Someone sell me on a MAC!!!

[Booseman]

I've had my Macbook Pro 17 for about 5 years. I've never had a virus or had to reboot for anything other than upgrading the software. I started with a Commodore 28 and worked my way through many PC's. Then I experimented with Linux, that is what eventually got my to buy a Mac. My son DJ's and he started with PC and had a lot of crashes, we got him a Macbook pro 15" and he said he'd never go back to PC, as far as productivity goes, you can get Open Office for free, and it does everything Microsoft Office does. I actually have mine set up to save in Office format since I have to deal with Microsoft products at work. Adobe Photoshop, Coreldraw, and many other productivity suites work best and trouble free on Macs. Get as much RAM as you can afford, the newer one I think can hold 8 gig. Mine is limited to 4. My son has 8 in his. Once you go Mac you won't go back. I do have Win 7 on a desktop that my wife uses, and I converted my Win7 netbook to Ubuntu. Also Apple's customer service it great to deal with. My only issue was a battery that went out after 3 years of leaving it plugged in all the time, and the replaced it at the Apple store for free. The newer Macbooks with the solid state hard drives also have longer battery life, not as long as an Ipad, but twice as long as my Macbook. If I ever get a newer one it will be a 15" instead of 17".

17" is way to much for me! If I ever need a bigger screen I will hook it up to an external.

 

[Renegade]

The same could be said of Mac, for those of us Linux users.

Mac is not worth the extra $ if you are not into making 3d animations or prefer the very impressive video editing/creation software. Otherwise Windoze is fine unfortunately if the Linux learning curve is too steep. I jsut priced a similarly equipped Windows laptop for a buddy last night for about $750 less than what your Mac up there costs(with a 17.3 inch screen, not 13.3). For your intents and purposes, you won't see a difference in performance if you're not doing the aforementioned tasks.

+1000 Also note that while that MAC may last a long time, in the not-so-distant future you will encounter an OS upgrade that doesn't support your hardware. Windows Updates run no matter what. I have quality PCs at home and MACs at work, I don't see any difference in speed or efficiency, and I'm a graphic designer running memory-hogging software on both platforms. If I were in your shoes, I'd get a good PC laptop and spend the savings on a new firearm.

 

[Bosco]

If all you want is a laptop to use with Microsoft Office you can get one for under $500 with a core 2 duo...

Mac is nice if you don't know how to use a computer and you're bad about getting viruses and whatnot. You probably won't use most of the features the OS offers and there's really no reason to pay the premium on a Mac unless you absolutely must be the cool hipster at starbucks.

 

[Bosco]

If you HAVE to have MS office, they make it for the mac. http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products

What you have to understand is that what that extra money is for is not the speed, but the stability and long life of a mac. You will wear out at least 2 PC's before that mac will break, so think of in terms of time and you will be saving quite a bit. Don't let that stop you from buying the best warranty they offer, though, "just in case". The best warranty apple sells also covers accidental damages IIRC, so.......

What the hell are you smoking? We have about 2 dozen macs in the company I work for and at least half of them have failed within the first year of usage. What fantasy world do you live in where a mac will never break or give an error message? It's easier to go to stupid websites and infect a PC with malware/viruses that's really about the only thing Mac has over PC. But not because Mac is a better operating system, just because Mac holds such a small percentage of computer sales there's no point coding malware/viruses to attack them.

 

[Booseman]

This is getting interesting.

 

[Taiaut]

Two questions.
Can you connect an Apple to one of the newer TVs and use as a monitor ?
Can you connect cable to an Apple and watch TV on your computer ?

 

[Bosco]

Here I'll save you a bunch of money for more PC than you'll ever use.

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[Cochise]

Two questions.
Can you connect an Apple to one of the newer TVs and use as a monitor ?
Can you connect cable to an Apple and watch TV on your computer ?

The answer to both is ... YES....with the proper adapters(sold separately)
the answer is the same for PC laptops, too

 

[Taiaut]

What the hell are you smoking? We have about 2 dozen macs in the company I work for and at least half of them have failed within the first year of usage. What fantasy world do you live in where a mac will never break or give an error message? It's easier to go to stupid websites and infect a PC with malware/viruses that's really about the only thing Mac has over PC. But not because Mac is a better operating system, just because Mac holds such a small percentage of computer sales there's no point coding malware/viruses to attack them.

Somebody missed their fiber this morning.

 

[Cochise]

Here I'll save you a bunch of money for more PC than you'll ever use.

Do Not Buy HP!!! They have the worst customer service I have ever dealt with. If you have to buy an off the shelf PC, Toshiba and Dell are the only 2 companies I can fully recommend without reservation.

 

[Cochise]

Well, since Boose has pulled out the popcorn....

What the hell are you smoking? We have about 2 dozen macs in the company I work for and at least half of them have failed within the first year of usage. What fantasy world do you live in where a mac will never break or give an error message? It's easier to go to stupid websites and infect a PC with malware/viruses that's really about the only thing Mac has over PC. But not because Mac is a better operating system, just because Mac holds such a small percentage of computer sales there's no point coding malware/viruses to attack them.

Where these desktops or laptops? New or "refurbished"? Did your company buy them direct from apple or from some local hackjobs that also installed the system for them?? If I am wrong here, I will eat my words, but I don't think I am.

