Hey guys, as a student studying data science I'm struggling to choose between these two laptops. I'm looking for a better performance and greater speeds.
It will be focused on data analysis and feel free to pitch me any other laptop, which provides an all round performance for a data scientist.
I will be getting the laptop in a month or so, doing my research before buying it and trying Ozbargain for your opinion.
Thank you guys. :)
I wanted to know which laptop is reliable in a long run for both study and work(later) in general. I have a Dell Inspiron 15R which works well enough for school
For serious data work, I'd go the XPS. The Surface Book is generally better for more creative work.
For serious data work both would suck to be honest. Then again for serious data work you'd be spinning up a cloud VM in Azure or AWS so it makes little difference.
You won't do serious data science work using the compute power of a laptop.
Don't invest too far into the future with technology. During uni I got a bit excited and bought a $7,500 (pre 2000 dollars) computer…3 speed cd rom, 15 inch crt sony monitor ($1000 or more I think!), $1500 Matrox graphics card because even opengl acceleration was expensive back then. 486DX4 100. Bugger all memory. Luckily I returned it because they tried to dud me on the RAMDAC, at the time a big issue. Do remind yourself that it will be worthless junk in the future.
woah! that's a lot of investment, will definitely keep this in mind.
@jassu: Oh yeah, Frugal Rock is on point - "long term" is at most about 3-4 years in the future. The general rule of thumb is that it's always cheaper to buy for your requirements now and update regularly, than to buy above your requirements to try and 'future-proof' it, because going from mid-high level to very-high end stuff in computing attracts a huge premium.
@HighAndDry: It's going to get the job done for sure without compromising anything, but I'm leaning more towards portability
Better performance and greater speeds go for the XPS.
I recently picked up one of the XPS 13 9370 units with the i7, 16GB RAM combo and its blazing fast.
I own both. The XPS is a far superior bit of kit IMO. I have had the surface book replaced for an expanding battery issue, which happens but it was a 6 week turnaround. Dell have always been great with warranty if you have an issue. The other factor is screen resolution. The Surface book has a ridiculous resolution which is great but Windows 10 is still struggling with correct sizing problems, makes it frustrating. The surface book is light tho !! but I do have the XPS 15 so its generally a bigger beast. I still think Macbooks are the nicest, and the most expensive ! but if you need to run windows you cant beat an XPS IMO. The Huawei Matebook also looks interesting but I havent spent much time on it. Check the Dell outlet for deals on XPS too. I got a great deal on an XPS 15 and it arrived as new.
Will do, thanks for the suggestion
Man are you a tech youtuber or something? How many laptops do you have
1 work and 1 play, there are certain things you dont want to do on a work laptop….
I have had the surface book replaced for an expanding battery issue, which happens but it was a 6 week turnaround.
Not sure why it was so long for you. Mine took about five working days.
The first SurfaceBook I sent in, they sent me the replacement first before I had to send mine back.
The Surface book has a ridiculous resolution which is great but Windows 10 is still struggling with correct sizing problems, makes it frustrating.
I use all sorts of apps and just a few of them have problems with scaling. It's not really an issue for me in day to day use.
Yeah fair comment, it has improved a lot in the last few releases. I use RDP/Citrix a lot and find it problematic. Also moving between Surface screen and external monitor can be an issue. Browsers seem fine, but yes depends on what apps you have.
Not sure why it took so long for the replacement…..
I use RDP/Citrix a lot and find it problematic.
mstsc is the only app I use frequently where it used to be a problem. Certain servers would have absolutely tiny font. For those, I just use the Remote Desktop app from the store.
Something must have changed recently though, as all the servers now work fine with mstsc. :)
Right now the only app I have problems with is the silly Fiery printer driver for Xerox machines. For some jobs I don't need to use Command Workstation so I just print directly from the application. When I open the properties box, I can't see the settings as everything is scaled wrongly. CWS is OK as I can override scaling in the exe. It's been a known issue for years and they still haven't fixed it, although last month they said their upcoming release will support High DPI screens. They'd better!
XPS13 user here, pretty powerful laptop though but which it was a little bit lighter - feels solid though.
That said, I miss my Sony Vaio Pro 13 Ultrabook.
XPS should be powerful at its price range ;)
If you're thinking XPS 15, also look at the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Extreme which is pretty similar.
Not a big fan of Lenovo, but will look into it
Have a look at Huawei Matebook X Pro before committing… supposed to be a fantastic bit of kit. Only negative is the weird webcam placement.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Huawei-MateBook-X-Pro-i7-8550U…
Matebook X Pro is great. Unsure on performance comparison but the screen (esp. the resolution) is much nicer than the XPS 9370 that I returned due to ghosting. Only thing that’s been highlighted is that some units seem to have loud fan noises but I’ve never had much of a issue there, and I’ve undervolted.
