Having watched the MacBook Pro announcement earlier this week I’ve decided it’s the end of the road for me and Apple.

I watched planning to pre-order the new MacBook immediately. Then I saw the prices. Now I’m going back to Linux for all my development and have bought a new Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu 16.04 pre-installed. Why? Because the XPS (as compared to the basic 13″ MacBook Pro with Touch bar):

  • has a better processor (i7 4MB Cache up to 3.5 GHz compared to the i5 up to 3.3 GHz)
  • has a higher resolution display (3200 x 1800 compared to 2560 x 1600)
  • has a touch display (compared to a touch bar)
  • is 6% lighter
  • is 6% smaller (based on width and depth)

The XPS also has the same RAM (8GB 1866MHz) and storage (256GB SSD). But to most importantly to it’s 45% cheaper (£1,108 compared to the £1,749). That’s six hundred and forty two pounds!

MacBooks are really nice machines but they’re not that nice.

I’ve created a GitHub repository to capture any useful material I come across in my transition to Linux.