Considering Laptop

[+buG]

I'm going overseas on a company contract for about 7 months. The only form of entertainment will probably be my laptop. I was wondering if anybody here had experience with both PC and Apple laptops. I am looking for either a 3ghz dual core dell studio xps, or a 2.8 ghz Macbook pro.

The macbook is a bit more expensive, but I heard the display is better and worth the money. I play a lot of games on my PC and would probably dual boot if I had a macbook pro, but I'm worried that it can't hold up to the dell's 1gig video card and an extra 2 gigs of memory.

Is there any reason to get the apple over the dell? The specs seem better on the dell but I heard rumors that Apple still performs better (probably mac fanboys but would still like unbiased clarification). I honestly don't know the first thing about Apple but am very knowledgeable when it comes to pc stuff.

Thanks :up:

[kevcj]

Dell makes a good laptop, and a few years ago Sony had some high scores. From what I understand, MAC always ranks at the top.

I think its PC Magazine that does a survey of laptop users and grades the major brands. They will take customer satisfaction surveys, percentage that have to go in for service within the first 6 - 12 months, tech support locations (whether they use phone support people in your native country or overseas labor),,,, and a lot of other stuff.

See if you can find one of those reviews. I think it was PC Magazine that does it, but i'am not 100% sure. I had like 3 magazine subscriptions when I read it.

[Attitude5ire]

Having had DELL for 4 years i can swear by it.
I do believe macbook's work very good and are value for money but i would still prefer a DELL it just gives me more option than a MAC would. I dont quite like running bootcamps and parallel's on mac just so i can install Windows. The Dual boot ones have their own problems as i used lots of graphic apps which didnt quite work.
If you go with DELL and Win7 ( my current ) the results are pretty impressive. Win7 is easily the best OS made for Laptops. With a PC you just have more options.

With that said if u are just looking for normal day to day and simple app usage, entertainment. Mac's are worth it.

[davidw]

I use a Dell XPS M1530 as my main system (mostly topped out) and it is worth everything I put into it.

Maximum PC is one magazine I subscribe to and they do many reviews, one category being notebooks. Their website doesn't cover as much as their magazine, but still has some reviews on it.

I can't really say anything about Macs as my usage of them is limited (although I have used them) but from the ones I have used, they are nice. I just prefer what I have over what I have used (aside from the one of the mac's 13 second bootup time)

[TheLastSuperman]

Dell... ok not going there as this thread does not need to turn into the Mac vs PC commercial lol

So all of my statement is purely imo

HP, they have a 16t and 18t series out now and I love them - HD display, Blue Ray Player Media Center w/ remote, TV tuner, Fingerprint reader Vista 64 bit (other options) and I snagged it when they had tons of free upgrades and a hunted down a coupon code online for -$350 so I ened up getting a 16t series nearly fully loaded for her at the amazing price of $650 which if I would have been an average Joe and purchased online it would have ran nearly $1,300 that's double for an hour of online investigation and coupon code hunting I can live with that.

All I'm saying is check around no matter what you buy, try coupon codes and you might have to call as some won't work online they have to hunt them down on the phone. I have been seeing some decent systems listed from all manuf's on www.slickdeals.net check it daily, I do.

Hope that helps you find more for less, personally I could go either way PC or MAC but in PC Brand is argued A LOT but for me again, imo... HP.

S-MAN

[BSMedia]

Originally Posted by +buG

I'm going overseas on a company contract for about 7 months. The only form of entertainment will probably be my laptop. I was wondering if anybody here had experience with both PC and Apple laptops. I am looking for either a 3ghz dual core dell studio xps, or a 2.8 ghz Macbook pro.

The macbook is a bit more expensive, but I heard the display is better and worth the money. I play a lot of games on my PC and would probably dual boot if I had a macbook pro, but I'm worried that it can't hold up to the dell's 1gig video card and an extra 2 gigs of memory.

Is there any reason to get the apple over the dell? The specs seem better on the dell but I heard rumors that Apple still performs better (probably mac fanboys but would still like unbiased clarification). I honestly don't know the first thing about Apple but am very knowledgeable when it comes to pc stuff.

Thanks :up:

If you're gaming, then there is no sense in the Apple unless you run virtualization software and install windows on it to. While most games are compatible with both, every PC i've ever tried, has always had better graphics than the Mac.

I recently purchased a 17 MacBook Pro, and don't get me wrong its awesome and I love it. But I got it to do everything other than gaming. For that, I still find my Windows based laptops still take the cake.

The display is slightly crisper and maybe even more clear with the luster screen which is nice.

[veenuisthebest]

I got a Dell Studio 15.

[+buG]

Wow, thank you all so much for the input. It looks like the dell is more suited for what I'll be needing the laptop for. No doubt Macs are good laptops, but I just don't see falling in the casual use category and will probably be needing the versatility. My girlfriend are heading to the store today to look at some dells

Thanks again!

[phpwannabe]

Probably depends on how much you're into gaming. My youngest son got an Alienware last Christmas and it rocks as far as gaming goes. We've had no problems with it at all and believe me it gets HOURS of use.

on the downside, it's a little pricey. We paid almost $1,800 for it almost a year ago. They custom build them to your specs and his has a lot of upgrades.