but there's always something to learn

[AJB88]

Been a Linux user since about 1999.

Recently got offered a MBP for cheap so decided to take it, I've found it quite easy to use tbh compared to when I have to do something on my parents Windows 10 machine.

But if you're used to Windows I would say stay with Windows.

[jamoor]

Macbook, if anything to get away from Win10.

[MikeGTi]

I switched from a MBP to a 13" XPS 13 9360 at the end of last year - More than happy with it running Lightroom and VMWare Player/Workstation etc.

It got to the point where I didn't need anything that OSX offered (does it offer anything?) and I was running Win10 in a VM, so I just got a Win10 laptop instead.

[Murph7355]

Can only go from anecdotal experience, but my Windows updates since switching back have all been painless and done in the background mostly. Dell's are a bit more intrusive, but not much.

I noticed a huge increase in updates on OSX in the last 5 or 6 years, including plenty for security vulnerabilities. Popularity having its downsides? Lack of focus from Apple? Who knows.

They also seem to be being too quick withdrawing support for older machines recently. Though that is likely very much perception only.

I still love Macs. There's still an MBA in the house (13"), I have 3 Minis running various duties, an Apple TV and my OH loves her iPhone (though is wavering having played with my S7 Edge).

But they are no longer worth the much more significant premium now. I definitely think Apple's attention post Jobs is iPhone, iWatch and other trinkets rather than the computing side. It'll be interesting to see how far that can take them.

[300bhp/ton]

jetbox said:

As per the title, which to choose?


I am after a new laptop, mainly for editing photos and GoPro video etc and general surfing and stuff. Lots of work friends rave about mac but I have never had one.

My current Dell intel i5 laptops seems to struggle with video editing and playback and I am told a mac is much better for this kind of thing.

Also, will all my current photos which are stored on a portable hard drive be readable in their current file format if I got a mac.

Any advice welcome

Mac simples....


Now it will take you a transition period to get used to Mac OS if you are coming from Windows, but it really isn't that difficult. And Mac OS is just so much less cluttered and chincy than Windows 10. And IMO much much slicker and nicer to use.


Also there are some added benefits, the Mac machines are simply nice and easy to use too and more than capable of anything you are mentioning doing.

And lets not forget, if you fancy running Windows or have a need of it, it's super easy to do from within Mac OS such as fire up a virtual machine.

It's much harder to run Mac OS on a Windows machine.



As I type this out, I have a choice of Windows, Linux and Mac machines in front of me. I could use 'any' of them. But choose to use the Mac.