Magsafe. I have thrown around the idea of getting a windows notebook, but every time the deal breaker for me is the lack of a Magsafe adapter. It may sound stupid, but I have seen too many PC Notebooks with broken/loose power connectors. My Black MacBook is from spring 2007 and I have never had an issue with the power connector (I have personally tripped over the cord while plugged in, as have others, and my response each time is "I have the Magsafe adapter, it won't hurt anything", and it never has, try saying that about a PC Notebook).
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Why would anyone buy a Retina Macbook Pro vs Dell XPS 15?
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"Bottom line; you're paying $400 for OSX, nothing for Win8."
What about Windows 9, 10 and 11?
Mac OS X gives you the ability to run Mac OS X VMs (I need to do this for work to run on multiple networks). I would have to buy multiple licenses (or maybe Ultimate [update: Microsoft got rid of Ultimate for Windows 8]) to do this with Windows, right?
I generally use a native X environment at work from remote Linux systems. There are products that will emulate the X environment on Windows but most of the free ones really don't work and the one that I did find that works is clunky to use and it's nagware. I'd guess that there are paid products that work well in this space.
I work 1/2 mile away from an Apple Store. If I have a problem, I can just bring it over and they can often fix it (if it's a hardware issue), while I wait or overnight (they have second and third shift repair people on-site). I can go to the Apple Store to buy accessories too. We have about six Mac Power bricks in multiple locations and I can use those power bricks with my Haswell Retina MacBook Pro (our local Apple Store has them in stock!). In general, I don't have to carry around a power brick.
I've spent about 30 minutes with Mavericks and really like it. I have been running Windows 8 on my home desktop since December 2012 so I know what Windows 8 is like. Windows 8 is fine once you get rid of the Modern UI but I think that Mavericks is the next level. Windows 7 was Windows catching up to Snow Leopard.
I have a Dell XPS M1330 and a 17 inch MacBook Pro, both purchased in 2008. They are both in use today. The XPS M1330 is a solid machine - it had one defect - the keyboard. The spacebar on the keyboard had one anchor point. If you pressed it on either side, the space would sometimes register and sometimes not. I brought it back to Best Buy and they shipped it to North Carolina and I got it back a week later. They replaced the keyboard and the new spacebar had three anchor points - someone really cheaped out on the keyboard and it probably cost Dell a decent chunk of change to replace a bunch of keyboards. Other than that, the system has been fine. Unfortunately that's not the case for huge numbers of people that got it with the nVidia discrete graphics. There were huge numbers of people with failed graphics solutions. This was an industry-wide problem and it hit Apple too - the difference was in how vendors dealt with a major industry product defect. In general, I think that Apple handled it a lot better than Dell did. You can read threads on the problem at various notebook forums for Apple and Dell (and other companies).
My Dell XPS is currently used by my daughter to do certain kinds of college homework where Windows is required.
I also have Dell Inspiron 4000, 4100, 8500 systems that are still working though they probably haven't been used in several years. The build quality of the Inspiron series has declined since the late 1990s as the prices of laptops declined. The XPS build quality is a lot better than that of the Inspirons but you'd expect that as XPS is one of Dell's premium lines. If you want US phone support, buy from Dell's small business unit. Their Home products get support from Asian staff.
I think that Dell has made great improvements in their product lines lately and that they will do well in the process of being taken private. The Venue 8 Pro and Venue 11 Pro products look great in their space (having a tablet that can run flash, connect to a keyboard like a laptop or connect into a dock to run like a desktop is nice). Their new XPS systems are very nice and they have new Android 7 and 8 inch tablets that can compete with the Google Nexus 7.
They are doing a nice job at innovating with their new products, whether that be on price or functionality.
I am leaning towards the High-End Retina MacBook Pro right now as my current daily laptop is a 2008 MacBook Pro (nothing wrong with it BTW) and I have some applications that don't have Windows versions (like Growly Notes). I've also made $10K in two Apple stock trades. I can't do that with Dell because they're being taken private and their stock price is pinned.
What about Windows 9, 10 and 11?
Mac OS X gives you the ability to run Mac OS X VMs (I need to do this for work to run on multiple networks). I would have to buy multiple licenses (or maybe Ultimate [update: Microsoft got rid of Ultimate for Windows 8]) to do this with Windows, right?
