The MacBook Pro 14 also has better connectivity, with both more Thunderbolt 4 ports and an HDMI connection. Both laptops have full-size SD card readers, which is welcome. The XPS 15’s wireless connectivity is a generation behind, giving the MacBook Pro 14 another win.

The latest rumors, however, suggest that a solid road map is in place that could potentially end with touch-enabled OLED screens coming to the MacBook Pro. Alongside the two 13” models are the equivalent 15” and 17” versions, as per normal, with the larger screens and enhanced specs making for highly capable music production machines. Non- gaming laptops with integrated graphics tend to plod through these tests, but the discrete GPUs in this group showed their graphics and 3D chops with impressive results. For super-heavy-duty animation or modeling workflows, you'll want something from the workstation aisle, but video editors and mainstream content creators will be more than satisfied. Neither laptop has received any design changes in several generations. That’s a good thing, because both are among the best designed and built laptops available today. For its current range, Dell has split things up a bit and now offers two variants of the XPS 13. There’s the base XPS 13, which offers a balance between performance and efficiency - which means a longer battery life - and a newer Plus model which favours power over efficiency. Aside from that, both of the 13” models come with the same gorgeous, sleek design, with a lightness that rivals even the current super-skinny MacBook Air models.The Power section of MyDell shows battery health statistics, and also provides access to different charging strategies designed to maximize the usable lifetime of the battery. There's also four thermal management profiles here, labeled Optimized, Cool, Quiet, and Ultra Performance. Optimized is the default operating mode, Cool will keep the surface temperatures low at the cost of performance and noise, Quiet will keep fan noise to a minimum, and Ultra Performance will ungate the fan speeds under load to ensure best performance. Of course, we're talking about a small percentage of the laptop's total cost, so the Dell's 40-watt ceiling is hardly a deal-breaker, though it's something to be aware of. You can learn more about wattage differences and the limitations of laptop versus desktop GPUs in our desktop versus mobile GeForce RTX 4090 testing piece. Battery and Display Tests As you can see in the benchmark charts below, this year's XPS 13 Plus finished behind the previous model on most of our tests. It topped last year's model on only PCMark 10. Its performance generally fell between the Acer Swift Go 14 that features a high-powered Core i7-13700H CPU and the Asus ZenBook S 13 that uses a more efficient Core i7-1355U chip. Meanwhile, a pair of HP Pavilions based on AMD Ryzen U-series chips generally outperformed the XPS 13 Plus, which isn't a great look for Dell's ultraportable. The 720p webcam was outdated on last year's model and is now severely behind the times on this year's version. All but the most budget laptops these days feature crisper 1080p cameras and some higher-end models now offer 1440p cams. The XPS 13 Plus's webcam produces a grainy image with reddish skin tones. It could be a deal breaker by itself if Zoom calls are a regular part of your day.

This year's XPS 13 Plus does offer longer battery life even though it features the same three-cell, 51-watt-hour battery as the previous model. It lasted a little more than seven hours on our online streaming battery drain test when last year's model petered out before the four-hour mark. Still, competing ultraportables run for hours longer than the XPS 13 Plus. Terms Apply. Promotion ends 3 December 2023. Items are subject to availability. Max 5 units per customer. Just like most of Dell's performance laptops, the Inspiron 16 Plus starts with an Intel Core i7-13700H with six P-cores, eight E-cores, and a 5.0 GHz boost speed, strapped with a 45-Watt TDP. It's fed by 16 GB of DDR5-4800 memory in a dual-channel configuration, by way of a pair of upgradeable SO-DIMMs, with an official maximum capacity of 32 GB. There's also a 1 TB NVMe PCI Express SSD in the standard M.2 2280 form factor on board.

