Mac Book Pro with Retina or Dell XPS 15? (both with new Haswell processors)

by Simon 70 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  NeverKnew

  I design applications for an entity that leverages PCs. This question was often asked of me and I regularly discouraged ownership of a piece of equipment that only a small percentage of the population was using.

  When faced with a buying decision, I thought it professionally worthwhile to have some familiarity with "the other" environment so in 2009 I purchased an IMac as my home computer.

  I now know that I was a totally malinformed idiot. Five years later, my Imac still takes 36 seconds to go from a cold boot to surfing the net. I haven't had to invest a moment in calls to Apple, virus protection, uninstalling/re-installing software, or dealing with peripherals that didn't seem to communicate with this machine.

  Congratulations on your purchase. :)
• 

  Simon

  Thanks, the setup experience and quality is night and day different to the Dell - it just oozes quality both hardware and software.

  The 15" model cost a lot more than the Dell but in fairness you do get much more for the money - much faster SSD, faster i7 processor, retina display, way better keyboard and touchpad. Of course they also make the 13" MBP which can be had for a similar price as the Dell.

  What is pretty funny is how Parallels installs Windows 8.1 and adds the extra tools to bring the start-menu back and windowed metro apps - basically what MS is talking about for Windows 9 (the new 'great saviour'). So the Windows experience on the Mac is actually much better than Windows on the dedicated Windows-only machine. Crazy fail for MS.

  So anyway, if you are in the market for a laptop or desktop do yourself a favour and save yourself a whole world of frustration - my advice is to go visit an Apple store and accept that if you do have to pay a little extra for the specs you want tat it will be worth it.
• 

  Finkelstein

  That was my suggestion Simon , yes the cost hurts a bit but over time you'll be thankful you made the

  move to Apple. Brother owns and manages a computer store.

  Info on Parrells web site ( check out the video ) http://www.parallels.com/landingpage/pd/general/?utm_nooverride=1&src=r&gclid=CKjfoKeWnbwCFcp_QgodmWoA6Q
• 

  LV101

  I bought the new Apple laptop 15, also. Haven't had time to get out of the box and fire up yet but my old MacBook Pro here is ready to go south any day. These new ones don't have built in parts to play old videos so also had to pay add'l fee for a 'USB' Superdrive gadget - inexpensive. I went crazy and also got the newest I-Pad w/retina. I'm finally going to attend the Apple classes - people say they learn so much.

  Microsoft - know people that love their new Microsoft Surface - I think it's called? Out of stock at stores for the top of the line and people order online. It's a cool looking computer.
• 

  tootired2care

  Simon, I'm glad the MBP is working out for you, it's amazing how bad the quality at Dell has gotten.

  A couple of weeks ago I was in the market for an All-In-One, because I really like the clean uncluttered look. I was surprised to see that none of them (imac included) comes with an SSD, or a decent amount of ram (16 gigs+) except for some very expensive models ($2,500+). Dell, and others use a hybrid drive approach (e.g. 1 TB HDD with 32 gig SSD) which isn't really a satisfactory solution when you run virtual machines, and other high demand apps/games like I do. It was curious to me how many laptops could be so much more powerful than most All-In-Ones out there!

  It turns out the the only reasonably priced no compromise solution was to build my own, and deal with wire clutter. I was able to build this mini-itx box for about $1,100, which has all the power that I need and still looks great, with a 500 gig SSD, and 16 gigs of fast RAM. Build your own is definitely back in style.
• 

  Simon

  To be clear, the Dell seemed well constructed ... the issue wasn't build quality but that it obviously hadn't had a fraction of the design thought put into it that the Macs's do which is hardly surprising really: Apple make 3 laptop models, Dell have a billion. The thing just hadn't really been tested thoroughly and it really showed. That is simply not excusable IMO when you are paying so much and why they will never get my money again - they lost my trust and the follow up ineptitude of their support just confirmed the decision.

  The pcie SSD on the MacBook just screams - incredibly fast. I hate the way size has been promoted with disk drives - who wants to carry round a Tb or more of data? Who needs that? It promotes data hoarding and waste IMO and throwing a token bit of SSD in to speed things up is silly. I'd rather have a 128Gb or 256Gb SSD than 1Tb of spinning rusty metal with a buffer / cache to hide the slowness.

  Finally, how are you not ripping the box open to play on the new toy?!
• 

  tootired2care

  It promotes data hoarding and waste IMO and throwing a token bit of SSD in to speed things up is silly.

  Totally agree.

  I'd rather have a 128Gb or 256Gb SSD than 1Tb of spinning rusty metal with a buffer / cache to hide the slowness.

  The year 2000 called, and it wants it crappy spinning hardware back...LOL. Bar none, an SSD makes the biggest difference in overall performance, It's almost criminal that these guys are still peddling this junk!

  Finally, how are you not ripping the box open to play on the new toy?!

  Trust me I have had the rig open several times, this MB has way too many settings to tinker with for someone with such limited time.
• 

  talesin

  The reason I hate WIndows so much is because I'm on a desktop and they ruined it for tablet users. The Start screen is utterly and completely useless as far as I'm concerned. If I'm sat looking at the screen it's because I am working and want to be doing something - not staring at some gaudy tiles that tell me trivial info.

  Bringing back the start button but just have it go back to the start screen was missing the point and I think missing their chance to fix things a little. I use Start8 which actually makes Windows 8 usable on a desktop ... pretty poor that you need to buy a 3rd party app to make the OS usable though.

  Thanks for saying that ... I feel exactly the same, and wondered if it was just age/foggy pain-head. Phew!

  t
• 

  besty

  Click with two fingers is right click equivalent - that might help the transition for ya

  Happy Mac'ing - one more of us and one less of them :-)
• 

  Paralipomenon

  I run both Mac and Windows.

  My largest annoyance with Mac is their spotty support for Java. Some of the SDKs and IDEs would not run on the Mac which is a pain. If you plan on using it for dev purposes, make sure all your tools are Mac compatible.

  I though Java would be a safe bet, but I guess Apple insisted on having their own "flavor" of the JDK for years and now it is out of sync with the official release.