Here¡¯s where it gets interesting. For years OSX and Windows have fought over the same ground, that of a standard desktop based environment. But since Windows 8 Microsoft has been taking its platform into new realms, incorporating touch and speech as significant factors. Cortana is now a resident feature on Windows 10, enabling users to create reminders, schedule appointments, conduct searches, and a range of other functions all through voice commands.
Apple isn¡¯t far behind though, and is set to introduce Siri integration on the desktop with the release of OSX Sierra at the end of September, which will offer similar features to that of Cortana.
Where the two environments diverge the most is when it comes to touch. Windows has fully embraced the idea of tapping the screen, while Mac users have a wide range of multi-touch trackpad gestures available. True, Windows also shares some of these, but the implementation on Macs - especially those with force-touch trackpads - remains the superior trackpad experience.
While Apple has staunchly avoided introducing a touch interface on OS X, it¡¯s introduction on Windows has led to the creation of several interesting hybrid devices (2-in-1s that can act as laptops or tablets) with the Surface Pro 4 being the best example. This opens up things such as the use of a stylus to highlight or annotate web-pages on Microsoft¡¯s Edge browser, writing and drawing freehand in OneNote, plus general navigation through websites, applications, and the operating system itself.
Both platforms are exploring new ways to create, interact and manipulate data, which means that there is no clear winner here, except for users who now have a fascinating amount of choice.
This is usually the biggest stick that Mac users wield against their Windows counterparts, and it¡¯s a fair point. Statistically there is far more chance of contracting a virus or malware when you use a PC. This is mainly due to the fact that Macs make up such a small percentage of computers worldwide, so it¡¯s not worth hackers targeting them. But this could be changing.
2016 saw the emergence of the Keyranger ransomware that attacked OS X and encrypted all files on a hard drive until users paid an extortion fee. Yes this pales in comparison to the likes of Cryptolocker, but it¡¯s an indication that Macs are beginning to appear on the hacking radar.
Then there's the fact that many attacks these days use social engineering or fear mongering to fool users into giving away their account details, rather than installing viruses to cause havoc. It¡¯s still hard to argue that Macs are not more secure than Windows machines, but complacency could mean that the users themselves might be equally vulnerable.
When it comes to any buying decision one of the most important factors is value for money. On the Windows side there are a wealth of devices that start, as mentioned above, with the likes of the HP Stream (£149) and move up through various price points until you reach the premium strata of Microsoft¡¯s SurfaceBook which starts at £1299. This means that there is a Windows machine for everybody, no matter the budget.
Macs on the other hand start at £399, but this is for the Mac Mini which doesn¡¯t have a keyboard, mouse, or display included. It¡¯s no powerhouse either, with disappointing specs and slow performance, plus it hasn¡¯t been updated since 2014.
On the laptop side of things the cheapest MacBook is the 11-inch MacBook Air which will set you back £749. At the moment this doesn¡¯t seem to offer great value for money either, mainly due to it featuring a small screen with a lacklustre 1366x768 screen resolution which feels far from premium these days
Moving up to the 13-inch MacBook Pro (£999) beefs up the screen to a retina model and has internals more befitting of high-end device. If you¡¯re willing to buy at the Pro level then Apple¡¯s current products do offer excellent performance, build quality, and support, but dipping below that seems to offer less value and more compromises than those prices justify. As we said though, rumours suggest major updates across the Mac lineup before the end of 2016, so maybe it would be best to wait until then before making a purchase.
For example, the recently-reviewed Asus UX360CA scores a much better 89 per cent of sRGB, but light-reflecting air gaps in its display layers makes its screen look washed out, spoiling the impact of those colours. The Dell¡¯s display doesn¡¯t look like the screen of a £1000-plus laptop, but does not have any glaring problems either.
There are a few things to consider, though. This is a glossy laptop. That helps with colour and is what you get on every touchscreen convertible like this, as the screen has a layer of glass on top.
This makes the Dell Inspiron 13 5000 screen quite reflective, and max brightness of 243cd/m is not really high enough to compete with lots of ambient light. Use it out in the park on a sunny day and it¡¯ll look very dim. Also see: Best gaming laptops 2016.
Much like the shell of the laptop, the screen is design to be pretty portable but isn¡¯t 100 per cent ideal for a road warrior. It¡¯s a laptop best suited to mixed use: some at home, some on-the-go. The raw specs are primed for this sort of use too.
The Dell Inspiron 13 5000 we¡¯re testing has an Intel Core i7-6500U CPU with 16GB RAM. It¡¯s a dual-core CPU, but its cores are rather powerful. It scores 6992 in Geekbench 3, 3419 per core. The PC Mark 8 score is 2722.
This is a setup powerful enough to use as almost anyone¡¯s main computer, more so than a skinnier-lighter Core M alternative. The only way to get a lot more power in a laptop is to head to a machine with an HQ-series quad-core CPU. But that will be larger, most likely more expensive, and have much worse battery life.
Windows 10 feels very slick day-to-day, but this is down to the use of an SSD rather than a Core i7 CPU. The £100-less Core i5 version should feel fairly similar to use until you start abusing the RAM by opening 700 browser windows or using quite demanding applications.
The Dell Inspiron 13 5000¡¯s SSD isn¡¯t actually that fast by SSD standards, though. We¡¯ve tested laptops SSDs that can read at 1300MB/s, but this one reads at 533MB/s and writes at 284MB/s.
We see this sort of SSD performance a lot in mid-range laptops, because the extra performance of a higher-end SSD really isn¡¯t going to mean all that much for your average high street laptop buyer. If that¡¯s what it takes to get a laptop from £1200 to £700, we¡¯re happy.
The Dell Inspiron 13 5000 can¡¯t really handle games well either, but if you want a gaming laptop that¡¯s thin and light, you¡¯ll have to save up for the Microsoft Surface Book. That¡¯s almost twice the price.
A few recent games will be playable if you really drop the resolution and visual quality down, though. At 720p with some of the graphics effects turned off, Alien: Isolation runs at an average 31.5fps. You may have to put up with some occasional frame rate chugging, but it¡¯s playable.
At 1080p with the visual effects turned back up and the frame rate drops to 13fps: not playable. We tried 2013¡¯s Thief with the same high and low settings applied and neither was fast enough to be fun. It¡¯ll average 21.8fps at 720p, and a truly poor 6.2fps at 1080p.
These are fairly recent games, though. If you have a Steam library of oldies from, say 2005 and before, they¡¯ll run just fine on the Dell Inspiron 13 5000.
As the Dell Inspiron 13 5000 has a Core i3/i5/i7 CPU rather than a Core M, the fans run most of the time, and we did notice a few moments where they seemed to rev up for no real reason. However, it¡¯s not a loud laptop. Its fan outlets are on the very back of the underside, so just be careful not to block them or the fans will start revving. Also see: Windows 10 review.
The speaker outlets are a little picky about how they¡¯re treated too. They sit on the Dell Inspiron 13 5000¡¯s underside at each end, seemingly firing down rather than being angled outwards.
This doesn¡¯t help the higher frequencies reach your ears, making the top-end seem rather soft, but Dell has clearly put some work into making the laptop sound beefier than those with traditional laptop speakers.
The speakers loud, seem to extend beyond the laptop¡¯s dimensions and have a nice and thick, if not hugely detailed, mid-range.
Some content causes a bit of mid-range resonance at higher volumes, and there¡¯s no separated bass either. The Dell Inspiron 13 5000 doesn¡¯t have the finer points of sound quality nailed down, but it does sound louder and warmer than we expected. We have criticisms, but the laptop is a lot louder than our reference MacBook Pro 13. Nice work, Dell.