macbook or or pc lappie?

porkrind

porkrind

porkrind

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I nearly bought a macbook today, look so sexy, but i witheld.

I want a lappie so for the following reasons

web on sofa/bed.
mess about with OS's other than Windows
music (mp3's)
watch some Xvids
knock some beats up via reason/ableton


so do I need a macbook or will a thinkpad(windows lappie) be better for me
 
porkrind said:
I want a lappie so for the following reasons

web on sofa/bed.
Safari/Firefox/Opera will easily take care of that :)

mess about with OS's other than Windows
That's what OS X is for

music (mp3's)
iTunes

watch some Xvids
DivX + Front Row = shiny

knock some beats up via reason/ableton
GarageBand?
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if you want a "basic" laptop that doesn't need amazing 3D then you'll probably be paying a premium for a mac. I must admit i've not looked lately but you can do all of that on a £300 windows laptop.
 
Hate said:
if you want a "basic" laptop that doesn't need amazing 3D then you'll probably be paying a premium for a mac. I must admit i've not looked lately but you can do all of that on a £300 windows laptop.
Click to expand...

I recently heard an article comparing the cost of a Mac and the equivalent Dell or whatever and (i think) every Apple model is cheaper than the Dell alternative.

That's not to say he needs this specification though, your right.
 
I wish i got a macbook

im living with somebody with one and i have a pc lappie... ill happily use a mac anyday, they run much smoother and obviously hardly ever crash.

but then there is the software issues. But i was torn a few month ago between a pc laptop and the cheapest macbook.
 
unknowndomain said:
Cheap isnt always best and with mac its a user experiance aswell you dont get the quality of a mac ina £300 laptop pc
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"mac experience" makes me laugh - its a tool to use, the experience is no different. Perhaps I should say i have "linux experience"

I wasn't impressed with the quality of my colleagues collections of macbook / mb pro machines, the keys are kinda flimsy and im not too sure about the discolouration. A colleagues 1 year old PowerBook has dead bluetooth, dead audio, dead dvdrom drive and 3 PSU units. My boss's MB pro has had 3 batteries and 2 charger leads in as many months too.
my £300 PC laptop is still sound as a nut.
 
Hate said:
"mac experience" makes me laugh - its a tool to use, the experience is no different. Perhaps I should say i have "linux experience"
Click to expand...
So the entire user interface and usability industries are just a big waste of time? All of the experts who have spent years studying user interactions with computer systems and designing interfaces for applications which are user-intuitive have all wasted their time?

There is a definite "mac experience." It's the feeling you get when you turn your mac on for the first time and it works around you, it doesn't make you work around it. It's the feeling when you plug a digital camera in for the first time, finger half hovering on the link to the manufacturer's website to look for drivers thinking "this isn't going to work," then iPhoto pops up and does things you couldn't have dreamt of. It's the feeling everytime you tap one of the function keys and see Exposé do its magic, and the feeling when you throw anything you want at any application and it will just work... and it will work beautifully to.

A "linux experience?" I suppose that's when you have to plug a digital camera in, trawl the internet (after toiling with your eth0 settings for hours or hacking together a pile of outdated wireless adapter drivers from various sources) for USB drivers, then trawl the internet for the drivers for your individual digital camera based on the chipset installed just to the left... no, actually, right behind the CCD (which you don't know the exact serial number and date of manufacture for, of course, but that's your own fault), compile it from source through the command line then realise that you don't actually have an application which will do anything with your photos. You do a little search, find an application then find you need umpteen software repositories to install it correctly, and even when thats over with the user interface is about as intuitive as trying to bash your head against a brick wall which doesn't even alert yourself of its presence.

I'm being biased for the purposes of this thread, of course, and there are certain linux distributions which have attempted to fix the aforementioned "hair loss" situations (although also slightly dramatised for this post), but there is definitely a mac experience. Buying a bottom-of-the-range £300 laptop with Windows pre-installed simply cannot compare to the quality and experience of owning a £750 MacBook — trust me, I have both.

*av
 
I'd take a Macbook over a bottom spec Windows machine anyday.

