The new Macbook Pro 15z... I mean Dell...

[s.hasan546]

really?
the computer design is gorgeous. dell's misshapen tribute proves its appeal.
the processor is one of the fastest on the market.
it has potential to be great with thunderbolt.
thetrackpad without buttons is great. i don't know if it is better, but is it slacking?
products have life cycles. the mbp is in the middle of one. i don't see how it is slacking when it probably set the bar that dell aimed to overcome with their new product. maybe we should wait until the next mbp iteration before calling apple slackers

Design is gorgeous. Agreed.
Processor- could be faster on the mbp 13".
GPU- could be faster on the 13".
Thunderbolt- Who cares? lol. time will tell.
Trackpad- i hvn't compared to the dell in person so i couldn't tell you. My asus netbook had an amazing trackpad.

also im talking about other important hardware features like- screen resolution, hdmi ports; etc.

 

[Samsumac]

Even this failed attempt from Dell, helps the apple consumer get better products.... Competition is good... I hope Dell and co come up with something better next time..... It should do wonders for iApple....

 

[301finest]

Looks like a Pre-unibody/Newer unibody mix. That trackpad setup is horrendous. Other than that, the computer looks "OK"

 

[artic5693]

Design is gorgeous. Agreed.
Processor- could be faster on the mbp 13".
GPU- could be faster on the 13".
Thunderbolt- Who cares? lol. time will tell.
Trackpad- i hvn't compared to the dell in person so i couldn't tell you. My asus netbook had an amazing trackpad.

also im talking about other important hardware features like- screen resolution, hdmi ports; etc.

You're comparing a 13" laptop to a 15.6" laptop. Seeing as the 15z is obviously aimed at taking on the 15" MBP, why not compare those two?

Also, "lol" makes anyone look like a child when they use such terminology in a post trying to refute another's argument.

 

[sketdansu]

...

Actually, id say its Nissan vs. Mercedes.

The XPS 15z is a GT-R...fantastic bang for your buck, and an all around fantastic machine.

Just so you know a GT-R costs a lot of money so it's not really a bang for your buck. A Maxima would be a much more appropriate choice for the Nissan VS Mercedes analogy. $0.02<<

 

[sketdansu]

That trackpad setup is horrendous.

a handful of years later, they still haven't caught up to smh

 

[adrian1480]

Nothing screams tacky like plastic finished with a "chrome" look.

It looks cheap, it chips and wears over time, resulting in a horrible look.

Design is gorgeous. Agreed.
Processor- could be faster on the mbp 13".
GPU- could be faster on the 13".
Thunderbolt- Who cares? lol. time will tell.
Trackpad- i hvn't compared to the dell in person so i couldn't tell you. My asus netbook had an amazing trackpad.

also im talking about other important hardware features like- screen resolution, hdmi ports; etc.

if you're directly comparing the MacBook Pro trackpad to a PC trackpad (any PC trackpad), you reveal yourself to neither have owned nor used a MacBook Pro for any length of time. Period.

NO PC trackpad compares. Not your Asus netbook. Not this sad impersonation of a MBP created by Dell. Not my sublime VAIO 18.4" godmachine. It's the scope and scale of multitouch gestures throughout the OS (my MBP is capable of 64 custom gestures and growing + subsets for each individual application based on my personal preferences) that blow everything else away. Anyone with a MacBook Pro + BetterTouchTool or who has used one for a decent period of time knows.

 

[MonkeySee....]

Nothing screams tacky like plastic finished with a "chrome" look.

It looks cheap, it chips and wears over time, resulting in a horrible look.



if you're directly comparing the MacBook Pro trackpad to a PC trackpad (any PC trackpad), you reveal yourself to neither have owned nor used a MacBook Pro for any length of time. Period.

NO PC trackpad compares. Not your Asus netbook. Not this sad impersonation of a MBP created by Dell. Not my sublime VAIO 18.4" godmachine. It's the scope and scale of multitouch gestures throughout the OS (my MBP is capable of 64 custom gestures and growing + subsets for each individual application based on my personal preferences) that blow everything else away. Anyone with a MacBook Pro + BetterTouchTool or who has used one for a decent period of time knows.

Bit like the....ummmm 3g and 3gs. *cough*

but yeah it does look awful.

 

[adrian1480]

Bit like the....ummmm 3g and 3gs. *cough*

but yeah it does look awful.

Was the chrome ring around the 3g and 3gs made of plastic? I'm pretty sure that was actually polished metal. That's different.

I say that as one who had a laptop with a plastic ring that went around it with a chrome finish. I thought it looked cool...until it started to chip. I've never heard of a 3g or 3gs ring chipping.

