Some more questions

cotton31

cotton31

cotton31

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Some of you may have read my post a while ago in the other forum.

I'm now getting quite serious about switching to a Macbook (MB or MBP). However, I have a few problems:

1) How will a MB/MBP compare to my current PC (in my sig)? I also have it connected up to my 26" HDTV via VGA. Would this be possible on the Mac?

2) What would I use to do everything I use my PC for now?
- Instant Messaging on MSN
- Torrent Downloads
- Burning Disks
- I currently have a hotmail address.
Do Apple offer an email service that I could use?

3) I use photoshop, dreamweaver and play Football Manager occasionally. Would a MB suffice of would I need a MBP? I really like the styling of the MB White. Not so keen on the MBP.

Sorry its a lot, but any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
cotton31 said:
Some of you may have read my post a while ago in the other forum.

I'm now getting quite serious about switching to a Macbook (MB or MBP). However, I have a few problems:

1) How will a MB/MBP compare to my current PC (in my sig)? I also have it connected up to my 26" HDTV via VGA. Would this be possible on the Mac?

2) What would I use to do everything I use my PC for now?

- Instant Messaging on MSN
- Torrent Downloads
- Burning Disks
- I currently have a hotmail address.
Do Apple offer an email service that I could use?

3) I use photoshop, dreamweaver and play Football Manager occasionally. Would a MB suffice of would I need a MBP? I really like the styling of the MB White. Not so keen on the MBP.

Sorry its a lot, but any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...

1) Not really sure depends on what you mean, stability, yes it will outperform the PC, speed wise i'm not sure. But MacBooks are very quick.

2) MSN -Messenger for Mac or Adium or aMSN or Mercury Messenger. Down to personal choice really.

Torrent downloads -Transmission or Azureus. I personally use Transmission as it is very light and easy to use.

Burning Disks - Already built into OS X, no additional software needed, but if you want some, try Roxio Toast Titanium

Hotmail Address - You can still use hotmail or you can sign up to .mac and get a @mac address, but you have to pay for it.

3) The MacBook should be fine for that, I wold consider the MacBook Pro if you will be doing a lot of multitasking, playing a lot of games and using a lot of processor hungry apps. Also if you are using a large external monitor, the MacBook Pro may be better as it has a separate GFX card unlike the MacBook that has a built in one.

Also if screen size isn't an issue, and you don't mind a 13" over a 15" then the MacBook will be fine.
 
Thanks for the reply justin.

1) I suppose I really meant is the MacBook going to slow me down i.e. being slower generally than my PC?

2) Thanks, everything answered there really. I wanted to get away from hotmail as a) its Microsoft and b) it doesnt have POP3 support so i suppose it wont work in Mail.

3) Currently, i have my HDTV running at 1024 x 768 resolution (doesnt support higher) and it looks fine, so as long as a MB will do that i will be ok.

Lastly, my home network is wireless (NETGEAR) and the other two PC's in the house are Windows machines. Will this work with a MB?

Thanks again.
 
cotton31 said:
Thanks for the reply justin.

1) I suppose I really meant is the MacBook going to slow me down i.e. being slower generally than my PC?

2) Thanks, everything answered there really. I wanted to get away from hotmail as a) its Microsoft and b) it doesnt have POP3 support so i suppose it wont work in Mail.

3) Currently, i have my HDTV running at 1024 x 768 resolution (doesnt support higher) and it looks fine, so as long as a MB will do that i will be ok.

Lastly, my home network is wireless (NETGEAR) and the other two PC's in the house are Windows machines. Will this work with a MB?

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

1. Probly about the same. I replaced a PD-940 with a MBP 1.83 and it's just as quick in general use if not faster. Just remember it's a laptop so the HDDs are not as quick.

2. Hotmail won't work in mail, but you can still use the internet you know! Anything POP or IMAP should be OK. Gmail do a POP service btw.

3. Should be fine. I've got my MBP running a 32" LCD at 1366x768 and it looks lovely. Front row makes watching movies dead easy, especially with the remote included.

Wireless and networking just works on a Mac. No faffing around. I had more trouble getting my Windows PC to talk to my Sky rebranded Netgear router. The Mac just went "I've found this, give us the password and we're done".
 
Cheers MagicBoy.

I know I could still use the internet but I dont really like hotmail to be honest and only use it for messenger. Looks like GMail is the way to go.

Do you think I should wait for Leopard before purchasing?
 
cotton31 said:
Do you think I should wait for Leopard before purchasing?
Click to expand...

It won't be hugely expensive at around £65 (unlike Vista!). There's unlikely to be hardware upgrades when Leopard is launched so it's purely down to the £££ vs "I want one now" factor ;)

There's some nice features in Leopard, but it doesn't make me want to immediately throw Tiger away. The finder improvements are most tempting...

Tiger might appear to be "old", but in reality it's only been around in this version for 18 month. Apple created an Intel version for the Feb 06 switch to Intel processors. The oldest Intel revision is 10.4.4 (to match the PPC version at that time).
 
Ive just got a macbook 2.16ghz 1gb ram 120gb hdd, and its very quick, suprisingly quick. I thought I was going to need to upgrade to 2gb of ram, but I don't, 1gb will do fine for what I use.

Very happy with it.

My main pc is c2d 2.4ghz, 2gb ram, 7950GX2 etc and the macbook doesnt feel slow compared to that.
 
Yeah don't wait until Leopard. With Macs it's always buy now and not later, there will alway be something in the making to replace it .
 
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