Macintosh laptop vs others, why mac?

Barks · 13 Sep 2009 at 00:41

Well I bought a Mac because after years of frustration, stress and anger using Windows I completely fell for the whole "just works" image of Macs and envisioned a computing experience stress-free where nothing ever goes wrong.

Brand new MBP. Bootcamp won't work because there's not enough contiguous space on the internal HD, despite having 140GB of free space. I buy some defragment software, there's a problem with the superdrive and it can't burn the image to a disc. I then clone my internal drive to an external drive, try to boot from the external... error messages. It already strikes me that Apple engineers are so confident that their hardware is faultless that when things do go wrong, the user is absolutely and utterly screwed. It's utter disbelief that they haven't solved the Bootcamp partition problem in SL and only provide a solution in the form of a message telling you to format your Mac and start again. Yes, I've had an awful day and haven't had a computing experience this awful since Windows ME.

So for your average computer-illiterate person, Macs are a godsend. For the rest of us, there just aren't enough applications/settings to cater. The only reason I need Windows on it is because it's lacking in a host of applications.

It's also not as error-free as people make it out to be. Mine is 2 weeks old, has hardly any extra software on and still constantly freezes for a few seconds now and again in iTunes/Safari etc. Also had many incidients where I've had to force quit applications and even force the thing to shutdown. No different to Windows in terms of reliability, just a much cleaner OS. Flawless computers are a long way away yet and Macs, from my experience, are no closer to achieving that whatsoever.

K1LLSW1TCH · 13 Sep 2009 at 00:51

Please explain how I am yet to make a contribution? And also explain how I have demonstrated that I've not read your posts. I have, it's just that when you put yourself across as an arrogant ******** then there's not much that really needs to be said. Your initial question was pointless as a matter of fact. "Shall I buy a Mac even though I have no intentions of running the native OS?" was basically your question. And I hate to break it to you but the Apple geniuses are basically in store techs. Much to your contrary beliefs.

Caged · 13 Sep 2009 at 01:47

Most of Apple's stuff is built by Foxconn, but to Apple's own standards and methods, and without the number one priority being keeping a price low. This is why the same factory can turn out a cheapo laptop and a MacBook Pro and the quality differences be so vast.

Ross1234 · 13 Sep 2009 at 01:58

Caged said:
Most of Apple's stuff is built by Foxconn, but to Apple's own standards and methods, and without the number one priority being keeping a price low. This is why the same factory can turn out a cheapo laptop and a MacBook Pro and the quality differences be so vast.

Apples marketing must be really awesome if you dont beleive their number one priority is profit, and therefore "keeping a price low".

Logsi · 13 Sep 2009 at 02:36

scott212 said:
Snip

Give it some time man and use don't use it like a windows pc.

You're not going to learn how to use and appreciate the OS after 2 weeks. I've been on macs for over 3 years and i'm still finding little things that i can do with it. OS X is way more reliable than windows.

If you really are having trouble with boot camp do a full reformat zero out. In most cases it is in fact the users ignorance to the software that causes them the most headaches.

Ross1234 · 13 Sep 2009 at 02:37

Logsi said:
OS X is way more reliable than windows.

Oh really? I have been running windows seven for months now and it hasnt crashed once apart from in a crap buggy game.

meghatronic · 13 Sep 2009 at 02:45

The laptops have shocking build quality in my opinion. I have a 7yr old Dell that is still fully working and undamaged.

I've had my MacBook Air replaced twice and repaired thrice. My MacBook Pro is chipped to hell and back, the screen hinge doesn't work, constantly beachballs and is only months old. So, I think they fail on laptops, personally. They look nice, and have neat features, but I certainly highly doubt I'd use my own money on one.

Logsi said:
OS X is way more reliable than windows.

In work it is called the meghatronic effect (with my name obviously), but my macs (two laptops and desktop) crash or lock up at least once a day. Sometimes prompting a hard boot, sometimes SSHing in and killing a process. Numerous time a full reinstall. I am VERY unlucky though (hence the effect), collegaues macs don't suffer 1/10th problems I do.

My Vista machine has crashed once in a year. Once. Literally once. My Dell laptop has never crashed, as far as I can remember (XP), except explorer.exe issues.

