Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Talk me out of the 15" Dell XPS
- Thread starter Sully
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If it were not for my extensive poor experiences with Dell support and their returns policies (though the latter might be lessened somewhat by buying from 3rd party resellers) as well as bad issues (e.g. linked below - screen-related stuff is an especially big deal-breaker for me), I would consider XPS.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/4rhp38/xps_15_9550_bios_1210_display_flicker/
HP is in the same boat...I'd consider a Spectre x360 15 (if they ever upgrade it to Kaby Lake) were it not for HP's terrible support behavior (e.g. requiring ongoing support contracts for driver updates for server products aimed squarely at home use).
This is a tough time for laptops for me...I'd like to upgrade, but won't pay the dGPU tax on top of the already-high Apple tax, and also can't bring myself to support MS' Win 10 telemetry behavior (or many of the hardware makers for reasons above), so I guess I just go without for now.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/4rhp38/xps_15_9550_bios_1210_display_flicker/
HP is in the same boat...I'd consider a Spectre x360 15 (if they ever upgrade it to Kaby Lake) were it not for HP's terrible support behavior (e.g. requiring ongoing support contracts for driver updates for server products aimed squarely at home use).
This is a tough time for laptops for me...I'd like to upgrade, but won't pay the dGPU tax on top of the already-high Apple tax, and also can't bring myself to support MS' Win 10 telemetry behavior (or many of the hardware makers for reasons above), so I guess I just go without for now.
Just bugs me how people go into this forum and complain about Apple's specs compared to PCs.
Apple laptops = highest quality available. If you can't afford that, it has nothing to do with Apple being a "mean spirited" company and other BS like that.
Apple laptops = highest quality available. If you can't afford that, it has nothing to do with Apple being a "mean spirited" company and other BS like that.
Lol MS spying.... I am more worried with Google than I am with MS. Windows 10 is fine once you get past the paranoid stage.
As someone who uses windows 10 daily along with my MacBook pro that is an outright lie. I can take pics of my window 10 laptop which was upgraded from Windows 8.1 along with my 2015 MacBook pro if you doubt me.
As much as the new MBP's cost, the real-world costs of the XPS 15 will be higher over 4-5 years of ownership.
Go to eBay, see what a 4 or 5 year old MBP is selling for today - it's probably 40-50% of original retail (not including taxes). Certainly no less than 35%, unless it's actively broken.
Then take a look and see what a 15" Dell high-end laptop from 4-5 years ago is going for. If it's selling for 15% of original price, it's a miracle. Note that we're not talking asking prices, but what they're actually going for. For the most part, five year old Windows laptops are literally not worth the trouble to sell.
You have to consider resale value as part of your purchase plans. Even if you discount the probable resale value to allow for the possibility you'll kill the machine somehow and therefore not be able to sell it, it's still a sizable sum.
My 2010 17" MBP i7 should sell for $800-950, which will go a LONG way towards paying for my new 15" MBP, and I fully expect that in 4-5 years when it's time for that machine to move on, I'll be able to sell it for a reasonable amount.
Go to eBay, see what a 4 or 5 year old MBP is selling for today - it's probably 40-50% of original retail (not including taxes). Certainly no less than 35%, unless it's actively broken.
Then take a look and see what a 15" Dell high-end laptop from 4-5 years ago is going for. If it's selling for 15% of original price, it's a miracle. Note that we're not talking asking prices, but what they're actually going for. For the most part, five year old Windows laptops are literally not worth the trouble to sell.
You have to consider resale value as part of your purchase plans. Even if you discount the probable resale value to allow for the possibility you'll kill the machine somehow and therefore not be able to sell it, it's still a sizable sum.
My 2010 17" MBP i7 should sell for $800-950, which will go a LONG way towards paying for my new 15" MBP, and I fully expect that in 4-5 years when it's time for that machine to move on, I'll be able to sell it for a reasonable amount.
Windows 7 is great and my light use of Win10 has been good so far with the exception of restarting my computer for updates when I went to the bathroom and killing my current session.
I still prefer Unix based architecture with OS X and Linux
I still prefer Unix based architecture with OS X and Linux
I would love to hear what kind of heavy, pro usage you do on your PC Laptop that you can't do on a MBP.
And if you say "ports", we're done. Not worth it.
It is not a lie, I've had 1 computing crashing, 1 is failing to update, and in another both things happen.
[doublepost=1477939973][/doublepost]
Besides the ports, I needed 32GiB of RAM in 2014, and 2TB of storage is not enough anymore.
