PRO LAPTOPS

DELL XPS 15 VS APPLE MACBOOK PRO 15IN

Who’d have predicted 12 months ago that the humble QWERTY keyboard would see the most controversial change in laptop design since Apple whipped the optical drive off the Macbook Air? And it’s Apple that’s at it again, ditching the top line of keys and replacing them with a multi-touch strip that can display emojis and tools, changing depending on what program you’re using at the time.

Dell’s XPS 15 is more traditional, sticking to those tried and tested buttons for its keyboard. It comes in at over a £1000 cheaper than the entry-level Macbook Pro, and under the hood you’ll find a quad-core Intel i7 processor, 8GB RAM, a 256GB hard drive teamed with a 32GB SSD, and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 960M video card. Only the top-spec model gets a 4K display. Even boosting the memory, supercharging the processor and going fully solid state still won’t raise the asking price as high as the cheapest Macbook Pro (and we use ‘cheapest’ in the loosest possible sense). Let’s not pretend the Macbook isn’t a rip-snorting powerhouse, though. The Touch Bar might add too much to the price considering how useful it is (that is, not useful enough), but even its most basic model goes toe to toe with Dell’s most expensive one in almost every area. The Pro’s screen is an absolute doozy, and have you seen the size of its touchpad? It’s a whopper. In truth, neither of these laptops offers great battery life… but if you’re opting for the larger screen size, chances are portability isn’t your number one concern .

If you’re a fan of ports the Macbook’s four USB-CS and a headphone socket probably won’t satisfy your appetite for holes; but the Dell’s list is hardly exhaustive either: two USB 3.0 ports, one Usb-c/thunderbolt, one HDMI and a headphone socket. Still, at least you get an SD card reader – and you can still charge your iphone on it.