Dell XPS or Mac book pro

[300bhp/ton]

bulldong said:

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.

Just curious, but do you run a Windows phone, Blackberry or Symbian? Only ask, as obviously iOS or Android would have meant learning a new system...


Seriously though, the differences from Win 7 to Win 10 are about the same as Win to Mac in terms of finding out where things are and how to do stuff.

And it's not as if people don't learn new systems all the time. Be it a new phone, TV, video game, web app or whatever..

[ZesPak]

300bhp/ton said:

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.

That's all personal preference tbh, which is allowed of course.

The problem is in starting to justify their pricing. Take your XPS and add another grand to that. Why? "well, they are uhhm. nice to use?"
I've done the VM thing, and it's not the same. It's ridiculous btw, not everybody has free access to all sorts of Windows licenses. If you need windows for a couple of apps, a Mac will cost you a LOT more PLUS a Windows license

Of course, again, if you prefer Mac that's your prerogative. And if you believe it's slicker/smoother/sexier/more likely to give head, that's just that, your belief.

My belief is that an OS should do multitasking well, run the apps I want to and generally go by unnoticed.
I think that both OSX and Windows do a good job in that aspect, but I wouldn't pay a +1k premium for either.

[300bhp/ton]

ZesPak said:

That's all personal preference tbh, which is allowed of course.

The problem is in starting to justify their pricing. Take your XPS and add another grand to that. Why? "well, they are uhhm. nice to use?"
I've done the VM thing, and it's not the same. It's ridiculous btw, not everybody has free access to all sorts of Windows licenses. If you need windows for a couple of apps, a Mac will cost you a LOT more PLUS a Windows license

Of course, again, if you prefer Mac that's your prerogative. And if you believe it's slicker/smoother/sexier/more likely to give head, that's just that, your belief.

My belief is that an OS should do multitasking well, run the apps I want to and generally go by unnoticed.
I think that both OSX and Windows do a good job in that aspect, but I wouldn't pay a +1k premium for either.

tbh I've not checked pricing recently. Yes I'm sure Macs can be very expensive if you spec them that way.

But I think they do last. I have a Mac Mini, my first Mac bought in 2012. 5 years on it still does everything I ask of it perfectly fine and does not feel bloated or slower than when I bought it.

I've never had a Windows machine last anything as long and still feel up to the task.


And it really is silly little things like someone mentioned previously, updates. It's never a bother or an issue with a Mac, but somehow always a chore on a Windows machine.

I have two Win 10 machines in the house, as well as my works Mac Book Pro. The Windows machines get used for less than 10% of the time and cause 98% of all the issues and 99.9% of all the headaches.

Unless you are 'gaming' there really is nothing you can't do on a Mac unless it's something ultra specific to a Windows machine.


And for the record, people, lots of people happily pay more for a BMW, Merc, Jag than they do for a Kia, Ford, Vauxhall. Despite fundamentally doing nothing any different. I'm not saying a Mac is a BMW, but it is a premium product and shows as such.

It isn't perfect, but it is very very good.

I too come from a Windows background (Amiga & DOS before that). So I haven't always used Macs, and as I say still have Windows machines. But since switching at home to a Mac, then more recently at work to one as well. I can say I'm completely happy with the change and it was most definitely worth the effort/cost.

Ironically (or not) the only software issues I have had on either of my Macs is bloody MS Office & Lync!!! Finger in the air I should think 95%+ of all the issues I've had on my Macs have been MS software related.


Windows 10 looks flashy and is a MASSIVE improvement over Win 8 (couldn't get any worse though). But it's just noisy (visually) and hard work to do somethings on. Like installing Virtual Box correctly so you can used a bridged network adapter. Lots of hassle and Googling to resolve. Because Win 10 is designed to silently fail some parts of the install in the background and not report it to the user, thus not installing some vital components. You have to boot into a 'special mode' with temporary privileges to install it correctly.

Which just sums up Windows these days. Too much UAC nonsense and still a largely vulnerable system.

[andrewrob]

Slightly left field but I bought a Xiaomi mi air 13 running windows 10 last year and its been great.
Basically looks like a Mac Air (hence the name)
I use Photoshop CC and Premiere CC with it editing large video files without any issues at all.

