I was in the market to buy a new laptop earlier this year and I came down to comparing to machines: the Dell XPS M1530 and the Apple MacBook Pro. I compared both of them to every aspect I could possibly come up with. Anyways both machines recently have received some upgrades so I thought I should update both comparison lists for those of you who might be looking for a new 15-inch notebook.
Update 4/20/08: Dell is now offering a 1440×900 LED and 1920×1080 Full HD displays.
I gave Apple a point for the Screen since they offer a non-glossy option which I truly prefer due to glare. Dell was expected to push out a LED screen over a month ago, however it hasn’t happened yet. The body of the MacBook Pro is cleaner, simpler, and lighter compared to the XPS 1530. In terms of Operating Systems, if you want OS X Leopard, chances are you won’t be able to get it working on a XPS; however it should a breeze to install Vista/XP on a MacBook Pro with Boot Camp. Leopard can use 4GB of RAM; however you’ll need 64-bit editions of Vista or XP to utilize all of it. Dell offers many more options for HDDs including a 64GB SSD which would be unusual for a 15-inch laptop. Dell also lets you turn your XPS into a Blu-ray player with an optional Blu-ray read/write drive which is great for watching high definition movies. I was irritated to find out that the XPS didn’t have gigabit Ethernet, which is great for transferring large files on a local network, especially when most new laptops have it. Apple won the keyboard war with its beautiful backlit keyboard with an ambient light sensor. However the XPS makes up with a Finger Print Sensor, which is great for bypassing typing passwords when people are around, and a better Web Camera. The XPS comes with a media remote control which tucks away into the express card slot while Apple now charges an additional $20 for their Front Row remote. The XPS M1530 can also be configured with a Sprint or Verizon mobile broadband card which will utilize the laptop’s antennas for better signal gain. I choose the 6-cell battery for the XPS since it was the best one which didn’t stick out. It offered only 2.5 hours of work time while the MacBook Pro gets about 3 hours.
If you didn’t already notice, there’s one major factor I left out on the chart: price. This part is what made me make my final decision which was to go with the Dell M1530. Dell offered a pretty good student discount in addition to their constant promotions. Apple also offers such discounts, but are incomparable to what Dell offers. With both configured to the highest similar specifications, the MacBook Pro was getting very close to $3000 while the Dell XPS was about $500 cheaper costing about $2500. In addition for those of you on a strict budget like I was, there’s more flexibility to remove unneeded components with the Dell to bring the price down. Anyways, that’s my two cents so please feel free to make comments.
Links: Apple MacBook Pro | Dell XPS M1530
Money is not an issue- I’ll get that out of the way. Ok so It’s either gunna be a top of the line XPS or a Mac Pro. I’m not a gamer. this is strictly going to be used for college studies, downloading music, internet, lots of multi tasking. with those uses in mind which computer is better to get?
Okay, justinproblem, since money is not an issue, you are going to multi task, and it is for college. I definetly recommend the MBP because my friend has a XPS the 13″ version and my MBP Battery life blow away his XPS battery life.
@Justinproblem
If you plan on making your decision based on a spec-by-spec comparision, consult the Dell and Apple websites; hardly anyone gets the facts right in online discussions.
I wouldn’t recommend doing such a comparision however, ANY computer manufactured by a decent company will fulfill the requirements you’ve mentioned. You should, instead, focus on other factors like design, feel, warranty and portability (weight, battery life, etc.). Try out your laptops at a store; a few Dell ones which looked real nice online felt cheap and clunky at the store.
It wouldn’t make sense to follow a recommendation; we’re talking about a digital life partner here, you’ve got to go out and get to know them.
I was expecting a comparision sheet an dLOL, I find a battle field, hehe, :D
I use a Windows Desktop which I built, A Mac Pro at College, a Windows dumb ass machine at Work, A Mac Book Pro which a friend owns, and my sisters simple HP Lappie with Vista. Dabbled with i-Macs since they had G4’s and using them now with 24″ screens an dcored2Duo processors,
all these so called Mac fanatics cried at their top voices that Intel Chips sucked, an dthat G4s and G5s were so awesome, hehe, :d and today all that comes out form Apple include their tiny warrior Mac Mini has a Intel Chip in it.
