Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I'm in the market for a new laptop. Have had a Dell for the past 5 years and it is time for a new one. In most of my computer experiences they performance goes down after the first year. I've only ever owned Dell computers and used Windows. Not a fan of Windows in any way, just always seemed very buggy. Cost isn't an issue in this as I want to get something that will last a while and not give me many problems...

Step in Apple. I've never really heard bad things about them, but at the same time I don't really know what is so much better about them. My personal experiences with Mac's have been great. Fast startups (from off or sleep mode), easy to use OS, great movie/photo editing, and the trackpad without the buttons is great.

Anybody out there that uses Linux? I've considered this but I don't want to spend a lot of time configuring the new computer. So if anybody could give some input on ease of use and what is out there for it.

I need the laptop for presentations (30%), photo/movie editing (10% of use), internet use (lots of this 45%), and movies/music (15%). I am rarely ever in one spot with a laptop so portability is important. I have a 17 inch screen now but probably will move down to a 15 inch.

I'm 51% sold on the Apple. Is it worth it? or should I be looking at something else?

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Get a Dell with Windows 7 Professional with at least 4GB of Ram :tu

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

This one is going to generate lots of responses going both ways.
I have an Apple MacBook for about two years now and love it.
I don't see myself going back to a PC.
You have highlighted many of the reasons why but more importantly, with the PC, I was always being attacked by worms, viruses and so on. With the Mac, I have yet to ever have any issues.
My only regret is not knowing why I waited so long to finally switch over from PC.

BTW,
You want to know about any program? Go to Apple for an online tutorial video that teaches you.
Don't remember that with any of my PC's in the past. With PC's, you figure it out, find someone to figure it out, or never use it.
Not with Mac.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Get an apple Christos. You won't be sorry.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

:tpd:


It sounds like you decided.

If you don't like to tinker I wouldn't really recommend Linux. IMHO.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

You can have both Windows and OS X on a MacBook using BootCamp. :tu

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Celeste and I both just bought new Inspiron Dells.

Windows 7
Power up and down is as fast as I've ever seen Christos.
We are really liking them so far.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I would love to hear more about Windows 7. I'm not opposed to getting another Windows based computer... I just am kinda sick of windows.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I'm with Blueface on everything he said. This point in particular though. You can also attend free workshops or set up appointments for instruction on many if not all of Apple's apps. I was sick of crashing and infected PC's. Haven't had a problem with the Mac.

I was thinking the same thing.

Also, remeber that Mac's come with Bootcamp so you can have Windows still just in case you need it. I have XP on my Mac also as a duel boot and in a virtual machine. There are a few programs through school and games that I need XP for.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

dont have any laptop experience but the two apple products that i owned broke just after the warranty ended.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Does anyone know if Apple will be releasing an update to the Macbook Pro anytime soon?? Obviously Windows 7 came out recently so no changes on that front.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Don't buy a Mac. Unless you are hardware obessed or have deep pockets, it's not worth it.

Make sure it is at least 2.1 GHZ, 64 bit processor and 16 GB of RAM minimum. Windows 7 Pro has 192GB max RAM in x64, so go nuts. Try adding 16 or 32 GB RAM in a MAC... Expensive I bet.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

:r:r
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5WSiqTwxN8...0/macvspc2.jpg

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I've been a Mac user since '89 and hate it when I have to us a PC. They just work!!!

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I went to a Macbook in October 08 and never looking back.
You really don't hear anyone say they tried a Mac but prefer a PC, at least I haven't.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I would let you test drive it if I could. Very fast from start up to access. Access meaning anywhere you want to go. My youngest has a gaming pc with Vista.
Even after a good friend and botl(I.T. guy)lopped a good amount of BS off the system,it still is nowhere near as easy and pleasing to navigate as this 7.

Kind in mind this is coming from a computer idiot <---

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I've used PCs for years. Then in the last yea3, we bught an older iMac from a friend. It was still lightning fast and runs very smoothly. We liked it so much we bought a MacBook toom. My wife uses it exclusively. The functionaloty and ease of use of the programs is awesome. I honestly don't think we'll go back to PCs. Yes they are pricier, but my experiences with them tell me it's worth it.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Very apropos.
Secure, safe on the left.
Dangerous, bound to crash on the right.