Real metal is one thing. Fake metal is tacky.

 

[palpatine]

Design is gorgeous. Agreed.
Processor- could be faster on the mbp 13".
GPU- could be faster on the 13".
Thunderbolt- Who cares? lol. time will tell.
Trackpad- i hvn't compared to the dell in person so i couldn't tell you. My asus netbook had an amazing trackpad.

also im talking about other important hardware features like- screen resolution, hdmi ports; etc.

sure, and it "could be" made of gold and have a caramel/chocolate dispensing straw hooked up to it to make use of all that heat!

instead of hypotheticals, i think we ought to take a lookat what it "is." it is a 13" model in a product line with 15 and 17 inch upgrades available. the pricing and specs reflect its place in the hierarchy.

i care about thunderbolt. as usual, apple is pushing the envelope, and i look forward to seeing if the tech gets picked up by accessory manufacturers. how in the world can you call cutting edge tech slacking!?

i apologize for being repetitive here, but you seem to be arguing just to argue without conceding that your comment was unfounded or actually addressing the key point. where is apple slacking with the trackpad? your asus might be shooting gold glitter at you from its pad, but you haven't shown how apple is slacking.

screen resolution on the 13"? it isn't slacking. it is product differentiation in a lineup with great resolution. when dell comes out with an uninspiring ripoff of the 13 inch, we can compare then. of course, said model doesn't exist, so we are back to square one.

how can apple be "slacking" if its product line is already well into the product cycle and dell is onlynow coming out with 15 competition? i am no fanboy, but this slacking comment just doesn't jibe with the facts. what say you sir?

 

[scottgroovez]

That is gash. Looks like a cheap chinese knock-off

 

[coldmack]

i care about thunderbolt. as usual, apple is pushing the envelope, and i look forward to seeing if the tech gets picked up by accessory manufacturers. how in the world can you call cutting edge tech slacking!?

Maybe you can enlighten me on how Thunderbolt is cutting edge. I just don't see it that way. There isn't much product out right now utilizing thunderbolt, nor has it proven to be popular standard yet. To me all it really is Apples thirst of being first and taking a risk on something that could potential being big. But at this point in time thunderbolt is just another competing standard that really hasn't change the industry yet.

Then there is anemic specs on the 13in MBP, which I am not sure how one can say it is cutting edge. I may anti-PC and anti-wind'ohs(real mac-heads know what's up), but you are essentially paying the same, or even more just to have a PC from Apple. From what I have read on the net all the 13in garbage PC makers are spewing out right now come with at the very least the ability to use a gpu not from intel all in chassis that makes you want to regurgitate your lunch. Plus, many of these models offer an express card slot, which I still use(3G card). I don't see anything cutting edge about Apple being a sheep PC.

 

[s.hasan546]

if you're directly comparing the MacBook Pro trackpad to a PC trackpad (any PC trackpad), you reveal yourself to neither have owned nor used a MacBook Pro for any length of time. Period.

NO PC trackpad compares. Not your Asus netbook. Not this sad impersonation of a MBP created by Dell. Not my sublime VAIO 18.4" godmachine. It's the scope and scale of multitouch gestures throughout the OS (my MBP is capable of 64 custom gestures and growing + subsets for each individual application based on my personal preferences) that blow everything else away. Anyone with a MacBook Pro + BetterTouchTool or who has used one for a decent period of time knows.

wow so your the apple comments police now? I can't make a comment on a different products trackpad? I never said the asus's netbook trackpad was better than the mbp. I just said it was an amazing trackpad IMO. how are you going to tell me that my opinions arn't valid?

btw ive owned a macbook for the past 4 years. good job being an apple fanboy.

 

[s.hasan546]

sure, and it "could be" made of gold and have a caramel/chocolate dispensing straw hooked up to it to make use of all that heat!

instead of hypotheticals, i think we ought to take a lookat what it "is." it is a 13" model in a product line with 15 and 17 inch upgrades available. the pricing and specs reflect its place in the hierarchy.

i care about thunderbolt. as usual, apple is pushing the envelope, and i look forward to seeing if the tech gets picked up by accessory manufacturers. how in the world can you call cutting edge tech slacking!?

i apologize for being repetitive here, but you seem to be arguing just to argue without conceding that your comment was unfounded or actually addressing the key point. where is apple slacking with the trackpad? your asus might be shooting gold glitter at you from its pad, but you haven't shown how apple is slacking.

screen resolution on the 13"? it isn't slacking. it is product differentiation in a lineup with great resolution. when dell comes out with an uninspiring ripoff of the 13 inch, we can compare then. of course, said model doesn't exist, so we are back to square one.

how can apple be "slacking" if its product line is already well into the product cycle and dell is onlynow coming out with 15 competition? i am no fanboy, but this slacking comment just doesn't jibe with the facts. what say you sir?

i was comparing the 13" mbp to the dell 15" b.c of comparable prices.