Horses for courses

Caged · 13 Sep 2009 at 03:04

Ross1234 said:
Apples marketing must be really awesome if you dont beleive their number one priority is profit, and therefore "keeping a price low".

I never mentioned profit, and it's pretty obvious that if Apples #1 aim was to make a low-cost product then it wouldn't be machined out of aluminium.

JonJ678 · 13 Sep 2009 at 03:13

Just went through and read your replies k1llswitch. You've been a mix of uninformative and offensive, and I have no wish to argue with you on this. Contribute or leave.

I'm sorry to hear that scott. The answer does look to be zeroing the drive then installing osx, or just installing windows and using it like any other laptop. Not really a hardware issue, unless the freezing is hardware related.

Foxconn seem to make a lot of things, interesting to hear that they fabricate for apple as well. I think the point was that Apple don't only care about making things as cheaply as possible, not that they ignore cost during manufacture. They make a greater profit by manufacturing higher quality products, I might give Apple a grand but I won't give Acer £300.

To be honest I don't know what to make of that meghatronic. The ghost in the machine perhaps; whenever I visit my parents their wireless goes down. Every time, regardless of whether I have a laptop with me or not. Perhaps it'll make more sense in the morning though

Cheers all

edit: As I just can't let things go. FAO K1llswitch,
You may reword the question as that if you wish, and indeed if you cannot conceive of a mac without osx then I suppose you would be confused. As it happens I remain interested in the hardware Apple chose to use and how it differs from other options, but I am going to run linux on whatever I end up with. You are welcome to consider me arrogant, and throw whatever insults the board filtered. I've condemned you as either illiterate or thick, and added you to my ignore list. I am depressed to see that you are studying computer science.

MikeHunt79 · 13 Sep 2009 at 03:38

JonJ678 said:
I confess my ignorance on this one, what does a 'logic board' do?

I think it has a few extra bits and bobs on it to allow it to run OSX nicely, which is why if you want to run OSX on a normal PC, you have to use dodgy hacks.

I think it may contain the EFI interface...

As far as dropping the laptop, I would have thought an Alu chassis would help somewhat, as the CPU and motherboard and most non moving components are pretty shock proof (as are SSD's), as long as it is solidly mounted...

Hard drives and DVD drives are a little more fragile however...

Has anyone done a destruction test on a unibody macbook? It would be cool to see, but I'm not rich enough to have a go myself! :eek:

bigredshark · 13 Sep 2009 at 08:00

You'd be far better off reading one of the many teardowns of the new macbook pros floating around the internet. They're very well designed and generally very well made, they have plenty of idiosyncratic apple touches which you may or may not choose to moan about depending on how much you resemble a 13 year old child (non removable battery is the latest favourite there).

Most features (ambient light sensor, illuminated keyboard etc) are available elsewhere today (even my work dell e4300 has an illuminated keyboard).

If you want to be anal about the hardware read a teardown but I couldn't justify a macbook pro over a higher end dell latitude these days if it wasn't for OSX.

Vonhelmet · 13 Sep 2009 at 08:35

A logic board is a motherboard.

NickK · 13 Sep 2009 at 10:39

JonJ678 said:
Is there any suspension between board and chassis? The thinkpads seem to have various parts softmounted to cope better with being dropped.

How much of the hardware is designed in house? I believe I read somewhere that the motherboards are manufactured by Asus, and they all appear to be using intel processors. Does it follow that Apple is responsible for component selection and chassis design, but otherwise they have little involvement?

I had a thinkpad for many years for business (T41 iirc) and it is without doubt the best windows laptop I've used. It's taken the business trips, the plane journeys and the odd occasional knock in it's stride. It's slowdown caused by windows (you couldn't get a fresh install), 1GB and the slow processor. With business you need to get to information fast and livesearch resulted in a dog slow machine.
Moved the install into a Parallels VM using transporter on the MBP and the result was a machine over three times faster and faster still with the SSD upgrade later.

Apple design and then provide the requirements to their suppliers (logic board, display, even CPU thermal specifications). Intel created a smaller packaged chip for Apple as the standard mobile CPU packaging didn't fit.