You’ll get much better performance from the heavier desktop replacement style laptops but whether you want to lug that around uni is another story.
looks promising, will definitely check it out
If you're looking to crunch data then I suggest forgetting about the Surface book or any system with a 'U' processor, as they're built with mobility and form in-mind vs. a system that can be continually stressed under heavy loads.
It all depends on your budget but I'd lean towards the Dell Precision class system for use with heavier workloads.
I paid $2920 for the system below through work a couple of weeks back:
Dell Precision 7530
That's a very well built laptop there, have to look into it. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Does Quadro over Intel GFX make a huge diffeernce?
Nvidia driver support for CAD is far superior than anything Intel provides. Performance is more than adequate for the mobile CAD work I do but its no gaming GPU.
Hmmm, I'll send you a PM.
If your stuck on the 2 above I have both the XPS is the better machine more connectivity, better specs, however running around back and forth the Surface suits me just fine.
The surface isn't impossible to increase RAM but it's a costly and potentially fatal exercise not for beginners.
the XPS gives you more latitude in increasing the SSD and RAM much easier exercise
Only negative is glare off the screen
Apparently surface books break a lot.
The very early 1st gen ones probably did. Mine did anyway.
The later ones seem solid.
Didnt mention USB C !!! No USB C on the surface book. These days that's a reason not to get it….
Nothing made me happier than seeing the Surface 6 not having it, otherwise I would have been hating mine that I got at the start of the year.
My daughter is doing a computer science degree and has a pretty sweet top of the range at the time (2013) ultra light Sony Vaio… It's probably still better than most laptops students get. For processor intensive development work she started complaining about battery life. I was about to buy her either a new battery or new laptop when she said not to bother. Her solution… TeamViewer to her monster desktop PC at home compiles and data crunches better than any laptop ever could. Saves her a laptop upgrade and having to carry around a hefty laptop powerful enough to cope with her techno demands.
If she still needs extra battery life, one alternative to a laptop-specific battery is a power bank/car jump starter with laptop output, e.g. this $95.99 model.
Using remote desktop can work well for some tasks, but it's just about unusable for certain tasks like video editing. :)
Consider the Metabox range of build-to-order performance laptops. They have 5 series — Alpha, Prime-S, Prime-X, Workstation, and Multimedia.
The Prime-S is the slim performance model and is probably a good option. The 15" Prime-S P950EP model starts at $1749 and can be configured to suit (at additional cost):
https://www.metabox.com.au/store/Gaming-Laptops/Prime-S/Buy
Prime-S Overview:
https://www.metabox.com.au/store/Gaming-Laptops/Prime-S-Rang…
You can also buy Metabox laptops from resellers. I bought my 2yo Prime P650RE from Kong Computers and can recommend them…
https://www.kongcomputers.com/products/metabox.aspx
how do they perform compared to XPS or surface, looks promising though
It depends which XPS you're looking at — XPS 13 or 15.
Performance wise, the P950EP would be a competitor for XPS 15 (as XPS 13 uses 'U' processors to lower power consumption and is limited to onboard GPU).
P950EP has better GPU (GTX 1060 6GB vs GTX 1050Ti 4GB).
P950EP has 2 storage bays (2.5" 7.0 mm SATA and M.2 2280 SSD PCIe Gen3 x2/x4 or SATA) — XPS 15 has 2 storage bays but only with the smaller battery.
XPS 15 has thinner bezels and optional Touch display.
I'm looking at XPS 15, have to do a bit of research here. This is the first time I heard about the company metabox.
@jassu: A bit of background…
Metabox is an Australian company (based in Perth) that customises and resells performance laptops based on Clevo barebones laptops (or 'barebooks'). Its parent company ITC Mobile Computing was established in 1998.
Clevo is a Taiwanese company that produces laptop computers, both under its own brand and as 'barebooks' which it sells to value-added resellers. Metabox is one such reseller. Other resellers include Sager in the US and Schenker in Germany. Metabox is not that well known, even in Australia. However, Clevo and its bigger resellers like Sager have a bigger following overseas. There's a small dedicated Metabox following on Whirlpool, so it may be worthwhile doing research there.
Here's a video review of the Metabox P950EP (with an emphasis on gaming)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIHCiEd7GE8
Take a look at the ThinkPad's as well.
The T or A models are both excellent laptops. Neither have dGPUs AFAIK though, so mightn't be good for what you need. Both will come out at around $1,500 after upgrades.
There's a fair few models though, fairly customisable. So you should be able to find one to suit your needs.
What programs are you going to be running?. Have a look in your course programs, they should have a required or minimum system spec for computer/applications you are going to be using.