Mac Laptop

[Beamdogg]

Hi Guys,

I need a new lap top for uni and I have been thinking or heading in the direction of getting an apple laptop over an everyday lap top.

I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction as to what model I-Mac laptop to get and is the most affordable and fastest?

 

[External Inputs]

1. An iMac isn't a laptop.

2. The most affordable won't be the fastest, or be able to change into a spaceship.

3. Try the online Apple store.

 

[James_Hutchy]

Go for a windows laptop it will be much cheaper and run better for the price. I recently picked up a Dell Inspiron 1525 for $800 2.13 ghz dual core processor 2gb ram and it runs beautifully so far.

 

[Lets Beyblade]

If you are at all worried about 'bang for your buck' then avoid Apple and Sony laptops.

You will be able to grab yourself a great computer for a much cheaper price from companies like Dell or Asus. I have had experience with both and have had no problems thus far.

 

[Kerrby]

I have a MacBook and all I can do is praise how reliable and valuable it's been.

Worth it if you can afford it.

 

[red+black]

Supposedly you can put OSX on a Eee PC.

 

[azreal]

I have a MacBook and all I can do is praise how reliable and valuable it's been.

Worth it if you can afford it.

Me too. I have never had a computer problem since I started using a macbook, except at work where I have a PC.

 

[Beamdogg]

Me too. I have never had a computer problem since I started using a macbook, except at work where I have a PC.

Hmmmm Im leaning towards Macbook over Dell.

Would you recommend upgrading from 2gb standard memory to 4gb

 

[James_Hutchy]

Hmmmm Im leaning towards Macbook over Dell.

Would you recommend upgrading from 2gb standard memory to 4gb

I know that wasn't aimed at me but 2gb will run fine, unless your running a 64 bit operating system it will only use 3gb of ram anyway.

 

[flight23]

i went nuts and got the macbook pro 15inch 4gb, and **** me this thing flies, lights up rooms and is brilliant to use


switching to macs from pc's does take some getting used too as well, good to have a mac nerd friend or start hitting the web for solutions

 

[azreal]

Hmmmm Im leaning towards Macbook over Dell.

Would you recommend upgrading from 2gb standard memory to 4gb

I didn't upgrade mine and it is still a great machine.

 

[Lance Uppercut]

I will never go back to PCs. I am well & truly an Apple fanboy nowadays. Get a macbook: pay the money, get the quality

 

[Beamdogg]

I will never go back to PCs. I am well & truly an Apple fanboy nowadays. Get a macbook: pay the money, get the quality

I always take Lance's advice.

 

[MadMac]

I've got a PowerBook G4 which is about 5 years old now, has a G4 PowerPC 1.33 Ghz, only 512MB RAM, running OSX 10.4 Tiger [originaly came with 10.3 Panther] and still murders my wife's desktop which is 1 year old and has Core Duo 2 or something like that and running Vista Ultimate. Not to mention that viruses for Mac are almost non-existant.

Mac is the way to go.

 

[MadMac]

My old man bought a Dell Inspiron laptop [not sure which model exactly] and it's been a disastrous experience. The system was slow and constantly crashing. For months, he spent hours on the phone to tech support but nothing solved the problem. In the end I formated the comp and installed XP home version my old man had from previous comp and that worked, however, still question marks on performance.

 

[rfctigerarmy]

Good to see more and more people getting Macs and being happy with them. They are the closest to flawless mass market computer.

I've got an iMac myself but used the MacBooks a fair bit but typically for Graphic Design work (being a Graphic Designer myself) so I eat up the RAM quite quickly.

2GB of memory is fine though.

Once you go to Mac, I think you'll find it hard to go back.

 

[goal sneak]

I got myself a Macbook about 3 months ago and haven't looked back. Best purchase I have ever made.

 

[roodav]

Have a 12 inch Powerbook G4 (with 1.25gb ram) which i acquired while travelling, was working at a computer finance company and they sold returns to staff at discounted prices so I got it for $200. Served me very well but having stopped travelling now its time to get something a bit bigger and that I can get games on, A lot of streaming programs only see to work on Windows as well.. Will keep the powerbook going though as i've really grown into os x and its a great size/weight for travelling with, love the trackpad functionality on it as well.

