Buying a new laptop- Apple?

[King James]

Originally Posted by VirtualSmitty

ram is about it and even thats out on the unibody macs

you can upgrade your RAM on a unibody

[68TriShield]

Originally Posted by King James

you can upgrade your RAM on a unibody

I believe he meant, no you can't Jim.

[357]

Well I'm a Windows Server Administrator so I'm a little biased, but the decision should be based on your intentions.

If you want to pay more for a single button mouse, that cool logo on the lid, and more than anything you want everyone to know you paid more, then by all means get the Mac. You will get about twice the hardware specs out of a non-Mac branded laptop for the price. The funny thing? Macs use an Intel based architecture so you can take a non-Mac branded laptop and install Max OS X. So, if you really want the GUI/OS then buy something for half price and install the Mac OS. Many people don't know this or are unwilling to jump through the hoops. Yet more people who buy Macs want he prestige of "the best" so they pay double for that cool logo.

Overall the tricycle/crotch-rocket analogy is fairly accurate. Any simpleton can use a Mac. Bill Gates got rich creating a psuedo Mac-like interface for IBM clones. If you can handle a PC you'll get much more out of it. The best part about PCs is how you can modify them and make them you're own. You can tweak the hell out of Windows to make it do whatever you want. The same is simply not true of Macs.

That said the numbers are undeniable. Apple computers makes up less than 10% of the PC market. Probably around 6-8%. Windows is 90% and Linux/Other makes up the rest. Most software is not written to run on both Windows and Macs. If you know of a software title that is written for both then comes the fun task of finding it.

IMO, get a decent name brand laptop with 4GB of RAM, 300GB+ Hard Drive NVidia/Radeon Video Card with Windows 7 x64. You can find that for less than $800. Windows 7 x64 comes with XP compatiblity mode just in case you have some old crappy application that won't run in Win 7 x64. You can install the app in compatibility mode, then run it from the Start Menu. It runs in a seemless VirtualPC Window that looks as if it is running natively in Win7. From my testing Windows 7 uses about 800-900MB less RAM at bootup/idle than Vista does. It is more stable and efficient. I've been very impressed so far.

And, just for fun...

[VirtualSmitty]

Originally Posted by King James

you can upgrade your RAM on a unibody

Your right you can, my bad

My other points still stand though. RAM and hard drive is it, can't upgrade the gpu

[King James]

Originally Posted by VirtualSmitty

Your right you can, my bad

My other points still stand though. RAM and hard drive is it, can't upgrade the gpu

yup. if customizing beyond that is what you want to do, Apple is not the right choice.

[JE3146]

Who buys a laptop to upgrade components other than the RAM and hard drive?

If people want a GPU, buy a desktop PC. I just don't understand the fascination with playing games on laptops.

Laptops are disposable items. Desktops are not.

[VirtualSmitty]

Originally Posted by JE3146

Who buys a laptop to upgrade components other than the RAM and hard drive?

If people want a GPU, buy a desktop PC. I just don't understand the fascination with playing games on laptops.

Laptops are disposable items. Desktops are not.

I do! There's a market for laptop gamers. I've torn my laptop apart a couple of times to upgrade the gpu and wireless card. I travel a lot and like to be able to game a bit while i'm on the road stuck in some airport or hotel. It's not as good as my desktop but it gets the job done and helps me kill my down time on the road.

[Volt]

Hate to tell ya Jordan, many who can't afford both are going with laptops capable of gaming. While not in this discussion, I juast saw my first Alienware laptop, it a gotta have for me. Absolutly sick fast on Windows 7 and a real keyboard built in, not the silly little wafer keys. Woof!

Originally Posted by JE3146

Who buys a laptop to upgrade components other than the RAM and hard drive?

If people want a GPU, buy a desktop PC. I just don't understand the fascination with playing games on laptops.

Laptops are disposable items. Desktops are not.

[JE3146]

Originally Posted by Volt

Hate to tell ya Jordan, many who can't afford both are going with laptops capable of gaming. While not in this discussion, I juast saw my first Alienware laptop, it a gotta have for me. Absolutly sick fast on Windows 7 and a real keyboard built in, not the silly little wafer keys. Woof!

Then get a desktop and a netbook

Laptops are dependent on batteries. GPU's, screens, 7200RPM drives, even RAM suck the life out of them.

Blows me away when people show up to a 3 hour class with a 17" laptop that breaths fire and find themselves 5 feet shy of a plugin, then drain a full cycle before the class is half over. That is a useless tool.

Portability shouldn't be governed by plug-ins That defeats the purpose of a laptop entirely.

[357]

Originally Posted by JE3146

Then get a desktop and a netbook

Laptops are dependent on batteries. GPU's, screens, 7200RPM drives, even RAM suck the life out of them.

Blows me away when people show up to a 3 hour class with a 17" laptop that breaths fire and find themselves 5 feet shy of a plugin, then drain a full cycle before the class is half over. That is a useless tool.

Portability shouldn't be governed by plug-ins That defeats the purpose of a laptop entirely.

Simply adjusting the screen brightness will cut your power usage by 30-40%. The setting is usually a simple FN-Hotkey. Works fine for my work laptop when I need to be on battery for any length of time.

[VirtualSmitty]

Originally Posted by JE3146

Portability shouldn't be governed by plug-ins That defeats the purpose of a laptop entirely.

Your opinion entirely, not fact. You may feel having a high powered laptop is waste, but I don't. And I don't consider my laptop a disposable asset, my netbook maybe, but not a laptop that cost over 1k. Maybe when the day comes that i'm making JE3146 money i'll look at it differently, and a grand won't mean so much to me lol. And netbooks are great, but too small and underpowered to do serious work.

My best advice is to go to a Best Buy or some other place that has demo machines and play with a win7 machine. It sounds like you already know macs to some extend, but if not go hit up the kiosk in Best Buy or your nearest apple store. Try them both out, weigh the costs, and pick what you like. I use a mac and a win7 pc everyday, and my netbook runs linux. Each has a different use, but I can't say that I like one over the other. Each has things I like and dislike about it, it just boils down to personal preference.