Dell XPS 15 9530 or Macbook Pro? A slim yet powerful machine under 150k!

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ritvij

ritvij

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mailed them. Let's see what they say. Alienware 13 looks fab..<3
I am madly confused now. Was swaying towards Macbook but then XPS seems a sensible deal. Then, enter the Alienware!

What shall I do? I don't want to regret once I splurge a 150k!
 

$hadow

Geek in making
mailed them. Let's see what they say. Alienware 13 looks fab..<3
I am madly confused now. Was swaying towards Macbook but then XPS seems a sensible deal. Then, enter the Alienware!

What shall I do? I don't want to regret once I splurge a 150k!
Try to see mac and xps in person. And then see to it which one you think will be more useful to you.
And since you are not into gaming why do you need alienware. It is costly and heavy for college usage.
 
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ritvij

ritvij

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any mac user can comment on how difficult is the transition from windows to os x? i tried the MBP and it felt amazing. The only problem, the student discount was till the last month only, now they are offering only 6% on 180k. This is greatly overshooting my budget and the XPS is making a lot more sense. Yet, i believe the XPS is in for a refresh.
 

$hadow

Geek in making
any mac user can comment on how difficult is the transition from windows to os x? i tried the MBP and it felt amazing. The only problem, the student discount was till the last month only, now they are offering only 6% on 180k. This is greatly overshooting my budget and the XPS is making a lot more sense. Yet, i believe the XPS is in for a refresh.

Ask [MENTION=56202]Anorion[/MENTION] for this
 

Anorion

Sith Lord
Staff member
Admin
any mac user can comment on how difficult is the transition from windows to os x? i tried the MBP and it felt amazing. The only problem, the student discount was till the last month only, now they are offering only 6% on 180k. This is greatly overshooting my budget and the XPS is making a lot more sense. Yet, i believe the XPS is in for a refresh.

the shortcuts and gestures need some getting used to, although you can continue using it the normal way without using these gestures and shortcuts. It is easier than learning windows 8 at least. If using windows 8, it should be easier to transition.
 
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ritvij

ritvij

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[MENTION=56202]Anorion[/MENTION]: any warranty issues? will i need to get the AppleCare as well? i have read a lot about how Apple will void your warranty for scratches and dents, heck, they never repaired my iPhone just because of a stupid minor dent. What about battery life?
 

Anorion

Sith Lord
Staff member
Admin
^better to take more opinions on the warranty thing, don't have first hand experience in that. My cousin got nano replaced with newer model at no cost, I was charged for OS re-install by reliance Apple store (when it was there) but I walked out without paying. Better to take Apple Care or replacements will be costly. Something went wrong with friend's Macbook charger and it was more expensive to get a replacement without the care plan. There are no official Apple stores in India, and Apple did not offer international warranty for it's products in India, donno status of that now.
Battery Life is just about as good as it gets.
 
OP
ritvij

ritvij

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what do you recommend? XPS or the Mac? I have heard the XPS may get a refresh early next year... Macbook Pro is for 1.6 on flipkart! warranty is the main thing that is bugging me.
any other mac user can comment on the warranty?? any remote chances that I can get after market parts for it? l
 

matrixx

Journeyman
[MENTION=90717]ritvij[/MENTION] : do you end up with buying MacBook or XPS or something? Asking coz I am in same boat from long time.
 
what do you recommend? XPS or the Mac? I have heard the XPS may get a refresh early next year... Macbook Pro is for 1.6 on flipkart! warranty is the main thing that is bugging me.
any other mac user can comment on the warranty?? any remote chances that I can get after market parts for it? l

Err...Go for Mac, better OS(if you really want to use the high resolution screen properly). You can always wait for Windows 10 and following notebook updates, but that is wait game which never ends. Don't buy it from Flipkart, go for a Apple premium reseller. Uhm, and you should get the extended Apple care plan(for me, it was nearly 21K for three years),reason being, nothing is user replaceable in new MacBooks, say if anything major goes wrong after the one year warranty period the repair prices will be equivalent to buying a mid range windows notebook.
 
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ritvij

ritvij

rated R
[MENTION=90717]ritvij[/MENTION] : do you end up with buying MacBook or XPS or something? Asking coz I am in same boat from long time.

after lots and lots of discussions, review reading and windows shopping, I have decided to wait till June-July for the 2015 Razer Blade. Apple is great, but I can't afford the after sales and don't want to live in the fear of scratching my laptop!
I want a sexy laptop and the three are the best options in the market! If Dell will throw in a 970m, i'll go for XPS! If you want a great notebook, its better to wait for six months!

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Err...Go for Mac, better OS(if you really want to use the high resolution screen properly). You can always wait for Windows 10 and following notebook updates, but that is wait game which never ends. Don't buy it from Flipkart, go for a Apple premium reseller. Uhm, and you should get the extended Apple care plan(for me, it was nearly 21K for three years),reason being, nothing is user replaceable in new MacBooks, say if anything major goes wrong after the one year warranty period the repair prices will be equivalent to buying a mid range windows notebook.

do they have some kind of accidental warranty on mac? Like Dell gives? Buying rMBP+Apple Care will set me back for 2lakhs. What they say is true?? Is mac worth it?
 

seamon

Superhuman Spambot
after lots and lots of discussions, review reading and windows shopping, I have decided to wait till June-July for the 2015 Razer Blade. Apple is great, but I can't afford the after sales and don't want to live in the fear of scratching my laptop!
I want a sexy laptop and the three are the best options in the market! If Dell will throw in a 970m, i'll go for XPS! If you want a great notebook, its better to wait for six months!

