MacBook Pro 2022 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Which laptop wins?
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Which laptop wins?
The Dell XPS 15 OLED and Apple's MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) are two of our favorite laptops of 2021 here at Tom'southward Guide. Both sport gorgeous displays and deliver excellent performance in slim, elegant chassis that are surprisingly portable for their size.
These are easily two of the all-time laptops y'all can buy right at present, and both cost well-nigh the same, since upgrading the XPS 15 with an OLED display brings its toll upward to that of an entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro. So how do you make up one's mind which is the right laptop for you?
To help you decide, we're pitting the 2 against one some other to highlight each laptop's strengths and weaknesses. This face-off will show you lot which has the all-time brandish, the best performance, the all-time battery life, and ultimately the best value for your needs.
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS xv OLED: Specs
| Dell XPS xv OLED | xvi-inch MacBook Pro 2021 | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | ~$2,299 with OLED upgrade | $2,499 |
| Screen | 15.six-inch OLED display (three,456 10 2,160 pixels) | 16.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display (3456x2244 pixels) |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-11800H | Intel Core i9-11900H | M1 Pro (10-cadre CPU, 16-cadre GPU) | M1 Max (10-core CPU, 32-core GPU) |
| GPU | Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 | Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti | M1 Pro (10-core CPU, 16-core GPU) | M1 Max (x-core CPU, 32-core GPU) |
| Storage | 512GB to 8TB | 512GB to 8TB |
| Retentivity | 16GB to 64GB | 16GB to 64GB |
| Ports | USB 3.ii Type-C (1), Thunderbolt 4 (2), SD bill of fare reader (1), headphone jack | Thunderbolt four (3), HDMI, MagSafe iii, headphone jack, SD retention carte slot |
| Webcam | 720p webcam | 1080p FaceTime Hard disk drive camera |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11ax Killer Wi-Fi 6 | 802.11ax Wi-Fi half-dozen |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.one | Bluetooth five.0 |
| Dimensions | 13.57 10 9.06 x 0.71 inches | 14 x 9.8 x 0.7 inches |
| Weight | 4.2 pounds | iv.vii pounds (M1 Pro) | four.8 pounds (M1 Max) |
MacBook Pro 2021 (sixteen-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Price
With a starting price of around $1,200 (depending on when and where you buy) the Dell XPS 15 is the cheaper laptop by a wide margin, as an entry-level xvi-inch MacBook Pro 2021 costs $2,499.
However, the entry-level XPS fifteen ships with a FHD+ (1,920 x 1,200 pixels) LCD display, which is plenty skillful plenty only lacks the eye-catching vibrancy and contrasts you go with an OLED display. If yous configure the XPS 15 with its optional three.5K OLED display (which is what our review unit had, and what we recommend if yous can beget it) the price goes up to roughly $ii,299, though the price regularly fluctuates by a few hundred bucks due to seasonal deals.
When we reviewed the Dell XPS 15 OLED early in 2021, its cost was closer to $2,400, making this a much closer competition. But unlike Apple tree, Dell has a habit of regularly discounting its products, making the XPS fifteen OLED the clear winner here in terms of affordability.
Winner: Dell XPS 15 OLED
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS fifteen OLED: Design
Both the Dell XPS 15 OLED and the xvi-inch MacBook Pro feature elegant designs that manage to cram big, cute displays, comfy keyboards, and decent port arrays into sparse and (relatively) light chassis less than ane inch thick.
The Dell XPS 15 OLED is slightly smaller and lighter than the 16-inch Pro, and the bezels around its InfinityEdge are so thin information technology's easy to forget they're even there. Having the OLED brandish is especially nice in this regard, because when you're watching something with black around the edges the bezels blend correct in, effectively disappearing from view. At 4.2 pounds, it'south not exactly the lightest laptop, merely in our easily-on testing we constitute the XPS 15 OLED wasn't too painful to bear around in a haversack or messenger bag all 24-hour interval.
Apple's 16-inch Pro is a bit bigger and heavier, though Apple's washed a lot to amend its design compared to prior models. While it's roughly the same size and weight as prior 16-inch Pros, the 2021 model has been improved with a flatter lid, a row of office keys that supercede the controversial Bear on Bar, and thinner bezels around the display. They're not quite as thin as those on the Dell XPS 15 OLED, simply unless you're a existent stickler for screen space information technology doesn't make a big difference.