 

[Booseman]

Do Not Buy HP!!! They have the worst customer service I have ever dealt with. If you have to buy an off the shelf PC, Toshiba and Dell are the only 2 companies I can fully recommend without reservation.

I will agree with that because my company uses HP and they fail all the time. The only thing I like about the HP's is the great docking station's they make.

 

[brfd557]

Hey man if your interested in a used mac I have a 2010 MacBook air and I'm looking to get @$600 for it.It' like new.

 

[CJB1911]

It's hard to beat the 13" macbook pro for $999. Just a gorgeous machine.

I use both PC and Mac. My server, HTPCs and main machine run microsoft OS. My laptop is a MacBook Pro.

I definitely spend more time troubleshooting PC issues.

 

[Bosco]

Somebody missed their fiber this morning.

Can't add anything to the conversation so you decide to toss insults. Sounds about right.

Do Not Buy HP!!! They have the worst customer service I have ever dealt with. If you have to buy an off the shelf PC, Toshiba and Dell are the only 2 companies I can fully recommend without reservation.

All of the customer service is crap for the consumer side. You get to talk to India and hope you get someone who will just send you the part to fix the damn thing yourself. However I've had several HP laptops in the past and didn't have any major issues (nothing I couldn't fix myself). Besides you don't have to go to HP to find an i7 with a decent video card for under $1000 (if you go with PC).

Well, since Boose has pulled out the popcorn....

Where these desktops or laptops? New or "refurbished"? Did your company buy them direct from apple or from some local hackjobs that also installed the system for them?? If I am wrong here, I will eat my words, but I don't think I am.

Macbook Pro's purchased from the vendor we buy everything from. We have a pretty large IT department so we don't trust "local hackjobs" Not that it would matter, it wasn't software issues it was hardware issues. Had a couple with video cards that quit working, a couple that the motherboard needed to be replaced on, and a couple that the hard drives died on. Typical computer issues you find all the time. Not saying PC fails any more or less than Apple products but nothing is as bulletproof as you claim. I could go on an hour long spiel about how horrible these things are to support on a corporate domain but that's not going to affect the typical user.

 

[Bosco]

I will agree with that because my company uses HP and they fail all the time. The only thing I like about the HP's is the great docking station's they make.

The company I work for uses Lenovo and they fail all the time. All of these computers have the same internals. They're all cheap as hell made in China garbage that will fail. Doesn't matter what they brand on the outside of the laptop. If you have a computer that hasn't failed, then consider yourself lucky and knock on wood.

Hell we've got several Sager laptops (rebadged Clevo laptops) which are supposed to be your top of the line Windows gaming laptop. We've had 3 fail in the past 6 months (all video card issues) and these laptops were $2000-3000 in price.

So what I'm getting at is if you like Mac OS, go with Mac. If you like Windows, go with PC. One is no better than the other, however one is more expensive than the other because it can be and people will still buy it. Hell you can run Windows on a Mac and you can run Mac on a PC if you really wanted to.

 

[Brian22]

This is very true, but I accepted long ago that Linux just isn't for most people. I love it, its free, its open, and the better versions are infinitely customizable, but I almost never recommend it to others unless they show to me that they enjoy the challenge of learning new things and even then, I tell them to get a second computer or use a dual boot setup. What distribution do you run?

I agree, if you're not comfortable in a terminal window then most Linux might not be for you. However, Ubuntu has come a long way and I installed it on my nontechie neighbor's computer and he's getting around fine; most can operate Ubuntu without ever opening a terminal. I run Fedora at work, Ubuntu configured with LAMP and Drupal at my house for dev, and I've been playing around with Mint lately - it's turning out to be a good LAMP distro as well. Not many differences between the systems except terminal commands, layout, and some file names are a little different. I'm most familiar with Fedora but am pretty confident in Ubuntu as well.

 

[Brian22]

I have done a little re-search on that and everything I have been over says YES!! It is just very expensive the bigger you go. It is also much more durable and faster from what I have been reading. Everything out there pointed to going that route and that is why I chose it.

Hey go for it! If you want to save some $$, I think SSD's are going to drop in price pretty hard in the nex 6 months-year - might save a few $$ by getting a rotary HDD now and upgrading to SSD later. Just a thought.

 

[Gus McCrae]

Once you go Mac you won't go back.

Funny, my wife has been a Mac user for years, but wants her next computer to be a PC. Reason? We have an aged macbook pro (4 years old) where some parts are failing, getting parts is a little harder and upgrading is not really an option. With a PC, you can upgrade parts as needed.


For the OP: To me, a Mac is not worth the money. I know enough about computers to get the bloat ware off and keep it running fine.... if all you are going to do is surf the net, Office and need some portability, a netbook gets you all of that for around $250 Seriously, it's what I'm using now. I did have to get used to the compressed keyboard.

If a Gaming system is what you want PC all the way.

If you want a fashion symbol where you have to know next to nothing about computers and have no interest learning about computers but want to surf the net..... a Mac might be for you.

 

[chad]

If you want a fashion symbol where you have to know next to nothing about computers and have no interest learning about computers but want to surf the net..... a Mac might be for you.

Hey now..