I've had several Dell laptops over the years (4 from ~2003-2012), and while things may have changed in the last 4 years, I would be very surprised to see even a halfway decent trackpad, build quality, and battery life from Dell. I also have the HP Spectre x360 (from Microsoft Build 2015), which was considered to be one of the best Windows laptops available at the time, and its trackpad is one of the most awful devices I've ever had to use. The rest of the laptop is great (screen, keyboard, build quality, even battery), but if I hadn't gotten the laptop for free, I would've returned it for the trackpad alone.

I feel the need to respond here because in every thread about MBPs people mention the Dell XPS line as an alternative, and after buying one I can NOT recommend it as a good buy.

The Dell XPS laptops have got one thing going for them: relatively good build quality. They don't feel or look cheap, which already puts it ahead of most PCs in the market. Just walk into your local Best Buy and see the junk they are selling to people.

From my experience the most recent Dell XPS 15" has several issues, but I'll mention the two object and non-anecdotal issues:

- They suffer from "coil whine," which is when internal components resonate and cause an audible high frequency noise. It is super annoying, and a huge disappointment for a ~$2k purchase. Even the new Dell XPS 13" which just got refreshed with the new Intel Kaby Lake processors still suffers from this, which shows Dell didn't care to fix a widely documented issue that has been known for a long time. Just Google "dell xps coil whine."

- The 4K screen has way too much glare, and they quickly strained my eyes. The low resolution version don't suffer from this, but I imagine most people are getting the 4K touch display.

I won't get into the Mac vs Windows vs Linux debate, because you won't be enjoying the XPS with buzzing noises and glares in your eyes with any OS.

Ater wasting time with the Dell XPS, I went and happily paid the Apple "premium" for the 2016 MBP. And don't get me started on Thinkpads, they are simply not what they used to be.

> MPB is a pretty bad value

You show me laptop with the level of hardware/software integration as a MBP, and a no-BS *nix desktop experience, and I promise you I'll be the first one in line to buy one.

It boggles the mind that no "PC" manufacturer has done what Apple has done with hardware design and integration. Apple has been hitting it out of the park for at least 4-6 years, plenty of time for some other company to do it themselves. Even Microsoft is struggling (although the "Surface" products are really good)

The only thing I can think is that it's really difficult and expensive to iron out all those little hardware bugs.

It is without a doubt not easy task to release a product with the polish of a MBP, but as you said, you would think there would be something competing at an equal level by now.

I don't think Lenovo's efforts lived up to the glory of the Thinkpad line, but I will give them credit for the X1 Carbon. Though the Carbon only comes in a 14" model.

From an industrial design standpoint, the Surface Book is fantastic and demands respect. I bought the Surface Book when it first came out, and that thing was always overheating, which is a no-go for something trying to be a tablet/notebook. It also suffered from various issues when it launched. Microsoft actually asked Best Buy to stop selling them for a brief moment while the issues were fixed.

> It is without a doubt not easy task to release a product with the polish of a MBP, but as you said, you would think there would be something competing at an equal level by now.

I feel Ubuntu could have been there if they had continued their effort to create a rock-solid Gnome 2 experience instead of starting to copy Mac for no good reason (dock, window decorations, alt-tab handling etc).

Now Ubuntu has lost a few years of development time and what once made a hardcode KDE fan like Gnome now feels completely alien to the point where I have stopped even testing the LTS releases.

A friend of mine returned his surface pro 4 after 48 hours. A software update bricked it and it would not turn on. It really put me of buying one. My current laptop is ten years old an still going strong with a ram and sad upgrade If it died tomorrow I don't know what I would replace it with.

I do agree that you can pick up a good linux laptop that will run circles around today's MBP (system76 fully spec'd lemur or gazelle) but, imo the overall industrial design leaves a bit to be desired.

I have a Dell XPS Developer edition - I definitely think it's a step in the right direction. I agree with you in terms of screen and build quality. The battery life is mediocre at best. The trackpad isn't terrible but it's certainly not something I'd compare to my MacBook (even a 2010 model). OS complaints aside, mac trackpads really stand out.