A Comparison of the Macbook Pro late 2013 to Dell XPS 15 late 2013 (9530)

I use both on a daily basis and offer up this comparison. Both are top of the line models with high res screen and SSD.

Macbook Pro +
+ Better use of hi res display. Fewer apps have tiny text compared to Dell.
+ Better battery life.
+ More consistent two-finger scrolling. Dell two-finger sometimes jump around. Also for the trackpad, the XPS smudges a lot. MBP practically none.
+ Much better webcam. XPS 15 webcam is grainy and blows out lights in comparison. The XPS webcam is horrible.
+ Less glare. MBP has a lot of glare but the XPS much more. Watch any movie in some light and you will watch yourself more than the movie. The glare makes movie watching a terrible experience, especially darker scenes.

Dell XPS 15 9530 +
+ More usb ports. 4 vs 2. I hook up a mouse, keyboard, external hard drive, sometimes a DAC. Mac has two Thunderbolt ports but Dell also has DP and HDMI. Overall, Dell has more ports.
+ Smoother trackpad. Other than two finger scrolling, Dell’s trackpad feels better to me. Much less friction. But YMMV since Dell apparently has a couple of different trackpads on the XPS 15, one with more friction.
+ XPS has a right mouse button, much better than using ctrl-click on MBP.
+ Better OS for semi-power use. Using both OSX and Windows 8, Win 8 is easier to use when needing to do more than simple tasks. This isn’t a full OS comparison but I can go point by point on why in another thread if anyone is interested. The gist is OSX requires command line more than Windows for many power tasks and they have fewer visual cues of what is happening when you do tasks compared to Windows.
+ Better multi-monitor support. You can’t turn off the laptop on the Mac when using external.
+ Much cheaper. Retail price is almost the same, Mac slightly more, but the XPS has more discounts if you know where and when.

About equal
- Screen. Dell has slightly higher resolution, but in practice they are both very good and sharp.
- Speed. For the apps I use, Mac is slightly faster, but Dell has never been annoyingly slow.
- Keyboard typing. Both are good. Mostly personal preferences for which is better.
- Build quality. Both are good but both also have a couple of weak spots. Mac has a big one underneath, right below the label.
- Size and weight. Almost the same really.
- Boot times. Mac seems slightly faster but both pretty quick.

Any more questions, feel free to ask.

 

Why don't you use two finger click to right click on a Mac?

 

I thought you could click down on the bottom-right of the MBP touchpad to right-click now.

 

Two finger tap is more convenient. I'll have to get used to it, although if your fingers are more than an inch apart, the MBP doesn't pick it up. The MBP doesn't have a right click, or if it does, the area must be really small.

A couple of more points.

Dell XPS +
+ Touchscreen. I don't use it often, but in some situations, such as two finger zooming for maps, it is convenient. And the XPS 15, even with the touchscreen, is the same weight as the MBP.
+ XPS has a lock, MBP doesn't. Some care, some don't.

MBP +
+ Top row function keys bigger. Not sure why Dell had to make theirs so small since they have so much open space in their keyboard. Not a huge deal but still. MBP top row is smaller than normal too but not as small as XPS 15.

About equal
- keyboard backlighting. Both are pretty good. Definitely a useful feature.