Dell should just shut down and return the money to its stock holders. I bet they make almost no profit from that laptop. Less than Apple, at any rate.
Less than Apple, but I'd wager that this model is one of their profitable one since it's not a budget machine. I've read that they've been doing much better since they went private (so, not stock holders, but they do still have investors).
Lost me when the article mentioned Dell. Could care less how a 4-year user of Macs thinks any Windows PC compares to a Mac. It doesn’t, no way, no how.
I pick whatever tool gets the job done regardless of whether it is a PC or a Mac. Happily switch between them. There's plenty of stuff that a Mac is absolutely brilliant at, and similarly for a Windows based PC. This mindset that X is far superior to Y and nothing else matter is absolute BS.
Call it what you want. I’ve been managing and operating computerized systems since 1976 and the best complete system I ever managed was based on Apple equipment. Windows systems have always been a pain to even attempt to secure as well as the constant patching.
Windows is the standard at businesses. That’s not going to change anytime soon. The admin at a shop I consult with blew a gasket when I wanted to use my Mac on their network. Now, more folks are doing it, he’s being ordered to allow it, and guess which users have almost zero issues?
i think he fears that Macs threaten his job security.
I administer windows machines on a Win2012 server AD setup at another site and let me tell you it’s a pain in the backside. Windows machines always needs babysitting.
“If Dell were to improve the trackpad, speakers, and display brightness, the XPS 13 would be a near perfect product.”
Those are some pretty big caveats. Three elements of the machine that are major user interaction points. Dell wins, in the author’s view, on the keyboard. Fair enough. Oh, and I’m guessing you’d want the webcam position changed too if you’re talking about turning it into a near perfect laptop. And the display color accuracy and viewing angles and resolution. And maybe the bloatware removed and the OS swapped out. But other than that list of major elements... lol
DAalseth said: OTOH its a Dell. I dobt like, or trust, Dell systems. Been burned, and seen to many others get burned by shoddy construction, terrible support, and haphazard quality control.
I have no love for Dell. They have outright lied and been deceptive with some of their problems and advertising. I'll provide some links to support this on Monday. I used to recommend them -- not anymore.
I have the previous generation of both. For me, the choice is somewhat simple. If you use osx then chose Apple. If you use Windows as your primary OS then choose .... Apple, well maybe....
Dell, full TPM and disk encryption works nice. The camera location sucks, just sucks. I video for hours every day and hate the location. I can't even sneak in some typing while on video because my fingers will dominate the view.
Mac hardware is great. I seem to have to regularly reset pram to get Windows booting properly past the bitlocker screen. And sometimes the camera isn't detected by Windows.
So, if you like Windows both are a compromised experience. Buy something else.
The only thing of interest that excites me in this article is the prospect of a quad core 13” MacBookPro coming later this year in a revision with the same battery life of a dual core. I really hope Apple offers it in both the touch bar and non touch bar models. That also gives me hope that a revised Mac Mini with a quad core will be made available as well, since the last version was essentially 13” MacBook Pro “guts” in a Mac Mini case.
2) It's hard to gauge the beveled bottom casing, but I think the profile is probably fairly absolute since they're lined up. These yellow lines I added are the same length. I wonder if Max has calipers so he accurately measure these machines at their thickest point? (I don't care about the feet being included.)
He can just stack or sandwich the laptops between a couple of hardcover books, one less wide than the width of the feet and measure the gap with a basic ruler. Or one of those ruler apps, whatever.
3) I wonder if that extra thick lid for the Dell is why their keyboard can have more travel. Prior to the TB3/USB-C MBPs the top lid on the MBP had a more defined metal edge that protruded further away from the display glass.
Since the XPS 13 doesn’t have a wider bezel, the thickness of the sides of display has to be minimum the thickness of the display, some kind of reinforcing structure, and whatever housing design around the display. It’s side will have to look thick as long as the bezels are small.
With the MBP, there is a half inch or so of bezel in which it can taper down to a thinner looking side. The display thickness still appears to be thinner at its maximum thickness than the XPS though, plus the XPS display housing looks like it bulges out too.