I have yet to find a person that switched to a Mac from a PC that didn't love it.
Seems the haters are the ones that have never switched and need to justify not doing so somehow.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Oh come on Dave! You don't want to just ship me your laptop for a week ;)

Let me know more when you start getting more use out of it. Even if you are a computer idiot, I appreciate any feedback. I'm no Bill Gates either :tu

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I'm not a hater. I just can't justify spending twice as much on a Mac to solve problems I have never encountered with a PC.

Seems the PC haters are the ones that have switched and need to justify doing so somehow. Two way street.:r

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Touche.:r

No regrets here.
Still paying for it two years later but no regrets.
I had many crashes due to viruses on PCs. That, coupled with minimal tutorials to assist turned me away.
iPhoto and iMovie sold me on my Mac for my purposes. iDVD was just the icing on the cake.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I just made the switch 2 weeks ago. I love my new Mac. I actually got my old PC running again with a new hard drive because the old one took a sh!t on me. I dont hate the PC but the Mac is so much more user friendly. As for the price difference....you get what you pay for.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

if you can swing for it get the macbook. switched to apple 5 years ago and haven't regretted it since.

And there is no reason you would ever need 16GB of ram from what you said you will be using it for, Christos.

and if you buy your ram from crucial and don't have apple install it, its not expensive at all :tu

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I listened to all of you guys and did this and upgraded mine for around $40.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

First thing: DON'T GET LINUX. Nothing wrong with it, but if you have to ask, the answer is always NO.

Now on to the fun stuff. Despite the obvious humor in the picture below, this is by far the most accurate way to describe things, and REALLY should guide your decision Christo. This post is a bit long because I tend to ramble, but I think you'll get the idea.

I'm not a hater of the fruit, I grew up on PCs and I worked in the photo & journalism industry for three years and used macs extensively during that time.

What I will tell you is this: It sounds like you should get a Mac. You would probably be pretty happy with Windows 7 (I won't discourage you), but it sounds like mac is the better way to go for you, based on the things that you have listed that you need the laptop for. You will pay a bit more than you should, BUT complaining about that is like complaining that you went to Saks Fifth Avenue and paid too much --> don't like it, shop elsewhere, you knew the price going in.

NOW that I've told you to get a mac and established that I'm not a hater.... I'll say that I will NEVER, EVER, under any circumstances, get a Mac for myself.

And here's where the fun begins.... to really evaluate the difference between a mac and a pc with as little bias as possible, you have to be honest with yourself, keep from being unnecessarily offended, and separate things out.

The analogy in the picture, if you can not be offended by it, is stunningly accurate. Ridding a motorcycle is not for everybody. If I asked a guy whether he was qualified and possessed the skills required to race a Ducati motorcycle at 150mph+, he would probably say no (although he sure as hell would want to!). This is not saying that he's stupid, its just saying that racing that thing requires a very specific skill set that many people do not have. Far too often in the mac versus pc debate, it becomes a matter of "well, you're just not smart enough to operate a PC". But this is not true. It has nothing to do with intelligence, so don't get offended!

It has everything to do with what YOU need and want, and whether you have the skills to do it. Racing a bike at 150mph is fun (for some)! BUT its NOT free! If you're not willing pay for regular maintenance on that bike, and get it tuned up and running properly, and put the time into learning how to ride it safely at 150mph, THEN you shouldn't own the bike!!!!

If you DON'T know how to ride a motorcycle or want to invest the time and money to keep it tuned at peak performance, and just want the damned thing to WORK every time you turn it on, then buy something that does what it's designed for. To switch to cars, I own and love my Jeep. I don't complain that's its slow, I relish that it has 4x4 and owns the road in the winter. If I wanted a fast zippy car, then I'd go buy a sports car, with the understanding that there was a trade-off in that I might have trouble the next time a snowplow came by.

OK, so I've said the same thing three or four different way and rambled on long enough... I think you get the idea. Two different products, two different uses & users, and a whole hell of a lot of people that can't understand that last bit without getting offended. I learned PC and learned it good. This required time, effort, and a few bruises & injuries along the way. As a result of that investment, I get to enjoy the performance of my 150mph supertuned (overclocked) Ducati, virus free and purring like a champ.

oh yeah, and :tpd:, don't get the memory upgrade from Apple, get it separate.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I say go with this.