Also 4 cores is not enough, but I'm not going to carry a 5Kg laptop.
Than its your fault you bought a $200 dollar computer? I've been a windows person since windows 98 and prefer windows. The only reason why I have a Macbook Pro is for school since it's battery life is amazing. They don't crash all the time and is a pretty rare occurrence
People have very different experiences - all you can say is that your machine is stable - it doesn't mean someone else who is having consistent problems is lying.
FWIW, my Surface Pro 4 8GB/i5 is a rock-solid, stable machine. No crashes, only occasional update hassles, and once I did the wi-fi jumbo frame fix, it's mostly a pretty speedy machine. I don't feel like I should have had to fix the network settings on a premium rig like this, with hardware/software put together by the same people, but that's MS for ya.
i wrote about this in another thread, but my two complaints aren't about stability, just about poor trackpad responsiveness, and weird system slowdowns/refusal to accept input from keyboard/touchpad for 5-10 seconds while it does random things in the background (or whatever it's doing instead of working for me).
The net result is that instead of a modern fast machine, it feels like a dog about 25% of the time.
IMHO, this is inexcusable for a year-old high-spec machine. By way of contrast, our original 12" MacBook is in fact a very slow machine with craptastic specs, but it FEELS *much* faster in daily use than the SP4.
The SP4 isn't 'bad', I actually like it fairly well, but it's not the machine I prefer to grab when I actually need to get something done.
Bought that Dell about 10 years ago actually..
But, I've had the displeasure of using a LOT of Dell computers -- both laptops and desktops. They're no where near as nice -- even the REALLY expensive ones -- as a Mac.
As soon as I need to pay for a virus scanner, spend time each day making sure my computer is functioning/fixing Windows issues, etc.. you've lost me as a customer. Computers are tools. Does my Mac help me get my job done without putting crap in my way? Yup! Does Windows? Not a chance..... "Please wait while malware bytes scans your computer for malware...." is not earning me money.
I based my opinion of Dell based off my experience 10 years ago. I will never buy another one because of my experience with their customer service and faulty parts. There is more fish in the sea and rather give my cash else where.
The Surface Book and razer blade would beg to differ.
You're not considering that an xps 15 is about half the price of the equivalent rMBP, so the resale value of the previous computer is less important.
[doublepost=1477940298][/doublepost]
I've used windows and Mac for a long time and never installed any anti virus or been affected by adware/spyware/malware/viruses
The fanboy is strong in this post I see. Seriously Apple is far from the Highest quality available ..... Don't need to use that to justify paying the Apple Tax which increased this year.
The laptop that started crashing cost $1500 and was basically new.
The one only failing to update is a ThinkPad.
The one where both things happen has a new gaming motherboard, premium RAM, 850 EVO, LTS NVIDIA, and Antec power supply. And it is not overclocked.
If you get 10% or nothing back on $1600, it's a larger loss than getting 40-50% resale on $2500. I'm also not going to specifically address the likelihood that the Dell feels like a dog after 3 years - my experience with Windows laptops is that they're not bad for the first year or two, but that I'm desperate for an upgrade after that. $1600 every three years, on which I get nothing back in resale is a LOT more than $2500 every five or six years, of which I get 40-50% back.
Same story with 'no malware, etc.' - my windows machines are also clean, but you have to acknowledge that's not a typical experience. Fighting malware infections is an ongoing and common reality for Windows users, even with good security software installed.
Eh, many opinions here and I'll leave my two cents...
My first laptop was a Dell Studio XPS 16. Loved it because it was the top of the line XPS at the time. Had numerous issues with it over the life I had it which was about a year or so. Dell issued me a replacement XPS 17. The build quality on that was so bad that I wore the paint off the keyboard surface. I then decided as a graduation gift to myself to buy the biggest and baddest Alienware laptop with dual GPUs etc. It was a massive laptop with powerful components sure but it was plagued with problems from the start and it was sent to Dell twice and had the GPUs changed twice, motherboard replaced once. I traded that in for a base model Alienware 17. It was fine hardware wise but Windows 8 and then Windows 10 brought that experience down hard. Constant BSOD and driver errors.
So I said enough is enough and bought my base spec macbook pro 15 (mid 2015) in January of 2016. Not one software or hardware issue yet and I am constantly on it either playing League of Legends or Running AutoCAD doing 3D CAD designs. I think I had my "wow" moment when connecting my printer for the first time to the Mac. Driver was found instantly and it all just worked. Everything I connected to my Mac just worked. I don't even want to tell you how hard it was for me to find the correct driver when I was running a windows machine.