Well I loev computers, building mini clusters, do design, video and bein at a film school, and working with production and animation houses, get to work on teh most bizare hardcore extreem machines, takle 32Gb Ram for example! on
Such flexibilty existed only on Windows and Unix systems shipped by IBM, now Apple joined teh bandwagoin a few years back, after adopting Intel Chips,
So my verdict, a computer is like the love of your life, unless you are too dumb to know what it is, and we all ahve preferences, go to hell if you stand on either side of this Os war, I am happy using both, and love them all,
But if you say, Dude I am not sure what to buy, the answer is simple, what you want,
If its your day to day use, e-mail, blogging, video, watch shit, download crap, you better get a Mac, it takes teh shit, an dkeeps mum, and yeah it will please you fancy by popping out a Cd if it has any malware or suspected virus,
The only reason WE use Macs is the Softwares, being in Film, and Video, can’t do without Final Cut Studio, Logic Pro, and a lot of very usefull high standard softwares, for your kin information it is not just teh OS or the so advertised Hardware, it’s the UNique fuckin Softwares that make us buy macs, and of course they are the flashy things, so some style conscious numbers do pop in, an dhey no doubts the Mac Book Pro looks cool,
So teh only things you have to look at, what you want, what money have you got, and how soon are you gonna upgrade, the rest is useless, if u got the brains you can build super computer out of you sony playstations, end of day all that is inside is Made in China, Made by you knwo who hardware manufacturers, and people liek me buy it from them and build their own machines, and hey forgot to tell you Mac OSx runs better on Windows, and yeha it can eb done, hehe, :D
so go ahead plunge into whatever you want, ahve fun, and don’t ya fuckin waste webspace with your silly so called technical explainations to which computer manufacturer is better,
Adios,
Much love & Peace,
I have a mac and love it. Its fast and easy to use. elegant looking but very powerful
Another thing that dell has going for them is security features. I was looking at the XPS today and it came with lo-jack and finger print scanning. My macbook pro has neither and is less than 3 months old.
Dell 1520, $1150 got me T7300 4mb, 4GBMem, 8600m gt, 320GB HD, 1400×900 glossy, running WinXP 64+OSX 10.5.2+Mandriva(<-best OS for basics).
Using M-Audio Firewire for sound because this is a music machine for Cubase and Logic. On mouse left+right click support( apparently thats a feature for mac)
Let the fan boys simmer on that.
I’m a mac user myself, and I don’t disagree that the dell was a better deal, because they did price the macbook pro to high, But that’s not what I disagree with, the only problem with going with the Dell would be that it has Windows Vista, in my opinion, any price paid for a computer that has Vista is overpriced.
Well I am getting my mac tomorrow and I was also decideing between apple dell and even hp but after looking at the specs and the quality of build the apple stood out by far. Even if the cost was double the hp or dell. Even though I am just moving to mac I think that I will be for the better.
Let me just tell you about my experience with the M1530, I wish I had never purchased this paperweight. I month after I bought this, in October, I was on the internet and suddenly my comp froze, got a black screen and later found out my hard drive was bad. I have been reading many reviews on the internet as a result of many bad experiences to follow with Dell Cust Svc. As it turns out, these computers must have been a bad batch because MANY others are having similar problems with this model purchased around the same time. I suggest you do not buy Dell, I wish I hadn’t, thier customer service is terrible, I wasted 4 hours being transferred several times to EVERY dept and no one could help me or was willing to be accountable for a bad product. I am still in limbo, no one has helped me, and I still have to call back tomorrow to try to resolve this. DO NOT BUY DELL, GO WITH MAC!!!!!!!!!!!
linda just cause you and a few others have a couple of problems does not mean the dell sucks. my mom and sisters both on the dell and havent had any problems.and i say dell costumer service is jolly well cracker jack in fixing roblems in my familys experience. how ever since computers are our friends for those of you who want an MBP get one i hear apples are nice just a little high on the price side but price no matter what the product can be accommdated for anything when it comes to electronics crazy rebates and insentives if u buy at the right time. for those trying to decide between the dell xps m1530 and apple mac book pro test drive both at your local electronics store or borrow a frineds see how you like them and pick the better one for your personal needs
because people buying a computer shouldnt be ablout what john michelle and kayla like it should be about what you like and how it fits into your life because what the others like u may not and at the end of the day you have 2 deal with shelling out the money for the computer.so i highly recommend testing both
Just wanted to let everyone know, Skatter Tech published a comparison of the new Apple MacBook Pro 13 to Dell Studio Studio XPS 13 recently! You can view the article here: http://skattertech.com/2009/08/apple-macbook-pro-13-vs-dell-studio-xps-13/
I have had my Dell “beast” for 4 yrs…time for a change. I am in the process of deciding and at the end of it all I will likely pick Mac. Simply put Dell service!! My screen was bad from the beginning but after several VERY long calls and a bogus fix…then of course it went completely dead after the warranty was up. To top my disappointment off…a replacement screen from dell was going to cost at least an arm. I ended up ordering one and replacing my self from an online company out of Vancouver. Needless to say I am looking forward to not lugging this huge beast around and just walking into a store when I have a problem enough said!!
