The XPS has a 720p camera and people complain on forums it has terrible picture quality. It also has thicker bezels than these new macbooks.

I think apple made the right trade-off. Thin bezels and a good camera at the top of the display. Sadly you cannot have both in a laptop without a notched design.

That approach leads to a webcam that's garbage. Apple chose the notch approach to allow thin bezels on most of the screen while still having a 1080p webcam with good low light performance.

for folks following this the 2020 Dell XPS camera's have absolute TERRIBLE quality.

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS13-9300-2020-version-w...

The Apple camera solution here, while it doesn't make you happy, may make others happy.

Hardware performance and design don't seem to be the same here though - XPS could have gone with a better camera in their smaller bezel and GP's point still stands.

It's unlikely the reason for that on the dell is the design of the bezel, most likely they just cheaped out or got a discount on several year-old parts.

Sure, but when people say ie, Dell does this better - every time I go look at the Acer or Dell product - they haven't actually focused on what users want.

My guess - looking good on a zoom call for your work or your soririty or your dating videos is going to matter a TON more to folks than whether or not something is integrated into a fat bezel, or is in a notch.

This debate has already occured BTW with the phones, and despite various claims that the notch would destroy iphone sales it did not.

That said, I build my own PCs (talk about driver issues long term) and do purchasing of Lenovo and Dell for business (and a dell "server" costs a mint even though what is inside is also not THAT amazing) and don't use a mac personally, but my family does, and so I'm not totally blind to the value offering they have.

Yep, and the notch was a lot smaller than I expected from the discussion when looking at the apple site.

Then buy a Dell XPS laptop? Why do macbooks need to be perfect for everyone?

Is a company not beyond reproach? Can't I like the product but still criticize its flaws?

But it’s not a flaw. There’s nothing objective here. The notch is preferable for many, and annoying to some.

What kind of comment is this? Your parent expressed a valid criticism followed by a reasonable solution.

It's not like Apple can't do the same as Dell.

I have to think Dell and others could have put in a notch if they wanted to make that compromise. They clearly felt it better to either do it right (and find a way to nestle the camera stuff into the bezel) than to go full notch.