For those wanting a comparison between the Late 2013 MBP 15 and the Dell XPS 15 9530, here are my impressions. I'm not going to include a performance benchmark because those are everywhere and should be completely objective. This is only a subjective write up.
Top spec XPS 15 vs Top spec MBP 15 (512g SSD in both)
Build Quality
Construction:
These machines have a lot in common. Both of these machines use high quality materials, aluminum unibody for the Mac, aluminum and carbon fiber for the Dell. Both screens are covered with corning gorilla glass for durability.
The Mac has a smaller footprint and less bezel around the screen. I didn't actually measure it (I can if you want) but here's what I can say, top bezel is about the same, side bezels are smaller on the Dell, bottom bezel is much larger on the dell (probably 2x the Mac).
For those who have used aluminum unibody macs (this is my second), they always feel very solid. They also tend to get very warm when they're in your lap for a long time. My 17" MBP from 2010 would get really hot if I used it for a long period of time.
The Dell is actually thinner and lighter than the Mac but only barely (4.44lb vs 4.46lb, 0.7" vs 0.71".. barely).
Issues:
I haven't experienced any issues with my MBP. I do have coil hum on my Dell, but it's not loud enough to be annoying and I have a feeling this will be corrected shortly. Dell really wants this machine to compete with Apple so it has to be as flawless as possible. Some users have also reported issues with displays and the touch screens.
Overall Feel:
Both of these machines feel really solid. I actually prefer the feel of the Dell's palmrest to the Mac as the soft touch keyboard deck is really comfortable. That said, I prefer the Mac's keyboard (and touchpad but more on that later). The keys on the Dell's keyboard are a bit stiff. They might soften up in time, but compared to the Mac, which has very light accurate feel, the Dell currently feels a bit stiff and spongy. On my desktop I use a mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Blue switches, so smooth and accurate feel always appeals to me.
Display
Color Uniformity and Accuracy:
Out of the box, the Mac has much better color uniformity and accuracy. That said, most of that is caused by software. Another user on this forum pointed out that Dell ships this laptop with the color mode set to vivid. Turn that off! It's about equivalent to the TVs you see at best buy in demo mode settings. The colors really pop, they're really bright, and they are completely terrible when it comes to accuracy. Turning off Vivid mode (Start -> Mobility Settings) brings things much closer. You have to remember that both companies are trying to attract professionals to use these products and the displays have to be accurate in order for that to be true. So, vivid mode off, colors are much more uniform on both systems. The Mac has slightly better contrast.
After calibration, it was really hard to tell the difference between the 2 laptops. They both look great.
My only caveat here is the backlight on the Dell. It's REALLY bright at max settings. It's so bright that you can actually see a slight reflection of it off of the front glass when turned all the way up. When I performed my calibration, I calibrated for 180 cd/m brightness. I achieved that at 60% backlight on the Dell. 100% backlight was around 350 cd/m. The Dell is probably great for outdoor use, but for general daily use, turn the thing down!
Resolution:
2880x1800 (1440x900) for the Mac vs 3200x1800 (1600x900) for the Dell. Mac OSX allows a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 using their scalar (unless you install custom software or modify a plist file). Windows will allow you to push all the way to 3200x1800 or 2880x1800 on the Mac. Things are just too small on a 15" display to use that resolution at 1:1 scaling. I personally have my Mac scalar set to 1920x1200 and the Dell is 1.25:1 which gives me 2400x1350.
Either way, both displays look great with the right settings. The extra resolution and PPI is nice on the Dell, though you may not even notice it.
Touchscreen:
The Dell has one, the Mac doesn't. Some users are experiencing issues with it. I'm having no problems. It works just fine. I hate touching my monitor though, lol.
Touchpad
Touchpad: The Mac's is better, hands down. They both click, and the click mechanism works fine. The click feels better on the Mac and it's more accurate. All too often when I click on the Dell, the cursor moves during the click. I never have that problem on the Mac. I also feel like I can click the touchpad in more places on the Mac.
I've found that with the current drivers shipped by Dell, the touchpad pressure requirement is way too high. I have mine turned almost all the way down and that seems to solve some of the sensitivity issues, especially with gestures.
Gestures:
Again, the Mac's work better and again this could be driver related. With 3 and 4 finger gestures especially, the Dell seems to just miss them every so often.
Audio
Speakers:
At low volumes, both sound good enough for a laptop. The Dell plays much louder than the Mac, however, the sound quality at maximum volume drops off as the bass response at those volumes just isn't there. The Dell's speakers also are a bit bright sounding. That may change with use, but it's not bright enough to be obnoxious. (If you've ever listened to reference speakers, like B&W 8 series with diamond tweeters and kevlar cones, when they're brand new, they sound very bright. The treble can be almost unbearable at high volumes, as they age, they settle down quite a bit and are just wonderful.)
The Mac really does have better bass response across the entire volume range. The sound is much more natural. Apple apparently spent a lot of time on these speakers with this revision.
Ports
Mac: 2 thunderbolt, 2 USB, 1 HDMI, 1 SDXC Card slot
Dell: 3 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, 1 Mini Display Port, 1 HDMI, 1 SDIO/SDXC slot, NFC
Conclusion
They're both really good, but the Mac is better overall.
I find this odd because I didn't buy the Mac, I bought the Dell. The Mac was given to me on Monday when I started my new job. I was replacing my 17" MBP with the Dell XPS and I told myself I wouldn't buy another Mac.
While I don't think it was a mistake to purchase it, I'm really surprised I came to this conclusion.
Assuming Dell can get the minor issues with their machine resolved, I might change my mind. Running Windows 8.1 native on a Mac drives me nuts. I always end up remapping the keyboard as CTRL | OPTION (alt) | COMMAND layout just doesn't work for me. I much prefer the CTRL | ALT | OSKey layout of PC keyboards.
The Dell has more options. It's got the better port configuration, NFC, the touchscreen display, higher resolution monitor and better hard disk options (SATA + mSATA).
The Mac has the faster processor (4960HQ vs 4702HQ) and also consumes more power because of it.
They run the same video card (GT750M 2GB DDR5)
They have the same RAM configuration.
The top end Mac configuration costs ~500-600 more.
Comments or questions are welcome. Again, this is my opinion and anything above that I may have mis-stated I will correct.
Click to expand...
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
Thunderbolt 2 incorporates DisplayPort 1.2, but that spec might not have been ready in time for this system.
![[-Mac-]](images/avatars/[-Mac-])
