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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.

I am an artist who gave a talk at one of these events at the Apple store in San Francisco.  I was not interviewed for the article.

I was paid in product and, to be honest, I have no problem with that.  If it hadn't been worth my time, I would simply not have done it.  Instead I was happy to receive the product.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion though.