If I bought a Mac Book...

[off_again]

1. #

Alt-3 - yep that works.... learn something new every day...

[PJR]

m12_nathan said:

off_again said:

The problem is that when you start spec'ing up a Windows laptop to the better levels then you are in Macbook levels there is virtually nothing in it on the price.

Hmmm.

I bought a Dell XPS M1330 for £716, this included £95 for HSDPA and £42 for an LED backlit screen so exclude those for the moment as they aren't options on the macbook and you get

£579 inc vat and delivery for:

Core2Duo 2.0
2GB Ram
160GB Disk
DVD-RW
Intel AGN Wireless
Biometric finger print reader
webcam

Macbook is much more expensive.

I have a macbook black and it is good for some things but running windows apps regularly (all day every day) isn't a strong point.

Editted to amend figures I took off to include discount.

Edited by m12_nathan on Friday 22 February 14:38

Does that include OS? As I understand it, the latest top end Windows OS is quite costly on its own right? £330 or so?
Not that you need the top end OS I suppose, but at least thats what you get with an Apple, along with other useful things.

P,

[off_again]

m12_nathan said:

off_again said:

The problem is that when you start spec'ing up a Windows laptop to the better levels then you are in Macbook levels there is virtually nothing in it on the price.

Hmmm.

I bought a Dell XPS M1330 for £716, this included £95 for HSDPA and £42 for an LED backlit screen so exclude those for the moment as they aren't options on the macbook and you get

£579 inc vat and delivery for:

Core2Duo 2.0
2GB Ram
160GB Disk
DVD-RW
Intel AGN Wireless
Biometric finger print reader
webcam

Macbook is much more expensive.

I have a macbook black and it is good for some things but running windows apps regularly (all day every day) isn't a strong point.

Editted to amend figures I took off to include discount.

Edited by m12_nathan on Friday 22 February 14:38

Fine. Whatever.

Bored now. You obviously hate Mac OS X and love Windows. Clearly that's your preference and that's fine. And I wouldn't consider Dell to be anything near QUALITY. I have had a string of Dell laptops and they have all been utterly rubbish. Build quality is shocking. Component reliability is rubbish and overall quality of the product is exactly what you pay for - not a lot. If you want cheap and chearful then buy Dell.

Mac's are better built, have better components etc. And in the end they are apples and pears.

Bored now.

[jamieboy]

off_again said:

Fine. Whatever.

Bored now. You obviously hate Mac OS X and love Windows.

Nonsense, this hasn't just been another tedious OSX vs Windows brawl - the OP was considering running Windows apps on a Mac, and a couple of us who have already got the scars from that have pointed out that it's not all it's cracked up to be. Not slating it, just being honest about it.

off_again said:

Mac's are better built, have better components etc.

Better built maybe, but I'd dispute the 'better components' with regard to the wireless lan. And I know I keep banging on about the wireless, but that's because a) it's pretty important for a laptop, and b) it's the only serious disappointment with my MBP.

[m12_nathan]

PJR said:

m12_nathan said:

off_again said:

The problem is that when you start spec'ing up a Windows laptop to the better levels then you are in Macbook levels there is virtually nothing in it on the price.

Hmmm.

I bought a Dell XPS M1330 for £716, this included £95 for HSDPA and £42 for an LED backlit screen so exclude those for the moment as they aren't options on the macbook and you get

£579 inc vat and delivery for:

Core2Duo 2.0
2GB Ram
160GB Disk
DVD-RW
Intel AGN Wireless
Biometric finger print reader
webcam

Macbook is much more expensive.

I have a macbook black and it is good for some things but running windows apps regularly (all day every day) isn't a strong point.

Editted to amend figures I took off to include discount.

Edited by m12_nathan on Friday 22 February 14:38

Does that include OS? As I understand it, the latest top end Windows OS is quite costly on its own right? £330 or so?
Not that you need the top end OS I suppose, but at least thats what you get with an Apple, along with other useful things.

P,

Yes, that includes Vista, I didn't upgrade to ultimate edition as I have MSDN copies to use but it would've been about £80 to do so verses the £330 odd you quote to get the same version of windows running on the Mac.

OSX is fine if you want to use OSX, if your requirements are to run windows apps all day every day I don't see what you gain buy getting a mac? If that makes me a OSX hater then so be it (posted from firefox on OSX 10.4.11).

[m12_nathan]

Quality - both use the same Intel chipset, the same cpus, generic HDDs, the dell has the option of an LED backlit screen which is better, both use slot load drives, the Dell has a much better wireless implimentation (mini pci Intel car that is swapable) and has an additional mini pci card slot for turbo memory or HSDPA WWAN cards.