So bought a Dell Studio 15 today, P8600, 6gb ram, Radeon 4650, 500gb hd gonna cost me about £650($1300)...should do the trick. If i'd have gone for a Macbook, for something similar its probably twice the price.

 

[Funkalicous]

I would get a refurb and save a few hundred bucks.
This looks pretty good:
http://store.apple.com/au/product/FB467X/A?mco=MjE0NjI4NQ

That model has easily enough processing power to run OSX and a tonne of apps. 2 GB of RAM... depends what you'll want your computer for. Macbooks use DDR3 SDRAM which you can buy online pretty cheap. Probably $100 for 2 GB, $160 for 4 GB. - Something like that.

I have 3 GB of RAM and I'll be running VM Fusion (operating with Windows), Skype, Eclipse, Dreamweaver, Entourage, multiple web browsers, and usually a graphics program or 2 like Photoshop, Illustrator, or flash. Everything runs with no problems whatsoever.

Leopard is bloody awesome too!

 

[Nardz]

my sony vaio just crapped itself today so i'm thinking about getting a mac....

how well does vmware work? my main issue about switching to mac is some pc software that i rely on...

i know office is available for mac.. but are the free online educational purposes only editions able to be installed? and also FM2009 - i have it and on pc it lets u install it on 5 pc's and play it without the disc, but with MAC you need the disc.. is it possible to play it without the disc somehow?

apart from that i think pretty much all my other everday needs will be met by mac.. i have a work laptop that i can use if worse comes to worse but id rather keep the work laptop for work and the personal laptop for everything else..

 

[roodav]

If you're getting a recent mac(intel processor rather than powerpc) you can use boot camp to install windows as well as leopard.

 

[Nardz]

If you're getting a recent mac(intel processor rather than powerpc) you can use boot camp to install windows as well as leopard.

yeah but whats the point of having 2 os's. you're really only ever gonna use one of those 95% of the time.

i used to dual boot ubuntu with vista.. would never touch vista until ubuntu started stuffing up and i gave up and formatted it away.

if u can run windows stuff from within mac on the other hand..

 

[Funkalicous]

Don't duel-boot. I know it's free and easy, but if you're gonna use multiple OS's get VMware Fusion or something. That way you can run both OS's simultaneously and share/open files between systems. Having to duel-boot is a pain in the arse because it means you have to shutdown one OS to start the other. - It's like having 2 standalone computers and one power cord. A couple of days of that and you'll be too deterred to use Windows at all.

 

[MadMac]

i know office is available for mac.. but are the free online educational purposes only editions able to be installed? and also FM2009 - i have it and on pc it lets u install it on 5 pc's and play it without the disc, but with MAC you need the disc.. is it possible to play it without the disc somehow?

apart from that i think pretty much all my other everday needs will be met by mac.. i have a work laptop that i can use if worse comes to worse but id rather keep the work laptop for work and the personal laptop for everything else..

With Mac OS X you get most software for everyday computing [I know you het most of them for win too] included in OS and for most applications you don't need better [premium] versions. MS Office is available for Mac, however I would recommend iWork as it is much better looking and easier to use. The only weak spot is the Excel equivalent [called "Numbers"] where Excel is probably better for an advanced user. iWork, however costs under $100 [$89, I think], which makes it very good value. There is also OpenOffice.org version for Mac, called NeoOffice and it's free.
http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

Check this one out, will give you an indication on difference between those two:

http://www.reviewsaurus.com/software-reviews/iwork-08-vs-microsoft-office-2008-for-mac/

I suggest you download Firefox, just in case. Safari is an awesome browser [is based on Conqueror], very fast but some streams won't work. It doesn't happen very often though and in those cases I just use Firefox.
And get yourself a MS mouse. Apple mouse is pain in the arse, I don't like it at all.

 

[Lance Uppercut]

I always take Lance's advice.

as do I