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Notebooks Ultimate Debate: Dell XPS vs Macbook Pro

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by goodwood8, 4 Mar 2010.

  1. cybergenics

    cybergenics What's a Dremel?

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    I think its funny the way people say Mac's are cool, as most Mac users certainly aren't. I mean 'coolness' radiates from how you look and act and what you say, rather than what Laptop you are 'rolling' with on the 18.55 from London to Birmingham.
     
  2. wyx087

    wyx087 Homeworld 3 is happening!!

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    may be recent Macs are better, but i am pretty sure if you try to play 2 hours of games on your windows boot camp, macbook pro will not do as well as other laptops in terms of heat.

    another reason is its OS, i think it's the perfect OS for a 13inch or 15inch laptop. may not be a good OS for desktop with 8GB of RAM, but if you only going to have around 5, less than 10 windows open, the Exposé feature works very well. more than 10 and you'll start to have problems with window juggling. problem is that Cmd+Tab doesn't distinguish between windows.

    thanks for fixing that for me, that was indeed what i meant. desktops are the way to go, laptops should only be considered a second computer or a portable computer. netbooks are nice and cheap (i've also got one) but they sucks when you try to do some programming or some document editing due to its tiny screen. a 13 inch Macbook pro is the portable computer of my choice.
     
  3. kahanejosh

    kahanejosh What's a Dremel?

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    Key look stop pointing and calling people trolls, I had no intention, how is my opinion worth any less than yours? All they are, are opinions.

    If you read the following posts in the thread you would see what I meant. I was referring more to the stereotypes. So please look, read and think before accusing. Don't mean that sound to sound brutish, just saying.
     
  4. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    I did see it actually, and I could have sworn I had gone back to edit my post to reflect this, as I read this comment.....

    ...after I had originally responded to you.


    I just looked now and realised my edit wasn't there. I was probably being lazy and hit return instead of actually clicking "Submit Reply".

    I apologise.


    Incidentally... I've just spent 3 hours on my Mac putting together a tutorial hand-out for my students... and it crashed twice in that time. My PC has probably crashed no more than that in the past 14 months, and even then I've been able to alt/tab out and recover. My Mac just bailed on me completely, losing any work I had done since the last save.

    The Power Macs at college often crash as well.

    I'm not suggesting PCs don't crash, just that people saying "Macs don't crash" really annoys me. A well built and configured PC with a lean Win 7 install is more stable than a Mac IMO. A badly built and set up PC will be a crash nightmare. It's that disparity that gives PCs a bad name, whereas all Macs are the same. A good PC will hardly ever crash, and when it does, its always a sloppy piece of code that falls over, allowing you to alt/tab out. I've never had a OS crash on this PC since it was built.
     
    Last edited: 7 Mar 2010
  5. Evenge

    Evenge Minimodder

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    Small off topic question. Is it true that OS X is more stable than Windows, and if OS X crashes, what usually causes it? I haven't managed to crash my win7 never, and vista only couple of times (reason was outdated drivers).

    And to on topic. If you can afford it, take Mac (if you don't play games). Otherwise, take Dell. I have Dell studio 15 laptop and can't complain :)
     
  6. GoodBytes

    GoodBytes How many wifi's does it have?

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    The advantage of a Mac, is that the OS and drivers are adjusted for a specific hardware. Because of this, it's easier to test and ensure better stability. This is on PAPER.

    In real life, it was demonstrated that the MacOS X does crash like Windows. The difference is that while Windows uses a blue screen with white text, Mac uses a dark transparent layer that appears on your system with some error message saying that the system crash and to press the power button, with a picture of the power button under it.

    When you compare MacOS X crashing, you have to compare it with an "equivalent" Windows. For instance you cannot compare Mac OS X against Windows XP, where XP is much older and designed for old system. basically every system that was in 2005 and high, XP was not much of a friend.

    If you want to compare XP, you have to compare it with Mac OS 9.

    So, you have to compare Windows Vista/7 against Mac OS. (Windows 7 with the latest MacOS).
    My personal experience and on all my reading on forums, suggests that most crashes - about 90% is related to faulty hardware. (a hardware that broke). 10% are driver related.
    Crashes by BSOD's (or wtv you want to call the one for Mac's) are errors where the Operating System cannot continue as something terrible happen. For instance, The O.S discovered that a segment of it self that is in the memory, it no longer there, or it could be the CPU that is calling our the OS to crash. For instance the OS does 10+(20*2): it does 20*2 = 40, put 40 in memory, and then take back 40 add 10, but 40 is no longer there.

