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The super-flat keyboard is an acquired taste. The bad: Having only USB-C ports can be a hassle. The giant touchpad is easy to use and battery life is excellent. It’s still the biggest and most powerful laptop Apple makes. The good: The updated 15-inch MacBook Pro gets faster processing and graphics options. The bottom line: Powerful with a great screen, the Dell XPS 15 delivers solid gaming and affordable mobile workstation-class performance in a relatively compact package.Īpple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (15-inch, 2017) The bad: The webcam is in a terrible location at the bottom of the display and the fan can get loud. The good: The Dell XPS 15 has a beautiful, high-resolution and accurate broad-gamut display, and it incorporates the Nvidia GTX 1050 gaming GPU, which raises playtime performance in general-purpose laptops. The bottom line: Microsoft’s ambitious love letter to creative professionals is the touchscreen iMac of your dreams - albeit crazy expensive and running Windows.ĬNET rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 (Excellent)
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A couple of front-mounted USB ports or a Thunderbolt connection would’ve been nice. Support for the Dial is limited right now, and even compatible programs don’t always use it in a practical way. It skips newer graphics chips that support VR hardware. The bad: Surface Studio is extremely expensive, and doesn’t include the flashy Dial accessory by default. Every model has good-to-great dedicated graphics hardware. The excellent Surface Pen stylus returns and the new Surface Dial shows promise. The good: The Surface Studio has a fantastic 28-inch screen with excellent color, mounted on smooth hinges that fold down to an artist-friendly angle.
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