XPS 9300 vs MBP 13 (both 10th gen, 16gb ram, 512gb ssd)

[tony01]

I'm debating between which of these two laptops I should get.

I need a new and small portable laptop and these are the only two models I like. I have checked a ton of other models but I didn't like them.

 

I mainly use my laptop for university (so Word, PowerPoint, Python) and I like web development (so I use also nodejs and webstorm).

I do not play games (I have a desktop pc for that)

 

Coming to the price: the mbp costs 1899 euros (new, on amazon) and the xps 1750 euros (used as new, i cant find it new on amazon). I have to buy it from amazon because I have some credit to spend.

 

Which would you suggest and why? I have used both Windows and OSX, but probably I'm going to install ubuntu on the xps because it is more suitable for my needs.

The price difference is really small compared to the total price of the product. I own a XPS 15 and it still works fine (it is almost 4yrs old now).

 

Thanks in advance for your opinions

[Darkseth]

I guess, a specific OS (out of Windows, MacOS and Linux) is not an Argument here?
Like "because you like MacOS more, get that" or anything?

Then the only advantage i see with the Macbook is: You have the option to install all 3 OS, and you can Code for all 3 of them.
With the XPS you can only use Windows or Linux.

 

Of course, you should absolutely NOT buy the Macbook, just to use Linux or Windows 90% of the time. MacOS should be your Main OS, and you should only switch to the other 2 for things, that only work there.
The great Trackpad is only that great under MacOS. The Battery Life, Energy-settings (like CPU Voltages/boosts) are only under MacOS.

[5x5]

If you decide on going windows, do NOT buy an XPS device as they are currently some of the worst laptops on the windows high end market. They suffer from power overload, thermal issue, DPC latency issues and have a high chance of arriving broken due to Dells awful QA and QC.

 

Instead, consider an HP Envy x360 or Asus ZenBook 14 with Renoir. Ryzen 4000 is far superior and will give you much better battery life, less noise, less heat, better performance and will cost half of what the XPS 13 is.

[Commodus]

I would lean toward the MacBook Pro, but I won't deny that it's a tough call. The software you need to run is available for both.

 

There are a few reasons behind my pick. For one, the MacBook Pro actually has the better expansion -- four Thunderbolt 3 ports versus two on the XPS 13 (the XPS has a microSD card reader, but that won't help much if you're offloading photos from a camera). And while Dell does have a pretty good keyboard and trackpad, I'd still lean toward Apple for the way macOS handles trackpad gestures (it feels more natural and customizable).

 

Software-wise, you're also sitting in a digital Switzerland. You can run macOS, Windows and Linux all natively. There's a Unix command prompt in macOS, so you might not even care about running Linux.

 

The XPS does have a battery life edge in video tests, but the MBP will still last a very long time and may be better in the real world (particularly if you use a browser like Safari or Opera instead of Chrome).

 

Like 5x5 mentioned, Dell also seems to be having quality issues as of late. I don't know that it's truly ubiquitous, but the current MBP 13 should be more trustworthy.

[Lord Vile]

7 hours ago, tony01 said:

I'm debating between which of these two laptops I should get.

I need a new and small portable laptop and these are the only two models I like. I have checked a ton of other models but I didn't like them.

 

I mainly use my laptop for university (so Word, PowerPoint, Python) and I like web development (so I use also nodejs and webstorm).

I do not play games (I have a desktop pc for that)

 

Coming to the price: the mbp costs 1899 euros (new, on amazon) and the xps 1750 euros (used as new, i cant find it new on amazon). I have to buy it from amazon because I have some credit to spend.

 

Which would you suggest and why? I have used both Windows and OSX, but probably I'm going to install ubuntu on the xps because it is more suitable for my needs.

The price difference is really small compared to the total price of the product. I own a XPS 15 and it still works fine (it is almost 4yrs old now).

 

Thanks in advance for your opinions

For coding the Mac would be better as it's Unix based so you might not even have to dual boot.

 

What phone do you have? 

[panzersharkcat]

 

8 hours ago, 5x5 said:

If you decide on going windows, do NOT buy an XPS device as they are currently some of the worst laptops on the windows high end market. They suffer from power overload, thermal issue, DPC latency issues and have a high chance of arriving broken due to Dells awful QA and QC.