The display doesn’t look recessed into the display housing, so, I would say no, it isn’t for key travel. For now, without measurement, it is just simpler to believe the XPS is thicker than the MBP and that’s why it has more key travel.
tht said: For now, without measurement, it is just simpler to believe the XPS is thicker than the MBP and that’s why it has more key travel.
I don't see how that's simpler. It conforms to your belief system, but it flies in the face of the stated measurements that could've easily been debunked long ago if Dell was lying. Even Max(?) didn't notice anything out of the ordinary to question the stated measurements in his detailed, hands on review. That isn't to say Dell's statement is accurate, only that it's not the simplest answer when we can only speculate.
Here's another view. Again, there are variables on how the machines are placed that can alter the perspective as well as different mechanics of the hinge that determine how the displays sit when closed, so hopefully he can measure.
tht said: For now, without measurement, it is just simpler to believe the XPS is thicker than the MBP and that’s why it has more key travel.
I don't see how that's simpler. It conforms to your belief system, but it flies in the face of the stated measurements that could've easily been debunked long ago if Dell was lying. Even Max(?) didn't notice anything out of the ordinary to question the stated measurements in his detailed, hands on review. That isn't to say Dell's statement is accurate, only that it's not the simplest answer when we can only speculate.
Here's another view. Again, there are variables on how the machines are placed for the phone that can alter the perspective as well as different mechanics of the hinge that determine how the displays sit when closed, so hopefully he can measure.
I’m convinced with the photogrammetry I used at least. I did it two ways. I took the side view from the Dell website and considered the 7.8” depth as the truth, and 0.46” ended up being the back face or rear face of the machine. It was close enough not to be a coincidence. Then, Dell advertises the machine as having: Height: 0.3"- 0.46"
The 0.3” only makes sense if they measure from the front face, and lo and behold that looks like the front face dimension. The bulging out in the middle, they are not giving measurements for.
The second way I looked at was from the AI picture I included in my post. The headphone port isn’t called 3.5 mm port for nothing.
I don’t get your reticence. Laptop vendors game the advertised thickness dimensions all the time. Reviewers never mention it, never measure it due to more important things to talk about perhaps. But AI obviously makes an untrue statement saying that the MBP is thicker than the XPS13 here. It obviously doesn’t pass the eyeball test as we can see if something is 30% thicker or thinner.
Lastly, this isn’t magic here. the XPS has a 50ish WHr battery just like the MBP. They are using an Intel platform set of CPUs and PCHs so PCB area will be about the same, the displays are still LCD, and it makes sense to you that Dell is able to have a device with longer key travel on a laptop that is 22% thinner than the MBP? The only way they can get there is if they are using battery chemistry that is 50% more energy dense or something like that, or have shrunken the PCB area something like half smaller. I’m pretty sure we’d hear about that. So, yeah, simpler to believe it is thicker until there is a measurement to verify.
You cannot even pay me to use that crap Windows again. Both Windows & Android have given nothing but misery in my life. If someone even gifted a $30000 Wincrap machine, I would still stick to my late 2008 Unibody MacBook with an SSD.
For me and I bet most Apple fans it doesn’t matter if some PC laptop has more ports, is faster by a few milliseconds, has more cores or whatever. It’s always macOS vs Windows for me and I can’t imagine using that POS operating system. I bought my wife a Dell laptop with an i7 processor, good amount of RAM because the $2000.00 software package for her Bernina 830 sewing/embroidery machine only runs on Windows. The Dell has Windows 10 installed with all current updates applied and still takes almost three times longer to boot up than my 2013 iMac running High Sierra. On the Dell sometimes it can connect to the sewing machine, sometimes it won’t and the wife has to use a USB stick to move her designs onto the machine. If I won the fastest tricked out Windows PC money could buy I would sell it for whatever I could get for it and buy another Mac. End of story.
Why didn't you purchase a mac and just install windows? Four cores though are handy but it totally depends if one is using apps that work better with cores rather than gpu's.
Since Dell sometimes supports Linux, my first question would be: does this Dell XPS 13 9370 support Linux ? If it does, then it could be a viable alternative.
