Dell XPS 15 vs Microsoft Surface Book 2

[KrisYYC]

Good day,

I'm currently shopping for a laptop. It's been years since I've had a laptop so I'm bit out of the loop on what's good, what's crap etc.

I'd like to buy a decently powerfully spec'd laptop for mostly home use, with some very hobby level photo and video editing capabilities, and some future proof specs.

After some online research and after playing around with a few models in stores my top two contenders are:

Dell XPS 15 9570 Core i7/16GB RAM/ 512GB SSD/GTX 1050ti and 4k touch display. $2599

Microsoft Surface Book 2 15" Core i7/16GB RAM/ 512GB SSD/GTX 1060 with almost 4k touch display. $3699

Huge price difference but of course the Surface Book has a detachable screen and a better video card. I also liked the feel of the keyboard on the Surface Book better.

I'm leaning more towards the Dell because of the huge price difference, but I'm not sure about their hardware quality these days. The one I messed around with at the MS store felt well made, but if anybody here has any experience with either of these two machines I'd like to hear your feedback.

Thanks

[killramos]

You should be able to get the XPS for a lot less than that when they have a sale and coupon codes which are easily found online stack.

250offxps comes to mind.

I have last years version of the XPS 15 in that exact spec less the 4K screen and its awesome.

I found my surface (pro 4) to be kindof gimicky and buggy fwiw. Found myself craving a real sized screen so I dumped it for the XPS.

I would also bet the surface would thermally throttle well before it ever sees the benefit of the 1060.

[Mitsu3000gt]

You won't find anything that comes even remotely close to the value of the new XPS 15, especially with Dell's sales. You can get the Dell XPS 15 9570 Core i7/16GB RAM/ 512GB SSD/GTX 1050ti variant but with a 1080P display (what I would recommend) for $1749 when it goes on sale. The Surface Books are almost at Macbook Pro level of pricing absurdity and just not worth it IMO. Paying double or more for almost identical hardware is ridiculous, at least from my point of view.

The 1080P screen is matte, which is what you want for photo/video editing and if you ever play games on it or do anything demanding of the video card, it will actually perform well at 1080P where it will struggle with anything 4K. There is no need for a 4K 15" screen IMO, it will cause you more headaches than anything since not everything scales well at 4K and the video card is not adequate for that kind of resolution outside basic tasks.

The Dell XPS line is one of the best made laptops out there in terms of case/hardware quality (most of the internal components themselves are off-the-shelf like everyone else's). Keyboard/trackpad etc. are top notch. You can also get the XPS 15 with a monster 97Wh battery if you don't need a second drive slot, which combined with the 1080P screen gives incredible battery life - no extra charge.

For what you plan to use it for I think an XPS 15 would be perfect - and if you under-volt it slightly it does not throttle under sustained load. Black Friday is in less than 2 weeks, I bet the above model goes on sale for $1749 again.

Also keep in mind most of these laptops will probably be refreshed in Q1 2019 and the XPS15 is due for a chassis update.

I've been shopping for a Laptop for months now but haven't pulled the trigger yet because I don't need one that badly.

[The_Penguin]

Mrs. Penguin has an XPS 15, and loves it! It's been rock solid, but then so have the 80 Latitudes at the office too, very few issues...
With the Surface, you can't open it and add ram, replace a defective hard drive etc. Anything goes wrong, it's swap it via Microsoft *if* they have that flavour in stock.
That's my only real concern with the Surface, that and the price, but I do like them a lot.

[ganesh]

I have the XPS15 9560. Almost identical specification to what you are looking at.
I ordered mine with 8GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. I recently upgraded both RAM and the SSD.
I absolutely love the XPS15. As others pointed out it is one the best laptops you can buy right now.

[snowcat]

Hmmm, I’m going to go against the grain here.

My XPS 15, loaded, has been back three times. 9550 model.

Battery swelling causing the track pad not to work and splitting the case, lots of dead pixels on the 4K screen, and motherboard problems regarding audio and video issues.

These computers are known to run hot and when they do they throttle like mad. Premiere pro, after affects all stutter with 50mbit video. I’d hate to see what happens with 100 or 150 mbit.

I want to love it, the design and features made It what I thought was a great laptop. Mine is a USA spec, so it was 2300 USD at the time. Around 3100 CAD. It had a combination of parts you couldn’t get up here. I think now a Canadian/ USA one is the same.

If you are going to actually use it to stress it, I wouldn’t get this one. Perhaps a gaming type laptop with more cooling. Even Lightroom and about 30 6000x4000 px images makes it hot and slow.

Oh and as I write this I just remembered; it can’t even play 1080 video in YouTube or on a hard drive without stuttering. It’s so annoying, drives me mental.

[KrisYYC]

Thanks for the thorough replies so far guys!

The reason I was thinking of the 4K model is because all of my video capture, even just family stuff with my phone is in 4k. I figured if I wanted to edit some or make a small movie out of it periodically that having a 4k display to edit 4k video would be more ideal. Not sure how much difference it would actually make though. I've never tried it so can't compare.

I hadn't even thought about the Dell being upgradeable. That's another plus for the Dell.

It's too bad about the Surface line's Apple-esque pricing. I wouldn't expect a Surface Book to be the same price as the Dell, but a full $1100 more? That's too hard to swallow.

Now to find a good deal on one... Black Friday is approaching, I suppose I could try to wait another week or so. I also have gift cards for Chinook Centre and MS store that I could put towards it if I get it there. Best case scenario is the MS store puts it on sale for Black Friday, then I'll get the sale price, and a good chunk of it paid with gift cards.

