New i5 MacBook Air or Dell XPS for WoW, Study, Work?

[Alvorea]

Things you need to know before posting:

-> Added MacBook Pro on the grid.
-> Never had an apple and always wanted to
-> I am a Designer and Photoshopper
-> I want to be able to play WoW on my new laptop every now and then
-> I will be using and carrying it around
-> I want a long battery time
-> I put the XPS on the fight becouse I know that hardware wise its a really nice laptop for its price
-> i look at mbp's i5 and mba's i5 and both without video cards and i think that if mbp can handle wow, mba can too.
-> all my design stuff i carry in a external hard drive so I wont be using much of my new's laptop hd.

MacBook Pro 13":

• Intel Core i5
  dual core 2,3GHz
• 4GB 1333MHz
• 320GB 5400 rpm1
• Intel HD Graphics 3000
  
  Questions: Is the 5400 rpm hd that bad?
  Why this Intel Graphics 3000 can handle WoW and the New MBA's ones cannot?
  
  

MacBook Air 13":

• 128gb flashdrive hd
• Intel Core i5 dual core 1,7GHz
• 4GB ram
• Intel HD Graphics 3000
• Light and Thin, plus a sexy design

Dell XPS 15":
- Windows 7 ® Home Premium 64-bit Portuguese
- Second Generation Intel ® Core ™ i7-2630QM (2.00GHz, up to 2.90GHz with Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)
- LED Screen 15.6 HD 1080p
- Memory 6GB Dual Channel DDR3 1333MHz (1x2GB +1 x4Gb)
- 500GB hard drive (7200RPM)
- NVIDIA ® GeForce ® GT540M 2GB
- Optical reader and writer CD/DVD- / + RW and Blu-Ray
- Intel Centrino Wireless Card N1030 (L502X) and Bluetooth 3.0
- Bigger, but got a bigger screen as well plus nice sound output and a better hardware than Air.

All go for the exact same price, and these are what i can afford now.

What would you buy?

[Cavus]

The dell is so much better. I'd check out asus if you are looking for somthing with a lot of muscle. They aren't very portable though.

[Rendhammer]

better hardware than Air.

Both go for the exact same price

I think you answered yourself. Honestly if that doesn't choose for you then we can't help.

[Theed]

As a designer i would buy the macbook (pro or air).
But you also want to play on it and with the Intel HD Graphics 3000 you wont have any fun.
Don't buy the Dell - it is overpriced shit tbh. Buy a Samsung or Asus notebook.

[Penric]

I would buy the Air.

[gmart248]

macbook. much better for work and study.

[mirix]

Anyone who says buy the Macbook Air is an apple fanboy. The air is crap compared to that Dell. A PC with the same specs as that air runs about $600-700. You're paying for the name. Apples for the most part aren't worth it.

[baller1308]

If you plan on gaming then the Dell is a no brainer as the MBA's gfx card shares it's memory.

[Deleted]

i love apple (fanboy myself)

they have a great os and you can play most games on high settings.
a good friend of mine has his apple macbookpro for 4 years now and can still play allmsot all new games on high settings, only sometimes he has to set shadow to low.
and the apple laptops are definitly great for designers and such.

but for games i would stick by playstation or xbox or just a good hardware pc.

edit: oh and ppl saying you pay for the name its actually paying for the good NO error bullshit software that windows has. designing on apple is so relaxing and no stressful 24/7 with windows

[ispano]

i love apple (fanboy myself)

they have a great os and you can play most games on high settings.
a good friend of mine has his apple macbookpro for 4 years now and can still play allmsot all new games on high settings, only sometimes he has to set shadow to low.
and the apple laptops are definitly great for designers and such.

but for games i would stick by playstation or xbox or just a good hardware pc.

edit: oh and ppl saying you pay for the name its actually paying for the good NO error bullshit software that windows has. designing on apple is so relaxing and no stressful 24/7 with windows

And I say it's paying for the name. Using an apple only makes me want to punch a hole in the screen. Wait that's not relaxing. Point is they're opinions. And I rarely have issues with Windows, and to go with that, OSX isn't perfect either.

[BicycleMafioso]

The Macbook Air, while I've looked at it for other reasons personally (it's cheap and ultrathin), will not be able to play Wow.
It doesn't have a graphics card.
It has, across the board, worse hardware.

But on the other hand, it's not a Dell. But if you intend to play anything at all on it, the MacBook Air is the wrong option.

[FlawlessSoul]

Steer clear of the Macbook Air. They overheat more than normal Macbooks, which can easily roast you as it is. They're well built as most Apple products are, but they're ridiculously overpriced and woefully underpowered. You pay a huge premium for the thickness of the laptop, and that is all.

Dell XPS are decent overall, go with that if you intend to do anything more demanding than word processing or web browsing.

[Deleted]

For light office and browsing, the air's lightweight profile makes it a highly attractive option.

The XPS more powerful hardware and resolution (in addition to better keyboard) makes it a better multitasker and gaming system; at the cost of portability.