I generally use a native X environment at work from remote Linux systems. There are products that will emulate the X environment on Windows but most of the free ones really don't work and the one that I did find that works is clunky to use and it's nagware. I'd guess that there are paid products that work well in this space.
I work 1/2 mile away from an Apple Store. If I have a problem, I can just bring it over and they can often fix it (if it's a hardware issue), while I wait or overnight (they have second and third shift repair people on-site). I can go to the Apple Store to buy accessories too. We have about six Mac Power bricks in multiple locations and I can use those power bricks with my Haswell Retina MacBook Pro (our local Apple Store has them in stock!). In general, I don't have to carry around a power brick.
I've spent about 30 minutes with Mavericks and really like it. I have been running Windows 8 on my home desktop since December 2012 so I know what Windows 8 is like. Windows 8 is fine once you get rid of the Modern UI but I think that Mavericks is the next level. Windows 7 was Windows catching up to Snow Leopard.
I have a Dell XPS M1330 and a 17 inch MacBook Pro, both purchased in 2008. They are both in use today. The XPS M1330 is a solid machine - it had one defect - the keyboard. The spacebar on the keyboard had one anchor point. If you pressed it on either side, the space would sometimes register and sometimes not. I brought it back to Best Buy and they shipped it to North Carolina and I got it back a week later. They replaced the keyboard and the new spacebar had three anchor points - someone really cheaped out on the keyboard and it probably cost Dell a decent chunk of change to replace a bunch of keyboards. Other than that, the system has been fine. Unfortunately that's not the case for huge numbers of people that got it with the nVidia discrete graphics. There were huge numbers of people with failed graphics solutions. This was an industry-wide problem and it hit Apple too - the difference was in how vendors dealt with a major industry product defect. In general, I think that Apple handled it a lot better than Dell did. You can read threads on the problem at various notebook forums for Apple and Dell (and other companies).
My Dell XPS is currently used by my daughter to do certain kinds of college homework where Windows is required.
I also have Dell Inspiron 4000, 4100, 8500 systems that are still working though they probably haven't been used in several years. The build quality of the Inspiron series has declined since the late 1990s as the prices of laptops declined. The XPS build quality is a lot better than that of the Inspirons but you'd expect that as XPS is one of Dell's premium lines. If you want US phone support, buy from Dell's small business unit. Their Home products get support from Asian staff.
I think that Dell has made great improvements in their product lines lately and that they will do well in the process of being taken private. The Venue 8 Pro and Venue 11 Pro products look great in their space (having a tablet that can run flash, connect to a keyboard like a laptop or connect into a dock to run like a desktop is nice). Their new XPS systems are very nice and they have new Android 7 and 8 inch tablets that can compete with the Google Nexus 7.
They are doing a nice job at innovating with their new products, whether that be on price or functionality.
I am leaning towards the High-End Retina MacBook Pro right now as my current daily laptop is a 2008 MacBook Pro (nothing wrong with it BTW) and I have some applications that don't have Windows versions (like Growly Notes). I've also made $10K in two Apple stock trades. I can't do that with Dell because they're being taken private and their stock price is pinned.
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I'd pay the Apple premium just to never have to deal with Dell's at-home tech support again.
Heck, my first computer was a Texas Instrument 99/4A, when they were discontinuing them. Circa 1982? I wrote some programs in C+ (or something) and saved them on a cassette tape. Literally. In college I bought an IBM clone with a 20 MB HD. My first copy of Windows, 1.3 I think, came on a 5¼" floppy.My situation and conclusion are almost identical. The first computer I owned was a Leading Edge Model D with two floppy drives. I later replaced one of floppies for a 30MB HDD.I went to laptops in 1997 with a Toshiba, then a couple of HP's, then a Lenovo ThinkPad T500, and three weeks ago a refurbished mid-2012 rMBP.
Nothing I've owned touches the MBP in build quality, not to mention the screen. The Samsung screen on my ThinkPad was really poor, and both palm rests developing hairline cracks didn't endear itself to me.
Having had an iPhone 4S for two years and an iPad 3 for one year, I decided to make the switch to Mac. I could not be more pleased, especially with the OS.
I was also tempted by the Dell XPS 15, but the price difference wasn't enough for me to go with Dell and stay in the Windows environment. Besides, as has been mentioned, MS has yet to get screen scaling down as has Apple, and the lack of 3rd-party, high resolution ready apps is a real downer.
