Buying a new laptop- Apple?

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Originally Posted by AD720

Year -- Net Sales (Mil USD)
2002 -- 5,247
2003 -- 6,207
2004 -- 8,279
2005 -- 13,931
2006 -- 19,315
2007 -- 24,006
2008 -- 32,479


Irrelevant? Niche market?

This is big time misleading. You are counting iPhones and iPods. If we starting counting Windows Mobile phones and Microsoft Zune players, not to mention Netbooks, PDAs, and cash registers that run Windows CE Apple's numbers would look pretty puny.

From Business Insider...
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple...s-sinks-2009-4

Apple's Mac business leveled out after strong growth last year. U.S. Mac shipments were down 1% year-over-year, representing 7.4% of the market, according to Gartner. But that's a significant deceleration after the company grew U.S. shipments about 33% year-over-year during Q1 '08. (And grew U.S. shipments 8% year-over-year in Q4 '08, according to Gartner.)



These kinds of stats are a little more reliable then the web statistics. By web stats I mean those where the website collects OS info and comes up with a count of how many Windows vs Mac users visit them. Those might be a more accurate picture of active web users vs current sales/market share.

Also this was not a totally hypothetical question.
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There are a number of Hackintosh or Hackbook websites. Just about anything's possible with Google and a little savvy.

http://www.dailyblogged.com/83/dell-...-pro-tutorial/

http://www.hackintosh.com/

http://www.hackint0sh.org/



Here's is a good deal I helped my mom pick out recently. She picked it up last night.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0320534

$749.99
Intel® Core(tm) 2 Duo Processor T6600 (2.2 GHz)
4GB RAM
500GB Hard Drive
CD/DVD Writer DVD+/-RW Drive
7-in-1 Media Card Reader
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 (512 MB)
10/100 Network
802.11N Wireless Mini Card
17.3" High Definition+WLED Display with TrueLife(tm)
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

My mom has some old, scratch that, really old financial apps. So I found her the specs I recommended with Windows 7 Pro. Professional allows you to run the Windows XP compatibility mode. Since all her apps run fine on XP, this will ensure that even old 8 bit & 16 bit apps will run fine on this x64 version of Windows 7. Windows 7 Professional also offers full system backup software built in.

I would also like to mention that there has been a ton of conjecture. I have done my best to backup my positions with credible links. Mind you I'm not talking about Op-Ed type columns full of more conjecture. I'm not pointing any fingers, but an opinion is just that. Masquerading one's opinon as fact is another thing.

By the way, here's a list of just some of the software not compatible wit Mac OS X. I know it's an old list but you get the idea...

http://www.macintouch.com/leopard/compat.html

If you want a more complete list, walk into Best Buy, Micro Center, etc and start looking at the side of software boxes (especially games). You'll find that a staggering percentage of them don't have a little Apple logo on them.