The Macbook Pro hardware is impressive. I love mine.

I do miss Windows on occasion(specifically minor irritations with OS X) and putting it on there with Bootcamp is the best of both worlds imo.

:tu

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I got mine with a huge student discount and a free ~250GB Ipod Classic plus a free printer which I sold for about 75$.

All in all, I was out the door with a 13" Macbook Pro with OS X 10.6 /w 4GB of RAM and a new Ipod Classic for 980$.

So for me, the price was justified, because I couldn't get anything similar from a PC in the price bracket, but then again I'm a student :D

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Well I have a friend that works at the apple store. So he is willing to give me his discount for a laptop. It will save me at least 15%, possibly more. I'm prepared to pay the prices of Apple.

Great way to put everything Francis :tu big help for sure. I'm just wondering if I should wait more and play around with windows 7. Between my brother and my Father one of them should be getting it on their laptops/desktop shortly.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I have both platforms in my household and use both. I prefer the Windows machines for almost everything. There are never any issues with compatibility, things simply run as installed. The only advantage of the Mac is that they are very easy to learn. Navigation is relatively simple once you figure it out, but no easier than using Windows Explorer. I agree with the others about the quality of Apple's online tutorials. Microsoft simply doesn't have any thing that can compete.

I have never encountered a virus that penetrated my firewall and defeted my anti-virus software. Keeping both updated is of vital importance to anyone running Windows. I'm running Windows 7 now and it has a self-contained security suite (Microsoft Security Essentials). Microsoft know that the vast majority of the virus writers are targeting their software so they seem to be doing something about it. Malicious coders target the most users they can - hence Windows machines, not Macs. Now with the proliferation of the iPhone there have been viruses written specifically to target them. If Apple succeeds in getting a bigger slice of the pie, coders will begin writing viruses/trojans/worms for OS-X.

Windows Live Photo and Movie Maker programs have very similar functionality and are equally easy to use. Again, Apple will hold your hand through every step of using the software where Microsoft will not. The help features are there, you just have to dig to find the answers.

I cannot think of one area where the Mac outperforms the Windows (7) machine to the degree that justifies paying more than double. Macs are easy. Windows has a steeper learning curve. The decision is yours. My advice is to find a quality machine running 7 and give it a spin.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I agree with getting your memory from Crucial. Of course, I'm a bit biased, because I used to work for the manufacturing portion of the business: Micron. :p

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

What would be a quality machine? I'm not crazy about Dell. Sony? Lenovo? HP? Toshiba?

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

That is another feature of the Mac that outdoes Windows - only Apple makes them, so there isn't anything to compare them to other than themselves.

For simplicity, I usually buy off-the-shelf HP machines. I have had several and have been satisfied with all of them. The key is more in the components than the manufacturer. Almost all of the manufacturers make a very wide variety of machines. Prior to any purchases, I research the current (read - next week's obsolete) processors and compare them. I'm not currently in the market, so I don't have the specs an what's available now.

Check with one of the geeks in the computer store (MicroCenter is my favorite - they seem to know their products). As long as the processor is a mid to high end one and the machine has sufficient RAM, you should be OK. The other components (video processor, sound, etc) usually are on-par with the processor.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

:tpd:

I can't believe how fast the startup and shutdown is.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Since 1986 I have always used a Mac, just so my allegiance is clearly stated.
Like others have said, I would recommend a Mac based on what you plan to use it for.
I also have windows 7 installed on my imac at home and, from what I've seen, it is a solid OS.
The beauty of having a Mac is you can run both.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Get this, or something like it
http://www.amazon.com/N61VN-A1-16-In...=106Y6QZEHK8CX

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Which is why even on OS X I run an antivirus. :tu

And FYI people would be amazed at how many viruses, worms, trojans. etc are currently out there... directly targeting OS X.

Fraction of whats out there for PC's? Sure, but it only takes one to F up your system :)

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Miller Lite is fine. :al

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Yes to the above really. Good and bad equipment from all of them. More important, yes to THE ABOVE. Add in Acer and Asus. Point of the matter, Stay the hell away from off brands. KEY POINT, talk to a tech guy.