Dell Inspiron 16 Plus (7630): Affordable, Attractive And High-Performance Mobile Computing

All are premium laptops of various sizes that, like the XPS 15, are aimed at professional digital content creators and enthusiast-level users. Among them, you'll find a decent array of recent AMD, Intel, and Nvidia components. Productivity Tests The MacBook Pro 14’s Mini-LED display is much brighter, both in its default standard dynamic range (SDR) setting and when running high dynamic range ( HDR) content. Add in its incredibly deep contrast and a maximum brightness of 1,600 nits and the MacBook Pro is the best laptop for HDR streaming. Where the XPS 15’s OLED display is better is in its coverage of the AdobeRGB gamut. But Apple’s display is slightly more accurate.

Yes, the MacBook Pro 14 is more expensive than the XPS 15, especially when fully configured. But the laptop has turned into the best portable creator’s workstation you can buy today. Dell XPS laptops are the perfect Windows alternative to popular Apple MacBook products like the 13-inch MacBook Air (2022) and 15-inch MacBook Air (2023), often offering better specs at a cheaper price. We didn’t test the MacBook Pro 14 in the same version of the PugetBench Premiere Pro benchmark, and so we can’t directly compare numbers. However, in this benchmark that runs in a live version of Adobe’s Premiere Pro and uses the GPU to speed up certain tasks, the MacBook Pro 14 with the M3 Max achieved the second-highest score we’ve seen in a laptop. Only the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 with an AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D and an RTX 4090 was faster. The XPS 15, even in its most powerful configuration, won’t come close to matching the MacBook Pro 14. Against most other laptops, the XPS 15 might come out on top. But it’s simply outclassed by the MacBook Pro 14 in performance, battery life, keyboard and touchpad, and overall display quality.

The main benchmark of UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop's storage. The XPS 15 has the best audio quality in a Windows laptop, with quad speakers pumping out plenty of volume with clear mids and highs. But the MacBook Pro 14 has six speakers, including force-canceling woofers, and it puts out incredibly full sound with tons of bass. Again, the MacBook Pro 14 is better than the XPS 15. Portability Digital Trends

Where the current version of the XPS 13 has drawn controversy is in the removal of some of its connectivity options. While Apple users will, by now, be familiar with (and occasionally frustrated by) the smaller number of USB-C ports, it does mean users of the newest XPS models will have to be dongle or hub-ready. What makes the XPS range great for musicians?No matter what you think of the overall design, you have to agree that the XPS 13 Plus boasts awesome build quality. It's really solidly constructed. The all-metal chassis is very rigid without even a hint of flex that can often be felt with a thin ultraportable. The 13.4-inch XPS 13 Plus weighs 2.8 pounds, which is slightly heavier than the 13.6-inch M2 MacBook Air that weighs 2.7 pounds. For a more portable OLED ultraportable, the 13.3-inch Asus Zenbook S 13 weighs a scant 2.2 pounds. High-res OLED display, low-res IR webcam The 2023 Dell XPS 15 is more or less exactly what you'd expect from the company flagship. Its fresh components deliver measurably superior power and longevity, while the machine's premium build and design remain intact. It may not be overly exciting, but XPS loyalists and upgraders should be more than happy. As great as the MacBook Pro is right now, there's one important feature that's always been missing. A touchscreen. It's something Windows laptops have enjoyed for years now, and many have viewed it as a missing piece of the puzzle for the Mac. We tested the MacBook Pro 14 with the fastest CPU available, the M3 Max with 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores. That’s a monster chip that has achieved some of the fastest benchmark results we’ve seen. As you’ll see here, the XPS 15 configured with the Core i7-13700H can’t keep up in CPU-intensive benchmarks. It was only competitive in the Cinebench R23 benchmark in single-core mode. When all cores are engaged, the MacBook Pro 14 is much faster. WCCFTech made the point that the OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro would likely require tweaks to the macOS interface to accommodate for the precision needed when using touch on a display. Notably, the iPad Pro already has the assistance of the Apple Pencil, but there's no telling how accessories will fit into the equation.