Are macs worth the extra ??

[monaco]

Hi

I'm needing to replace my 2.5yr old HP laptop as it's now unrepairable ( great quality !! )

I'm considering jumping ship and getting a macbook pro, but are they really worth the extra cash ?

I am looking at an extra £600+ for a mac over a similar windows laptop.

I still need convincing that mac is the way forward !

any advice would be great..

Cheers

[Don]

Errrr.


No.

[Strangely Brown]

monaco said:

I am looking at an extra £600+ for a mac over a similar windows laptop.

I'll bet you're not.

An equivalently specc'd windows laptop will cost the same, and in some cases more, than a mac.

Cheap laptops are generally much lower spec. That's why they're cheaper.

[jimothy]

IMHO macs are worth it - I needed a windows laptop to learn .NET/SQL Server for a new job and bought a macBook to run windows on using parallels.
They aren't more expensive on a spec for spec basis - when bootcamp came out the mac laptop was the fastest windows laptop available. They are always VERY high spec and thats what you're paying for - the equivalent Dell is about £50 cheaper than my Mac, looks nasty and runs a cack OS.
Mac OSX is so much better than Windows, so worth it just for that!

[jamieboy]

Strangely Brown said:

An equivalently specc'd windows laptop will cost the same, and in some cases more, than a mac.

That's true, but I'd say that an entry-level Mac is overspecced for a lot of people. So although I agree that you can't really get an equivalently-specced 'normal' laptop for less then a Mac, I think you can get one that would be good enough for most people for a lot less.

Saying that, I recently got a MacBook Pro and I really like it. I dual-boot OSX and Vista because I need Windows for some things, but OSX is fine for email / surfing / editing code.

And try not to get drawn into the the 'my OS is better than your OS' squabble, because it's largely nonsense. They're both fine - as long as they support the software you need to do the things you want, then you won't go far wrong with either.

Edited by jamieboy on Wednesday 28th February 08:53

[jsr]

Yes they are worth it. So OS X operatinng system is fantastic, as is the software that ships with it and the hardware is great.

I have no security issues and my first Mac, a one one year old mac mini, still runs as fast as the day i bought it. Every PC i have ever owned has slowed down massively within a year.

Never used a Mac previously. Then the mini came out and was tempted. Bought it just as a second computer for internet use and just to try out the Mac in general. It quickly became my main computer!

Love Macs so much, i bought a Macbook last year too, and will never consider a PC again. With the imminent release of the next version of OS X (which will blow away Vista), i would definitely recommend a Mac (though maybe wait until April ish when the OS is expected to be released)

[HiRich]

monaco said:

I am looking at an extra £600+ for a mac over a similar windows laptop.

As others have said, I would doubt that - the MacBook Pro is a pretty serious piece of kit. The question is whether the extra features (hard & soft) on the Mac are valuable to you (or indeed on the PC - do you really need half a dozen USB ports?).

The boring, rational way forward would be to audit yourself. Define your preferred Mac spec (tip: if you're adding RAM, cost it from crucial.com, not the Apple Store), then spec up a PC to a similar level (though only the features you want).
Next complete the spec for each machine:
- Software you will need to buy for the Mac (check your disks - some include Mac and PC). This might mean migrating to a different package (e.g. Apple Final Cut over Adobe Premier)
- Software you will need to upgrade on the PC option anyway.
- Note any rarely used but essential PC software that you might consider running through BootCamp.
- Note any useful software the Mac provides free (e.g. iMovie) or doesn't require, that the PC does need (e.g.anti-virus, spyware)
- Check your existing hardware (scanner, printer, etc.). Is it all OSX-compatible? Likely, but there are some oddballs still.
- Are there any features on one machine that can't matched on the other, but have some value to you (e.g. the anti-shock on the hard drive, the illuminated keyboard).
It depends totally on your needs. You may find the price gap has disappeared, or it may have jumped dramatically. Personally, I would say the Mac interface is worth a few hundred pounds (compared to a £1,000-1,500 purchase price) in terms of time saved (easier to set up, easier to fix niggles, easier to make things accessible) - all those seconds and minutes add up over the year. But that is a personal decision - others wil disagree with me. Only you can make that judgement.

Of course, the more fun, irrational thing to do is to visit an Apple Store or decent reseller, get a good demo of some of the features you'd miss (resizeable icons, using the Dock and the window sidebar efficiently), play around for twenty minutes, and say "Come to Daddy!"

[Zod]

I just bought a MacBookPro because it was very competitive on price with a similarly spec'd high quality, good-looking Windows Notebook. I have it running both OS X and Vista and it is a great bit of kit. If only Apple would finally drop their stupid insistence on only having one mouse button and release Windows power management drivers, it would be close to perfect.

[jamieboy]

Zod said:

I just bought a MacBookPro .... I have it running both OS X and Vista

Me too, but under Vista the power-save functionality doesn't work (no screen-saver, no auto-off), the quote key ( " ) gives an umlaut ( ¨ ), and the external monitor port detects the screen but won't bring it out of power-save. Have you got / got round any of these issues?

Edited by jamieboy on Wednesday 28th February 15:51

[Zod]

jamieboy said:

Zod said:

I just bought a MacBookPro .... I have it running both OS X and Vista

Me too, but under Vista the power-save functionality doesn't work (no screen-saver, no auto-off), the quote key ( " ) gives an umlaut ( ¨ ), and the external monitor port detects the screen but won't bring it out of power-save. Have you got / got round any of these issues?

Edited by jamieboy on Wednesday 28th February 15:51

The power-save issue is wha I alluded to by saying it lakcs the power management drivers, but the keyboard driver works perfectly on mine. I haven't yet managed to get the trackpad to work the way it works in OS X thoug, although Apple say it should. I have a little utility that makes control-click the equivalent of a right click.