As mentioned it's the whole picture you have to look at.. not just how much you will save if you take a shortcut :(
 
Al Vallario said:
So the entire user interface and usability industries are just a big waste of time? All of the experts who have spent years studying user interactions with computer systems and designing interfaces for applications which are user-intuitive have all wasted their time?
Click to expand...
I'm not too fond of the NEXTStep interface, and it might suprise you that OSX isn't the only expertly designed interface

Al Vallario said:
There is a definite "mac experience." It's the feeling you get when you turn your mac on for the first time and it works around you, it doesn't make you work around it. It's the feeling when you plug a digital camera in for the first time, finger half hovering on the link to the manufacturer's website to look for drivers thinking "this isn't going to work," then iPhoto pops up and does things you couldn't have dreamt of.
Click to expand...

The same way I plugged my Sony Ericsson K750i into my Ubuntu machine and gSpot launched to browse the photos? oh and the same way I could synch with my calendar?
so what things does iPhoto do that GIMP or gSpot not do?

Al Vallario said:
It's the feeling everytime you tap one of the function keys and see Exposé do its magic, and the feeling when you throw anything you want at any application and it will just work... and it will work beautifully to.
Click to expand...

yeah, i've got XGL too :p

Al Vallario said:
A "linux experience?" I suppose that's when you have to plug a digital camera in, trawl the internet (after toiling with your eth0 settings for hours or hacking together a pile of outdated wireless adapter drivers from various sources) for USB drivers, then trawl the internet for the drivers for your individual digital camera based on the chipset installed just to the left... no, actually, right behind the CCD (which you don't know the exact serial number and date of manufacture for, of course, but that's your own fault), compile it from source through the command line then realise that you don't actually have an application which will do anything with your photos. You do a little search, find an application then find you need umpteen software repositories to install it correctly, and even when thats over with the user interface is about as intuitive as trying to bash your head against a brick wall which doesn't even alert yourself of its presence.
Click to expand...

Not blowing things out of proportion are we? :p I've never had to do any of that with any of my linux machines.

Al Vallario said:
I'm being biased for the purposes of this thread, of course, and there are certain linux distributions which have attempted to fix the aforementioned "hair loss" situations (although also slightly dramatised for this post), but there is definitely a mac experience. Buying a bottom-of-the-range £300 laptop with Windows pre-installed simply cannot compare to the quality and experience of owning a £750 MacBook — trust me, I have both.
Click to expand...

The laptop is a tool to use, if i wanted an "experience" i'd go skydiving or somesuch, comparing the quality of my samsung notebook to my boss's £2000 faded and faulty MBP I can honestly say that I can't see where the money goes.
And no, my laptop doesn't have windows on it :p

It seems owning a mac is a little like owning a BMW, people assume the badge means a superior machine. I nearly bought a MBP recently however I wanted a decent graphics controller and the X1600 didn't cut it.

Don't get me wrong, I like OSX - i think its a little oversimplified for my needs but my mother has a mac mini to do her internet jollies (complete clueless comupter user), it was easy to teach her to use it and she loves it, I found it funny how steve jobs is on about this "innovative" multi desktop system for panther - would that be the one that linux has used for about 10 years?
 
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Hate said:
Things
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The thing is you most certainly can't say you've had a "Linux experience" (well, you can, but it's about as meaningful as being able to use OS/2).

What you've had is an "Ubuntu Linux Experience"...i'm sure if we dumped you with Slackware or Gentoo you'd most certainly have a differing experience.

For the purposes of this thread i'll say what I don't like about my MacBook (and Apple in general - although for the record overall i love my Mac, OS X and Apple).

Discolouration

Random Shutdown (now it appears fixed due to the SMC update)

Inability to view how many files are in a folder/subfolders in Finder

PPC > Intel is still slowly trudging on in the software industry

Gaming a bit on the tumbleweed side

Office: Mac crashing whenever you right-click :mad:

People on the internet having to kick up a royal stink before Apple actually considers the possibility that it could be a fault on their side

Apple releasing an X11 update that broke OpenOffice

Lack of an IrfanView like application

Lack of an ID3 Tagging application (that can read all the tags, not just ones specified by the program like iTunes)
 
Fillado said:
Inability to view how many files are in a folder/subfolders in Finder
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You can display file information under each folder / icon by going to display properties (Apple+J when on desktop).

I usually have it set to size 11, and if you also set it to every folder not just the desktop it will show you exactly what your looking for :)
 
Get an IBM Thinkpad and dual boot with linux, dont pay a premium for poor hardware and a OS which is just sparkly gfx on top of a lousy kernal.
 
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