Alternative to XPS 15?

[Coolsawk]

Dell has a $300 discount on the base model for the XPS 15  I7 laptop. $1249 before taxes. Afterwards I would upgrade the ram and storage.

 

Is there another laptop that gives good battery life, able to play games, and edit videos?

[LamoidZombieDog]

[DailyProcrastinator]

HP Specter or Lenovo Thinkpads are some of the better quality ultrabook options. I wouldn't recommend a Razer Blade, overpriced and unreliable. My XPS 13 is a year older than my brothers Blade Stealth and he already had to replace his battery this past month cause it was dying even when reading 30% battery or more. He also had to RMA it in the first 6 months. Linus bought all his staff Razer Blades and like 80% of them were dead or had constant issues after a year and a half.

[genexis_x]

Where are you from? Budget? Preferred max weight and min battery life?

 

Avoid XPS 15, many issues

[Lord Vile]

3 hours ago, Coolsawk said:

Dell has a $300 discount on the base model for the XPS 15  I7 laptop. $1249 before taxes. Afterwards I would upgrade the ram and storage.

 

Is there another laptop that gives good battery life, able to play games, and edit videos?

Personally hate “gaming on laptops”. Bad experience, no battery etc. For editing videos and battery life get a MacBook. 

[jan-pieter14]

4 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

Personally hate “gaming on laptops”. Bad experience, no battery etc. For editing videos and battery life get a MacBook. 

You again, he clearly mentioned playing games. Could you stop spamming "get a macbook" in every thread?

[Lord Vile]

5 hours ago, jan-pieter14 said:

You again, he clearly mentioned playing games. Could you stop spamming "get a macbook" in every thread?

There’s no point in a gaming laptop and most laptop threads I post on here are regarding ultra books which “get a MacBook” is the best answer due to windows being the 3rd best OS for productivity out of 3. If you want to be connected to a wall with a jet engine in front of you by all means get a gaming laptop, if you want to get stuff done and maybe to a bit of idk Netflix and browsing on the side get a macbook. 

[panzersharkcat]

ThinkPad X1 Extreme/P1. Runs warm but pretty much all laptops packing powerful hardware in a thin package do. Repasting with Kryonaut helps. So should undervolting.

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

There’s no point in a gaming laptop and most laptop threads I post on here are regarding ultra books which “get a MacBook” is the best answer due to windows being the 3rd best OS for productivity out of 3. If you want to be connected to a wall with a jet engine in front of you by all means get a gaming laptop, if you want to get stuff done and maybe to a bit of idk Netflix and browsing on the side get a macbook. 

Please, please don't try to shoehorn MacBooks into recommendations when they don't apply.  I'm a Mac user, but I'm not going to insist that someone gets a Mac if I don't really think it fits their needs or they clearly prefer Windows.  Don't let your sheer love for a platform colour your judgment.

 

The 16-inch MacBook Pro is a great machine, but it's at once utter overkill for the OP and not enough.  You're basically asking the OP to pay more than $1,000 above the price of that discounted XPS 15 for a system that's clearly more than enough for media editing, but not optimized (in hardware or software) for games.  And frankly, it's rather odd to complain about fan noise when you'd get that with some demanding media editing tasks, whether you're using a MacBook or a Windows laptop.  So long as the OP sets realistic expectations for performance, they'll be fine.

[Lord Vile]

On 1/25/2020 at 9:47 PM, Commodus said:

Please, please don't try to shoehorn MacBooks into recommendations when they don't apply.  I'm a Mac user, but I'm not going to insist that someone gets a Mac if I don't really think it fits their needs or they clearly prefer Windows.  Don't let your sheer love for a platform colour your judgment.

 

The 16-inch MacBook Pro is a great machine, but it's at once utter overkill for the OP and not enough.  You're basically asking the OP to pay more than $1,000 above the price of that discounted XPS 15 for a system that's clearly more than enough for media editing, but not optimized (in hardware or software) for games.  And frankly, it's rather odd to complain about fan noise when you'd get that with some demanding media editing tasks, whether you're using a MacBook or a Windows laptop.  So long as the OP sets realistic expectations for performance, they'll be fine.

And XPS 15 isn’t good enough for gaming at any level and lacks the battery to actually do it longer than maybe half an hour. Also I never said the 16” pro, the 13” would do fine and using FCP vs Adobe would be a better performer at media. 
 

Ultimatley for this budget on a thin and light you’re not gonna be gaming on it outside of maybe rocket league and not for very long so why not just get something that’s good at the stuff you’ll actually be doing? 
 

Again gaming laptops are pointless, you need to be plugged into a wall to use it, So you’re gonna need to bring the charger everywhere along with a mouse, they’re either bulky to get good performance or thin and suffer from throttling and sounding like a jet engine. If you want to play anything online you need to find a decent internet connection with good latency. Theres just too much compromise. 
 

Also the XPS has a poor screen, trackpad and build quality. 

[Commodus]

1 minute ago, Lord Vile said:

And XPS 15 isn’t good enough for gaming at any level and lacks the battery to actually do it longer than maybe half an hour. Also I never said the 16” pro, the 13” would do fine and using FCP vs Adobe would be a better performer at media. 
 

Ultimatley for this budget on a thin and light you’re not gonna be gaming on it outside of maybe rocket league and not for very long so why not just get something that’s good at the stuff you’ll actually be doing? 
 

Again gaming laptops are pointless, you need to be plugged into a wall to use it, So you’re gonna need to bring the charger everywhere along with a mouse, they’re either bulky to get good performance or thin and suffer from throttling and sounding like a jet engine. If you want to play anything online you need to find a decent internet connection with good latency. Theres just too much compromise. 
 

Also the XPS has a poor screen, trackpad and build quality. 

While you have some points on the XPS, I have to disagree that gaming laptops are pointless. You're not buying a gaming laptop so that you can play an hour of Modern Warfare at the coffee shop, you're doing it so that you either don't have to buy a separate laptop or because you want to cart your system between reasonably static locations (say, a friend's place).  There are compromises like raw performance or fan noise, but for some people it's worth those to not be chained to a desktop.

 

My question is whether or not the OP values screen size.  If they just want enough power to edit videos, sure, a 13-inch MacBook Pro would do it.  But if they're going to be doing a lot of it or want visual real estate, then no, either look at the 16-inch model or find a Windows alternative.

[Lord Vile]

On 1/27/2020 at 7:33 PM, Commodus said:

While you have some points on the XPS, I have to disagree that gaming laptops are pointless. You're not buying a gaming laptop so that you can play an hour of Modern Warfare at the coffee shop, you're doing it so that you either don't have to buy a separate laptop or because you want to cart your system between reasonably static locations (say, a friend's place).  There are compromises like raw performance or fan noise, but for some people it's worth those to not be chained to a desktop.

 

My question is whether or not the OP values screen size.  If they just want enough power to edit videos, sure, a 13-inch MacBook Pro would do it.  But if they're going to be doing a lot of it or want visual real estate, then no, either look at the 16-inch model or find a Windows alternative.

If you’re worried about  carting it to else’s house you can use someone’s PC to stream a game to a laptop as long as their on your friend lost without it being capable to run the game at all, I’ve done it with my MacBook Air. You can do this on steam anyway. 
 

Would say to do it on a 16” laptop you’re gonna be paying around the same price for the same performance and build quality. A blade 17 will run your 2 grand A 15 is 1.5 and you lose access to software like FCP and you have to take around a mouse with you and razer don’t have the best QC around.