Here is the thing. I am thinking of buying a new laptop.
I live in Brazil and prices here are prohibitive, in addition to the offerings of quality laptops here being almost non-existent. I will be in London in June, so I may well buy a new laptop there (more expensive than in the U.S., but still far cheaper than here in Brazil).
I currently have a Dell XPS 15 9550 (the new form factor), with a Core i7-6700QH, GTX 960M, 16 GB RAM, and a 512 GB SSD. It is still pretty powerful for my needs, but it has a swollen battery, and I am having a hard time with the support here in Brazil (as this model is not sold here).
So, I am thinking of buying something new and different. And I want to address the problems I found with the Dell XPS 15. Before the XPS 15, I had a 15-inch MacBook Pro with retina display. When I bought the Dell, I was searching for a Windows machine that provided me an experience similar to what I had with the MacBook Pro, and I was told by several sources that the XPS 15 would be my best bet, and that the real problem with it would be the position of the webcam.
The thing is, not quite. I had no problem with the webcam, really. But the build quality is not the same, and the XPS 15 gets hot, while the Mac is always cool. The materials are not as premium. The keyboard is good, but not as good, and I ran into problems with it (the space key registers twice sometimes). The trackpad does lag a little, and the experience is OK but not great. The screen is beautiful and has a very high resolution (3840x2160), but is far more reflective and washed out than the screen of the Mac, and color reproduction is not as good.
So, the XPS 15 is good but it is not as good as the MacBook Pro. It has great specs, a great visual, but it is not as well-thought or designed, and does not have the same quality of premium materials. It is more a buffed up laptop than a really premium one.
Now, I am back to the question of which laptop should I buy. I have some options here which I have thought of. Yes, I know I am really picky. I guess I prefer a great design and a great experience than beefed up specs.
I live in Brazil and prices here are prohibitive, in addition to the offerings of quality laptops here being almost non-existent. I will be in London in June, so I may well buy a new laptop there (more expensive than in the U.S., but still far cheaper than here in Brazil).
I currently have a Dell XPS 15 9550 (the new form factor), with a Core i7-6700QH, GTX 960M, 16 GB RAM, and a 512 GB SSD. It is still pretty powerful for my needs, but it has a swollen battery, and I am having a hard time with the support here in Brazil (as this model is not sold here).
So, I am thinking of buying something new and different. And I want to address the problems I found with the Dell XPS 15. Before the XPS 15, I had a 15-inch MacBook Pro with retina display. When I bought the Dell, I was searching for a Windows machine that provided me an experience similar to what I had with the MacBook Pro, and I was told by several sources that the XPS 15 would be my best bet, and that the real problem with it would be the position of the webcam.
The thing is, not quite. I had no problem with the webcam, really. But the build quality is not the same, and the XPS 15 gets hot, while the Mac is always cool. The materials are not as premium. The keyboard is good, but not as good, and I ran into problems with it (the space key registers twice sometimes). The trackpad does lag a little, and the experience is OK but not great. The screen is beautiful and has a very high resolution (3840x2160), but is far more reflective and washed out than the screen of the Mac, and color reproduction is not as good.
So, the XPS 15 is good but it is not as good as the MacBook Pro. It has great specs, a great visual, but it is not as well-thought or designed, and does not have the same quality of premium materials. It is more a buffed up laptop than a really premium one.
Now, I am back to the question of which laptop should I buy. I have some options here which I have thought of. Yes, I know I am really picky. I guess I prefer a great design and a great experience than beefed up specs.
- MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. This would be the most expensive option. As I need Windows, I would have to buy the option with 512 GB SSD, so I can accommodate both operating systems. And I would also have to buy a Windows license. The Windows experience perhaps is not that great, but at least this is a premium machine for sure. And it has support and warranty in Brazil.
- Surface Pro. The new model seems to be neat, with the Alcantara Type Cover. I have played a bit with the Surface Pro 4, and it seems to be really good. The new model should be even better. The keyboard and trackpad seemed to be very good and precise, but I am not sure if they are somehow sub-par for being detachable.
- Surface Laptop. Seems to be very good. Not sure, though, if this would be better than the Surface Pro, and if the Alcantara keyboard could get dirty (in the Surface Pro, I can replace it easily, but I cannot do it with the laptop).
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