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Pro 15 and 17 versus XPS 16

tubbymac

tubbymac

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 6, 2008
1,074
1
Anybody considering a MacBook Pro should consider taking a look at the XPS 1640 that Dell quietly released yesterday. In a rather non Apple fashion they decided to be low key about it.

It is available with the same 1920 x 1200 resolution as the new Macbook Pro 17 and takes the display quality a step further with not only just a 60% color gamut but a 100% color gamut. This is possible because instead of just a LED backlight, the Dell can be configured to use an even more advanced technology called RGB LED, the first I've heard of on a laptop.

The kicker is it starts at $1199 dollars versus the $2799 of the Macbook Pro 17. Definitely worth a look at least. Google search is your friend here, but this is what it looks like (these are pics of the smaller 1340 model as I can't find high quality pics of the 1640 - but like the Macbook versus the Pro it's like a smaller version of the 1640).

If we can keep the WINDOWS SUCKS!!!111!! and OSX RULES!!11 comments to a minimum, this notebook could be some decent competition.

xps13eng11.jpg


xps13eng04.jpg
 
honestly that looks like a nice laptop and for the money it seems much more worth it than a macbook pro...i just recently bought one of the new macbook pros and i stilled havent gotten over the feeling of being ripped off...as much as mac makes nice laptops...you can get a comparable pc laptop with equal or better specs for 2/3 the price. check out asus too...they have some serious machines and good warranty's. hope that helps. also, a lot of the new pc laptops have hdmi and esata ports which can come in handy.
 
It looks cheap and tacky IMO next to an MB. Personally I prefer to pay the premium for a Mac. So in the looks it's no contest. As to the specs they are pretty good for the price, but that name Dell on it just sounds cheap.
 
I've owned many Dells and I've never had a problem that wasn't fixed by customer service. I'm not saying anything other than I've had good luck with Dell and have really been happy with them.

I agree the new Macs' (the last few years) sexiness is unmatched and I believe it should be considered a feature, and it isn't a cheap feature.

My problem with selecting a new computer now is that I can't have all of what I want in one machine. I'm totally ruined by the touch gestures of the OS X machines, I don't like using a mouse much anyway, but it's hard to use anything other than gestures to navigate now...and I thought my Wacom was good for navigating.

What I'd love to have is Blu-ray writing, 1920x1200 LED, SSD, gestures, OS X, and two firewire ports, one for an external hard drive and one for a camera. This is a very picky combination of features and some Dells and some Macs come close, but none is a must-buy for me.

I love Macs and I really like Dell, so the choice is very, very hard on what I want to compromise on...this laptop makes it even harder. I think it's an impressive looking machine, but god, Macs are so sexy. Yes, you can get a Dell cheaper with a 4 year accidental warranty with an SSD and BD writer cheaper than the list price of the big brother MBP, but....but, just look at the MBP? It's gorgeous.

I'm eternally doomed in my decision.
 
with squaretrade warranties, you can also get accidental damage coverage for apple laptops.

objectively, the unibody construction is a huge breakthrough.

The durability of the macbook pro is now second to none (except toughbooks)

If you want to have blu ray, I am currently using a slot loading blu ray slim drive (same size as the macbook air superdrive) and i use it to watch blu ray in bootcamp.
 
Looks like a nice machine. I would consider one but I have too much invested in OS X software. And to be honest it really does not matter who makes a machine anymore because all the work is farmed out they are probably all made in the same plant in china.
 
Ultimate-64, 2.8, 1080 RGBLED, 4/320-7200, Bluray, 3x3 Wifi, BT, MS Office H&S, 3-year onsite including a $200 rebate - which you can spend on the Sony Imagination Studio to give you an iLife for Windows - comes in at almost $700 less than the 2.6, 4/320-7200 17" MBP with Applecare and MS Office H&S.

Interesting. Better support, quite possibly better quality control (Dell probably has a better chance of learning after the M1330 debacle, which made the machine almost as rubber-banded to support as a typical Macbook Pro) than Apple, a nicely balanced machine with a replaceable battery.

The single major aesthetic issue I have is with the leather accent. I can actually see it looking quite grubby or worse still, torn up after a while, and it won't be able to be solved by a quick wipe like aluminium - and being leather, it's not amenable to any sort of stick-on protection. Still, I'd like to see what it actually looks like. I might get one depending on the actual runtime and weight as I was looking at the Vaio FW and found it slightly unbalanced towards the low end for my tastes.
 