Most of the time, students do not require any significant battery time; from experience most motivate it through distractions in lectures, not actual productivity.

Fundamentally, which system is 'right' will depend on these two factors.
As a reminder though, you will need to put out additional money for a Windows licence if you require the use of Windows based software on the MBA.

[Tyrianth]

Air is wonderful for study purposes but not so much for gaming. Out of those 2 choices I would say the Dell.

Though you could always get a refurbished MacBook Pro.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC227LL/A

That's the model I have and can run WoW very well.

[Arslay]

Please do NOT buy the Apple. It does not have a dedicated graphics chip/card. The Macbook Air's Intel HD 3000 is slightly better than a paperclip. That means that you will have to run wow on very low setting with low fps first of all. The Dell's GPU is quite good actually. Secondly, the Dell's CPU is about 2 times stronger AND has hyper-threading (extra virtual cores, very good for video editing) You will see a massive increase with the Dell. The Dell also has more/better ram and more storage, HOWEVER.

The apple does have an SSD (as i understand) which can significantly decrease loading times of programs, though it won't help for anything else. Unforunately, the Pro/Air do not have an effective cooling solutions and people have been burned. oops sorry old link, google it. I don;t like Dell, but this seems to be a clear decision.

The Dell wins. Listen to the tech people, I implore you. Some of the non-tech people here seem to think that a larger screen gives better performance. =/


The Apple fanboys do not have evidence, ignore them and their opinions. (Unbiased here)

[Kronyk88]

AS title says, here is the specs: (I am a graphic designer, photoshopper and study)

MacBook Air:

• 128gb flashdrive hd
• Intel Core i5 dual core de 1,7GHz
• 4GB de memória
• Intel HD Graphics 3000 (is this any good?)
• Light and Thin, plus a sexy design

Dell XPS:


- Windows 7 ® Home Premium 64-bit Portuguese
- Second Generation Intel ® Core ™ i7-2630QM (2.00GHz, up to 2.90GHz with Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)
- LED Screen 15.6 HD 1080p
- Memory 6GB Dual Channel DDR3 1333MHz (1x2GB +1 x4Gb)
- 500GB hard drive (7200RPM)
- NVIDIA ® GeForce ® GT540M 2GB
- Optical reader and writer CD/DVD- / + RW and Blu-Ray
- Intel Centrino Wireless Card N1030 (L502X) and Bluetooth 3.0
- Bigger, but got a bigger screen as well plus nice sound output and a better hardware than Air.

Both go for the exact same price here and I would like to know what would you buy?

I'd stick with apple BUT would not buy a macbook air. I'd personally recommend a 15" macbook pro

[Tyrianth]

Unforunately, the Pro/Air do not have an effective cooling solutions and people have been burned.

Did you just use a five year old thread as proof. Hey, I can do that too!

Dell laptops have been known to burn people! Here's my proof.

[Zantumall]

Did you just use a five year old thread as proof. Hey, I can do that too!

Dell laptops have been known to burn people! Here's my proof.

His evidence might be old, but at least he's not a smartass.

On-Topic: I would definitely suggest not buying the Apple computer, especially not as it's an Air. Apple computers are vastly overpriced and typically don't have the greatest hardware. As many other people have said, you're paying for the name. The Dell laptop you posted seems a fairly good choice,

If you like the Macintosh OS enough for it to factor into your decision, you could always buy the Dell and dual-boot a Linux distro; that should give you everything you wanted from Macintosh and more if you put in a few weeks to learn it.

[Mostowizard]

if you want to game, don't buy the macbook. Its really that simple. That being said, I always recommend steering clear of laptops that cost more than $1000. For that price, you are almost always better off buying a $500 laptop AND a $500 desktop that you can use for gaming. Case in point:

For $1500 (CAD) you can buy an alienware m17x with a, i7 2630QM at 2.8 gHz, 4 GB of RAM, a 1GB Radeon 6870M, and integrated sound.

OR

You could buy a cheap, small ultralight like the HP Pavillion G4 ($500, I bought a DM3 for $300 on sale) and with the remaining $1000 build a desktop + buy a monitor. An $800 desktop will almost always outperform a $1500 laptop, and you can always upgrade the desktop. Example:

The $700 "Sweet Spot" build with a 560 Ti would run you about $820 CAD if you shopped around.


In short, cheap laptop + desktop > gaming laptop. The ONLY situation in which I could recommend buying a gaming laptop would be if the person had no space for a desktop in their living space. If that is the problem, I recommend they stop gaming and get a damned job.

[Tremelizzer]

Don't buy the Dell - it is overpriced shit tbh.

Oh the irony. Apple isn't overpriced? Like 20-50% higher price is just because it's an Apple but hardware is still garbage compared to other computers of the same price. For instance a desktop Mac with hardware that for a PC costs around 1000-1500€ costs 3000-4000€ as an Apple product. And it's still mostly the same parts.