I won't say I'll never go back to Windows, but it's hard to see it happening.
Just realized what an old fart I am.Heck, my first computer was a Texas Instrument 99/4A, when they were discontinuing them. Circa 1982? I wrote some programs in C+ (or something) and saved them on a cassette tape. Literally. In college I bought an IBM clone with a 20 MB HD. My first copy of Windows, 1.3 I think, came on a 5¼" floppy.
You've got me beat.
My intro to computers was having to teach basic computer programming on an Apple IIe in something like 1984 or '85. I stayed one step ahead of the students--most of them, anyway.
I try to be open-minded about things, be blind to brands, think about value it provides as tech tool. Been using both Mac and Windows side-by-side for several years now, and the saying about you get what you paid for generally holds true if you look at the entire ownership life-cycle. rMBP15 can command $3K becasue there is no real competition. Well, at least til now.
That new XPS looks like a contender. Still, my requirements are touchpad that works and 16:10 screen. That pretty much narrows the choice to macs. Still, I'm going to wait until some reviews are out before pulling the trigger on either one.
That new XPS looks like a contender. Still, my requirements are touchpad that works and 16:10 screen. That pretty much narrows the choice to macs. Still, I'm going to wait until some reviews are out before pulling the trigger on either one.
Read the fine print.... you only get 11 hours battery life if you get the 91Wh battery, which is only available in the SSD-only model, which nullifies the benefit of being able to use a hard drive and an SSD.
Also the dell only has the 2.2GHz chip in the highest configuration, I didn't see an option to spec it to 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz.
Oh yeah, and the weight "starts at" 4.4 lbs. Gee, I wonder if that takes into account the 50% larger battery in the high-end model?
That's the problem with Dell's online tools is that you really have to read between the lines to figure out what you're actually going to get. Just don't expect to pay $2000 and get 11 hours of battery life, that's for sure.
I've probably owned 30 different Windows laptops before (no joke, from Dell Latitude C series on, vast majority were Dells), not a single one where the actual battery runtime was anywhere near what the manufacturer says, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, HP :roll eyes: Meanwhile, every Macbook I've owned I routinely get more runtime than what Apple says.
All my desktops are still Windows simply because they do things that cannot be done on the Mac, but for laptops I don't see myself going back to Windows again.
All my desktops are still Windows simply because they do things that cannot be done on the Mac, but for laptops I don't see myself going back to Windows again.
You've got me beat.
My intro to computers was having to teach basic computer programming on an Apple IIe in something like 1984 or '85. I stayed one step ahead of the students--most of them, anyway.
I wrote my first ever program on an Apple IIe as well.
One size never fits all. If specs and budget trump all else then the Dell may be a better fit. For me, OSX, build quality and the trackpad were the major reasons. YMMV and you have to decide based on your needs/wants/etc. You can't just poll others on the matter.
That said, my MBP is the best Windows laptop I've ever owned.
Why do you want the MBP so much? If you need to be convinced then maybe you shouldn't get it.
I'd recommend actually trying one out first if you haven't used one. One can't assess that which one has not experienced. First hand experience can't be beat for making such decisions. If you don't think it's worth it then return it before your return period runs out.
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I was in a meeting today with someone who's got one of these Dell machines. While the touch screen is kind of nice, the glare of the screen is terrible, I wasn't able to see anything when not sitting directly in front of it. Oh, and he's had to have the motherboard and SSD replaced after 1 week of owning the machine.
Because I've owned both Dells and Apple gear before, and the ownership experience is entirely different and something the on paper spec does not represent.
Dell have the following issues:
there's other stuff, but that's the crux of it.
Dell have the following issues:
- vastly inferior build quality
- terrible support by comparison (had 60 machines with a design fault that dell delayed/denied/passed off/wouldn't fix for 6 months
- no OS X
there's other stuff, but that's the crux of it.
Haha. +1
Dell's customer support is a joke. You have to be transferred (via phone) to at least 5 different people / departments until you get any sort of help...
To repair your computer you have to have someone from Dell come to your house or ship it. That was the worst!
