MaximumPC 2008 08

I

n many ways, Dell’s XPS M1530 is the

better notebook of the two. Its screen

is better by a country mile in photo ren-

dering, it’s faster in gaming, it has built-in

EVDO—something you can’t even get from

Apple—and it costs $500 less for compa-

rable hardware.

So why are we declaring the MacBook

Pro the winner? We had a few issues with

our XPS unit, such as unexplainably low

scores in our Premiere Pro CS3 test that

gave us the shivers: It took more than

twice as long as our MacBook Pro to ren-

der video and was quite a bit slower in our

Photoshop CS3 test.

We have no idea why. The XPS was just

about as fast as the MBP in our MainCon-

cept encoding test and faster at slide-show

creation, which would typically translate

to comparable scores in our two Adobe-

based benchmarks.

As for the XPS’s beefy 9-cell bat-

tery, the machine pooped out after 2:45

(hrs:min) of DVD playback. The MacBook

Pro, running the OS X-based DVD app,

had us up past midnight waiting for the

damned thing to die at 3:15—and that’s

using an internal battery that doesn’t pork

up the formfactor. Whether the weak

rundown time was caused by the unopti-

mized Windows Media Center DVD player

or some CPU-sapping third-party app

that Dell installed on the XPS, we weren’t

happy with the results.

The XPS is redeemed in port selec-

tion, with three USB ports, as well as

S-Video, HDMI, and VGA, compared to the

MacBook Pro’s single DVI and two USB

ports. And the XPS clearly has the better

screen. Although favored by professional

photographers, the MBP’s screen is subpar

and displays horrible banding in OS X. The

XPS also bests the MBP with EVDO. And

remember, the XPS is $500 less—and that’s

without taking into account the cost of a

Windows license if to run your games or

other applications on the MBP.

That’s what makes our pick stick in our

craw so much. The XPS is better in many

respects, but it has the same weaknesses

as most OEM PCs. From the get-go, even

though Dell’s load out is better than most

others here, it’s still bogged down by third-

party bloatware. And Vista drivers might

be better today than they were, but some-

thing, somewhere in the XPS is dragging

down battery life and performance.

That puts the admittedly overpriced

MacBook Pro in the pole position. While

that’s likely to piss off many PC diehards,

perhaps it’s time those folks fi nally admit the

MacBook Pro to the power-PC family. –G U

Best in Class: Professional

Don’t rub your eyes, the MacBook is the winner

Premiere Pro CS3 (min:sec) 30:12 65:00

Photoshop CS3 (min:sec) 3:44 4:08

ProShow (min:sec) 34:21 32:28

MainConcept (min:sec) 56:17 57:09

FEAR (fps) 45 49

Quake 4 (fps) 83.5 103.3

Battery Rundown (hrs:min) 3:15 2:45

Best scores are bolded.

Apple MacBook Pro Dell XPS M1530

BENCHMARKS

PROFESSIONAL

PC Notebooks vs. MacBooksMacBooks

42 | MAXIMUMPC | AUG 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com