That looks like a really nice laptop at a good price. Do you know how much they weigh? Eh, I know I could look it up myself. So lazy.

Edit: My gosh, I found the laptop on the dell website and there are no dimensions listed. I've never seen a laptop sold onliYne that didn't list dimensions. Listing size and weight is pretty important imo. Things like that could influence buying choices.
 
My google search skills fail me as I can't find the weight of this thing either. Maybe somebody with better searching skills can dig it up.

Looks like I was slightly off with the 1920 x 1200 resolution though. The RGB LED option is a 16:9 ratio screen instead of a 16:10 one so it's 1920 x 1080 instead. The ratio is better for watching Bluray and HD 1080p content but I prefer more vertical pixels for general use, so the MBP wins there.

The MBP looks better by far, no question. Not a fan of the (faux?) leather on this thing and not too fond of the bolted industrial look of the hinge supports either, but I can see what they were attempting to do in terms of design. No matte option I can find either.
 
It looks like an amazing notebook. Excellent specs and great price.

But for me it basically comes down to one thing, OSX.
 
I haven't been able to dig up weight, but I'm going to guess somewhere in the low 3 Kilos, probably within 300g's of the MBP.

I'm intrigued by how much of this design 'language' will filter through to the Adamo range (silly name), the apparent Lexus to Dell's Toyota.
 
You seriously need to do some research before comparing a $1200 computer to the $2800 MBP.

The $1200 model has a 2.26Ghz CPU, 16 inches instead of 17, and a 720p display, not 1080p. The 2.66Ghz option isn't available on the Dell, but the 2.53Ghz bumps the price up a few hundred, while the 2.8 goes up even more. Add $250 to get the same display that the MBP has. Those upgrades got it to $1724, still with a slower CPU. I can't compare the Dell GPU vs. the MBP GPU, so that could be another premium added to the MBP. There is no battery option, and I guarantee you the Dell battery doesn't last 8 hours.

There is no iLife suite (the Windows Vista apps that try to do the same are crap). There is also the obvious "do you want to use Vista?" question. I don't like Vista one bit, so it's worth whatever extra money it is for a Mac. I wouldn't spend the extra $700-1,000 or whatever it is, but you can get the 15-inch MBP for about that same price.

As Ron said, it all boils down to OS X. What good would a car with 10-cylinder power be to someone in, say, Texas without an air conditioner? Such is OS X to some of us. OS X keeps us cool. :)
 
One thing you're also forgetting...yes you can get blu-ray, but who needs HD on their laptop? All players on a Mac/PC upscale, which on a 17'' or smaller screen is more then good enough. Right now, honestly, the only reason I get Blu-Ray is for the improved sound...not the picture. ****** laptop speakers are not going to benefit from this. I think apple has it right...consumers don't want Blu-Ray. The only HD content I watch is either on my PS3 (hooked up to 60'' TV) or it's downloaded. I don't think Blu-Ray is a reason to say one is better then the other.

Once you add the better CPU, BT, etc...it all comes to about the same amount of cheese. I'm pretty dang happy with my Mac purchase (first Mac is the unibody MBP)
 
Michael CM1 said:
You seriously need to do some research before comparing a $1200 computer to the $2800 MBP.

The $1200 model has a 2.26Ghz CPU, 16 inches instead of 17, and a 720p display, not 1080p. The 2.66Ghz option isn't available on the Dell, but the 2.53Ghz bumps the price up a few hundred, while the 2.8 goes up even more. Add $250 to get the same display that the MBP has. Those upgrades got it to $1724, still with a slower CPU. I can't compare the Dell GPU vs. the MBP GPU, so that could be another premium added to the MBP. There is no battery option, and I guarantee you the Dell battery doesn't last 8 hours.

There is no iLife suite (the Windows Vista apps that try to do the same are crap). There is also the obvious "do you want to use Vista?" question. I don't like Vista one bit, so it's worth whatever extra money it is for a Mac. I wouldn't spend the extra $700-1,000 or whatever it is, but you can get the 15-inch MBP for about that same price.

