I'm seriously considering the new XPS 15. It hits much of the same great balance as the 16" MBP, and like the Macbook Pro, it has a 16:10 display. I'm gun shy, because of potential coil whine: https://xps-15.fandom.com/wiki/Coil_Whine
> As Coil Whining is a big problem on this model we will try to find out witch parts are causing this noises. First we need to disassemble this notebook and identify the noisy parts.
> I immediately noticed I felt slightly 'uncomfortable' when it was on, and within about 30 seconds realised that it was emitting coil whine at a volume/pitch high enough to physically bother me. It's like an ever-present noise that I can only imagine must be how low levels of tinnitus feels to people who have to deal with that type of thing. I am pretty disappointed to say the least.
I might just assume that this is random internet griping, but I had this exact same problem on my last Dell laptop (admittedly, it was almost 20 years ago) and it drove me insane when working late at night. It's one of those little "quality of life" things I'm willing to pay extra for. (Not to say that Apple doesn't have quality-of-life issues, like randomly removing ports. But for the most part I find I can solve those issues just by throwing money at the problem. I can't do that with coil whine, or a non-centered keyboard, or a laptop that only offers either an FHD or a 4K display and no power-efficient compromise.
I switched to a XPS-15 9570 from a MBP of roughly equiv spec, but previous gen, after the last round of laptop shuffles at work - I went from MacOS to Windows at the same time in order to feel the pain of our environment under Windows.
I'm not saying that it's a bad laptop. But there are just so many little annoying things about it after coming from the MBP and MacOS;
* Trackpad is subjectively worse, but I can't tell you why beyond its just smaller - but I am objectively much less accurate with it and trigger tap-clicks when I don't mean to. The trackpad positioning is also slightly uncomfortable to use.
* Fan noise - the fan curve has it ramping up earlier than a MBP
* Windows was hosed out of the box (fine, fixable, but it wasn't a good start)
* The "soft" covering results in so many fingerprints
* Webcam on the bottom bezel is an awful angle
Pros;
* Great screen, touch is a nice add-on but found I rarely use it now
* Keyboard isn't terrible
* Power adapter isn't a brick
Would I do it again. Honestly, not sure. My daily driver isn't the laptop and I just deal. If I had to use the laptop daily, I'd probably reconsider.
I tried the XPS 15 7590 late last year before I switched back to Mac when the 16" MBP came out.
It felt like absolute garbage in comparison. Trackpad was so bad I had to use the touchscreen to scroll. Internet stopped working intermittently. Display felt like far inferior quality (and, like you said, your choices are too few pixels or too many).
It was honestly a confusing experience to me, like reviewers or other people who treat these machines as comparable were living on a different planet or something. Of course I don't expect everyone to like Macs and there's nothing wrong with preferring the Dell but I don't understand why the quality differences are not more widely acknowledged.
> As Coil Whining is a big problem on this model we will try to find out witch parts are causing this noises. First we need to disassemble this notebook and identify the noisy parts.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/8ptfu8/would_you_acce...
> I immediately noticed I felt slightly 'uncomfortable' when it was on, and within about 30 seconds realised that it was emitting coil whine at a volume/pitch high enough to physically bother me. It's like an ever-present noise that I can only imagine must be how low levels of tinnitus feels to people who have to deal with that type of thing. I am pretty disappointed to say the least.
I might just assume that this is random internet griping, but I had this exact same problem on my last Dell laptop (admittedly, it was almost 20 years ago) and it drove me insane when working late at night. It's one of those little "quality of life" things I'm willing to pay extra for. (Not to say that Apple doesn't have quality-of-life issues, like randomly removing ports. But for the most part I find I can solve those issues just by throwing money at the problem. I can't do that with coil whine, or a non-centered keyboard, or a laptop that only offers either an FHD or a 4K display and no power-efficient compromise.