It's NOT machined Aluminum, it's stamped Aluminum with some machining, which is nowhere near the same quality. The build quality is incredibly terrible on the XPS 15 in comparison. Apple makes their machines out of solid blocks of aluminum that have laser cut sections. There is no comparison between these two construction techniques. This is the highest quality and strongest manufacturing process available. Dell uses a cheap imitation of this process, that is 4-5 times weaker structurally. The carbon fiber is also a mass produced flat sheet that costs cents, with no custom forming whatsoever. It's just bought in massive sheets for a few dollars and then cut to size. It's insultingly cheap and also incredibly tacky and literally screwed onto the top cover, it would look better without it.
I've had computers made with the machined aluminum like Dell use. Being dropped from a few feet the entire cased cracked. Dropping my macbook in the exact same situation from the same desk just resulted in a small dent. Cheap manufacturers use cheap brittle aluminum that cracks with the smallest amount of force. It's really misleading because it's not the durable material you think you're getting. Dell and HP use the same aluminum alloy that hotwheels uses for their toys, which is 6061, and it's not made from solid blocks but sintered, which means it's made from a powder that is melted together and full of structural weaknesses inside every inch. This is around 4-5 times weaker than the 2024-T3 alloy which comes from a solid block.
Sintered 6061 is held together a lot like a sugar cookie and it's very brittle in the same way. It has a tensile strength of around 40 MPa if they use a high quality process. 2024 has a tensile strength of 220 MPa.
RMBP doesn't need a battery saving IGZO display because the software saves 3 times more power than windows. Also the display is uncalibrated which meant it will be unusable by creative professionals and look incredibly terrible.
Here's an example of a conservative comparison of the problem.
This is a complete utter and total lie in every sense of the word.
The XPS has a 4 hours 58 minute battery life doing light web browsing, with the i7 processor. You can expect well under 4 if you're doing anything more with the i7. The 11 hours is measured with the i3 doing extremely simple tasks at very low brightness which is designed to mislead consumers. If fuel economy tests were done by Dell then the Prius would get 5 million miles per gallon.
Apple gives real world battery usage figures, not made up lies, and most tests actually exceed Apple's quoted battery life. However when Dell's battery life quotes are tested the real life figures are usually half of what Dell's are.
The Verge clocked The MacBook Pro Retina 15" with the i7 at 9 hours and 35 minutes in it's real world battery test. That's 37% better than quoted. That same test showed that all Dell laptops get HALF the battery life dell quoted. For example the Dell XPS 14 is quoted at 10 hours of battery life, but The Verge was only able to get 6 in their standard test, and that's with a super high efficiency low voltage "u" processor in the XPS 14. With a high powered i7 processor like in the MacBook Pro 15" you're looking at 5 hours on the Dell versus 9.5 hours on the Mac. Dell misleads, plain and simple.
Replacing a MacBook is not expensive, they hold their value well, unlike PC's.
Apple sells RAM upgrades at a price that is so low this is a non issue. It's actually cheaper to get an Apple ram upgrade than it would ever be to get a Dell with more ram. It's $200 for 16GB, I spent more than that getting 16GB of high quality ram on sale to upgrade my Mac Mini.
Screen brightness is irrelevant if the screen is unusable by a professional due to lack of calibration. And don't suggest calibrating the screen with a $100 tool, The cheap tools don't work properly, I've purchased 6 calibration tools under $500 and none worked even remotely well, you need a $5,000 tool which I own just for that purpose. The brightness difference might matter but both are acceptable.
Edit: White dragon mentioned that the new Haswell MBP is 20% brighter according to laptopmag, see his post slightly below.
Actually Dell lies about this too. That .70 is measuring without the feet. The MacBook Pro Retina 15" is .69 without the feet, the Dell is .75 with the feet. The MacBook also has a thicker shell which is more durable, and again the upgrades don't matter because unlike it's upgradable computers like the cMBP or iMac Apple heavily subsidized all non-upgradable parts to the point where they sell them near cost. For example 16GB of ram is $200, you'd pay around that price if you wanted to upgrade it yourself. I paid $220 to upgrade my Mac Mini to 16gb with high quality laptop ram.
People need to get out of the mindset that they should upgrade their computer. Simply sell it and buy a replacement, it's much more economical, especially with an Apple computer and buy the storage you need in the first place.
You can get a 1TB SSD with the new MacBook Pro 15", that's more storage than any configuration the dell would have. Again get out of the ridiculous mindset that you need to upgrade your computer over time, either get what you need from the beginning or sell your computer and buy a new one when you need more.
