Macbook or conventional laptop?

Ron Burgundy said:
I use open office and never have any problems ( free as well )
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All I know is my girlfriend created several documents & presentations on her mac in college using openoffice and when it came to displaying them on the college pcs in traditional microsoft format; they came out awful with formating etc. markedly different.
 
Strathspey said:
They're all, 'Intel Inside', so you're just paying over the top for packaging. As an engineer, practicality dictates that I use a PC.
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I'd say the OS is a little more than 'packaging' :). The Unix based OS is brilliant.

I am an engineer too, and I hesitated before ordering the Mac for work. But it works like a dream. I have Windows installed on it too (just in case!) but haven't needed it at all.
 
Diziet said:
I'd say the OS is a little more than 'packaging' :). The Unix based OS is brilliant...
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Apple are reaping the benefits of buying NextStep and bringing Steve Jobs back. A brave move scrapping the legacy OS (6, 7, 8, 9) and releasing OS X.
 
The latest Macs run Windows natively (and it runs better than on many PCs). No need for a virtual machine.
 
Bought a Macbook last Xmas as a present for better half and have had to replace the power supply twice and also replace the casing due to it cracking ( a known issue). All this was done on warranty but it does make me question the quality of the product. The Macbook only gets about 20 hours use per week so it's barely used and treated well.

Regarding cost I believe that they cost the same as a comparable dell laptop. At the time I went to Dell website and spec'ed the same hardware configuration and the cost was similar.

Bottom line is to understand what you want to do with it. If you just need to surf the web and do general word docs etc, a standard laptop might do. I also have an Acer running XP for about €450 which gets much more use/abuse than the Macbook and is plenty fast for general usage.

Macbook
Pros:
- Cool design, looks great and has nice design features (magsafe connector etc)
- iWorks much cheaper than Office and works/looks great.
- Customer service very helpful

Cons:
- Expensive as a laptop for general use.
- Build quality ( at least in my case)

Would I buy another Mac ...

I'm tempted to buy a 24" iMac but the quality issues I've seen on the MacBook scares me off spending €1600 on a machine that may die/have problems within a few short years ...
 
Pedro1 said:
I'm tempted to buy a 24" iMac but the quality issues I've seen on the MacBook scares me off spending €1600 on a machine that may die/have problems within a few short years ...
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I'd say you were just unlucky with your Macbook, to be honest. I've bought 4 desktop macs and two laptops over the last 8 years or so. Never had any trouble with any of them really, and all of them are still running.
 
CGorman said:
All I know is my girlfriend created several documents & presentations on her mac in college using openoffice and when it came to displaying them on the college pcs in traditional microsoft format; they came out awful with formating etc. markedly different.
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It all depends on the file extension you save it as:)
 
Ron Burgundy said:
It all depends on the file extension you save it as:)
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Oh I know that, i'm savvy enough with it all - but at the time my gf was relatively unfamiliar with mucking about with things like that - she wanted to simply do things the windows way and was annoyed at having to change her thinking. My point is its easy for people who know alot about pc/laptops - but for many general users its a pain in the...
 
CGorman said:
Oh I know that, i'm savvy enough with it all - but at the time my gf was relatively unfamiliar with mucking about with things like that - she wanted to simply do things the windows way and was annoyed at having to change her thinking. My point is its easy for people who know alot about pc/laptops - but for many general users its a pain in the...
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True but if you know enough to find and download the software, chosing the right file extension shouldn't be a problem !!!!
 
Strathspey said:
They're all, 'Intel Inside', so you're just paying over the top for packaging. As an engineer, practicality dictates that I use a PC.
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Try running MATLAB release 12 or SynaptiCAD on a MAC.
So back to my previous point, '...practicality dictates that I use a PC'.
 
you can buy Microsoft office for Macs too. So you don't need to use openoffice, unless of course you want to.
 
Ron Burgundy said:
And the Bill Gates love in isn't ???
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I'm not sure many people 'love' Gates or MS.
extopia said:
Actually it's been shown time and time again that this is not the case. Here's one example
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I'm dubious about that statement. Your example may suggest that Apple products are more competitively priced in USA but here I think you'll find that with Macs you'll get lower specs and lower performance for your euro. My own preference is for ubuntu on a standard PC. I find iMacs and MacPros to be slow and I hate the keyboards/mice.
 
michaelm said:
Your example may suggest that Apple products are more competitively priced in USA but here I think you'll find that with Macs you'll get lower specs and lower performance for your euro.
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Having bought macs and PCs on both continents, I think not. There are many comparisons like the example I quoted. You need to compare specs carefully. Look at the quality of the components as well as just the spec.

It IS true, however, that Apple does not participate in the low-price segment of the market.
 
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