Originally Posted by nikJ

What happened to your Mac? I remember you saying some good things about your retina macbook pro as well, not too long ago. How would you compare the two machines, xps 13 and rMBP, overall and particularly in terms of build quality? More importantly, how good is the trackpad on the XPS? I'm yet to come across a better trackpad than what Macbooks have (although thats probably about to be ruined in the new macbook).

Well, long story. When I started work I was assigned a 15-inch Macbook Pro with better specs. My mom needed a computer at the time, so she took my 13-inch one, and then eventually she got a different job which provided her with 13-inch Macbook Pro, and so my brother ended up inheriting it after that.

It's hard to compare them because the previous Macbook I had and the one I have now both have last generation chipsets (Haswell) while the XPS 13 uses broadwell. Off the bat, the standby mode of the XPS 13 is insane... I left it for nearly 2 weeks unplugged and asleep, and it only lost 25% power. That's pretty normal for a Macbook, but pretty unheard of for PCs.

I like the form factor of the XPS better and the build quality is a lot higher than than Dell products I've used previously. There were some problems when I first got it (fan was unbalanced and really loud), but their tech support is pretty solid and they sent a guy out to replace it within a couple days on sight. I had some other issues with the trackpad acting oddly and sound being kinda screwed up, but that's only under Linux, where most of it is actively being worked on or has been fixed.

The trackpad is not better than a Macbook, but it's definitely the best trackpad I've ever used on a PC laptop. Dell used pretty new hardware technology for both the sound and touchpad (I2C and I2S as opposed to USB) and drivers for both are actively being worked on, so I expect the touchpad to get better. The only real issues I'm experiencing right now is it's overly sensitive and can cause the cursor to jump if my hand brushes it while typing and that right-click is sometimes a little hard to trigger. The second problem I've experienced on literally everything except the Macbook.

I mostly went with the XPS 13 because I like the design (looks futuristic) and because I wanted to run Linux, which Dell actively supports for this computer. Using a Macbook for Linux is kind of dumb as OS X is optimized to the hardware and runs significantly better.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

Well, long story. When I started work I was assigned a 15-inch Macbook Pro with better specs. My mom needed a computer at the time, so she took my 13-inch one, and then eventually she got a different job which provided her with 13-inch Macbook Pro, and so my brother ended up inheriting it after that.

It's hard to compare them because the previous Macbook I had and the one I have now both have last generation chipsets (Haswell) while the XPS 13 uses broadwell. Off the bat, the standby mode of the XPS 13 is insane... I left it for nearly 2 weeks unplugged and asleep, and it only lost 25% power. That's pretty normal for a Macbook, but pretty unheard of for PCs.

I like the form factor of the XPS better and the build quality is a lot higher than than Dell products I've used previously. There were some problems when I first got it (fan was unbalanced and really loud), but their tech support is pretty solid and they sent a guy out to replace it within a couple days on sight. I had some other issues with the trackpad acting oddly and sound being kinda screwed up, but that's only under Linux, where most of it is actively being worked on or has been fixed.

The trackpad is not better than a Macbook, but it's definitely the best trackpad I've ever used on a PC laptop. Dell used pretty new hardware technology for both the sound and touchpad (I2C and I2S as opposed to USB) and drivers for both are actively being worked on, so I expect the touchpad to get better. The only real issues I'm experiencing right now is it's overly sensitive and can cause the cursor to jump if my hand brushes it while typing and that right-click is sometimes a little hard to trigger. The second problem I've experienced on literally everything except the Macbook.

I mostly went with the XPS 13 because I like the design (looks futuristic) and because I wanted to run Linux, which Dell actively supports for this computer. Using a Macbook for Linux is kind of dumb as OS X is optimized to the hardware and runs significantly better.

Thanks for the response. I guess I'll stick with my rMBP for now. But it's good to know that Windows/Linux have a viable option now (thinkpads are getting shittier, unfortunately). My biggest gripe with PC laptops has been with their keyboard and trackpad. I feel the Lenovo T400 had one of the best keyboard and track pad on a PC laptop. But since then Lenovo, like all the other brands started copying Apple with the chiclet keyboard and multi touch trackpad and have done a shoddy job with them so far.