But if you'd like to compare 15" to 15" sure.
Dell xps 15z (highest end model)- $1500
MBP 15" - $2300 (w/ hi def screen)

Which has a better:

Processor? XPS 15z. Intel Core™ i7-2620M processor 2.70
GPU? XPS 15z.
Screen? XPS 15z. (1920 x 1080 compared to the mbp's 1680 by 1050)
Ram? XPS 15z includes 8 gb already...
HDD? XPS 15z comes with a 7200rpm 750gb hdd already...
Ports? XPS 15z. Comes with hdmi, 2 usb 3.0 ports, 1 usb 2.0 port, and a mini displayport.


So where is the mbp better? besides the normal apple arguments of "OS & User experience".

like i said before you might care about thunderbolt both most people don't care especially since theres no use for it yet.

Also i never said apple's trackpad was lacking. I just said apple was lacking hardware wise. Which is true. DEAL WITH IT. gpu, screen, and ports are some of the most important hardware specs of a laptop.

Also how is the 13" mbp screen not lacking. 1280 x 800 is "great resolution"??

 

[s.hasan546]

god why do you apple fan boys get so pissed off when a new product comes out?

im not saying the dell xps 15z is the laptop you should get or that apple sucks. Im just saying it looks like it has its positives and i could see why people would get it. Since when is competition bad?

 

[pourmood]

So blatant that it's funny.

 

[Mackilroy]

Processor? XPS 15z. Intel Core™ i7-2620M processor 2.70
GPU? XPS 15z.
Screen? XPS 15z. (1920 x 1080 compared to the mbp's 1680 by 1050)
Ram? XPS 15z includes 8 gb already...
HDD? XPS 15z comes with a 7200rpm 750gb hdd already...
Ports? XPS 15z. Comes with hdmi, 2 usb 3.0 ports, 1 usb 2.0 port, and a mini displayport.


So where is the mbp better? besides the normal apple arguments of "OS & User experience".

like i said before you might care about thunderbolt both most people don't care especially since theres no use for it yet.

Also i never said apple's trackpad was lacking. I just said apple was lacking hardware wise. Which is true. DEAL WITH IT. gpu, screen, and ports are some of the most important hardware specs of a laptop.

Also how is the 13" mbp screen not lacking. 1280 x 800 is "great resolution"??

I hope you remember the difference between dual cores (which is what the 15z you mention has) compared to quad cores (which is what the 15-inch MBPs have). They have the same max Turbo frequency, also - 3.4 GHz.

As far as the screen goes, resolution isn't everything - while it's nice to have more pixels, if the quality of the screen is horrible it really doesn't matter if you have the highest-resolution screen known to man.

I'll give you the RAM and HDD, though for the latter 7200 RPM isn't much better, if you want speed an SSD is the way to go.

Ports? USB 3.0 isn't needed for the average person. The hardware simply isn't there, unless you're RAIDing a bunch of hard drives or have some rather more specialized hardware. How many average users hook up anything to their USB ports besides mice and keyboards and perhaps an iPod? The last one is the only one that could benefit from a faster interface, and even then it would have to be modified to take advantage of the higher bandwidth. HDMI isn't that great, DisplayPort supports a higher resolution and is actually designed for computers. Thunderbolt can replicate all of those ports anyway, and quite easily.

It's far more of a wash than you want to admit.

 

[s.hasan546]

It's far more of a wash than you want to admit.

Not at all. Ill admit its a wash. Like i said before the xps 15z seems to have its positives over the mbp. That being said i have a mbp 13" and still love it. Im just saying that some windows offerings are worth a look thats all and i understand why people get them. i just don't know why everyone here loves to bash everything thats not a apple product lol. I think this is great. make the dell or w.e even better. that causes apple to be even more competitive.

 

[s.hasan546]

Ports? USB 3.0 isn't needed for the average person..

idk about that. i would love to have usb 3.0 for my external.

 

[coldmack]

As far as the screen goes, resolution isn't everything - while it's nice to have more pixels, if the quality of the screen is horrible it really doesn't matter if you have the highest-resolution screen known to man.

Sadly the MBP isn't that good even compared to the beautiful iPad IPS display. The MBP still uses the old and dead TN display(along with a few other things).