Probably not quite the spec of the XPS machines you've been looking at but still not bad
i5 6200u
8GB ram
256gb NVME SSD
1920x1080 13" screen (not touch)
1gb Geforce GT 940mx dedicated graphics
1x full size HDMI out 2x USB3 and 1x USB C (also used for charging)
Back-lit keyboard

It also has an extra M2 slot for Sata SSDs, I've put another one in mine and run Mac Sierra on it for some music software I use, it was a bit of an arse to install the OS but well worth it

Battery life is excellent, 6-7 hours doing light stuff like web browsing/word processing, 10-12 in airplane mode watching videos at 70% brightness, 5 hours photo editing with wifi on, and about 1 hour 30 rendering video (obviously a lot more than that if you're just editing and not rendering the final edit)
Charging time is fast too, just over an hour from flat to full

I paid £700, not sure what they're going for now or if you can buy them from a UK supplier yet

Edited by andrewrob on Wednesday 19th April 14:40

[menguin]

Another vote for the XPS. I had last year's XPS 13 and just upgraded to the new XPS 15.

The deciding factors for me:

Size: The XPS 15 is only slightly bigger than my old Lenovo Yoga 2 pro (13" screen). Very light, excessively portable
Great battery life
Excessively powerful for my needs (some heavy excel work, some photoshop, gaming).
Beautiful screen
Decent keyboard
Price

I didn't consider a Mac as I have no need to learn a new OS to get the same functionality. The only selling point people seem to have is "it's just nicer" and "more slick". Well, I've never had an issue with Windows - to be honest, I don't use the OS I use the programs installed! The OS is a means to an end. W10 is great.
XPS boots up in seconds.

[jetbox]

Thanks for all the comments.

Looks to me like there is not much of a material difference between the two other than style.

I thought the operating system on a mac was more efficient which led to better performance of editing software, is this not the case any more with windows ten?

[Murph7355]

jetbox said:

Thanks for all the comments.

Looks to me like there is not much of a material difference between the two other than style.

I thought the operating system on a mac was more efficient which led to better performance of editing software, is this not the case any more with windows ten?

Not really, no.

When I first moved to Macs it was because it was the only laptop platform that could easily and reliably connect to DV cameras, download edit and save footage. There were other advantages like security and it was fundamentally more cohesive/intuitive than Windows, machines were better built and were genuinely nicer to use (keyboards and screens on TiBooks, MBPs etc were way above those available elsewhere).

That was a long time ago now and the differences are nowhere near as vast. Especially if you want to have more control over things without having to bend to iApps. (I actually quite like iTunes, but iPhoto has always been a shambles and iMovie has become one).

[ZesPak]

300bhp/ton said:

tbh I've not checked pricing recently. Yes I'm sure Macs can be very expensive if you spec them that way.

You really need to drop the "if you spec them that way", if you think this config is anything special (I wasn't even trying, this is as normal as it gets):

	MBP 15"	XPS 15	XPS 13
RAM	16GB	16GB	8GB
SSD	512GB	512GB	256GB
CPU	2.9GHz i7	2.8Ghz i7	2.5Ghz i5
GPU	Radeon 460 4GB	GTX 1050 4GB	HD 620
Resolution	2880 x 1800	3840 x 2160	1920x1080
	Touchbar	full touchscreen	no touch
Price	GBP 2969	GBP 1799	GBP 1149

ps: I tried to match them as close as it gets, but this gives a general idea.

pps: I added the XPS 13 not to compare with the other two, but because it fits perfectly in the price gap between the XPS 15 and MBP 15.

Edited by ZesPak on Wednesday 19th April 21:13

[jamoor]

ZesPak said:

You really need to drop the "if you spec them that way", if you think this config is anything special (I wasn't even trying, this is as normal as it gets):

	MBP 15"	XPS 15	XPS 13
RAM	16GB	16GB	8GB
SSD	512GB	512GB	256GB
CPU	2.9GHz i7	2.8Ghz i7	2.5Ghz i5
GPU	Radeon 460 4GB	GTX 1050 4GB	HD 620
Resolution	2880 x 1800	3840 x 2160	1920x1080
	Touchbar	full touchscreen	no touch
Price	GBP 2969	GBP 1799	GBP 1149

ps: I tried to match them as close as it gets, but this gives a general idea.

pps: I added the XPS 13 not to compare with the other two, but because it fits perfectly in the price gap between the XPS 15 and MBP 15.

