MacBook or XPS M1210

By dL
in Hardware Hangout

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Grand Master

dL

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Posted

I am in a dilemma. If I were to get a laptop now, it would be between an Apple MacBook or the Dell XPS M1210. In your opinion, which would be a better buy, and why? It'll be used mainly for university purposes, entering into Computing Science. Both seemed to weigh very little. The Dell looks promising with great spec, lightweight, 7400 Go graphic card, and long battery life; however, the Apple MacBook provides some pretty interesting minimalistic design, including magnetic latch, MagSafe, and most of all - Mac OS X. The Apple MacBook can then be dual booted into either Mac or Windows, giving the best of both worlds, while the Dell M1210 would provide me the opportunity to game with decent quality settings on games like BF2 and CS:S when there are extra times. The only thing that is holding me off from getting MacBook now would be its overheat issue, integrated graphics and single-click trackpad. As for Dell, the design looks pretty dull and boxy, and it seems to be very thick also. Definitely more than 1.08 inch thick!

Anyways, enough of me talking, please share your thoughts!

Apple MacBook - http://www.apple.com/ca/macbook/macbook.html

OR

Dell M1210 - http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/products/p...DHS1&l=en&s=dhs

dL

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Spielo

Posted
Posted

I've just taken delivery of a MacBook, and as long as you don't mind not being able to play games, I couldn't recommend it enough. It's just so brilliantly designed, everything about it has clearly had a lot of thought put into it. The graphics chip is pretty much useless for games, but the Core Duo processor provides plenty of power for doing just about anything else.

As for the overheating issue... I've had mine overheat once, but it hasn't happened since, and I used it in bed for quite a while last night without a problem, so hopefully it's not too bad... I'm keeping my eye on it though, if it keeps doing it I'll talk to Apple about it. And noting having a right click isn't much of an issue when using an OS designed to work with just one button; having an abundance of keyboard shortcuts is actually quicker than right-clicking once you've got the hang of them...

I used to think buying a computer was all about getting the highest specs you can for your money, but the MacBook has showed me how important it is to have something that's cleverly designed. I'm sure the Dell is a decent machine, and you should definately choose it over the MacBook if you ever want to play games, but if you can live without gaming, I'd say the MacBook is the better choice.

If you do want to play games, get a MacBook and a Nintendo DS Lite. :)

Grand Master

Evolution

Posted
Posted (edited)

The only reason I'd opt for the MacBook would be if you really want the Mac OS. However, if you don't really care which OS you recieve, then I'd go for the Dell :D

It seems to me that this is a battle between something that just looks pretty vs. some that's functions & powerful. What are you planning on using the notebook for? If it's just to take notes, write papers, etc. then the MacBook seems to be a great choice.

Edited by Evolution
Grand Master

Alladaskill17

Posted
Posted

I personally would go for the MAcBook, only because im bored with windows, been using it my whole life. Im only 16 so its been from '95 up to my XP MCE machine. Also, I would choose the MacBook for the dual-boot, of course, also im not a real big gamer, so those reasons + iLife & OS X would make a good choice [for me personally].

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Miran

Posted
Posted

If the computing science department is UNIX-based, you may find yourself at an advantage using OSX (unless you plan on installing Linux on a laptop). My university is all UNIX/BSD and I found it quite useful having all the UNIX command-line functionality right out of the box with my Powerbook. In fact, my whole lab is on Macs now - Xserve clusters and Powerbooks (well, now MBPs).

Grand Master

.Neo

Posted
Posted

It all boils down to a simple question: Do you want to run the state-of-art Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger operating system or are you content with Windows XP, which is 5 years old and has hardly seen any non-security related feature updates to date? ;)

On a more serious note:

I'd say go for the MacBook, it'll give you the best of both worlds. :)

Grand Master

RadishTM Veteran

Posted
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Posted

I'd get the Dell for the time being. Being at Uni you're gonna want some gaming potential on the laptop when relaxing - and the Dell has that.

Only get the MacBook if you're not gonna do gaming (but wait till the next revision for the issues to ironed out).

Radish?

Rising Star

callumy

Posted
Posted

I really don't see how a 7400 TC can provide any real sort of gaming performance. The extra processing power would make up for the lesser GPU of the MacBook in just about everything else, an in some situations, in games.

Pricing a 2.0GHz Core Duo, a DVD burner and 1 GB of RAM in each, the MacBook was CAN$300 cheaper while coming with OSX and iLife and features such as MagSafe.

While I personally hate Dell and love Apple computers, the MacBook does seem the better machine. If you want to play games, either buy a cheap PC with a decent graphics card or buy a console. Anyway, the MacBook is the better design and much nicer machine, and even if Apple do release OSX for other PCs, you would still have a real Mac, not some dodgy Dell.

Cal

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