Dell XPS 17 (9700) vs Apple Macbook Pro 16: Which One You Should Choose?

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The Dell XPS 17 9700 and Apple Macbook Pro 16 are compared here. Both the laptops are great performing but here, we’ll see which one is better as per their price range. 

If you want to check out more comparisons like this- Dell XPS 15 9500 vs Apple Macbook Pro 16

BUY NOW	BUY NOW
DELL XPS 17 9700	APPLE MACBOOK PRO 16
PROS	PROS
Bright, immersive, 16:10 display. Impressive CPU and graphics power. Slim bezels and attractive design.	Improved thermals. Excellent speakers. Magic Keyboard feels great. Battery life of nearly 11 hours.
CONS	CONS
Average quality webcam. Not for everyone.	No full-size USB port or SD card. Bit heavy.

SPECIFICATIONS

INTRODUCTION:

In this comparison, both the laptops are expensive, popular, great performing for video editing and gaming. We compare most of the main things on these laptops which give you a clear idea that which one is better in which factor. 

DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION:

You’ll agree these are both beautifully designed laptops. The XPS is a little bit thicker and also depending on the model you go for quite a bit heavier. So, there are actually two models on the XPS 17 9700 is with a 56-watt hour battery and another one with a 97 watt-hour battery. The lighter one is 2.1 kilograms and the heavier one 2.5 kilograms which is pretty hefty, I mean it’s not bad at all for a 17-inch performance laptop but compared to the MacBook Pro 16 which weighs just about 2 kilograms. the XPS is a good deal heavier and Apple actually has a massive 99.9-watt-hour battery.

If this is going to be your desktop replacement and you just keep it on your desk all the time, then it doesn’t really matter what it weighs but if you’re taking this to college or work with you and you’re putting it in your backpack, then that weight might make a bit of a difference. The Macbook Pro is definitely a little bit more portable but build quality is top-notch on both and which looks better and it really comes down to personal preference. With the space grey all-aluminum Macbook Pro versus the copper and fiber design of the Dell.

DISPLAY:

There are three reasons these laptops stand out; the design, the performance, and also the displays which look absolutely stunning on both and also impressively color accurate, although the MacBook leans towards DCI-P3 Gamma whereas the XPS is more accurate in terms of Adobe RGB. So, they both look great but there are some important differences between the screens. Most notably, the XPS 17 which has a Full 4K Plus display and we get a touch screen, so that’s pretty handy and if you pair it with Dell’s active stylus pen, then if you enter in the digital drawing or note-taking then that is something you just simply can’t have on a Macbook Pro right now.

The XPS also supports display HDR 500 and Dolby vision HDR which is a nice extra for watching or even editing 4K content. So, the fact is the XPS is sharper, you can watch and edit 4K natively and the touch screen makes it more versatile. The downside of that resolution is it impact battery life. It’s not to say, there’s anything wrong with the Macbook Pro screen. It’s still incredibly sharp and has the same peak brightness of 500 nits but it just likes a few of the extra features of the 4K Dell. I think something we can almost all agree on though is the preference for this 16:10 aspect ratio or even maybe 3:2 like you get on the Surface laptops.

FEATURES:

In terms of pricing especially on the XPS, it gets a little tricky as it offers so many options. The XPS 17 starts at $1400 but that’s just with integrated graphics and an i5. If you want a model with discrete graphics and a 4K display, you have to pay $2850. Compared to the Macbook Pro 16 which starts at $2400 or with the 5600M, it costs $3500 although that is with the more expensive i9 and i7 and the upgraded graphics, it’s $3,200 but either way a good few hundred more than the Dell and still with last-gen processors.

I do appreciate there are only so many ways you can make a good laptop but it does feel like Dell’s taken maybe a page out of Apple’s Macbook this year with the speaker grilles flanking the keyboard, the much bigger trackpad, and also the shifter full USB-C. Both laptops offer fingerprint readers but the Dell also gives us face locking with the Windows Hello webcam. 

When it comes to ports, they’re pretty much identical. We get four USB-C Thunderbolt 3 and a headphone jack on the MacBook Pro and also for USB- Thunderbolt 3 on the XPS 17 along with the headphone jack but also Dell did one-up the MacBook by adding a full-size SD card reader which may be pretty handy generally for some people.

As for the keyboard and the touchpad, they’re both lovely to use and it is really subjective. Dell’s Keys have a softer and more rubbery feel whereas the MacBook feels more classy. Both have gigantic touchpads but just given how slick the gesture support is with Mac OS, maybe most of the people choose the Macbook trackpad.