Exactly what I was thinking. I use Win10 at work, both at my desktop and setting up systems for other uses. I don’t want to use it at home. However if I needed a laptop for some mobile function and a MacBook, or my iPad Pro wasnt an option, Linux on this might be a real option. OTOH its a Dell. I dobt like, or trust, Dell systems. Been burned, and seen to many others get burned by shoddy construction, terrible support, and haphazard quality control.
I got really pissed off with Apple and their Mac division and went out an bought an HP ENVY with the new AMD Ryzen Mobile processor. I expect to be installing Linux real soon on it as the new distro releases are now pretty stable on this platform. In any event I've been watching the distros firm up support closely and support for Intels new processors should be pretty decent with one kernel up grade.
Call me crazy, but I prefer the scientific method over wishful thinking when it comes to facts. Note, I've posted two images with markup that support your original statement, but that's that not the same having a definitive answer.
Reviewers never mention it, never measure it due to more important things to talk about perhaps. But AI obviously makes an untrue statement...
I certainly don't think Max is being duplicitous and he literally did talk about it, which is why we're having this discussion.
Why not present it as a hypothesis instead of asserting that your "eyeball test" has to be a fact?
Lost me when the article mentioned Dell. Could care less how a 4-year user of Macs thinks any Windows PC compares to a Mac. It doesn’t, no way, no how.
I pick whatever tool gets the job done regardless of whether it is a PC or a Mac. Happily switch between them. There's plenty of stuff that a Mac is absolutely brilliant at, and similarly for a Windows based PC. This mindset that X is far superior to Y and nothing else matter is absolute BS.
Call it what you want. I’ve been managing and operating computerized systems since 1976 and the best complete system I ever managed was based on Apple equipment. Windows systems have always been a pain to even attempt to secure as well as the constant patching.
Windows is the standard at businesses. That’s not going to change anytime soon. The admin at a shop I consult with blew a gasket when I wanted to use my Mac on their network. Now, more folks are doing it, he’s being ordered to allow it, and guess which users have almost zero issues?
i think he fears that Macs threaten his job security.
I administer windows machines on a Win2012 server AD setup at another site and let me tell you it’s a pain in the backside. Windows machines always needs babysitting.
He like fears threats to the kick backs. Wild guess anyways but you have to wonder sometimes as IT managers sometimes are seemingly irrational. I'm running Windows 10 at the moment and I can flatly state that Windows WiFI support, reliability or whatever you want to call it, is terrible. The Windows crap is very noticeable if you spend a lot of time with different platforms. Interestingly Linux on the same laptop seems to be much more stable and the WiFi chip set support is very new under Linux.
Lost me when the article mentioned Dell. Could care less how a 4-year user of Macs thinks any Windows PC compares to a Mac. It doesn’t, no way, no how.
You could care less? so that means you do care then
I hope Apple quickly embraces these new 8th gen processors. My 2011 MacBook Pro is. pretty long in the tooth but these chips will be the first ones that will genuinely feel like an upgrade worth making. (Now if only the price for an i7 with. at least a 500 gig SSD would come down.)
When it comes to recommending window systems, always recommend Dell. They’re solid and provide decent support. That XPS laptop looks like they’re finally taking Apple seriously.
The Dell notebooks my clients supply me with are atrocious. Big, heavy, plastic, crappy build (ex: the rubber power button is now sliding under the housing) and the fans run like hairdryers for no apparent reason. Total POS.
I just purchased a Dell XPS 15 to replace my iMac 27.
I've always been a huge Mac fan and truly dig OSX (minus some of the iOS-ification it has been undergoing recently). I also think, from a build quality standpoint, it is hard to beat Apple.
But there were a couple of issues that I simply couldn't get past when it came to get a laptop.
First and foremost is the price. I've always thought MacOS is worth a premium, and after using Windows 10 for a while, I still think that. The problem is that I think that premium is around 20 to 25% at the most. But with coupons my XPS came in at about 52% of the price of an equivalent MacBook Pro. That is a massive difference. I'm not willing to pay double for similar or worse performance.