[jamieboy]

Zod said:

The power-save issue is wha I alluded to by saying it lakcs the power management drivers, but the keyboard driver works perfectly on mine. I haven't yet managed to get the trackpad to work the way it works in OS X thoug, although Apple say it should. I have a little utility that makes control-click the equivalent of a right click.

Sorry, I didn't read the bit about power-management.

All the Apple-y keys (eject, etc.) work for me, but if I use the United Kingdom (Apple) driver then I get an umlaut for the quote key. If I just use the United Kingdom driver, I get quotes for shift+2, so I can work round it, but it's not ideal.

The right-click is a bit annoying, but I use a bluetooth mighty mouse so not too big a deal for me.

[bobfrance]

Zod said:

I just bought a MacBookPro because it was very competitive on price with a similarly spec'd high quality, good-looking Windows Notebook. I have it running both OS X and Vista and it is a great bit of kit. If only Apple would finally drop their stupid insistence on only having one mouse button and release Windows power management drivers, it would be close to perfect.

You can plug a two button USB mouse into a mac and it will work just fine.
I think apple may actually do one - but any should work.

As for stability - they're fairly okay. I've had the G5 I work on freak out a few times and Safari usually runs for about 2 mins before crashing, so I installed Firefox instead. In my experience they do slow down over time and benefit from a reformat.

[howmanlass]

I use both Macs and PCs but I absolutely love my new iMac, I don't remember ever getting very excited over a new PC though. Like someone else said, the Mac is just a lot more reliable, a nicer user experience, it's virus resistant and definitely doesn't slow down over time like PCs tend to.

The iMac came with a Mightymouse, which looks like it is just one button but is actually sensitive to right and left clicks, as well as having a roller on the top and two buttons on the side, much better than the previous mice and I would recommend getting one, but any USB mouse should work.

[nightfever]

I've been thinking about the same question.

A dell inspiron 6400 with duo 1.6ghz processors, 160gb hd, 1gb memory costs 600gbp.

A macbook with duo 2.0ghz processors, 80gb hd, 1gb memory costs 850gbp (i think- the apple uk store keeps crashing on here).

Seems quite steep to me. But as i'm in Canada, the same macbook works out to bout 670gbp which sounds much more appealing. My only concern is whether 80gb hard drive will be enough. I guess i always have the option of storing rarely used files on an external drive. Are they any good?

[steil]

Can the Mac OS be installed on an intel notebook pc?

[Leithen]

steil said:

Can the Mac OS be installed on an intel notebook pc?

No.

[page3]

nightfever said:

I've been thinking about the same question.

A dell inspiron 6400 with duo 1.6ghz processors, 160gb hd, 1gb memory costs 600gbp.

A macbook with duo 2.0ghz processors, 80gb hd, 1gb memory costs 850gbp (i think- the apple uk store keeps crashing on here).

Seems quite steep to me. But as i'm in Canada, the same macbook works out to bout 670gbp which sounds much more appealing. My only concern is whether 80gb hard drive will be enough. I guess i always have the option of storing rarely used files on an external drive. Are they any good?

I've just gone to the Dell website, priced up a Inspiron 6400 - had to add faster processor, bluetooth, faster wireless, higher res screen, webcam and I get:

£1,040.12
Includes VAT & Shipping

Makes the MacBook seem cheap!

[bobthemonkey]

Leithen said:

steil said:

Can the Mac OS be installed on an intel notebook pc?

No.

That's not entirely true. Then again the solution is now illegal (at least in the states) due to the DMCA I beleive.

Te bootcamp problems should be fixed in a couple of months when it ceases to be a beta and is included with the release of OSX 10.5 (Leopard). Incidently, thats probably the point bootcamp stops being free.

[-DeaDLocK-]

Strangely Brown said:

I'll bet you're not.

An equivalently specc'd windows laptop will cost the same, and in some cases more, than a mac.

Cheap laptops are generally much lower spec. That's why they're cheaper.

I disagree.

Might be a bit different over in the UK, but here in Malaysia I was looking at a basic Macbook that comes with a 1.83GHz Core Duo, 512MB RAM, a 60GB HDD, a combo optical drive (i.e. no DVD writing) and one year limited warranty. Cost was around £645, and this is the standard national will-not-give-discount price set by Apple.

After reading horror stories on www.appledefects.com (here in Malaysia consumer rights are a crock, and you have no legal comeback in many cases if something goes wrong - there are no returns anywhere, which means we have to buy carefully, because once purchased it's ours forever) and on reading Apple's unwillingness to do anything about the problems people were facing, I chickened out and ended up with a Dell instead.

The Dell laptop has a 2GHz Core Duo, a bigger screen, 1GB RAM, a 80GB HDD, a DVD writer and fullly comprehensive warranty and insurance three-years next-day response cover - basically everything single thing is one or more counts better than the Mac in terms of basic spec - all for £620. And no, I don't know anyone in Dell - I just went on to their website and ordered it like any regular punter.

The main things the Mac has on the PC is the OS (which I personally wasn't planning on using anyway; was merely banking on reports that the new Macs are better PCs than actual PCs), and it has the looks, style and street cred (all of which I couldn't give a monkey's about).

Makes the Mac seem VERY VERY overpriced IMO.

Edited by -DeaDLocK- on Thursday 1st March 05:51

[job38]

They are worth the extra IMHO.

One often overlooked issue is that they have re-sale value.

I bought a G4 PowerBook 3 years ago for £1500 (second hand), sold it recently for £750.

Try that with a PC laptop....