New Laptop

Well my previous laptop pissed me off one time too many and I decided to leave it in Australia last month... I hope it dies a long and painful death. Now I need a new laptop. I used to run on a HP pavillion reasonably equipped machine and I found that (other than the frequent and extremely frustrating failiures) it suited me perfectly. Now HP pissed me off to a new level so I am NOT going to purchase another of their machines for an extreme period of time. I was thinking about the New Apple "macBooks" they look pretty sweet, anyways my question is : How good are Macs? I never ever used one so I know nothing. So if anyone wants to give me their thoughts about this fill your boots.

Thanks girls and guys

I don't have a Mac Powerbook, but I have friends who have them. So far, from what I've seen, the screen is clear and beautiful. The speakers are awesome (for a laptop). Battery life isn't too bad (around 4 hours I think). But the size is just big. Unless you want to carry it all over the place, the only downfall it has is the size.

My HP was wayy too big I dont see that as being a problem... Does Mac still have that grotesque compatibility issue?

I'd suggest look at these for a slightly cheaper, and more powerful alternative to a MacBook.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/27/s...-13-3-inchers/

I'm sure you are already acustomed to Windows, and I figure it would be odd to use an alien enviroment. For the price of these Vaio's though, it is kickass for size and what you are getting in it. Now, if only I had money :/

Thats actually quite intriguing... I never looked at sonys because I thought they were still Grotesquely overpriced... thanks alot I appreciate it.

Dell also has some cheap laptops as well. But you know, everything comes with a price. Some are unbelievably cheap but the battery life sucks. Some are insanely expensive, but they have better qualities. So it depends on how much you want to fork out.

And yes, Mac still has the compatibility issues. There are some programs which will not run on Mac when they can run perfectly on Windows OS. Of course, usually programs have a Mac version online.

I switched from Windows to Mac and have had absolutely no problems so far. Unless you want to do alot of gaming, get a Mac. If you wanna play games, get a PC, but you wont be doing serious gaming on a laptop, so I'd go for the Mac.

Dell is out of the question... but thanks Lone, you raise some pertinant points. I shall look into it further. But all I want is something to do work on that has competent wireless abilities and will not let me down like HP has.

Off to the gym I go see you all later

Originally Posted by SchattenReïter

Dell is out of the question... but thanks Lone, you raise some pertinant points. I shall look into it further.

Out of curiousity, why do you say that about Dell? Have you had a bad experiance?

What I do like about Dell, particularly Dell.com, is that you can completely customize your system from the ground up. You select what type of processor it has, you select what quality of battery it has, you select what kind of wireless abilities it has.

I've been looking at a Core 2 Duo system there (A E1505) with 1GB of Dual Channel Ram, a 7200rpm 80GB HDD, and a ATi X1400 Graphics Processor. That, which is a pretty sweet system itself, came to the low price of $1500. The only thing keeping me from buying though is Vista. I want to buy my laptop with Vista preinstalled. That way, the system is optimized for it, and I don't have to shell out $250 or whatever for the Home Premium Edition. The other thing stopping me even more so is DirectX 10. Supposedly, ATi has some new cards coming out (Click) that support HDCP and "All the other things Vista needs". So I'm holding off on that until the X1450s hit the market.

I've never heard anything bad about Mac Books myself though, other than the price. I would get a good system if I were you though. I've heard that some have had regrets with that.

If you do decide to get a new iBook, then you can install Windows XP on it (After a free download of official software.)and run both Mac and XP software.

However, it is probably not the most cost-effective idea.

Originally Posted by GDwarf

If you do decide to get a new iBook, then you can install Windows XP on it (After a free download of official software.)and run both Mac and XP software.

However, it is probably not the most cost-effective idea.

Yea boot camp I thought about it but its a pretty complicated stunt to pull (unlike what Apple says) and you have to choose how much hard drive you want to give to either system and I dont imagine all that is bug free.

As for Dell my parents had a Dell PC and later (somehow) a Laptop... Both self destructed many times and Dell Customer service really turned me off. Maybe its a personal experience but yea... Other than that I found that often components that you would never think existed .. FAIL ... very frustrating.

Apple's magnetic DC inlet is sexy...

Originally Posted by Mr. Wonderful

Out of curiousity, why do you say that about Dell? Have you had a bad experiance?

What I do like about Dell, particularly Dell.com, is that you can completely customize your system from the ground up. You select what type of processor it has, you select what quality of battery it has, you select what kind of wireless abilities it has.

I've been looking at a Core 2 Duo system there (A E1505) with 1GB of Dual Channel Ram, a 7200rpm 80GB HDD, and a ATi X1400 Graphics Processor. That, which is a pretty sweet system itself, came to the low price of $1500. The only thing keeping me from buying though is Vista. I want to buy my laptop with Vista preinstalled. That way, the system is optimized for it, and I don't have to shell out $250 or whatever for the Home Premium Edition. The other thing stopping me even more so is DirectX 10. Supposedly, ATi has some new cards coming out (Click) that support HDCP and "All the other things Vista needs". So I'm holding off on that until the X1450s hit the market.

I've never heard anything bad about Mac Books myself though, other than the price. I would get a good system if I were you though. I've heard that some have had regrets with that.

Yes, but Dell's choices are often what they want you to choose, and are often over priced.

I'd say, check Newegg for current deals, check back at a later date for those Vaio's, or go ahead and get a Macbook Pro.

Originally Posted by SchattenReïter

Yea boot camp I thought about it but its a pretty complicated stunt to pull (unlike what Apple says)

It's actually not all that difficult, it make a partition, gives you the drivers you need, it really does most of the work for you.

and you have to choose how much hard drive you want to give to either system

True, but is that a huge issue?

and I dont imagine all that is bug free.

Apparently there are a few minor error messages, but it works fine.

Originally Posted by Yami

Yes, but Dell's choices are often what they want you to choose, and are often over priced.

Eh. Each Laptop has the "Build it from the Ground Up" option that gives you a pretty large range of freedom in getting what you want when you combine that with all the different models.

All I know is that Dell can get me everything I want without the things I don't. A good example of this would be the HDD. I don't want to be paying for a 120GB ~4200rpm HDD that most (better) laptops seem to favor. I would rather have a smaller size with a faster speed, IE: 80GB 7200rpm. A lot of the times just from the little shopping that I have done, you usually don't get that option.

Honestly, I would die for a Macbook Pro if I had that kind of money. They are sexy. But to get any signifigant power, I would have to go with the $2799 version. And Apple is definately missing that aspect of customization.

Oh. And I forgot to mention. The other specs the Dell has that I've been toying with has: 8x DL-DVD drive, HD Sound Card, the extended 85-Whr battery, and a 1680×1050 display.

Take it from someone who researched the Macbook extensively, (me), they rock. The only downside is that it's not really made for 3D gaming, which is hardly imporatant if you don't normally game on laptops.

If you get one, you'll love it.

Shameless plug:

Originally Posted by Yami

Yes, but Dell's choices are often what they want you to choose, and are often over priced.

I'd say, check Newegg for current deals, check back at a later date for those Vaio's, or go ahead and get a Macbook Pro.

I dunno. I was going to build a desktop two years ago, got my parts list from NewEgg and TigerDirect lined up, but when I plugged the same thing into a custom Dimension, it came out $100-$200 cheaper (A difference that was then used to buy a secondary LCD). This was at the introduction of LGA775 and PCI-Express, so maybe I snuck in when Dell had some better margins. I will say the Philips DVD±RW drive they selected was a piece, I have an LG DVD-RAW in there now.