The only thing better about the macbook IME is the keyboard (save for lack of hash key), and the dell doesn't have creeky screen hinges.

Overall I'd say much of a muchness, the apple feels slightly more solid but that is probably due to the fact that it weighs more than the dell.

The mac pro looks like a stunning piece of kit however.

[off_again]

jamieboy said:

off_again said:

Fine. Whatever.

Bored now. You obviously hate Mac OS X and love Windows.

Nonsense, this hasn't just been another tedious OSX vs Windows brawl - the OP was considering running Windows apps on a Mac, and a couple of us who have already got the scars from that have pointed out that it's not all it's cracked up to be. Not slating it, just being honest about it.

off_again said:

Mac's are better built, have better components etc.

Better built maybe, but I'd dispute the 'better components' with regard to the wireless lan. And I know I keep banging on about the wireless, but that's because a) it's pretty important for a laptop, and b) it's the only serious disappointment with my MBP.

Sorry, but I am sick to by back teeth with all of this stuff that keeps getting posted. Thankfully we have a certain degree of options when it comes to selection of OS and manufacturer. However, I get really bored of the whole 'Mac OS X is better than Windows' or 'Windows laptops are cheaper' or 'my willy is bigger than your willy'.

It serves no purpose and its pretty much down to personal preference. I will never judge anyone by what computer they use - that would be daft. But when it comes to which is better, its so much a subjective thing that boiling it all down to price and a feature list is rubbish. There is more to buying stuff than just looking at which products have the most features for the cheapest price!

As for Dell's - I am sorry but you pay for what quality you get. You can get a cheap laptop or desktop and they will have rubbish components. Spend more and it will be better. Its a false economy to expect the world for the least amount of money. In the last few years I have been shocked by the build quality and reliability of a series of D600, D610, D620 and now D620 Latitude laptops. We have had a failure rate of 50% of the hard disks (cheapest models around). Something like 20% of WiFi cards have failed. Mouse pads have gone screwy and USB ports have completely failed. Hinges wobble and are loose after only a few months and as for WiFi - if you can actually get them to connect to anything then great, but in most cases they dont! The Latitude range is not the best and it demonstrative that my CEO refuses to move from his 4 year old IBM Thinkpad because of the grief that everyone else has had with the Dell's.

I guess to answer the original question posted about running Windows apps on a Mac - forget it. It seems that the common consensus is to just by a Dell and sod the MacBook because Mac OS X is crap and Windows is much better. You can buy a laptop cheaper and obviously thats important. So best forget it.... I mean, its not about what you want its about the best spec, right?

[jamieboy]

off_again said:

I guess to answer the original question posted about running Windows apps on a Mac - forget it. It seems that the common consensus is to just by a Dell and sod the MacBook because Mac OS X is crap and Windows is much better. You can buy a laptop cheaper and obviously thats important. So best forget it.... I mean, its not about what you want its about the best spec, right?

Of course it's about what the person buying the machine wants. In this case, he wants to run Windows apps, and wondered how he'd get on doing that on a Mac.

I guess we're reading the thread differently, because you're seeing people saying OSX is crap and Windows is much better, and I'm not seeing that. I'm seeing people saying that a Mac laptop isn't as great at running Windows as some Mac fans would have you believe.

[m12_nathan]

off_again said:

because Mac OS X is crap and Windows is much better

...at running windows apps.

[sjg]

m12_nathan said:

The volume buttons becomes function keys, as do the brightness buttons.

Mine work in Windows as they do on OSX - brightness, media controls, volume work just fine. You press fn and a key to get F1-F12, reversible in the Boot Camp control panel thing if you prefer.

m12_nathan said:

No '\' and no '#' keys - 100% certain of that, don't think they've ever been there on Mac Keyboards either.

Maybe I'm seeing things then...



Hash is crtl-alt-3, I've not found it hard to remember. It's the same as what you need to get to the (marked) Euro symbol on the key next door - maybe Apple should have printed a # next to the £ sign?

m12_nathan said:

Apples half hearted driver for windows means the touch pad doesn't work how it does in OSX too.

I'm happy with it. Moving two fingers up and down or side-to-side scrolls, two fingers plus click gives you a right-click, as with OSX.

m12_nathan said:

So what is the point of buying one to run windows on? The mac pro I can see would make an excellent windows machine as you can use whatever keyboard and mouse you want, the mac book I disagree on, if it was fine then I wouldn't have had to fork out for another computer.

