[lucaspiller]

Not sure why people are downvoting you, but yes you are right. That's the reason why so many people are frustrated about this. I don't want a "Dell XPS Pro" I want a Mac. I hope this model is just a stepping stone (apparently even the 13" has thermal support for current gen quad-core CPUs) for something a lot more powerful next year.

[eropple]

I downvoted him because PC manufacturers make really good laptops these days. It's not the days of hollow-body plastic things like the old Dell Studios (my last PC laptop, from about 2008). The world's caught up. I probably would already own a Razer Blade Pro if I wouldn't be embarrassed by that green thing on the lid. Sager makes really solid machines that feel good to use, too, and right now I'm strongly considering a Thinkpad P50.

Apple makes kind of above-average computers, and ones that fall down for current-day, up-to-date professional uses. They make a better operating system. The reason people are pissed is because Apple used to do both, and it's rapidly becoming the case that the lousy hardware and high prices aren't balancing out the operating system. If not for already being comfortable, it would probably be more effective for me to switch between Windows and Linux as necessary on PC hardware (both desktop and laptop) than to use OS X anywhere. That's why I'm probably going to have to switch, and that's why I'm kinda mad.

[chrischen]

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/3ygjbg/estimated_...

Estimated battery life is quite bad for it. This is I'm assuming the base configuration with 16gb ram, so if you jack that up to 32 or 64, battery probably drops significantly more.

It's these details of actual use that drive me to apple, as I've tried thick, full of ports, jacked up laptops with touch screens and in practice they almost always never work well.

[curt15]

Apple's 10 hour battery life estimate assumes that you are just browsing the web. If you want to do "pro" activities put the CPU/GPU under any sort of sustained load, the smallness of the battery will become apparent very quickly (see for instance http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/11/review-cheapest-2016-ma...)

[scholia]

Dell XPS is a high-end consumer brand, like Apple. They can be used by professionals but they're not really pro designs.

Dell's professional brands are Latitude, OptiPlex and Precision. If you want a power-user workstation, you could have a look at the Precision line.

[PuffinBlue]

Sort of. If what you are doing is CPU bound then the Precision line has more options with their Xeon CPU.

But, if anything you do could even be mildly improved with GPU support you're better off looking elsewhere. Most of the precision line are on some old Quattro's which are simply annihilated but the new released GTX 10 series GPU's.

Most of the base line CPUs are the lower 6300HQ models too, rather than the 6700HQ you get in others like the XPS 15 line or nearly all of the gaming laptops now released, so you have to bump the price straight away to get comparable baseline performance on many other models.

I'm very much looking around at the moment for a new laptop as a MacBook Pro (2010) refugee and have looked at way too many to list here.

So do consider the Precision line but it's certainly not the 'best' one out there.

Incidentally, one of the best I've seen is actually the new Razer Blade (if you put a skin or cover over that horrible logo) or even the Alienware 13 with the OLED screen.

Whilst these are traditionally 'gaming' setups, the Razer Blade certainly has the style and form factor to mimic the MacBook and the Alienware with it's toned down styling looks far more like the business Dell's of yesteryear. The Alienware also has what almost all reviewers/users state to be an exceptional keyboard (something where the XPS line has not done so well).

As for upcoming models, the Q1 2017 release of the XPS 15 would most likely come with a GTX 1050 (unless they copy Razer and find some Vapour Chamber cooling magic and stick a GTX 1060 in there) and it'll also probably have one of the first of Intel's Kaby Lake quad core mobile series too.

So it may be worth waiting if you can to see what comes in the next few months as there is a MASSIVE amount of change occurring with Nvidia's new GPU and Intel's new CPU offerings.