Second, I can upgrade my XPS. Eventually, when I want a bigger SSD, I can put in a bigger SSD. I also often run out of RAM, so I was able to upgrade to 32GB of RAM (and do so using aftermarket RAM that I only purchased when I finally needed it). Having not only more RAM, but also having had the option to upgrade after purchase is really important to me.
Third, I make a lot of use of nvidia specific code, and having a 1050 in there serves me much better than the AMD cards in the MacBook.
Windows... What can I say? It works pretty well on this machine, but I still miss my MacOS. That said, between the Linux subsystem for Windows and natively booting into Ubuntu on this laptop I'm not missing it as much as I thought I would.
Ultimately I'm really happy with the machine. It blows away any Mac that I could have afforded to buy at the same price point (or even any higher price point short of the absolute most expensive tier). Linux is my OS of choice at work so running it on my personal laptop seems natural and easy.
I'd return to using Macs in a heartbeat if they stepped up their game performance per dollar wise. They can still charge a premium because there is value in not having to babysit the system as much as Windows or Linux. As a user of all three, MacOS is by far my favorite with Linux a near second. But double the price for similar or even worse performance is too much, especially with the other limitations mentioned. And on the desktop they aren't even remotely competitive for my needs which forced me to switch away there too.
Now, this is just my personal situation and no doubt other people here will come to a very legitimate, but opposite calculation that results in a clear win for the MacBook. But my experience with my XPS dovetails nicely with what I read here. It is a much more premium feeling machine than I had anticipated (very near the quality of my wife's macbook pro - though why nobody but Apple can seem to get the hinge tension right is baffling to me). I'm glad I made the switch and I'm happy with the machine (even though I dreaded it before I pulled the trigger). Maybe if there are others out there on the fence, this will help you know that the XPS lineup really is quite good if you aren't absolutely tied to the MacOS.
Call me crazy, but I prefer the scientific method over wishful thinking when it comes to facts. Note, I've posted two images with markup that support your original statement, but that's that not the same having a definitive answer.
Reviewers never mention it, never measure it due to more important things to talk about perhaps. But AI obviously makes an untrue statement...
I certainly don't think Max is being duplicitous and he literally did talk about it, which is why we're having this discussion.
Why not present it as a hypothesis instead of asserting that your "eyeball test" has to be a fact?
I don’t think Max is lying either.
Your level of acceptance for the thickness of the device is pending Max making a measurement, and you only think that maybe it is not 0.46” thick. Your call.
Like I said before, the MBP was obviously not 28% thicker than the XPS13 (eyeball test). I subsequently went about measuring it two ways: photogrammetry from the side view on Dell’s website and photogrammetry from the 3.5 mm headphone port from the photograph on AI. Two separate images from different sources. Both said the back face of the XPS 13 is 0.46”, which obviously meant the device was thicker due to the tapering to the edges or bulging from the edges. The former said the max thickness of the devices is 0.59”, but there is some uncertainty due to loss of focus in the image. When I say uncertainty, I don’t mean it is so uncertain that it could be as low as 0.46”, but somewhere between 0.55 to 0.65 inches. I knew this before, but didn’t want to say it because I’d rather wait for measurement based on a real device.
That’s enough for me to say that the XPS 13 is not 0.46” thick, using the common meaning of the word thick, and by my photogrammetry, it is about as thick as the 2016 MBP13 or maybe a little thicker.
You can go further with your images if you want. With AI’s pictures, you can minimally determine the height of the sharp edge surfaces based on the size of the USB port or the headphone port, and confirm for yourself that 0.46” is the back face, not the max thickness of the XPS13. I could tell that headphone port on the XPS13 was a little bit bigger than the one on the MBP (and photogrammetry confirmed it), and ended up using the MBP headphone port diameter as 3.5 mm trusting that Apple will have tighter tolerances on it. You don’t have to use the headphone port either. You can use the USB port, which will be about 8.5 mm wide.
Call me crazy, but I prefer the scientific method over wishful thinking when it comes to facts. Note, I've posted two images with markup that support your original statement, but that's that not the same having a definitive answer.