Edited by ZesPak on Wednesday 19th April 21:13

Well the dell ones are extremely expensive as they will be worth 36p and a pack of prawn cocktail walkers after 5 years. Also you forgot to mention the glass trackpad and the solid aluminium build of the machine.

Edited by jamoor on Wednesday 19th April 21:17

[ZesPak]

Yes, keep on justifying it. Apple will laugh all the way to the bank while the fanboys are justifying them instead of questioning them.

Resale value is an argument but it loses quickly when you damage your machine or you use it for many years. And even in the best case, it makes up for some of the difference but far from all.
Sorry to disappoint you, the diffference in price of a 5 year old laptop is about ~300$.

[anonymous-user]

300bhp/ton said:

bulldong said:

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.

Just curious, but do you run a Windows phone, Blackberry or Symbian? Only ask, as obviously iOS or Android would have meant learning a new system...

Yes perhaps. I had nokias, and then moved to an iPhone and have probably about 10 years invested into that, which is why I don't bother with trying the Android equivalent.

I use the phone and laptop all the time, so I prefer to just stick with what I know. For me, the older I get, the more technology becomes like a toilet. I don't care about it unless it doesn't work, and then it's a pain in my arse. Switching operating systems would be like taking a crap in a broken toilet for a month until I had learnt it.

I don't mind upgrading to the next model, and love stuff getting faster, but I don't want to mess with what I know works, for now.

As I said in my post, I may revisit when I feel like the XPS has done it's job, so I am not completely averse. Prob early next year.

[jamoor]

ZesPak said:

Yes, keep on justifying it. Apple will laugh all the way to the bank while the fanboys are justifying them instead of questioning them.

Resale value is an argument but it loses quickly when you damage your machine or you use it for many years. And even in the best case, it makes up for some of the difference but far from all.
Sorry to disappoint you, the diffference in price of a 5 year old laptop is about ~300$.

Well we don't even need to question them or justify them.

They have a monopoly on laptops that don't suck, people have no other option.

That's before you get to the whole Windows 10 is just a big piece of unreliable spyware thing.

I do admit that I haven't used a windows laptop since 2011, purely because they were just one bad machine after another. Anyone ever tried to do something as simple as resume a windows machine after it has been on standby? If my experiences are a bit dated then that should give you an indication on how bad my experiences with windows laptops were.

Desktops aren't much of an issue as you aren't reliant on them being chucked around and the general quality of them.

[mikef]

ZesPak said:

	MBP 15"	XPS 15	XPS 13
RAM	16GB	16GB	8GB
SSD	512GB	512GB	256GB
CPU	2.9GHz i7	2.8Ghz i7	2.5Ghz i5
GPU	Radeon 460 4GB	GTX 1050 4GB	HD 620
Resolution	2880 x 1800	3840 x 2160	1920x1080
	Touchbar	full touchscreen	no touch
Price	GBP 2969	GBP 1799	GBP 1149

ps: I tried to match them as close as it gets, but this gives a general idea.

Seems like a selective list. Add in SSD read and write speeds, maybe also Geekbench 4 scores

Edited to ask - where did you get the MacBook pricing from? I bought that spec from Apple UK and it certainly didn't cost £2900

Edited by mikef on Wednesday 19th April 21:44

[jamoor]

bulldong said:

Yes perhaps. I had nokias, and then moved to an iPhone and have probably about 10 years invested into that, which is why I don't bother with trying the Android equivalent.

I use the phone and laptop all the time, so I prefer to just stick with what I know. For me, the older I get, the more technology becomes like a toilet. I don't care about it unless it doesn't work, and then it's a pain in my arse. Switching operating systems would be like taking a crap in a broken toilet for a month until I had learnt it.

I don't mind upgrading to the next model, and love stuff getting faster, but I don't want to mess with what I know works, for now.