That’s an acceptable issue with their product and service. I have the XPS M1530 and one I accidentally dropped it. It knocked the heat sink out of place. As a result the laptop was overheating like nuts. It got so hot that i almost burnt myself touching the palm rest. It even left a slight imprint in the desk i had placed it on. I called dell after noticing how hot just a few hours after booting it up after the fall. First rep said to let it cool down and try again and wasn’t helpful. I attempted to do that. Got just as dangerously hot again. Called up again, the second rep freaked out when I told him how hot it was. He said not to turn it on again. They sent out a BRAND NEW (not refurb) replacement unit of the same specs the same day with overnight shipping. I just had to put my old unit back in the same box with a provided pre-paid label. I’ve been using it for about 2 years now since that incident, no problems since.
I even just loaded up Windows 7 Pro x64 on it just a few days ago!
for anyone who cant decide whether to get a mac or a dell, over the last 2 years the choice has been clear to me.
right now i am typing on a 5 year old ibook g4 which btw runs surprisingly faster than my mom’s supposedly fast core2duo beast, which has been virus-ridden ever since she got it. first, blue screen of death, which took dell a month to fix, then a while later she got it again, and the sound chip stopped working. so they sent a repair guy, who decided to replace the entire motherboard, which in the dell fashion had no effect whatsoever. she then later had the harddraive replaced, and once again, this didnt do a thing to help. finally i took it in my own hands to fix it which took me about a month of talking to dell and a bunch of other crap. finally i fix it and much to my happiness, she sold it now, and decided to get a macbook! she has had it for about a month and so far no problems. she said it was fun to use and easy. after getting a myself a macbook to replace this ibook, i find it annoying to work on a pc. its like i take so many of the things macs do for granted, when i use a dell, i wonder how people can put up with it, and i realise why so many people hate computers. ever since i have used macs, now im not being a fanboy, but, i hate pcs!
Its good that Apple won the keyboard war with its beautiful backlit keyboard with an ambient light sensor.
I used to have the MBP, and now I have the Dell Studio XPS16. I had too many problems with my MBP, so they sent me the newest one. Except the video memory is no longer discrete. Trust me, it sucks.
This dell has the ATI 4670 with a gig of memory and I love it. I can run games I could never run on the MBP in bootcamp. And this is with vista, not XP (from my experience, XP is better for gaming, considering the resource usage).
Unfortunately, I’ve had bad luck finding full functionality with the ATI 4670 on OSX. If any of you have had better luck, I’d like to know
dear once-a-mac-now-a-pc-again,
i am actually going back to pc too!mac is great and all, but its just not worth the money for what you get. you can get a 2.26 ghz macbook from apple with a 13″ screen, or you can get a 17″ core i7 4 gb ram 320 gb hd, 1 gigabyte video card from dell for thesame price! i bought the macbook im typing on with the assumption it would be adequete, but technology advances fast, and this thing is slow.
i have recently both a xps 1530 lab top, accidentally it dropped Friday. i don’t know what to do, i have email dell of the situation but they have not yet reply. it is not completing it normal booting process, it is telling me that it has some failer in hard drive while booting. the only thing that keeps coming up is diagnostics, all the test pass except the hard drive test. what should i do, send back the laptop or fix it out hear?
Just call them up! So yes it looks like the Hard Drive is broken. That means all your data is most likely gone. :( If you call up Dell and have accidental warranty they will replace it for you for free! If you don’t you can either have them send a technician out to fix it or send it in to tell you the cost.
If the rest of the laptop seems 100% intact physically and you have no warranty, just go buy a laptop Hard Drive and put in yourself. If you know anything about computers or have a friend that does, they should be able to do it for you in just a few minutes!
For all you design students, check out Parallels. With this software, you’re going to be able to dual-boot Windows and OSx without shutting your computer down just to switch to the other side. This makes using AutoCad/Rhino/or any other Microsoft program MUCH easier, while running your Adobe programs over on the other side… At the University of Kentucky College of Design, pretty much EVERYONE runs this configuration… Boot Camp will work, but you’re going to spend a lot of time shutting down to switch side. Hope it helps…
Guys/Gals,
got a macbook (white) while my XPS was in the shop (I dropped it). love the feel of the mac. i know a macbook pro would be faster. it was like sex with a stranger…
however, when i got the XPS back i could see how much faster it was and that my two critical programs just weren’t feasible on the mac (MS Access and FrontPage). plus, my hd screen on the XPS is totally awesome.
Macs are great for typical computer use but not as good for this power user.
Damn, that’s crazy…