 

Instead, consider an HP Envy x360 or Asus ZenBook 14 with Renoir. Ryzen 4000 is far superior and will give you much better battery life, less noise, less heat, better performance and will cost half of what the XPS 13 is.

Or heck, even an AMD variant of the ThinkPad X13, T14, or T14s.

[tony01]

9 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

For coding the Mac would be better as it's Unix based so you might not even have to dual boot.

 

What phone do you have? 

iPhone

[tony01]

At the end I bought the MBP because I got a good deal on it (I paid it 100 euros less than the xps 9300, brand new).

I compared mac subreddit and xps subreddit. It seems that there are less problems with macbooks.

I have an old XPS 9550 and I had to go through their support 2-3 times. The experience with their support was very good, but it could have been avoided with a better QC before shipping the laptop...

Plus I never had a macbook so I wanted to try it

I hope I made a good choice!

 

Thanks everybody

[pilot35]

The thing I don't understand about MBP is why the power supply so small.

 

A measly 85W for a supposedly high-end multimedia powerhouse when even entry level gaming laptops have more power (120W+).

[5x5]

Just now, pilot35 said:

The thing I don't understand about MBP is why the power supply so small.

 

A measly 85W for a supposedly high-end multimedia powerhouse when even entry level gaming laptops have more power (120W+).

Because the components inside are MUCH slower. A MBP can't even cool 90W of thermal output without blowing past 100*C, 120W would overload it instantly and the system would initiate thermal shutdown. I mean, even in the current state it barely avoids thermal shutdown.

[tony01]

1 minute ago, pilot35 said:

The thing I don't understand about MBP is why the power supply so small.

 

A measly 85W for a supposedly high-end multimedia powerhouse when even entry level gaming laptops have more power (120W+).

The XPS power supply is even smaller

 

Guys please stop flame. I wanted only some suggestions...

I will use the mac few weeks, if I'm ok with macos I'll keep it  Otherwhise I'll ask here again for a good linux notebook

[Mateyyy]

2 minutes ago, pilot35 said:

A measly 85W for a supposedly high-end multimedia powerhouse when even entry level gaming laptops have more power (120W+).

Probably because it's not gaming laptop? 

A fairly low power CPU and iGPU are obviously not going to pull a ton of power - certainly not as much as a higher core count, higher clocked CPU and a dedicated GPU.

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned *

 

Please stay on-topic and avoid pointless bickering.

[panzersharkcat]

12 hours ago, tony01 said:

At the end I bought the MBP because I got a good deal on it (I paid it 100 euros less than the xps 9300, brand new).

I compared mac subreddit and xps subreddit. It seems that there are less problems with macbooks.

I have an old XPS 9550 and I had to go through their support 2-3 times. The experience with their support was very good, but it could have been avoided with a better QC before shipping the laptop...

Plus I never had a macbook so I wanted to try it

I hope I made a good choice!

 

Thanks everybody

Hope it works out for you. They're not necessarily bad. There's ups and downs to all laptops. The downs are too big for me to get Macs but for some people it's suitable for them.

[tony01]

12 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

Hope it works out for you. They're not necessarily bad. There's ups and downs to all laptops. The downs are too big for me to get Macs but for some people it's suitable for them.

For example?

[5x5]

15 minutes ago, tony01 said:

Would you say the same about XPS?

You can clearly see I've told people to not buy XPS models numerous times on the forum. Check my post history. The issues there are with regard to thermals, insufficient power delivery (the battery actually drains under load), DPC Latency, problematic trackpads and Dell's useless support and QA/QC.

[tony01]

What laptop can you suggest for me?

I need a 13” laptop, small and light. My budget is 1500-1900 euros and I can buy from Amazon.it

Could you suggest me a good model? You seem to have a lot of knowledge about laptops  thanks

2 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

You can clearly see I've told people to not buy XPS models numerous times on the forum. Check my post history. The issues there are with regard to thermals, insufficient power delivery (the battery actually drains under load), DPC Latency, problematic trackpads and Dell's useless support and QA/QC.

 

[panzersharkcat]

2 hours ago, tony01 said:

For example?

