The dreaded switch from OS X to Windows. Is it that bad?

[Domo]

My Mid 2012 MacBook Pro Retina has just recently thrown in the towel. It has been an absolute workhorse and extremely dependable. However, I’m now faced with the decision of buying the base 13” MacBook Pro (i5 | 8GB | 256GB) for £1299 or a 2020 Dell XPS (i7 | 16GB | 512GB) for £50 more provided the current discount Dell are offering. I’m not as flush as in the old contracting days and £2k+ laptops are a thing of the past.

I have 8 years worth of Apple purchases but we do have iPads and iPhones in the house so I remain in the Apple ecosystem to some extent.

So why is it I can’t find the strength to click Buy against a Windows laptop? I’ve been dwelling on this for a week now.

Not seeking answers. It feels therapeutic putting it up on here but I do wonder if any of you have faced the same dilemma and what you decided in the end?

 

[Domo]

I'm very much used to Macs. I'm using a temp Lenovo Yoga Windows laptop now and it's bloody awful (it is old an poorly spec'd). Windows never seems as responsive as OS X. A client provided me with a loan Dell Latitude some time ago (i7 + 16GB) and that didn't make for a good experience either.

The main reason for the jump is affordability vs. performance. My current Mac is an i7 + 16GB RAM and although not very often I have had to run VMs off it (we've pretty much shifted to AWS now so running VMs should become redundant).

When I look at the spec of the XPS vs. the Apple it seems like a no brainer, on paper at least. Plus the base MacBook has the 8th Gen Intel i5 vs. Dell's 10th Gen i7 which makes the MacBook feel old despite it's the 2020 model.

Ideally I'd extend my budget by a few hundred but that's just not possible. Hence the dilemma.