I was shopping today fora new computer for my shipping bench. browsing two different sites. One of them had good machines... the other (same brands) had shitty machines. And by shity, I don't mean unreliable, I mean under spec'd and guaranteed that whoever buys it will HATE his life. For example, a Vista machine with only 1gb of ram. That's damned near criminal IMO.....



Oh and PS: I don't use A/V on my windows box. Gotten one virus in the last 4 years....

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

One of these days :r .....

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Check out Asus laptops before you make a decision. The one I linked above has 4GB DDR3 RAM, 320GB 7200rpm HDD, 2.0Ghz Core2Quad, Nvidia dedicated GPU (forget which one, but it's a pretty good one) with 1GB dedicated video RAM, 16 inch 720p display for 11xx bucks.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

The ad is clever but inaccurate.
A Mac can do anything a PC can since you can install Windows on the Mac if you wish. A Macbooks LED screen, aluminum unibody construction etc. is superior in every way.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Big points you make there.
You cannot compare the construction of a MacBook to any other PC based laptop. The quality of the MacBook is far, far superior.

When folks speak of price, it is all relative. A Yugo can get you down the street just as well as a BMW. Me? I rather be in the BMW. Others may prefer the Yugo (although the likelihood of making it down the street in a Yugo is slim to none).

To relate it to the this board, some prefer a Cohiba, some prefer three or four different cigars for the same price of the Cohiba.

With any of these examples, you simply get what you pay for.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Well, I'd say in general Apple's hardware is executed to a high level and that is their best attribute. I do not think it fair to say that no PC based laptop has the construction of an Apple.

In terms of ruggedness, I would put a ThinkPad "T Series" against any Apple product for the long haul. In terms of materials and nice touches; every major brand has a laptop that has nice tactile feel and features, but they are prices to Apple. Somethings are just gonna cost...

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Well, as long as you don't like to game, don't like upgrading your computing (ram is about it and even thats out on the unibody macs), don't mind not having the ability to switch out your battery, and don't mind paying for specs that would cost much less on a windows machine, then yes I guess it's superior.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

:confused:

you can upgrade your RAM on a unibody

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

I believe he meant, no you can't Jim.

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Your right you can, my bad ;s

My other points still stand though. RAM and hard drive is it, can't upgrade the gpu :(

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

Well I'm a Windows Server Administrator so I'm a little biased, but the decision should be based on your intentions.

If you want to pay more for a single button mouse, that cool logo on the lid, and more than anything you want everyone to know you paid more, then by all means get the Mac. You will get about twice the hardware specs out of a non-Mac branded laptop for the price. The funny thing? Macs use an Intel based architecture so you can take a non-Mac branded laptop and install Max OS X. So, if you really want the GUI/OS then buy something for half price and install the Mac OS. Many people don't know this or are unwilling to jump through the hoops. Yet more people who buy Macs want he prestige of "the best" so they pay double for that cool logo.

Overall the tricycle/crotch-rocket analogy is fairly accurate. Any simpleton can use a Mac. Bill Gates got rich creating a psuedo Mac-like interface for IBM clones. If you can handle a PC you'll get much more out of it. The best part about PCs is how you can modify them and make them you're own. You can tweak the hell out of Windows to make it do whatever you want. The same is simply not true of Macs.

That said the numbers are undeniable. Apple computers makes up less than 10% of the PC market. Probably around 6-8%. Windows is 90% and Linux/Other makes up the rest. Most software is not written to run on both Windows and Macs. If you know of a software title that is written for both then comes the fun task of finding it.

IMO, get a decent name brand laptop with 4GB of RAM, 300GB+ Hard Drive NVidia/Radeon Video Card with Windows 7 x64. You can find that for less than $800. Windows 7 x64 comes with XP compatiblity mode just in case you have some old crappy application that won't run in Win 7 x64. You can install the app in compatibility mode, then run it from the Start Menu. It runs in a seemless VirtualPC Window that looks as if it is running natively in Win7. From my testing Windows 7 uses about 800-900MB less RAM at bootup/idle than Vista does. It is more stable and efficient. I've been very impressed so far.

And, just for fun...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../joke/mac2.jpg

Re: Buying a new laptop- Apple?
 

yup. if customizing beyond that is what you want to do, Apple is not the right choice.