Soldered RAM on all models*, no parts, no ability to upgrade parts on your own, glued down battery, shallow key travel on keyboard, lack of a pointing stick. Those, to me, don't make up an excellent trackpad (that I never use anyway because pointing stick), display, and speakers.

 

*I don't necessarily mind it on the 13" model. I have an X1 Carbon and I considered getting an X13, both of which have soldered RAM. They both have pretty good port selection for something that small, though. My big complaint is soldering the RAM down on the 15" and 16" MacBook Pro. My X1 Extreme did not have soldered RAM.

1 hour ago, tony01 said:

What laptop can you suggest for me?

I need a 13” laptop, small and light. My budget is 1500-1900 euros and I can buy from Amazon.it

Could you suggest me a good model? You seem to have a lot of knowledge about laptops  thanks

 

If you're looking for a 13" and don't mind 16:9, the AMD variant of the ThinkPad X13. The performance on it will crush the XPS 13 and MacBook Pro because of the Renoir CPU. If max performance trumps all other factors, then that or any other laptop with Ryzen 4000, like the HP Envy, is what I'd go with in a 13" laptop. IIRC, ThinkPads have really good Linux support as well.

 

I also prefer ThinkPad keyboards to all others, though your mileage may vary. The trackpad is merely adequate. (It doesn't matter that much to me since I turn it off in favor of the TrackPoint but for normies who don't care about the nub, might make a difference.) Likewise with the display. There's a touch option but for most people, the non-touch 1080p one is fine. Don't go for the one with the privacy guard because you may as well have a TN display with the viewing angles you get on that.

[tony01]

8 hours ago, panzersharkcat said:

Soldered RAM on all models*, no parts, no ability to upgrade parts on your own, glued down battery, shallow key travel on keyboard, lack of a pointing stick. Those, to me, don't make up an excellent trackpad (that I never use anyway because pointing stick), display, and speakers.

 

*I don't necessarily mind it on the 13" model. I have an X1 Carbon and I considered getting an X13, both of which have soldered RAM. They both have pretty good port selection for something that small, though. My big complaint is soldering the RAM down on the 15" and 16" MacBook Pro. My X1 Extreme did not have soldered RAM.

If you're looking for a 13" and don't mind 16:9, the AMD variant of the ThinkPad X13. The performance on it will crush the XPS 13 and MacBook Pro because of the Renoir CPU. If max performance trumps all other factors, then that or any other laptop with Ryzen 4000, like the HP Envy, is what I'd go with in a 13" laptop. IIRC, ThinkPads have really good Linux support as well.

 

I also prefer ThinkPad keyboards to all others, though your mileage may vary. The trackpad is merely adequate. (It doesn't matter that much to me since I turn it off in favor of the TrackPoint but for normies who don't care about the nub, might make a difference.) Likewise with the display. There's a touch option but for most people, the non-touch 1080p one is fine. Don't go for the one with the privacy guard because you may as well have a TN display with the viewing angles you get on that.

Still not available in my country  It  looks very nice

Probably my next laptop will be a lenovo

[5x5]

10 hours ago, tony01 said:

What laptop can you suggest for me?

I need a 13” laptop, small and light. My budget is 1500-1900 euros and I can buy from Amazon.it

Could you suggest me a good model? You seem to have a lot of knowledge about laptops  thanks

 

Is the ThinkPad T14 Renoir available?

 

If not, the Asus ZenBook 14, again with Renoir (4500U or 4700U) is my top pick

[tony01]

What about the Lenovo S940?

22 hours ago, 5x5 said:

Is the ThinkPad T14 Renoir available?

 

If not, the Asus ZenBook 14, again with Renoir (4500U or 4700U) is my top pick

 

[5x5]

44 minutes ago, tony01 said:

What about the Lenovo S940?

 

Spec of the model you're looking at?

[tony01]

54 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Spec of the model you're looking at?

I5 10th gen, 512gb ssd and 8gm ram

[5x5]

7 minutes ago, tony01 said:

I5 10th gen, 512gb ssd and 8gm ram

Battery life is mediocre and the performance is very poor. 15W cTDP intel CPUs really struggle to maintain more than 2.2Ghz clockspeee. The advertised boost is basically impossible to sustain for longer than 30 seconds

[WkdPaul]

* thread cleaned and locked *

 

@tony01

 

Feel free to create a new thread if you still need help.