    So basically system crashes of such manner, is linked to hardware quality. Today in age, computers are much more stable then ever, because they are much cheaper to produce and new detections and test system was develop to allow better quality hardware to be made and released. In other words, as long as you buy a computer that should cost 1000$, for 500$, you are fine. But of course, to a certain extend. You can buy the best quality hardware in the world, with a high premium price, and might break the next day. Sadly, there is not escape from manufacture errors, even if every product has been tested.

    Oh and because I have a feeling it will be asked, both OS has viruses, both OS has anti-viruses. Notice how recently (in the past 2 years or so), Apple stop saying that their are no viruses on their platform.

    In term of security, Microsoft announces all their security whole, and are usually very fast to fix them. Apple takes a different approach... if no one notices, then it goes under "minor bug fixes". Microsoft approach is a shot in the foot, but they can afford it as they have a huge market share, and people won't switch OS just because of one. While - well I don't blame them - Apple can't.. well not currently, but getting there. If Apple does like Microsoft, Apple is dead. They must look like near perfect to be appealing.
     
    Last edited: 8 Mar 2010
    Evenge likes this.
  7. nitrous9200

    nitrous9200 What's a Dremel?

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    I agree with everything else you say, and especially this - apparently you can freeze an OS 9 system by holding down the mouse button. :D

    And to OP of course it depends on who you ask, but I prefer Windows myself so I'd go for the Dell (OS X is nice but I can't use it every day if I tried), I hate the huge Apple trackpad thing and battery life is not an issue for me - I know there are people that need to be away from an outlet for 7 hours, but 4 is sufficient for me (laptop in my signature gets about 3.5, doesn't matter as it's usually plugged in and I have the cheap and cheerful netbook which gets 6). As for the laptop that I have, a similar Apple would have cost almost twice as much and still wouldn't have the better ATI graphics, higher res screen (at 15") or blu-ray drive. I can forgo a pretty aluminum chassis and non-replaceable battery for a laptop which comes from the company that is essentially the Apple of the Windows PC world for $800 less. Obviously you're buying a different brand, but I'd still come to the same conclusion. And no, I have no issues with stability, or viruses, or crashing, or even sleep/resume which many people complain about on Windows (that has gotten much better since Vista came out).

    oh and while I'm at it, yes, we have 8 G5/Mac Pros at the video room in our school, and they've got their fair share of issues - one of these is a near top of the line 2009 Mac Pro, which from my estimate configuring a similar system at the online Apple Store, costs close to $7000; it's had the OS reloaded twice now for random problems, and the other Pros have had the same thing. That's on top of all of the other issues i've seen with Apple computers in my experience at my computer shop. Plainly, Macs in the general sense are reliable, but not as reliable as you might think.

    keeps getting better. I should be going to bed, but I worked on one of those power macs over the summer editing a video, and three times, the system would start getting slower and slower until the beachball wouldn't stop spinning and the whole thing became unresponsive. In fact, I've never been able to recover from a serious crash like that on a Mac, whereas it's at least possible sometimes on windows. Bottom line, both platforms have issues! I didn't even need to type all of that when it could just be summed up in six words.
     
    Last edited: 8 Mar 2010
  8. scq

    scq What's a Dremel?

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    I don't understand how this is much of an issue. If you wanted to run Mac OS, you'd get a Mac, if not, then Windows. Comparing specs is pointless, and even cost. Macs are generally more expensive, but again, if you want a Mac, you'll have to accept that.

    That said, I personally run a Macbook Pro and a desktop. I mostly use my Mac for everything and my desktop for games. It's a great system. I've personally found that my day-to-day computing is a bit more enjoyable in OS X once I got used to it. While Windows 7 is very good, it still has a bunch of little annoyances here and there. This isn't to say that OS X is perfect by any means, but I just find it to have less minor issues and better designed in terms of usability.