What might brand a difference is how you feel about the small-scale black notch which extends down past the pinnacle bezel on the 2021 MacBook Pros to house the webcam. In my hands-on testing I found the notch piece of cake to ignore, and afterward a while I even grew to capeesh how it makes the Pro stand out from other laptops.
Both of these laptops are well-designed, with spacious, comfy keyboards and easy-to-apply trackpads. But the Dell XPS 15 OLED is merely a bit lighter and smaller than the 16-inch Pro, with a slightly more than attractive display blueprint. It'due south neck-and-neck, but we take to give this one to the XPS 15 OLED.
Winner: Dell XPS fifteen OLED
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Display
Both of these laptops sport big, beautiful displays, making them keen for watching videos, playing games, or (if you admittedly have to) getting work done. They utilise ii different display technologies (OLED vs. mini-LED) that both deliver higher brightness levels, better contrast, and more than vibrant colors than you'll see on traditional LCD displays.
The OLED brandish is an optional upgrade for the Dell XPS 15, but after spending time with a number of both OLED and non-OLED XPS laptops I highly recommend you invest in OLED if y'all tin afford it. The 3.5K OLED touchscreen on the XPS xv makes just well-nigh everything you lot do on it look better, in part because each pixel on an OLED screen is its ain individual light source that can be switched on or off independently. That means that when a pixel is black, it's switched off and thus very, very black, which allows the display to accomplish much better contrasts between low-cal and dark than virtually non-OLED displays.
In my experience, that means that when you're watching something (particularly 4K HDR content) on the Dell XPS 15 OLED you'll detect more than subtle gradations in the color and brightness of the image than yous would on a non-OLED model. It'due south a small but significant departure, and one that's made it hard for me to go back to using non-OLED displays. In fact, after reviewing the XPS 15 OLED I went ahead and upgraded my 4K Roku Television set to an LG CX OLED TV, just to relish the same display quality on a much bigger screen.
As proficient equally the XPS xv OLED is, the Liquid Retina XDR display on Apple's 2021 MacBook Pro is no slouch either. It'southward a mini-LED display, which means the LEDs used to backlight the screen are about a fifth the size of those used in most LCD displays. Since they're much smaller, Apple tree can squeeze a lot more of them behind the screen, and that gives the MacBook Pro much effectively control over which pixels are lit and which are dark. This in turn allows it to achieve much brighter brights, darker darks, and better contrasts than displays with bigger LEDs. Mini-LED displays tin can deliver paradigm quality that's competitive with OLED displays, and they're cheaper to make than OLED screens.
That'due south a long way of saying the 2021 MacBook Pro's display makes photos, videos, and games wait nigh as good as they do on the XPS xv OLED. I reviewed both laptops, and if y'all displayed the same content on both side-by-side I'd have a hard time telling you which was improve. They're about the aforementioned resolution too, though Apple's laptop has a slight edge in terms of how many pixels it can display (3456 x 2234 pixels for the sixteen-inch MacBook Pro 2021 vs 3,456 x 2,160 pixels on the XPS 15 OLED). Apple'southward laptop also has a higher refresh rate than the Dell XPS xv OLED, which is stuck at 60 Hz compared to the MacBook Pro 2021'southward 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate.
We subjected each laptop to a battery of brandish tests in our lab, and we constitute that the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2021 can achieve higher brightness levels than the XPS 15 OLED. Both deliver pretty skillful color accurateness, as each earned a Delta-Eastward score of 0.21 (the closer to 0, the better). The Dell XPS 15 OLED achieved slightly more vibrant colors than the xvi-inch Pro, displaying 120.1% of the sRGB colour spectrum compared to the 2021 Pro'southward 109.3%. Notwithstanding, that'south non necessarily a good thing, every bit a score of 100% is considered almost accurate.
Given those scores and the higher refresh rate of the MacBook Pro's brandish, we take to give this category to Apple. It's overnice that the OLED brandish on the XPS 15 is besides a touchscreen, only as beautiful every bit it is (one time you wipe off the fingerprints), if you intendance about brightness, color accuracy, or refresh rate the MacBook Pro is the better laptop for you.
Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Ports
Having a variety of ports makes a laptop a more versatile and useful device, which is why information technology was and then prissy to see Apple add an HDMI out and an SD card reader to the lineup of Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports on the 2021 MacBook Pros.
Alongside those ii welcome additions, the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2021 sports three Thunderbolt iv/USB4 ports spread beyond both sides, which gives you some options well-nigh what to plug in where. You lot can also charge via these ports, for even more than flexibility. Apple'southward as well brought dorsum MagSafe charging with a MagSafe 3 charging port, which is squeamish to take since the magnetic connector is both easy to plug in and quick to break away in the outcome something yanks on the laptop or charging cord. Plus, there'south a headphone jack, which isn't always guaranteed on Apple products.
The Dell XPS xv OLED doesn't offer quite as many port options, but what information technology has is good enough for most people. Specifically, information technology has three USB-C ports spread across both sides, which once again gives yous a lot of flexibility on where to plug in your charger and accessories. Information technology likewise offers an SD card reader and a headphone jack, as well as a Kensington security slot that you tin slide a Kensington lock into to foreclose theft.
Dell also packs in a USB-C to USB-A adapter with the XPS xv OLED, a nice touch that saves you having to buy one of your own if you lot want to plug in an older accessory. I wish Apple tree had shown MacBook Pro 2021 customers the same courtesy. Withal, the Pro's HDMI out and MagSafe charging port give information technology a slight edge in terms of port options.
Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021)
MacBook Pro 2021 (xvi-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Performance
Both of these laptops are powerful plenty to handle simply virtually anyone'southward daily workload without complaint. But when we compare the functioning of these two laptops, there'south no question the 2021 MacBook Pro beats the XPS xv OLED in just about every test we put them through. That'south largely thanks to the remarkable ability and efficiency of Apple's M1 Pro and M1 Max fries, which make their debut in these 2021 Pros.
For the purposes of this comparison we're going to utilise the benchmark results of the 14-inch Pro with the weaker M1 Pro because that's the flake you'll get with an entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro, whereas our 16-inch MacBook Pro review unit arrived with an upgraded M1 Max chip. However, based on our testing the M1 Pro is nearly every bit powerful as the M1 Max in most applications, so don't experience like y'all're missing out if y'all choose not to upgrade to an M1 Max.
Starting time, permit'south compare the results we saw when we put each laptop through the Geekbench 5.4 multicore CPU benchmarking exam. Our Dell XPS 15 OLED review unit (Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD) earned a score of vii,477, which is quite skilful for an ultraportable laptop. But our 14-inch MacBook Pro 2021 review unit (M1 Pro w/ ten-core CPU and sixteen-core GPU, 32 GB of RAM, i TB SSD) accomplished a remarkable score of 12,477, handily beating the XPS 15 OLED.
In our video editing exam, which tasks each laptop with transcoding a 4K video file down to 1080p using Handbrake, the 2021 MacBook Pro was most twice as fast every bit the XPS fifteen OLED (4:55 vs 8:x).
And while the XPS 15 OLED is better equipped to play most PC games thanks to its discrete Nvidia GPU, the 2021 MacBook Pros are no slouch in the gaming department either. Instead, they're handicapped past the fact that many game developers don't port their games to Macs and don't optimize them for Apple tree silicon.
Keep that in mind when I say that when we tasked each laptop with running the graphical performance examination in Sid Meier'southward Civilization Half-dozen: Gathering Storm (which we apply as a benchmark because information technology runs on a wide variety of machines), the Dell XPS 15 OLED was able to deliver more frames per second than the M1 Pro-powered MacBook Pro. Specifically, the Pro achieved 46.xix frames per second running the benchmark at 1,512x 982 (the maximum resolution the game would let us run the test at) while the XPS 15 OLED delivered 67.1 fps at 1080p (ane,920 x ane,080 pixels) and 41.9 fps at 3.5K (3,456 x 2,160 pixels).
Admittedly, information technology's very odd that we couldn't convince Civ Vi to run its graphical benchmark in a college resolution on the 14-inch Pro. Nosotros were able to convince it to run in 1080p on the 16-inch Pro with its improved M1 Max bit, merely even so the Pro accomplished only 46.1 frames per second. This is a adept example of how hard it can be to become the all-time gaming performance out of a MacBook, for reasons that aren't entirely Apple's error.
So while yous'll become better gaming performance out of the Dell XPS 15 OLED, overall nosotros have to declare the MacBook Pro the clear winner hither. We didn't even mention the functioning benefits of its sixteen-cadre Neural Engine (which helps out with machine learning tasks and prototype signal processing) and defended media encode/decode engines, which can aid boost performance when editing video.
Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 2021 (sixteen-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Audio
Speakers are rarely the starting time thing nosotros think about when nosotros're talking well-nigh buying a new laptop, merely unless yous ever work with headphones (or in silence) they'll have a big impact on your daily life.
Both of these laptops feature decent speaker setups, with special cutouts on either side of the laptop (just below the keyboard deck) that assist the audio quality remain loud and clear even when you lot accept them on a tabular array or lap. The Dell XPS 15 OLED gets quite loud, and its 4-speaker assortment delivers treble and vocals that sound slap-up even from several rooms away, though the bass lacks punch.
As good as they are, in my feel the Dell XPS 15 OLED's speakers tin can't quite match the half-dozen-speaker setup in the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2021. Not only does information technology evangelize warm, resonant vocals even at loftier book, but the 2021 Pro kicks out deeper, more than impactful bass than the XPS fifteen OLED or, indeed, any Windows laptop I've tested. Then if sound quality is of import to you, the winner here is Apple tree's laptop.
Winner: Apple tree MacBook Pro 2021 (xvi-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (sixteen-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Webcam
If you care most how y'all wait on video calls, the Dell XPS 15 OLED's 720p webcam might get out you feeling a bit underwhelmed. While it's completely serviceable (indeed, I utilize it for a lot of my weekly meetings), in my experience it captures images and video that await washed-out and grainy.
The 2021 MacBook Pro'south 1080p webcam makes you look quite a bit better past comparison, equally it does a better job of capturing details and gradations in light and shadow.
However, annotation that the XPS 15 OLED also has an IR camera that lets you use Windows Hello to log in via facial recognition, if yous so choose. The MacBook Pro 2021, by comparing, offers no option to log in via Face ID. Still, unless you really beloved logging in with your face we have to say the winner here is Apple's laptop.
Winner: Apple tree MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS xv OLED: Battery life
Nosotros test the battery life of every laptop we review at Tom's Guide by tasking it with endlessly browsing the spider web over Wi-Fi, with its screen effulgence set to 150 nits. The Dell XPS xv OLED performed well plenty in that examination, lasting 6 hours and 58 minutes, merely that'due south not actually plenty to go on you from having to worry about finding a identify to plug in during a busy workday.
Apple's 16-inch MacBook Pro absolutely smoked the XPS fifteen OLED in this regard, as it lasted 15 hours and 31 minutes in the same test. That beats fifty-fifty Apple's 14-hour estimate, and information technology'due south well-nigh double the battery life of the XPS 15 OLED.
So if you care about being able to use your laptop all day without worrying well-nigh carrying a charger, Apple tree's MacBook Pro 2021 has yous covered — and it's the clear winner in this category.
Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS fifteen OLED: Verdict
If yous've made it this far you tin hopefully see that both of these laptops are first-class, well-rounded devices that are powerful plenty to handle demanding piece of work like video editing and game development, while however being graceful plenty to carry effectually all mean solar day without also much trouble. They both offer gorgeous displays, comfortable keyboards, good speakers and a solid array of ports packed into well-designed chassis that await good on a desk.
But unless you plan to exercise a lot of gaming on your new laptop, the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2021 has a winning border over the XPS 15 OLED. While Dell's laptop is a chip more affordable, Apple's latest MacBook Pro offers better operation in nearly every regard, better battery life, and a broader array of ports. The 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and college peak brightness on its Liquid Retina XDR brandish is also nice to have, especially if you programme to edit HDR content, though personally I'm quite happy with the vibrant colors and beautiful contrasts of the XPS 15's OLED display.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/face-off/macbook-pro-2021-16-inch-vs-dell-xps-15-oled-which-laptop-wins
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