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do they have some kind of accidental warranty on mac? Like Dell gives? Buying rMBP+Apple Care will set me back for 2lakhs. What they say is true?? Is mac worth it?
too
You'll never get a gtx 970m in dell xps. Your best bet is Alienware.
+1 to Razer blade. Those are the perfect machines.
Also, macbooks are.not worth it. They can't beat the blade in one thing except battery life.
 
OP
ritvij

ritvij

rated R
^shall i wait for the blade or go for the 2014 edition? We'll get to know what's coming this CES right?
 
after lots and lots of discussions, review reading and windows shopping, I have decided to wait till June-July for the 2015 Razer Blade. Apple is great, but I can't afford the after sales and don't want to live in the fear of scratching my laptop!
I want a sexy laptop and the three are the best options in the market! If Dell will throw in a 970m, i'll go for XPS! If you want a great notebook, its better to wait for six months!

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do they have some kind of accidental warranty on mac? Like Dell gives? Buying rMBP+Apple Care will set me back for 2lakhs. What they say is true?? Is mac worth it?

Worth it ? Now "worth" here is a relative term. I mean, if your work flow demands Mac, then you are not left with many other options. And if you want some solid framework to support your applications, again you are left with Mac.
The hardware alone is not the main feature of macs, but rather the software and hardware+software integration.
Honestly, if given a chance, you should go for a "PC"(WinTel~), but PC is inefficient in using the resources. Now I am not saying that a 750m will beat a 860/850m, but I am pretty sure that any software running on mac will use last bit of power left from 750m, and same goes for the processors. We are spoiled the amount of power we are getting and the amount we need. When a developer writes application for UNIX, he or she needs to take account of system. When a developer writes an application for Windows, he/she may just leave most of the work to OS and lots and lots of third party libraries. This is where the inefficiency creeps in. Windows again is dependent on the drivers supplied by host hardware, and the OEM manufacturers have like 50+ devices to support concurrently. You can see the difference between AMD omega driver release and their previous drivers. It's not like hardware is losing steam, but rather the software made to drive it is out of focus.
Now why did I recommend opting for PC, because it is cheap, and offers more power. Now this raw "power" is beneficial if you are a gamer or so, but not if you use professional software which are well written.

And nope~ there is no ADP.
 

seamon

Superhuman Spambot
Even 75% of a core i7 4702HQ/GTX 970M>>>>>>>>>what ever core i5U/GTX 750M Mac book uses.

Basically style+money to waste --->Macbook

Style+Performance+Common sense----->Razer/Aorus.
 
Even 75% of a core i7 4702HQ/GTX 970M>>>>>>>>>what ever core i5U/GTX 750M Mac book uses.

Basically style+money to waste --->Macbook

Style+Performance+Common sense----->Razer/Aorus.

GT750M+Standard Voltage i7 Quad Core you mean, right ?

Somethings are rather contextual, and so are devices. I like my mobile workstation and I like my Mac, and I still use old HP.
The last thing I want to see is that the model which I spent nearly days to build crashes at the last moment. But, then again, depends on requirements. I think I would like to use Iris pro for web development, 750m for CUDA development and 16gb low latency RAM is fine for me. What more, I can do some occasional gaming too(which I rarely do). So yeah, Mac is doing fine. Not to say the storage is fast.
 

seamon

Superhuman Spambot
GT750M+Standard Voltage i7 Quad Core you mean, right ?

Somethings are rather contextual, and so are devices. I like my mobile workstation and I like my Mac, and I still use old HP.
The last thing I want to see is that the model which I spent nearly days to build crashes at the last moment. But, then again, depends on requirements. I think I would like to use Iris pro for web development, 750m for CUDA development and 16gb low latency RAM is fine for me. What more, I can do some occasional gaming too(which I rarely do). So yeah, Mac is doing fine. Not to say the storage is fast.

Good for you. But for normal people, Aorus/Razer is a very wise choice. Also, Windows on SSD does not crash.

Advantages of say Aorus over Mac book.
1)Much more powerful hardware.
2)High frequency(1866Mhz)+Low latency Ballistix RAM.
3)Triple Raid 0 for R/W speeds of upto 1500MBps. Beat that mac book.
 
Good for you. But for normal people, Aorus/Razer is a very wise choice. Also, Windows on SSD does not crash.

Advantages of say Aorus over Mac book.
1)Much more powerful hardware.
2)High frequency(1866Mhz)+Low latency Ballistix RAM.
3)Triple Raid 0 for R/W speeds of upto 1500MBps. Beat that mac book.


Errr......facts over figures.
1)My workstation, which is using a SSD from Samsung, crashes sometimes. Bad programming doesn't differentiate between SSD or HDD.
2)Translate RAM performance to real world scenario. Anything above 1600 is ideal. Also the way UNIX handle memory is slightly different than Windows do.
3)Triple RAID, high speed. Make the setup for 512GB total space fall bellow $2200. (512x3)

We can try debating on this topic, but when you progress through life, priorities change. A first year student might think about LAN gaming, a second year student might think about assignments and presentations, but a third year/fourth year student might think of the hardware which will get his/her project done.

I think it would be better to present points which can help thread starter(and others in same dilemma) to make a better decision, but not to get confused between numbers.
 

SaiyanGoku

kamehameha!!
^ Err, my 6-7 year old Lenovo R61 hasn't crashed in last 2 years I think. The last time it did was when I started experimenting on it and deleted system files. I know, stupid decision, but I did manage to gain a small amount of extra space by deleting unnecessary files (mostly .msi files).

And college level assignments/projects don't require anything more than a i3 M /i5 M, 820m, 500 GB HDD and 4 GB ram.
That much is available on a 40k Lenovo Z50

Why waste money on underpowered overpriced hardware which you can't upgrade by yourself?
 
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