I've also switched to an XPS15 as a linux machine - the largest benefit Dell has over Apple is that IF something breaks (or I break it accidentally) someone will be at my home or at work within 24 hours with replacement parts and will fix it, no questions asked. I can't afford having to go to the apple store and wait days for a replacement when it's my main work machine. The build quality is quite decent and if you look inside it's clearly designed to be repairable on-site, while fixing Apple notebooks often requires replacing entire sections at once and the use of specialized tools.
Can confirm. 10 years ago I burned motherboard and processor trying to overclock my Dell PC. Within 24h a Dell support guy was at my home with all parts of the PC and replaced it without questions asked.
After the quick replacement I even told him it was probably my fault but he replied saying it doesn't matter because on average customers don't abuse and I was just a number to them.