Reviewers never mention it, never measure it due to more important things to talk about perhaps. But AI obviously makes an untrue statement...
I certainly don't think Max is being duplicitous and he literally did talk about it, which is why we're having this discussion.
Why not present it as a hypothesis instead of asserting that your "eyeball test" has to be a fact?
I don’t think Max is lying either.
Your level of acceptance for the thickness of the device is pending Max making a measurement, and you only think that maybe it is not 0.46” thick. Your call.
If you want to test your hypothesis then go right ahead, but I've seen nothing that suggest you have access to one. The burden of proof is on you, not everyone else to disprove your statements. And your odd use of "acceptance" is a clear indicator to me that you're failing to see the point. I haven't accepted anything. If I did, I'd have shown the same prejudice you had or the opposing bias where I've said that Dell can't be questioned, yet I've clearly stated that I'd like to see physical measurements. I have no bias; I only want to now the truth.
Comments
i think he fears that Macs threaten his job security.
I administer windows machines on a Win2012 server AD setup at another site and let me tell you it’s a pain in the backside. Windows machines always needs babysitting.
Those are some pretty big caveats. Three elements of the machine that are major user interaction points. Dell wins, in the author’s view, on the keyboard. Fair enough. Oh, and I’m guessing you’d want the webcam position changed too if you’re talking about turning it into a near perfect laptop. And the display color accuracy and viewing angles and resolution. And maybe the bloatware removed and the OS swapped out. But other than that list of major elements... lol
Dell, full TPM and disk encryption works nice. The camera location sucks, just sucks. I video for hours every day and hate the location. I can't even sneak in some typing while on video because my fingers will dominate the view.
Mac hardware is great. I seem to have to regularly reset pram to get Windows booting properly past the bitlocker screen. And sometimes the camera isn't detected by Windows.
So, if you like Windows both are a compromised experience. Buy something else.
Since the XPS 13 doesn’t have a wider bezel, the thickness of the sides of display has to be minimum the thickness of the display, some kind of reinforcing structure, and whatever housing design around the display. It’s side will have to look thick as long as the bezels are small.
With the MBP, there is a half inch or so of bezel in which it can taper down to a thinner looking side. The display thickness still appears to be thinner at its maximum thickness than the XPS though, plus the XPS display housing looks like it bulges out too.
The display doesn’t look recessed into the display housing, so, I would say no, it isn’t for key travel. For now, without measurement, it is just simpler to believe the XPS is thicker than the MBP and that’s why it has more key travel.
Here's another view. Again, there are variables on how the machines are placed that can alter the perspective as well as different mechanics of the hinge that determine how the displays sit when closed, so hopefully he can measure.
Height: 0.3"- 0.46"
The 0.3” only makes sense if they measure from the front face, and lo and behold that looks like the front face dimension. The bulging out in the middle, they are not giving measurements for.
The second way I looked at was from the AI picture I included in my post. The headphone port isn’t called 3.5 mm port for nothing.
I don’t get your reticence. Laptop vendors game the advertised thickness dimensions all the time. Reviewers never mention it, never measure it due to more important things to talk about perhaps. But AI obviously makes an untrue statement saying that the MBP is thicker than the XPS13 here. It obviously doesn’t pass the eyeball test as we can see if something is 30% thicker or thinner.
Lastly, this isn’t magic here. the XPS has a 50ish WHr battery just like the MBP. They are using an Intel platform set of CPUs and PCHs so PCB area will be about the same, the displays are still LCD, and it makes sense to you that Dell is able to have a device with longer key travel on a laptop that is 22% thinner than the MBP? The only way they can get there is if they are using battery chemistry that is 50% more energy dense or something like that, or have shrunken the PCB area something like half smaller. I’m pretty sure we’d hear about that. So, yeah, simpler to believe it is thicker until there is a measurement to verify.
If someone even gifted a $30000 Wincrap machine, I would still stick to my late 2008 Unibody MacBook with an SSD.
I certainly don't think Max is being duplicitous and he literally did talk about it, which is why we're having this discussion.
