Let’s make one thing clear right away; the 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro is one of the finest mobile workstations on the market.

Whether you’re a video editing prodigy or searching for a laptop to code, the 2021 version of Apple’s larger laptop has set the bar for what a Pro laptop should feel like.

However, if you were looking for something different; there is only one notebook on the market that can truly match up to a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro off the shelf.

The nearest competitor of the Macbook Pro is (once again) dell XPS 17 9710 powered by Windows 11 Home (with no option for Windows 11 Professional, out of the box).

While it doesn’t have the same cache as Apple’s newest machine, if you’re searching for a Windows 11 laptop in the same price range, it has a few cards up its sleeve.

Although we believe that the XPS 17’s cost will be part of Dell’s Black Friday deals, keep an eye on it. The current price is its cheapest thus far.

The Surface Book is a laptop from Microsoft, similar to the MacBook Pro.

The XPS 17 is a machine that bears more than a passing resemblance to the MacBook. It has a 97WHr battery, up to 8GB of RAM, and 8TB of SSD (potentially in RAID-0 for faster performance).

While it doesn’t have an HDMI port, it does feature four Thunderbolt 4 ports, one audio input, and one SD card slot.

The HP Omen 17’s touchscreen is quite responsive and performs well in most situations. It has a larger 17-inch display with a more than 4K resolution – and it’s touch-enabled.

However, it lacks brightness compared to the Apple MacBook Pro (1,000 nits vs 500 nites). The Nvidia Geforce GTX 3060 GPU within provides 6GB GDDR6 video memory, which should be more than enough to match the Apple MacBook Pro M1 Max’s 32 cores.

When it comes to pricing, Dell has the upper hand. The XPS 17 undercuts the comparable MacBook Pro 16 by 20%, coming in at $5,095.99 (about £3,730/AU$6,800). When you include warranty and service costs into the equation, things get worse for Apple.

The new MacBook Pro’s AppleCare+ costs $399 and includes a three-year warranty, two incidents of accidental damage, and 24/7 priority access to Apple experts.

The Lenovo Yoga Book offers a better value in my opinion, with 4-year Premium Support Plus (accidental damage assistance) for around $500. The XPS 15 may not have the same attention or acclaim as Apple’s device, but it has a number of advantages and a lower price tag, making it a serious challenger.

It’s important to keep in mind

• If the offer is not available in your area, you’ll need to use a specialist parcel forwarding service if you want to take advantage of it.
• If you’ve acquired a cheaper product with similar characteristics, in stock and brand new, we’d like to hear from you.