The OP wants to run windows apps, what is better about OSX and a MacBook in that scenario?

If windows apps are a priority and there's no interest in OSX then sure, a windows laptop will do the job. In my case, the Macbook came in at very decent value - £705 (dixons airport price) for a 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo, 13" screen, great battery life laptop compares very well to the Windows competition. The X1330 looks OK, but going on Dell's site now I'd be paying £748 for a 2.2 model with integrated graphics, and I'd have to pay more for the integrated bluetooth and better battery to match the Macbook spec. I've got a laptop that's great for OSX, but that works brilliantly as a Windows machine too. Best of all worlds in my book - and when I want the newest shiniest thing in a couple of years, I'd bet the Macbook will fetch a lot more secondhand too.

Edited by sjg on Friday 22 February 19:49

Edited by sjg on Friday 22 February 19:52

[m12_nathan]

does alt-3 work in windows? Doesn't on mine.

I was wrong about the \ key as it isn't in the correct place, in windows you can either have that key as the hash or as the backslash.

My keypad doesn't have the 2 finger scroll under windows, maybe a later version of bootcamp drivers added it?

They are all bluetooth as standard, and you can get 16% off too.

So again what is the point of buying a machine with OSX if your requirements are running windows apps?

ps, fn+<- is more annoying than just using the delete key too.

[jamieboy]

sjg said:

Hash is crtl-alt-3, I've not found it hard to remember.

Excellent - thanks for that. Annoying having to use three keys when one would do, but still.

sjg said:

I've got a laptop that's great for OSX, but that works brilliantly as a Windows machine too.

That's the bit I'd disagree with, and the only point I've been trying to make all through the thread. It's great for OSX, and it works tolerably well as a Windows machine too.

[cyberface]

m12_nathan said:

does alt-3 work in windows? Doesn't on mine.

I was wrong about the \ key as it isn't in the correct place, in windows you can either have that key as the hash or as the backslash.

My keypad doesn't have the 2 finger scroll under windows, maybe a later version of bootcamp drivers added it?

They are all bluetooth as standard, and you can get 16% off too.

So again what is the point of buying a machine with OSX if your requirements are running windows apps?

ps, fn+<- is more annoying than just using the delete key too.

Keep away from OS X. It's clear that it didn't like you, and set the Giant Dog Eating Catfish of DOOM on you and your data.

Must agree with you that there's no point in buying an Apple laptop to run Windows - however if you want to run OS X and a couple of Windows apps, then they absolutely rock. But if the OP is planning on booting Windows as primary OS, and never using OS X, then yeah buying an Apple laptop smacks of trendiness over purpose to me.

The trouble is that it's not easy finding equivalent quality (I'll give you the ste Atheros wifi card, those really are execrable) in the PC world because everything is sold on price, and price alone. Sony sell teh shinaaay like Apple but you get a st-load of crapware and a day's worth of building a workable version of Windows. The Thinkpads are pretty much the only PC laptop I'd buy, FWIW. Still fancy taking a 2-yr-old 12" thinkpad and making a Hackintosh out of it, only thing missing is the trackpad unfortunately.

In the real world, there are only a few apps that are Windows-specific if you're prepared to switch OS. Maybe that's what the usual bks above is all about. For most people, you can step off Windows and onto OS X easily for the basics (web, mail, media, office apps - and I include MS in this, being Apple's biggest software supplier) with a couple of Windows virtual machines for specific bespoke applications.

However if you're planning to run Windows as a **primary OS** on the Apple laptop, you are 100% correct. Waste of time. If you're buying one with the aim to learn / switch to OS X (or unix-type OSes in general) then there's some value in the idea, otherwise, no.

[tinman0]

KingRichard said:

Would I be able to use remote desktop to dial into a Windows PC and run ALL of the software on it?

I'm really falling for their sales pitch online, and I'm starting to wonder if it's not the answer to all the problems I have with the work PC's

Only trouble is finding how the hell my bespoke software will work on a Mac... Ah well, nice to dream of a world without crashing, rebooting and product updates, security warnings etc etc... blah blah.

Are they as good as they look?

Tell you what, if you want to meet up one evening in the pub when i get back from the States, I'll bring my MacBook along, you can log into your remote network with MS Remote Desktop or whatever. If you are able to create a test system to log into it'll keep your details private. Quite a few people on PH will vouch for me being an honest guy

Then you can have a proper play and see MacOS X in the flesh on a real machine.

I've got Parallels installed so we can run a few tests from that as well if you want.