Thanks again for the replies guys.

[adam c]

Any higher resolution than 1080 on a laptop is a waste, sure you can fit more but it’s so damn tiny that you just end up screwing around with dpi and scaling to make it usable

[Xtrema]

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Thanks for the thorough replies so far guys!

The reason I was thinking of the 4K model is because all of my video capture, even just family stuff with my phone is in 4k. I figured if I wanted to edit some or make a small movie out of it periodically that having a 4k display to edit 4k video would be more ideal. Not sure how much difference it would actually make though. I've never tried it so can't compare.

It's not necessary. 4K on 15" is hard to read unless you have sharp eyes. Just make sure you have a good GPU and get a 1440p IPS ultra wide (or 2) is good enough. Heavy video editing on a laptop screen isn't user friendly.

Chances are you are going to downsample to 1080p anyway. And all social media platform will degrade your upload when you share it. And most will watch it on a 720p to 1440p phone screen that is too small to matter.

[ganesh]

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Thanks for the thorough replies so far guys!

The reason I was thinking of the 4K model is because all of my video capture, even just family stuff with my phone is in 4k. I figured if I wanted to edit some or make a small movie out of it periodically that having a 4k display to edit 4k video would be more ideal. Not sure how much difference it would actually make though. I've never tried it so can't compare.

I hadn't even thought about the Dell being upgradeable. That's another plus for the Dell.

It's too bad about the Surface line's Apple-esque pricing. I wouldn't expect a Surface Book to be the same price as the Dell, but a full $1100 more? That's too hard to swallow.

Now to find a good deal on one... Black Friday is approaching, I suppose I could try to wait another week or so. I also have gift cards for Chinook Centre and MS store that I could put towards it if I get it there. Best case scenario is the MS store puts it on sale for Black Friday, then I'll get the sale price, and a good chunk of it paid with gift cards.

Thanks again for the replies guys.

Dell Started the Pre Black Friday sale. You will be able to negotiate the price with them . Not lot but there is some room.
My recommendation is to get the Dell next day onsite service. You will be able to negotiate the price on this for sure.

[nismodrifter]

Would you guys recommend a base model XPS or seemingly better equipped New Inspiron 15? My current Dell has just crapped out, need a new laptop ASAP.

I am replacing an Inspiron 15 that I've had for 6 years, my prev laptop before that was also an Inspiron that lasted me 6 years (thats a whopping 2 laptops in 12 years, pretty impressed, and thus scared to sway away from the trusty Inspiron).

The XPS is $200 more.

Inspiron: https://deals.dell.com/en-ca/productdetail/1n48

XPS: https://deals.dell.com/en-ca/productdetail/1n4a

Insight into pros/cons would be appreciated as I'm way out of the PC game these days. Having to google wtf a hybrid drive is. PC will be used for light duty stuff. Is there anything in particular that would make you pick the XPS over the Inspiron?

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

Why buy an XPS if it doesn't even have discrete graphics?

Also, consider Lenovo. I'm a fan of their Thinkpad line.
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/leno...ccess-2237583/

[The_Penguin]

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Would you guys recommend a base model XPS or seemingly better equipped New Inspiron 15?

My experience with the Inspiron line, is fixing them when they break, and they break a lot. Really not up to the same level of quality as the Latitude or XPS lines.
I'd avoid.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Would you guys recommend a base model XPS or seemingly better equipped New Inspiron 15? My current Dell has just crapped out, need a new laptop ASAP.

I am replacing an Inspiron 15 that I've had for 6 years, my prev laptop before that was also an Inspiron that lasted me 6 years (thats a whopping 2 laptops in 12 years, pretty impressed, and thus scared to sway away from the trusty Inspiron).

The XPS is $200 more.

Inspiron: https://deals.dell.com/en-ca/productdetail/1n48

XPS: https://deals.dell.com/en-ca/productdetail/1n4a

Insight into pros/cons would be appreciated as I'm way out of the PC game these days. Having to google wtf a hybrid drive is. PC will be used for light duty stuff. Is there anything in particular that would make you pick the XPS over the Inspiron?

That Inspiron is a million times better than a base XPS in terms of hardware performance. The base XPS has a slow spinner drive and intel's shitty UHD630 iGPU - it's actually really bad and I don't even know why Dell offers that variant. At least with the Inspiron you're getting a PCI SSD and a MX150 GPU which is the rough equivalent to a GTX 1030.

If you just want to surf the net and watch YouTube, I'd buy something else - an ultra-thin thin 14" perhaps.

If you can't find a ridiculous deal for Black Friday, just wait until early next year when everything gets updated with Nvidia 2XXX GPUs. The XPS 15 is also getting a chassis overhaul next year.

[nismodrifter]

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Why buy an XPS if it doesn't even have discrete graphics?

[/url]

This was my whole confusion. Why is that even offered?

I ordered the Inspiron. The last 2 did me good, lets see how this one lasts.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Dell's "Biggest Black Friday ever" and Lenovo's "break the internet" deals are hilariously bad - far worse than their regular sales that pop up throughout the year. So far it's not looking good if you're after a BF laptop deal.

[Xtrema]

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This was my whole confusion. Why is that even offered?

I ordered the Inspiron. The last 2 did me good, lets see how this one lasts.

It used to be that XPS and Latitude are better designed than Inspiron. But those days are long gone.

Buy whatever get you most bang for the $.

[killramos]

I mean, the case of the XPS is much nicer than the Inspiron if that matters to you. Probably thinner and lighter?