As I said in my post, I may revisit when I feel like the XPS has done it's job, so I am not completely averse. Prob early next year.

I've never really understood the whole "invested" into an iphone.

I've switched between ios and android several times in the past 10ish years and never had a problem. It's just the current iphones are inferior to the competition in almost every way.

[ZesPak]

mikef said:

Seems like a selective list. Add in SSD read and write speeds, maybe also Geekbench 4 scores

Edited to ask - where did you get the MacBook pricing from? I bought that spec from Apple UK and it certainly didn't cost £2900

I was going as normal spec as I could, trying to even them out.
I did the pricing on apple UK.

mikef said:

Seems like a selective list. Add in SSD read and write speeds, maybe also Geekbench 4 scores

Agreed, but then you can argue that the normal SSD in the XPS means it's user upgradable as well or about the gpu, or the display, or the footprint of the laptop. You can do this for days but in the end they're quite evenly matched imho. When the macs had better displays but slower HDD: "yes... but better display so more expensive" :/

Edited by ZesPak on Wednesday 19th April 21:57

[mikef]

ZesPak said:

mikef said:

Seems like a selective list. Add in SSD read and write speeds, maybe also Geekbench 4 scores

Edited to ask - where did you get the MacBook pricing from? I bought that spec from Apple UK and it certainly didn't cost £2900

I was going as normal spec as I could, trying to even them out.
I did the pricing on apple UK.

Check the SSD speeds and benchmarks

Link to the pricing on Apple UK please

[anonymous-user]

jamoor said:

bulldong said:

Yes perhaps. I had nokias, and then moved to an iPhone and have probably about 10 years invested into that, which is why I don't bother with trying the Android equivalent.

I use the phone and laptop all the time, so I prefer to just stick with what I know. For me, the older I get, the more technology becomes like a toilet. I don't care about it unless it doesn't work, and then it's a pain in my arse. Switching operating systems would be like taking a crap in a broken toilet for a month until I had learnt it.

I don't mind upgrading to the next model, and love stuff getting faster, but I don't want to mess with what I know works, for now.

As I said in my post, I may revisit when I feel like the XPS has done it's job, so I am not completely averse. Prob early next year.

I've never really understood the whole "invested" into an iphone.

I've switched between ios and android several times in the past 10ish years and never had a problem. It's just the current iphones are inferior to the competition in almost every way.

It's just a familiarity thing. You either get it or you don't. I don't have time to bother learning new stuff, it's not my priority. So just upgrade me and give me the thing that means a seamless transition. For me, that is iphone and newer windows machine. Doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, it's just what works for me.

[ZesPak]

mikef said:

Check the SSD speeds and benchmarks

Link to the pricing on Apple UK please

See my previous post for the SSD speeds. You win some you lose some.
Heres the spec:


edit: correct screenshot

Edited by ZesPak on Wednesday 19th April 22:30

[mikef]

ZesPak said:

See my previous post for the SSD speeds. You win some you lose some.
Heres the spec:

So you've added custom options to out-spec the Dell XPS and bump up the price? Surprised you didn't go for a 2TB SSD

[300bhp/ton]

ZesPak said:

You really need to drop the "if you spec them that way", if you think this config is anything special (I wasn't even trying, this is as normal as it gets):

	MBP 15"	XPS 15	XPS 13
RAM	16GB	16GB	8GB
SSD	512GB	512GB	256GB
CPU	2.9GHz i7	2.8Ghz i7	2.5Ghz i5
GPU	Radeon 460 4GB	GTX 1050 4GB	HD 620
Resolution	2880 x 1800	3840 x 2160	1920x1080
	Touchbar	full touchscreen	no touch
Price	GBP 2969	GBP 1799	GBP 1149

ps: I tried to match them as close as it gets, but this gives a general idea.

pps: I added the XPS 13 not to compare with the other two, but because it fits perfectly in the price gap between the XPS 15 and MBP 15.

Edited by ZesPak on Wednesday 19th April 21:13

The answer is essentially the same as the one for the reason why you have a Jag XF and not an Insignia. One certainly costs a lot more for largely the same spec. But it doesn't mean the amount to the same thing as an end result.