So in conclusion... I went through Dell and Windows laptops. I wouldn't go back to them. Yes you get better specs for your money but if you are constantly on your computer you want reliability too. Macbook Pro has above average specs (when compared to most consumer computers) and most of all it has the build quality, service, and software integration that makes it worth the extra cash. So much so that they retain their value better than most computers.
My first laptop was a Dell Studio XPS 16. Loved it because it was the top of the line XPS at the time. Had numerous issues with it over the life I had it which was about a year or so. Dell issued me a replacement XPS 17. The build quality on that was so bad that I wore the paint off the keyboard surface. I then decided as a graduation gift to myself to buy the biggest and baddest Alienware laptop with dual GPUs etc. It was a massive laptop with powerful components sure but it was plagued with problems from the start and it was sent to Dell twice and had the GPUs changed twice, motherboard replaced once. I traded that in for a base model Alienware 17. It was fine hardware wise but Windows 8 and then Windows 10 brought that experience down hard. Constant BSOD and driver errors.
So I said enough is enough and bought my base spec macbook pro 15 (mid 2015) in January of 2016. Not one software or hardware issue yet and I am constantly on it either playing League of Legends or Running AutoCAD doing 3D CAD designs. I think I had my "wow" moment when connecting my printer for the first time to the Mac. Driver was found instantly and it all just worked. Everything I connected to my Mac just worked. I don't even want to tell you how hard it was for me to find the correct driver when I was running a windows machine.
So in conclusion... I went through Dell and Windows laptops. I wouldn't go back to them. Yes you get better specs for your money but if you are constantly on your computer you want reliability too. Macbook Pro has above average specs (when compared to most consumer computers) and most of all it has the build quality, service, and software integration that makes it worth the extra cash. So much so that they retain their value better than most computers.
This has also been my experience, and tbh Dell is better than most other Win laptop makers, with the exception of Lenovo. Alienware, like other gaming laptops, seems to always have trouble - clearly putting that much GPU/heat/power through a laptop chassis is really challenging.
HP's stuff has just been garbage - I routinely see people walking around with HP laptop parts visibly missing or broken. I hear their high-spec machines are better, but everything from what used to be Compaq (the consumer-grade stuff) is just hideous.
I've had pretty good luck with Dell's big chunky Inspiron laptops for business. They feel dead slow after a couple years, and there's bare plastic all over where the paint wears off, but they hold together and keep working.
Lenovos have a very solid reputation, but I don't have any recent personal experience with them.
Last, but not least, MacBooks and MBPs tend to be near-silent, unless they're under heavy load. Every windows laptop I've ever owned (other than my Surface Pro 4) has audible fan sounds at idle, and sounds like a hair dryer under load.
The SP4 is gratifyingly silent at idle and in normal usage, with a fairly non-intrusive fan sound under load.
There are a few people who truly need 'high specs', but for the most part I've moved on to wanting good specs in a fairly compact and reliable package with good battery life, which is why I'm shelling out the slightly ludicrous cost of a new 15"MBPtb.
Most people base their opinions on a company's prior products, yes.
The best way to learn about what your experience will be like three years from now is to look at what people who have owned that company's products for three years are experiencing now.
If Dell (or you) wish to argue that their current products will be vastly better/more reliable, etc. after three years of ownership, they are free to do so, but the burden is high, since it's purely speculative, and contrary to the real-world experience of people who put their hard-earned cash down.
If the company didn't build a great product with an excellent reputation before, they've got a lot of work to do to convince me they're now making something amazing.
Apple has many faults, but a three year old MBP is still an excellent machine with substantial retained value, and a high expectation that it will give good service for many years to some.
A 2013 Dell... not so much.
Have you ever asked yourself why nobody in their right mind buys a two-year-old high-spec Dell laptop at less than half the price of a new one to use for school?
Why aren't YOU looking at a year-old or two-year-old high-spec Dell? They're cheap as hell pre-owned. Probably under $500 for a machine that sold 18 months ago for $1500+. Absolutely KILLER price/performance. You can for sure get Broadwell, and even an early Skylake if you're willing to go up to $600. You'll get 90% of the specs of the current model for 1/3 the cost.
But you don't want one, because you KNOW that it's probably not worth it, even at 30% of what someone paid for it last year.
Last edited: