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 fifteen OLED and Apple's MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) are two of our favorite laptops of 2021 here at Tom's Guide. Both sport gorgeous displays and deliver excellent functioning in slim, elegant chassis that are surprisingly portable for their size.
These are easily two of the best laptops you can buy right now, and both cost about the same, since upgrading the XPS fifteen with an OLED display brings its toll up to that of an entry-level sixteen-inch MacBook Pro. So how practise you determine which is the right laptop for you?
To help you decide, we're pitting the ii against one another to highlight each laptop's strengths and weaknesses. This face-off will show you which has the all-time display, the all-time performance, the all-time battery life, and ultimately the all-time value for your needs.
MacBook Pro 2021 (xvi-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Specs
| Dell XPS fifteen OLED | xvi-inch MacBook Pro 2021 | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | ~$2,299 with OLED upgrade | $two,499 |
| Screen | fifteen.6-inch OLED display (3,456 x 2,160 pixels) | sixteen.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display (3456x2244 pixels) |
| CPU | Intel Cadre i7-11800H | Intel Core i9-11900H | M1 Pro (10-core CPU, xvi-core GPU) | M1 Max (ten-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 (10-cadre CPU, 32-cadre GPU) |
| Storage | 512GB to 8TB | 512GB to 8TB |
| Memory | 16GB to 64GB | 16GB to 64GB |
| Ports | USB 3.two Type-C (1), Thunderbolt 4 (2), SD card reader (1), headphone jack | Thunderbolt 4 (3), HDMI, MagSafe iii, headphone jack, SD memory card slot |
| Webcam | 720p webcam | 1080p FaceTime Hd photographic camera |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11ax Killer Wi-Fi 6 | 802.11ax Wi-Fi six |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.ane | Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Dimensions | 13.57 x 9.06 x 0.71 inches | 14 x ix.8 x 0.7 inches |
| Weight | 4.2 pounds | 4.7 pounds (M1 Pro) | iv.8 pounds (M1 Max) |
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Price
With a starting price of around $one,200 (depending on when and where you purchase) the Dell XPS 15 is the cheaper laptop past a wide margin, equally an entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro 2021 costs $2,499.
However, the entry-level XPS 15 ships with a FHD+ (i,920 10 i,200 pixels) LCD display, which is enough skilful plenty but lacks the eye-catching vibrancy and contrasts y'all become with an OLED display. If you configure the XPS 15 with its optional 3.5K OLED display (which is what our review unit had, and what we recommend if you lot can afford information technology) the cost 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 dissimilar Apple, 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 15 OLED: Design
Both the Dell XPS 15 OLED and the 16-inch MacBook Pro characteristic elegant designs that manage to cram large, beautiful displays, comfy keyboards, and decent port arrays into thin and (relatively) low-cal chassis less than one inch thick.
The Dell XPS xv OLED is slightly smaller and lighter than the sixteen-inch Pro, and the bezels effectually its InfinityEdge are so thin information technology's piece of cake to forget they're even there. Having the OLED display is peculiarly nice in this regard, considering when you lot're watching something with black around the edges the bezels blend right in, effectively disappearing from view. At four.2 pounds, information technology's not exactly the lightest laptop, but in our hands-on testing nosotros found the XPS xv OLED wasn't too painful to carry around in a backpack or messenger bag all day.
Apple's xvi-inch Pro is a bit bigger and heavier, though Apple's washed a lot to improve its design compared to prior models. While it'due south roughly the aforementioned size and weight as prior xvi-inch Pros, the 2021 model has been improved with a flatter lid, a row of role keys that replace the controversial Touch Bar, and thinner bezels effectually the display. They're not quite as thin as those on the Dell XPS 15 OLED, but unless you're a real stickler for screen space it doesn't make a large divergence.
What might make a difference is how yous experience about the small black notch which extends downwardly by the peak bezel on the 2021 MacBook Pros to business firm the webcam. In my hands-on testing I establish the notch easy to ignore, and after a while I fifty-fifty grew to appreciate how information technology makes the Pro stand up out from other laptops.
Both of these laptops are well-designed, with spacious, comfy keyboards and like shooting fish in a barrel-to-use trackpads. But the Dell XPS 15 OLED is just a bit lighter and smaller than the 16-inch Pro, with a slightly more bonny display design. It's neck-and-neck, but nosotros take to give this one to the XPS fifteen OLED.
Winner: Dell XPS xv OLED
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Brandish
Both of these laptops sport big, cute displays, making them nifty for watching videos, playing games, or (if you absolutely have to) getting work done. They use two different display technologies (OLED vs. mini-LED) that both deliver college brightness levels, ameliorate contrast, and more than vibrant colors than you lot'll run into on traditional LCD displays.
The OLED display is an optional upgrade for the Dell XPS fifteen, but after spending time with a number of both OLED and non-OLED XPS laptops I highly recommend you invest in OLED if yous can afford it. The 3.5K OLED touchscreen on the XPS xv makes simply about everything y'all do on it wait meliorate, in part because each pixel on an OLED screen is its own individual light source that tin 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 reach much better contrasts betwixt lite and dark than most not-OLED displays.
In my experience, that ways that when yous're watching something (particularly 4K HDR content) on the Dell XPS 15 OLED you'll notice more subtle gradations in the color and brightness of the image than you would on a non-OLED model. It'southward a small but meaning difference, and ane that'south 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 TV to an LG CX OLED Idiot box, just to enjoy the same display quality on a much bigger screen.
Equally good as the XPS 15 OLED is, the Liquid Retina XDR brandish on Apple'due south 2021 MacBook Pro is no slouch either. It's a mini-LED brandish, 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 can squeeze a lot more of them backside the screen, and that gives the MacBook Pro much effectively command 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 can deliver image quality that's competitive with OLED displays, and they're cheaper to make than OLED screens.
That's a long manner of saying the 2021 MacBook Pro's brandish makes photos, videos, and games look about every bit expert as they do on the XPS 15 OLED. I reviewed both laptops, and if you displayed the same content on both side-by-side I'd have a hard time telling you which was better. They're near the aforementioned resolution also, though Apple's laptop has a slight edge in terms of how many pixels information technology can brandish (3456 x 2234 pixels for the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2021 vs three,456 x 2,160 pixels on the XPS 15 OLED). Apple's laptop likewise has a higher refresh charge per unit than the Dell XPS 15 OLED, which is stuck at 60 Hz compared to the MacBook Pro 2021's 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate.
We subjected each laptop to a battery of display tests in our lab, and we found that the sixteen-inch MacBook Pro 2021 tin can achieve higher brightness levels than the XPS 15 OLED. Both deliver pretty good color accurateness, as each earned a Delta-Due east score of 0.21 (the closer to 0, the ameliorate). The Dell XPS fifteen OLED achieved slightly more vibrant colors than the 16-inch Pro, displaying 120.1% of the sRGB color spectrum compared to the 2021 Pro's 109.iii%. Yet, that'southward not necessarily a good affair, every bit a score of 100% is considered most accurate.
Given those scores and the higher refresh charge per unit of the MacBook Pro'southward display, we have to give this category to Apple. It'south nice that the OLED display on the XPS 15 is likewise a touchscreen, but as beautiful as information technology is (once you lot wipe off the fingerprints), if you care 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 (xvi-inch) vs Dell XPS fifteen OLED: Ports
Having a variety of ports makes a laptop a more versatile and useful device, which is why it was so nice to see Apple add an HDMI out and an SD bill of fare reader to the lineup of Thunderbolt 4/USB4 ports on the 2021 MacBook Pros.
Alongside those two welcome additions, the xvi-inch MacBook Pro 2021 sports three Thunderbolt iv/USB4 ports spread across both sides, which gives you lot some options most what to plug in where. Yous can also charge via these ports, for even more flexibility. Apple'due south also brought back MagSafe charging with a MagSafe 3 charging port, which is squeamish to have since the magnetic connector is both like shooting fish in a barrel to plug in and quick to break away in the event something yanks on the laptop or charging cord. Plus, at that place's a headphone jack, which isn't e'er guaranteed on Apple tree products.
The Dell XPS 15 OLED doesn't offering quite as many port options, but what it has is practiced plenty for nearly people. Specifically, it has iii USB-C ports spread across both sides, which once again gives you a lot of flexibility on where to plug in your charger and accessories. It also offers an SD menu reader and a headphone jack, as well equally a Kensington security slot that you can slide a Kensington lock into to prevent theft.
Dell also packs in a USB-C to USB-A adapter with the XPS fifteen OLED, a overnice touch that saves you having to buy one of your own if you want to plug in an older accessory. I wish Apple had shown MacBook Pro 2021 customers the aforementioned courtesy. Withal, the Pro's HDMI out and MagSafe charging port give it a slight edge in terms of port options.
Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021)
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Functioning
Both of these laptops are powerful enough to handle just almost anyone's daily workload without complaint. Merely when we compare the operation of these two laptops, there's no question the 2021 MacBook Pro beats the XPS 15 OLED in just about every examination we put them through. That's largely thanks to the remarkable power and efficiency of Apple's M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, which make their debut in these 2021 Pros.
For the purposes of this comparing we're going to use the benchmark results of the 14-inch Pro with the weaker M1 Pro considering that'south the flake you'll become 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 equally powerful as the M1 Max in near applications, so don't feel like you lot're missing out if you choose not to upgrade to an M1 Max.
Kickoff, allow's compare the results nosotros saw when we put each laptop through the Geekbench 5.4 multicore CPU benchmarking exam. Our Dell XPS 15 OLED review unit of measurement (Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU, xvi GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD) earned a score of 7,477, which is quite skillful for an ultraportable laptop. But our 14-inch MacBook Pro 2021 review unit of measurement (M1 Pro west/ 10-cadre CPU and 16-core GPU, 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD) accomplished a remarkable score of 12,477, handily beating the XPS 15 OLED.
In our video editing test, which tasks each laptop with transcoding a 4K video file down to 1080p using Handbrake, the 2021 MacBook Pro was nigh twice as fast as the XPS 15 OLED (4:55 vs 8:10).
And while the XPS fifteen OLED is better equipped to play nigh PC games thanks to its discrete Nvidia GPU, the 2021 MacBook Pros are no slouch in the gaming department either. Instead, they're handicapped by the fact that many game developers don't port their games to Macs and don't optimize them for Apple silicon.
Proceed that in mind when I say that when nosotros tasked each laptop with running the graphical performance test in Sid Meier'southward Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (which we use every bit a criterion because it runs on a broad diverseness of machines), the Dell XPS 15 OLED was able to deliver more frames per 2nd than the M1 Pro-powered MacBook Pro. Specifically, the Pro achieved 46.19 frames per second running the criterion at 1,512x 982 (the maximum resolution the game would let usa run the test at) while the XPS fifteen OLED delivered 67.1 fps at 1080p (i,920 ten one,080 pixels) and 41.9 fps at 3.5K (three,456 x two,160 pixels).
Admittedly, it's very odd that we couldn't convince Civ Vi to run its graphical benchmark in a college resolution on the xiv-inch Pro. We were able to convince it to run in 1080p on the 16-inch Pro with its improved M1 Max chip, but fifty-fifty and so the Pro accomplished only 46.1 frames per 2nd. This is a good example of how hard it can be to get the best gaming performance out of a MacBook, for reasons that aren't entirely Apple's fault.
So while you'll get improve gaming functioning out of the Dell XPS 15 OLED, overall we have to declare the MacBook Pro the articulate winner here. We didn't even mention the operation benefits of its 16-core Neural Engine (which helps out with machine learning tasks and image bespeak processing) and dedicated media encode/decode engines, which can assist boost performance when editing video.
Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 2021 (xvi-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (sixteen-inch) vs Dell XPS fifteen OLED: Audio
Speakers are rarely the first thing we recall almost when we're talking well-nigh buying a new laptop, simply unless you always piece of work with headphones (or in silence) they'll have a large affect 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 aid the sound quality remain loud and clear even when you lot have them on a tabular array or lap. The Dell XPS fifteen OLED gets quite loud, and its four-speaker array delivers treble and vocals that sound neat fifty-fifty from several rooms away, though the bass lacks dial.
As practiced as they are, in my experience the Dell XPS 15 OLED's speakers tin can't quite match the six-speaker setup in the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2021. Not only does it deliver warm, resonant vocals even at loftier volume, but the 2021 Pro kicks out deeper, more than impactful bass than the XPS xv OLED or, indeed, any Windows laptop I've tested. So if audio quality is important to you, the winner here is Apple'due south laptop.
Winner: Apple tree MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS fifteen OLED: Webcam
If yous care near how you wait on video calls, the Dell XPS fifteen OLED's 720p webcam might exit you feeling a bit underwhelmed. While information technology'south completely serviceable (indeed, I use it for a lot of my weekly meetings), in my feel it captures images and video that look washed-out and grainy.
The 2021 MacBook Pro's 1080p webcam makes you lot look quite a bit better past comparing, equally information technology does a better task of capturing details and gradations in low-cal and shadow.
However, note that the XPS fifteen OLED too has an IR camera that lets yous apply Windows Hello to log in via facial recognition, if yous so choose. The MacBook Pro 2021, past comparing, offers no option to log in via Face up ID. Even so, unless you lot actually love logging in with your face nosotros have to say the winner hither is Apple tree'south laptop.
Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 2021 (sixteen-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS 15 OLED: Bombardment life
Nosotros test the battery life of every laptop nosotros review at Tom's Guide past tasking information technology with incessantly browsing the web over Wi-Fi, with its screen brightness ready to 150 nits. The Dell XPS xv OLED performed well enough in that test, lasting 6 hours and 58 minutes, just that'south not really plenty to continue you lot from having to worry about finding a place to plug in during a decorated workday.
Apple'due south sixteen-inch MacBook Pro absolutely smoked the XPS xv OLED in this regard, as it lasted xv hours and 31 minutes in the same test. That beats even Apple's 14-hour estimate, and it's nigh double the bombardment life of the XPS fifteen OLED.
And so if yous care about being able to use your laptop all 24-hour interval without worrying about carrying a charger, Apple tree's MacBook Pro 2021 has you covered — and it'southward the clear winner in this category.
Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch)
MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch) vs Dell XPS xv OLED: Verdict
If you've made it this far you tin hopefully see that both of these laptops are excellent, well-rounded devices that are powerful plenty to handle demanding work like video editing and game development, while nevertheless existence svelte enough to carry around all day without besides much problem. They both offering gorgeous displays, comfortable keyboards, good speakers and a solid array of ports packed into well-designed chassis that look good on a desk.
But unless you plan to do a lot of gaming on your new laptop, the xvi-inch MacBook Pro 2021 has a winning border over the XPS 15 OLED. While Dell's laptop is a chip more than affordable, Apple'southward latest MacBook Pro offers better operation in almost every regard, ameliorate battery life, and a broader array of ports. The 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and higher height brightness on its Liquid Retina XDR display is also nice to have, particularly if you plan to edit HDR content, though personally I'yard quite happy with the vibrant colors and cute contrasts of the XPS xv'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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