    As for crashing, OS X rarely every crashes. I've gotten a kernal panic maybe once and that was due to some hardware issue. Most crashes in Mac OS just return to desktop. This is more or less my experience with Windows as well. After XP's SP2 or so, unless you have faulty hardware, it usually just crashes to desktop. Only difference is, I have a lot more luck getting into the Force Quit dialogue than the Task Manager when a full screen program crashes and refuses to show the desktop.
     
  9. GoodBytes

    GoodBytes How many wifi's does it have?

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    Vista/Win7: Click on it, it will turn white, and you will get a dialog box to end task.
    Or Ctrl+Alt+Delete > open Task Manager and kill it.

    What you said is only true in XP and older Windows, but again you can't compare XP with Mac OS X, you have to compare it with Mac OS 9.
     
  10. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Twice within 3 hours last night. It was just sitting there with iMovie idling.. not doing anything stressful.
     
  11. kahanejosh

    kahanejosh What's a Dremel?

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    Forgiven.

    I will happily agree that Macs crash from time to time as do PCs, however with the pace at which technology moves it sounds like you have had a few bad experiences with a Mac. Power Macs are essentially ancient now and an intel Mac with Snow Leopard running I think can outperform Windows 7 in many ways, although admittedly not in some areas of course.
     
  12. Moyo2k

    Moyo2k AMD Fanboy

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    Threads like these do expose the Apple Fanboys :)
     
  13. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    I use a 3.2 Xeon Mac Pro with the same amount of RAM as my PC at work, and I've run many real world tests based on Photoshop actions, and similar tests with Illustrator, Adobe Premier, and Lightroom2. My i7 PC is consistently faster by around 15%, and before you ask, this was with my CPU running at the same speed as the Mac. Even if it wasn't... my PC cost me £1100, whereas the Mac Pro cost over £3000.

    Essentially, a Mac Pro is just a PC. PC motherboard, PC graphics card, PC memory, PC architechture.... why should it be faster? The OS? I've not found it to be so in my experience.

    I've yet to hear a convincing argument for paying the price premium for a Mac. Care to oblige me? :)
     
    Last edited: 9 Mar 2010
  14. kahanejosh

    kahanejosh What's a Dremel?

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    Haha, I would like to think Im neutral but you PC nuts know how to crack us Mac addicts. None the less, no matter what a Mac is like in comparison to a PC, for some people its just not for them. As I mentioned earlier in the thread it can be a case of just preference and some people are happy to pay the premium price tag if they feel happier with a Mac. However if your not and are more than happy with a PC then stick with that, there is no issue with them, they are just slightly different.
     
  15. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    I have no problem with anything you just said. However, Mac users like yourself are rare. You remain objective, and just honestly say "Look, I prefer Macs, I like the way they look, I like the way they work, I prefer the OS, and I'm happy to pay a premium for it".

    It's the ones who spend all day telling me they're better, bigger, faster, stronger etc that wind me up, and will absolutely not accept that anything can be better... I mean, it cost £3000, it just HAS to be better than a £1000 PC right? Or worse still, the stock reply of "They're better for creative work" LOL

    My standard reply is now "Prove it". They go away then :)
     
  16. kahanejosh

    kahanejosh What's a Dremel?

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    Well I feel the same way about PC users. :)

    I have a massive amount of experience with Windows, but dare I say it, I am all Mac right now. I had another thread not long ago asking what best actually. For university I am going to need a PC and I am investing £1000 into it, so I hope that proves my loyalty to both sides. I have never had my own PC, always had macs, but the time has come, haha.
     
  17. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Difference being of course... I can prove it :)
     
  18. kahanejosh

    kahanejosh What's a Dremel?

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    Haha. Like I said, Macs are just my preference, so proving whether PCs are better doesn't bother me as I am happy with my choice.
     
  19. Threefiguremini

    Threefiguremini What's a Dremel?

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    The best thing I heard said about the whole mac vs pc thing that I've seen was: "comparing macs with pcs is like comparing pens and pencils. Pens can do everything pencils can do, pencils can do everything that pens can do but in some situations a pen is better and sometimes a pencil is better"
     
  20. Lorquis

    Lorquis lorquisSpamCount++;

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    I don't know if anyone else has said this, but the time is about right for Apple to update their MBP range, so either way I would hold off buying for a couple months, especially in the light of many many rumours about i5 and i7 MBPs coming soon..
     

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