Buying a new laptop- Apple?

[Blueface]

Originally Posted by JaKaacH

I'm not a hater. I just can't justify spending twice as much on a Mac to solve problems I have never encountered with a PC.

Seems the PC haters are the ones that have switched and need to justify doing so somehow. Two way street.

Touche.

No regrets here.
Still paying for it two years later but no regrets.
I had many crashes due to viruses on PCs. That, coupled with minimal tutorials to assist turned me away.
iPhoto and iMovie sold me on my Mac for my purposes. iDVD was just the icing on the cake.

[cort]

I just made the switch 2 weeks ago. I love my new Mac. I actually got my old PC running again with a new hard drive because the old one took a sh!t on me. I dont hate the PC but the Mac is so much more user friendly. As for the price difference....you get what you pay for.

[Veritas]

I have both platforms in my household and use both. I prefer the Windows machines for almost everything. There are never any issues with compatibility, things simply run as installed. The only advantage of the Mac is that they are very easy to learn. Navigation is relatively simple once you figure it out, but no easier than using Windows Explorer. I agree with the others about the quality of Apple's online tutorials. Microsoft simply doesn't have any thing that can compete.

Originally Posted by Blueface

I had many crashes due to viruses on PCs

I have never encountered a virus that penetrated my firewall and defeted my anti-virus software. Keeping both updated is of vital importance to anyone running Windows. I'm running Windows 7 now and it has a self-contained security suite (Microsoft Security Essentials). Microsoft know that the vast majority of the virus writers are targeting their software so they seem to be doing something about it. Malicious coders target the most users they can - hence Windows machines, not Macs. Now with the proliferation of the iPhone there have been viruses written specifically to target them. If Apple succeeds in getting a bigger slice of the pie, coders will begin writing viruses/trojans/worms for OS-X.

Originally Posted by Blueface

iPhoto and iMovie sold me on my Mac for my purposes. iDVD was just the icing on the cake.

Windows Live Photo and Movie Maker programs have very similar functionality and are equally easy to use. Again, Apple will hold your hand through every step of using the software where Microsoft will not. The help features are there, you just have to dig to find the answers.

I cannot think of one area where the Mac outperforms the Windows (7) machine to the degree that justifies paying more than double. Macs are easy. Windows has a steeper learning curve. The decision is yours. My advice is to find a quality machine running 7 and give it a spin.

[GreekGodX]

Originally Posted by Veritas

I cannot think of one area where the Mac outperforms the Windows (7) machine to the degree that justifies paying more than double. Macs are easy. Windows has a steeper learning curve. The decision is yours. My advice is to find a quality machine running 7 and give it a spin.

What would be a quality machine? I'm not crazy about Dell. Sony? Lenovo? HP? Toshiba?

[Veritas]

Originally Posted by GreekGodX

What would be a quality machine? I'm not crazy about Dell. Sony? Lenovo? HP? Toshiba?

That is another feature of the Mac that outdoes Windows - only Apple makes them, so there isn't anything to compare them to other than themselves.

For simplicity, I usually buy off-the-shelf HP machines. I have had several and have been satisfied with all of them. The key is more in the components than the manufacturer. Almost all of the manufacturers make a very wide variety of machines. Prior to any purchases, I research the current (read - next week's obsolete) processors and compare them. I'm not currently in the market, so I don't have the specs an what's available now.

Check with one of the geeks in the computer store (MicroCenter is my favorite - they seem to know their products). As long as the processor is a mid to high end one and the machine has sufficient RAM, you should be OK. The other components (video processor, sound, etc) usually are on-par with the processor.

[spectrrr]

Originally Posted by GreekGodX

What would be a quality machine? I'm not crazy about Dell. Sony? Lenovo? HP? Toshiba?

Yes to the above really. Good and bad equipment from all of them. More important, yes to THE ABOVE. Add in Acer and Asus. Point of the matter, Stay the hell away from off brands. KEY POINT, talk to a tech guy.

I was shopping today fora new computer for my shipping bench. browsing two different sites. One of them had good machines... the other (same brands) had shitty machines. And by shity, I don't mean unreliable, I mean under spec'd and guaranteed that whoever buys it will HATE his life. For example, a Vista machine with only 1gb of ram. That's damned near criminal IMO.....



Oh and PS: I don't use A/V on my windows box. Gotten one virus in the last 4 years....

[JE3146]

Originally Posted by Veritas

I have never encountered a virus that penetrated my firewall and defeted my anti-virus software. Keeping both updated is of vital importance to anyone running Windows. I'm running Windows 7 now and it has a self-contained security suite (Microsoft Security Essentials). Microsoft know that the vast majority of the virus writers are targeting their software so they seem to be doing something about it. Malicious coders target the most users they can - hence Windows machines, not Macs. Now with the proliferation of the iPhone there have been viruses written specifically to target them. If Apple succeeds in getting a bigger slice of the pie, coders will begin writing viruses/trojans/worms for OS-X.

Which is why even on OS X I run an antivirus.

And FYI people would be amazed at how many viruses, worms, trojans. etc are currently out there... directly targeting OS X.

Fraction of whats out there for PC's? Sure, but it only takes one to F up your system