Apple computers are not more expensive than other computers. Apple makes the least expensive computers in the world in each class.
Example. I purchased the most one of the fastest Dell XPS laptops that money could buy 2.5 years ago and sold it after 13 months. I bought it for $2300. I sold it for $700
That's a loss of $1600.
A year ago I purchased a mid level MacBook Pro 15" with a $200 corporate discount. I paid $2600 WITH tax. I sold it for $2373 11 months later.
That's a loss of $227. The Dell cost me nearly 10 times more than MacBook cost me.
2 years ago I purchased a new MacBook Air for $1670 with the corporate discount, I sold it 5 months later for $1590, that's $80 for 5 months usage.
I also purchased a used MacBook Air 3 years ago for $810. 2 years go I sold it for $850, that's a profit of $40.
All non-Apple computers depreciate extremely severely, Apple computers do not depreciate very much at all. This is also why it's better to simply sell an Apple computer and get one with different specs instead of upgrading. With a non-Apple computer you have to upgrade, with an Apple computer you can sell yours and buy a different one for way less than it costs to upgrade an old computer.
AGAIN, Dell did not optimize a dedicated card better than Apple did with graphics switching, this is absolutely silly. What Dell did is they mislead consumers with bogus battery life claims based on ridiculously impossible testing criteria. Apple's MacBooks Pro Retina 15" has TWICE the battery life of the XPS 15" Pro.
There's a huge noticeable difference in speed.
This is a completely incorrect conclusion in every way.
The XPS 15" is not a better value. It costs 10 times more than the Apple in the long run. It's build quality isn't on the same planet and it has that cheaply tacked on carbon fiber and the lowest quality extremely brittle aluminum, and it is worse in literally every category. Worse battery life, professionally unusable screen with poor colors, tacky design, much much louder annoying fans, and a terrible warranty that will leave you stranded without a computer for a long time while dell fixes things (Apple has guaranteed turn around, and can fix things in a local store, which is a huge advantage if you can't be without a computer).
Simply put you are extremely naive and were misled by slick marketing to think that a poorly made piece of junk is better than the highest quality laptop on the market. It's not. You basically did the equivalent of seeing that Ford ad where they try to make the Focus look better than a BMW M3, and then concluded: Man I should really get a Ford Focus, it's so much better!
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And yet there is only several % real world difference, nice point but still no "upgrade" if you ask me. I paid well below rrp so value is still well and truely in my court, next round maybe...
That's what I figured out as well. You have to read between the lines and at the end it's not that killer-offer you'd expect. Probably it's good, but not as good as a rMBP.
Also the heigth "starts at", it is not sure what the real heigth is. Actually there is so few information on the Dell XPS website, that you can't inform yourself about the product you'll get in your hands. I don't read anything about a iGPU beside the dGPU, I can't see the real clocks of the i7 CPU, it's always "up to...".
Meh.
So defensive!
You do mean that Apple makes the best priced/ most value for the money computers in the world?
Price on the "secondary market" or 2nd hand sales does not make the macbook's SRP any cheaper, it is still a significant cash outlay.
You've not made any losses either, they can be classified as expenses for your utilisation of the computer during that duration. It just happens that the PC equivalent incurs a higher expense.
Also, other people may have different preferences.
Ok I edited the quote to make it shorter but I don't think we will get much better for detail than the reply from Radiating.
The one concession he made was the brightness and it seems apple just fixed it with the new Haswell model rMBP. According to laptopmag the brightness is up 20% which matches the regular pre retina MBP and the current Dell.
ps
I don't want this to detract from the overall comment but the apple upgrade prices for ram and SSD are a bit on the high side. Going from 8gb to 16gb is a $200 upgrade buying 16gb outright on crucial.com is $172 .
Heck, my first computer was a Texas Instrument 99/4A, when they were discontinuing them. Circa 1982? I wrote some programs in C+ (or something) and saved them on a cassette tape. Literally. In college I bought an IBM clone with a 20 MB HD. My first copy of Windows, 1.3 I think, came on a 5¼" floppy.
Hehe... my first computer use was an Apple IIe. The first computer that I owned was a Commodore 64.
300 baud modem and pay by the hour CompuServ internet. It took about 2 hours to download a decent nudie pic back then.