Apple do perform research in terms of designs around hardware - they have a hardware research team but it's not specialised as Intel's CPU R&D team for example.

It's a bit like the comparison that Jeremy Clarkson made about the Merc 500 series, and the Jag versus other cruisers. It's the attention to the little details that reduces the stress, leaves you less tired at the end of the activity and doesn't feel like your fighting it. The heartbeat of the merc 500 drivers was measured scientifically and found to be lower. All the test subjects felt at the end of a 300 mile drive that they were unstressed and feeling less tired.
Same with the Apple experience.

meghatronic · 13 Sep 2009 at 11:44

JonJ678 said:
To be honest I don't know what to make of that meghatronic. The ghost in the machine perhaps; whenever I visit my parents their wireless goes down. Every time, regardless of whether I have a laptop with me or not. Perhaps it'll make more sense in the morning though

The various theories floating my office are: I'm cursed, I expect it to happen so it happens or (my favourite) I love Microsoft so much Apple technology rebels.

Fillado · 13 Sep 2009 at 12:54

Kainz said:
I like the architecture of the OS and the way apps are self contained without scattering crap everywhere. I was pretty gobsmacked when I installed my first app and was like "is that it?".

IMO OS X is actually worse than Windows. Sure installing an app is (generally) quicker. But with OS X while there is a centralised Package Installer (for example Office 2008, iLife, iWork etc. use it), this installer throws stuff EVERYWHERE and there isn't a centralised uninstaller. So on Windows you're left with going into Program Files and Documents & Settings. OS X you have to do a Spotlight search manually telling it do display "System Files".

Feek · 13 Sep 2009 at 13:23

I've found very few OS X applications that throw stuff EVERYWHERE, one of the worst is Office 2008! Most things add the application itself and a preference file and that's it. There's hardly anything else unless I'm missing something.

knowledge123 · 13 Sep 2009 at 14:30

Fillado said:
IMO OS X is actually worse than Windows. Sure installing an app is (generally) quicker. But with OS X while there is a centralised Package Installer (for example Office 2008, iLife, iWork etc. use it), this installer throws stuff EVERYWHERE and there isn't a centralised uninstaller. So on Windows you're left with going into Program Files and Documents & Settings. OS X you have to do a Spotlight search manually telling it do display "System Files".

http://www.appzapper.com/

I love my Alu Macbook, because it can run OSX and Vista, no issues. Best of both worlds. You could do the same on a number of laptops (it is illegal though) , and you don't get the reliability and quality of use that you do out of doing it from an Apple laptop.

NickK · 13 Sep 2009 at 14:42

Well if the app has private stuff then it will keep the stuff in the local application bundle. If the application has shared frameworks then it will add them to the frameworks library.

The worst are those that are unix/linux cross compiles that require /opt /var /etc etc all of which OSX doesn't have.

james.miller · 13 Sep 2009 at 14:45

JonJ678 said:
I've noticed that some of them are aluminium, is the chassis thermally linked to the cpu/gpu cooler? This would mean fewer vents/slower fans and so less dust inside.

id be very suprised if they did that actually. its a great idea i theory, but some of the components still get rather warm and the idea of coupling the cpu and gpu to the chassis is....el scorchio i think.

as far as build quality goes i dont think they are any better than anything else with a price premium quite honestly. somebody mentioned its problem no better than a £950 vaio - id agree with that. i looked at macbook pro's when i bought my vaio and they werent any better. my vaio has a magnesium upper body and lid (bottom is plastic) and it feels just as solid. no keyboard flex when you're typic ect and arguably the hinges are far better on my fw. The only critisism i have of my vaio is that being painted magnesium the paint does were off on the edges of the body.

MikeHunt79 · 13 Sep 2009 at 16:22

knowledge123 said:
http://www.appzapper.com/ I love my Alu Macbook, because it can run OSX and Vista, no issues. Best of both worlds. You could do the same on a number of laptops (it is illegal though) , and you don't get the reliability and quality of use that you do out of doing it from an Apple laptop.

Is it actually illegal to run OSX on a non-mac? I know it's against the EULA but that doesn't actually mean it's illegal does it?