 

[cirus]

Ports? USB 3.0 isn't needed for the average person. The hardware simply isn't there, unless you're RAIDing a bunch of hard drives or have some rather more specialized hardware. How many average users hook up anything to their USB ports besides mice and keyboards and perhaps an iPod? The last one is the only one that could benefit from a faster interface, and even then it would have to be modified to take advantage of the higher bandwidth. HDMI isn't that great, DisplayPort supports a higher resolution and is actually designed for computers. Thunderbolt can replicate all of those ports anyway, and quite easily.

It's far more of a wash than you want to admit.

If the average user does not need USB 3.0 according to you, why would they need thunderbolt?

 

[thunng8]

i was comparing the 13" mbp to the dell 15" b.c of comparable prices.

But if you'd like to compare 15" to 15" sure.
Dell xps 15z (highest end model)- $1500
MBP 15" - $2300 (w/ hi def screen)

Which has a better:

Processor? XPS 15z. Intel Core™ i7-2620M processor 2.70
GPU? XPS 15z.

Wrong on both counts. AMD 6750M is faster than the Nvidia 525M.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6750M.43958.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-525M.43889.0.html

The MBP has Quad Core processor, the 15Z has a dual core. The Quad core will blow the Dual away.

Screen? XPS 15z. (1920 x 1080 compared to the mbp's 1680 by 1050)

Unconfirmed. We don't know the contrast ratio/colours/quality of the 15z screen yet. Those are arguably more important than resolution. Also antiglare option is not available for people who don't like glossy.

Ram? XPS 15z includes 8 gb already...
HDD? XPS 15z comes with a 7200rpm 750gb hdd already...
Ports? XPS 15z. Comes with hdmi, 2 usb 3.0 ports, 1 usb 2.0 port, and a mini displayport.

Agreed. Although in MBP you get ThunderBolt

 

[bruinsrme]

USB 3.0 isn't needed for the average person. The hardware simply isn't there, unless you're RAIDing a bunch of hard drives or have some rather more specialized hardware.

Ahh yes and thunderbolt is all about prime time and the "average person".
At least i can walk into most stores selling computer peripherals and pick up an external hard drive that utilizes usb 3.0.

Maybe apple can sell a cover for the thunderbolt port and charge $29.99.

 

[Just "Vinnie"]

In 6 months that Dell will "creak" and moan just like every other laptop they make.

The Mac unibody is the difference people. Laptop manufacturers just don't get it. And consumers who never touched a MBP never will either.

 

[seek3r]

I've owned several Apple notebooks, going back to the Powerbook G4.

I've never seen an Apple notebook that is so flimsy that it flexes to the point of audibly affecting the air flow through the cooling system.

You've never used some of Apple's older laptops then, I had that problem with a couple older powerbooks years ago. For that matter the my PB G4 had a tendency to overheat without needing to flex

That Dell may well be more 'solid' than all other Windows based notebooks, but that's not saying much at all.

You clearly have never used a high end vaio, or a thinkpad, or some of dell's more solid business machines, or... etc. Certainly never used a toughbook! There's a lot of crap out there, but there's plenty of good windows based notebooks that are solidly built.

Nothing screams tacky like plastic finished with a "chrome" look.

It looks cheap, it chips and wears over time, resulting in a horrible look.

I agree about the chrome, but the 15z is aluminum, not plastic. For the record, now you know how I felt about the chrome looks on the iphone and ipod touch at points, Apple isn't innocent in catering to the "bling" crowd sometimes too.

if you're directly comparing the MacBook Pro trackpad to a PC trackpad (any PC trackpad), you reveal yourself to neither have owned nor used a MacBook Pro for any length of time. Period.

On the other hand there are a lot of people who would kill for a Lenovo/IBM style mouse nub on a macbook pro, and swear by it just as much as you do about the apple trackpad.

Ports? USB 3.0 isn't needed for the average person. The hardware simply isn't there, unless you're RAIDing a bunch of hard drives or have some rather more specialized hardware.

Or a fast USB flash drive for storage (or readyboost). Or a fast spinning disk external with read speeds higher than 480Mbps (60MB/s [realistically on USB2 ~52MB/s] - something current gen spinning disks can do rather easily). Or want to have several lower speed devices plugged into the same port using a hub without massive contention problems. Or.... There are a lot of consumer uses for USB3, and there are a lot of products out there already, plus the ability to plug them into USB2 ports when a 3 port isnt available (a thunderbolt thumb drive would be useless for example).

You know, I'm a big apple fan, but I don't fanboy/girl the way some of ya'll do. Believe it or not sometimes apple makes design decisions that suck for consumers, sometimes they get things wrong, and their hardware isn't always better than everyone else's!