Why not present it as a hypothesis instead of asserting that your "eyeball test" has to be a fact?
I've always been a huge Mac fan and truly dig OSX (minus some of the iOS-ification it has been undergoing recently). I also think, from a build quality standpoint, it is hard to beat Apple.
But there were a couple of issues that I simply couldn't get past when it came to get a laptop.
First and foremost is the price. I've always thought MacOS is worth a premium, and after using Windows 10 for a while, I still think that. The problem is that I think that premium is around 20 to 25% at the most. But with coupons my XPS came in at about 52% of the price of an equivalent MacBook Pro. That is a massive difference. I'm not willing to pay double for similar or worse performance.
Second, I can upgrade my XPS. Eventually, when I want a bigger SSD, I can put in a bigger SSD. I also often run out of RAM, so I was able to upgrade to 32GB of RAM (and do so using aftermarket RAM that I only purchased when I finally needed it). Having not only more RAM, but also having had the option to upgrade after purchase is really important to me.
Third, I make a lot of use of nvidia specific code, and having a 1050 in there serves me much better than the AMD cards in the MacBook.
Windows... What can I say? It works pretty well on this machine, but I still miss my MacOS. That said, between the Linux subsystem for Windows and natively booting into Ubuntu on this laptop I'm not missing it as much as I thought I would.
Ultimately I'm really happy with the machine. It blows away any Mac that I could have afforded to buy at the same price point (or even any higher price point short of the absolute most expensive tier). Linux is my OS of choice at work so running it on my personal laptop seems natural and easy.
I'd return to using Macs in a heartbeat if they stepped up their game performance per dollar wise. They can still charge a premium because there is value in not having to babysit the system as much as Windows or Linux. As a user of all three, MacOS is by far my favorite with Linux a near second. But double the price for similar or even worse performance is too much, especially with the other limitations mentioned. And on the desktop they aren't even remotely competitive for my needs which forced me to switch away there too.
Now, this is just my personal situation and no doubt other people here will come to a very legitimate, but opposite calculation that results in a clear win for the MacBook. But my experience with my XPS dovetails nicely with what I read here. It is a much more premium feeling machine than I had anticipated (very near the quality of my wife's macbook pro - though why nobody but Apple can seem to get the hinge tension right is baffling to me). I'm glad I made the switch and I'm happy with the machine (even though I dreaded it before I pulled the trigger). Maybe if there are others out there on the fence, this will help you know that the XPS lineup really is quite good if you aren't absolutely tied to the MacOS.
Your level of acceptance for the thickness of the device is pending Max making a measurement, and you only think that maybe it is not 0.46” thick. Your call.
Like I said before, the MBP was obviously not 28% thicker than the XPS13 (eyeball test). I subsequently went about measuring it two ways: photogrammetry from the side view on Dell’s website and photogrammetry from the 3.5 mm headphone port from the photograph on AI. Two separate images from different sources. Both said the back face of the XPS 13 is 0.46”, which obviously meant the device was thicker due to the tapering to the edges or bulging from the edges. The former said the max thickness of the devices is 0.59”, but there is some uncertainty due to loss of focus in the image. When I say uncertainty, I don’t mean it is so uncertain that it could be as low as 0.46”, but somewhere between 0.55 to 0.65 inches. I knew this before, but didn’t want to say it because I’d rather wait for measurement based on a real device.
That’s enough for me to say that the XPS 13 is not 0.46” thick, using the common meaning of the word thick, and by my photogrammetry, it is about as thick as the 2016 MBP13 or maybe a little thicker.
You can go further with your images if you want. With AI’s pictures, you can minimally determine the height of the sharp edge surfaces based on the size of the USB port or the headphone port, and confirm for yourself that 0.46” is the back face, not the max thickness of the XPS13. I could tell that headphone port on the XPS13 was a little bit bigger than the one on the MBP (and photogrammetry confirmed it), and ended up using the MBP headphone port diameter as 3.5 mm trusting that Apple will have tighter tolerances on it. You don’t have to use the headphone port either. You can use the USB port, which will be about 8.5 mm wide.