PERFORMANCE:

Compared to the XPS 15, the XPS 17 gives us the option for a more powerful 10th gen i7 10875H processor. We also now get the option for the NVIDIA RTX 2060 Max-Q. In terms of memory and storage, it also got 16 GB of Ram and one terabyte of storage, both are upgradable on the Dell but that’s something you can’t do on the MacBook. As for the Macbook Pro 16, we still have last year’s 9th gen processors along with 16 GB of Ram and one terabyte of storage but importantly, I expect this one with the newer and faster aim the Radeon Pro 5600M.

In Cinebench R20, the XPS 17 is 5.5% faster and in Geekbench-5 single-core, performance is neck-and-neck although surprisingly the XPS 17 pulls away with its multi-core score with its 17.5% lead over the MacBook. Coming to the graphics performance, in Geekbench is OpenCL test, the RTX 2070 Max-Q Dell is nearly 80% faster than the 5600M and then in UNIGINE Valley benchmark and using the extreme HD preset with OpenGL, the MacBook actually performed better at 72 FPS versus 62 on the Dell. So finally in the Novabench test, the MacBook scores 2309 versus 3208 on the XPS. It seems pretty clear that at least in terms of multi-core CPU performance, the XPS 17 does win and as you’d expect considering the 10th gen versus the 9th gen chips.

In terms of graphics performance, I think there are just too many variables of which we got windows versus Mac and NVIDIA versus AMD, the fact that I have to use some older benchmarks because not everything is available on both. The graphics kind of perform within 20% of each other but depending on the test, so really it’s gonna come down to real-world performance. I tested both the laptops with the available range of games which are Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Total War: Three Kingdoms. In these games, the results are XPS 17 9700 had 6.5% more fps than the Macbook Pro and 33% more fps in Tomb Raider and Total War: Three Kingdoms respectively.

Video editing is the most important thing for most people. I tested these laptops by running the same 10-minute 4K export on each laptop in Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Final Cut Pro on the Mac, and the results are really interesting. The XPS took less than half the time of the Mac in Premiere and even knocked off a good 30 seconds in DaVinci. Final Cut is still incredibly well optimized for the Mac though, for a lot of people that’s a big reason to go for an Apple laptop. It all comes down to what program you use.

BATTERY:

In terms of battery life, it’s a pretty clear win for the MacBook. We get the slightly bigger battery inside plus that lower resolution, all helps it last a couple of hours longer than the Dell. So, we get about 8.5 hours with average use versus about 6 hours on the XPS 17 which is about the same maybe half an hour longer than the XPS 15 also the 4K model but if you are on the go and traveling a lot, then the battery life of Macbook Pro does make it a better option.

WHICH TO BUY?

Altogether, if you use Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve for editing, I would probably go with the XPS 17 but you can’t go wrong with either and it all comes down to how you use it. In all the tests, the XPS 17 9700 has more scores than the Macbook Pro 16, and also XPS 17 is less priced comparatively. So, you can save some money by choosing the XPS 17.

Expert reviews of Dell XPS 17 9700:

By Expertreviews
A magnificent laptop with a wonderful display – the perfect laptop for professional photo editors.

By Cnet
It’s one of the smallest 17-inch laptops for creative use I’ve seen — barely larger than its middle sibling, the XPS 15 9500 and only a bit more substantial than a MacBook Pro 16. And in many ways, it’s one of my favorite big boys to date.

By Theverge
This isn’t the best laptop for anyone who’s mostly working in Chrome around the house or in libraries or coffee shops. It’s really for power users who might need to occasionally work on the go and who have found that smaller screens and lower-powered systems fall short of their needs. For that person, this is the best laptop to buy.

Expert reviews of Apple Macbook Pro 16:

By Pcmag
With a larger display, a beefier graphics chip, and (vitally and finally!) an improved keyboard, Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro is a beyond-capable big-screen powerhouse built for creatives.

By Theguardian
The 16in MacBook Pro is most certainly not the laptop for general users who just want a big screen – the price alone should be able to tell you that. But if you know you need this sort of capability, then the MacBook Pro is in a similar price bracket to competitors and can be specified with a frankly absurd amount of capacity, which might make the difference.

By Indiatoday
If you are professional making money with your videos, photos, software development, IT work that requires a top-of-the-line machine, it is worth splurging on the MacBook Pro 16-inch. If you are someone who is looking to upgrade their old 15-inch MacBook Pro, you will find the new MacBook Pro 16-inch an ideal machine.

Arya

Hello! I'm Surendar Arya, a passionate tech writer from Uttar Pradesh, India. I'm a freelance contributor to the tech blog - The World's Best And Worst. My enthusiasm for technology drives me to explore the latest trends and innovations in the field. I take immense pleasure in guiding individuals on how to leverage technology for their benefit, making their lives easier and more efficient.