As Ron said, it all boils down to OS X. What good would a car with 10-cylinder power be to someone in, say, Texas without an air conditioner? Such is OS X to some of us. OS X keeps us cool. :)
Click to expand...

Did you seriously just suggest that OS X, iLife and an inferior graphics card are worth $1,000???

Man, Apple apologists are funny.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
Did you seriously just suggest that OS X, iLife and an inferior graphics card are worth $1,000???

Man, Apple apologists are funny.
Click to expand...

To me they are, but it's still hard to straight-up compare those two notebooks.

I forgot to mention the extra $50-100 you'll have to spend on security software, then $20 or whatever a year to update that crap. Bluetooth is another $20, and yes, I use it every day.

As I said, I wouldn't spend $2,800 on a computer unless it was one of these for work. I have a 15-inch MBP that I got for $1,800. It has given me infinitely less trouble than the HP and Dell computers I had prior to it, and I still can't get over Apple replacing my dad's logic board and sensors on it for FREE even though it was 3 1/2 years old. Apple's service beats Dell's and especially HP's, which makes the "premium" like a little insurance policy.
 
Michael CM1 said:
To me they are, but it's still hard to straight-up compare those two notebooks.

I forgot to mention the extra $50-100 you'll have to spend on security software, then $20 or whatever a year to update that crap. Bluetooth is another $20, and yes, I use it every day.

As I said, I wouldn't spend $2,800 on a computer unless it was one of these for work. I have a 15-inch MBP that I got for $1,800. It has given me infinitely less trouble than the HP and Dell computers I had prior to it, and I still can't get over Apple replacing my dad's logic board and sensors on it for FREE even though it was 3 1/2 years old. Apple's service beats Dell's and especially HP's, which makes the "premium" like a little insurance policy.
Click to expand...

Who gets virus protection these days?
Although I probably would also pick the 15 incher instead of the Dell. It'd be hard decision. I guess I just feel a little burned by Apple since they're asking for basically $1,000 extra dollars just for their OS.
 
Seems like a nice laptop specwise, but leather on a laptop=ewwwww. Also, i dont like the look of it. Just looks aweful. And a dell? Ill pass.
 
I have the XPS15 with bluray player, firewire, hdmi, 3 usb, and many other goodies. The only thing this doesn't have is the verizon modem.
All said and done with 4 yr accidental the price was just under $1780.

I looked at mbp and really liked it.

The Dell has been the best of the 4 previous dell notebooks that I ahve owned. Dell in the past 2 generations have defintely focused on the body design and accessories.
Bluray looks very nice on the screen and the HDMI out works very well.

My son has the XPS1730 and I have to say it is a very nice machine. Unbelievable display.

Bluray was important to me. If the MBP had bluray I might have sucked it up and forked over the extra cash.

Didn't realize the XPS16 comes with a WLED display, NICE!!!!
Good luck.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
Who gets virus protection these days?
Although I probably would also pick the 15 incher instead of the Dell. It'd be hard decision. I guess I just feel a little burned by Apple since they're asking for basically $1,000 extra dollars just for their OS.
Click to expand...

It's probably more like $700 or so if you figure in stuff like the iSight camera, microphone, new battery, bluetooth, faster processor, larger screen, etc. etc. But I get how you feel. However, I would have slit wrists if I had to use Windows again.
 
Like I said, google search is your friend. Dell isn't being that helpful with the information and some of the details, like the resolution, I didn't even uncover until I found a news article posted 15 minutes before I made my correction.

Dell is being either arrogant or clumsy with the way they are releasing this machine to the public. Probably clumsy.

I can understand getting burned with Windows and not wanting to have anything to do with it again. I bought my first Macbook after a long time with Vista. It's not that I hated Vista, but that I could use it well but did not actually enjoy it.

But it's still valuable to know what the competition is like, if only to justify the money we spend.
 
kastenbrust said:
Macbook Pro = Mac OS X, Dell XPS = Windows

No Thanks.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Yeah buy the Dell and save a little money...BUT...GAIN a bunch of PAIN dealing with Windows. It's not worth it. I'll pay greatly for pleasure thank you. ;)
 
Have any of you actually used Vista in the past few months? It's freaking sweet, and seems to run better on my Macbook than OS X (but this is probably due to me having less installed on it)
 
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