New laptop/macbook

[sblack]

My Win7 PC compared to my sisters Macbook. Last month or so, Mac has crashed maybe 5 times. PC, zero.

Win7 doesn't crash.

 

[hubert_cumberdale]

I can't believe the difference between Vista and W7. MS has done an amazing turnaround with 7; I especially LOVE the snap screen function

With that in mind Dell make a great mid range lappie but my ACER ONE netbook has performed without fault so far (2yrs I think).

I can't speak too much of Apple as I rarely use one. I have used them before (most recently with the latest version) and they are good in a different way from W7 but they quite a lot more than a PC with windows. Dick Smith I've been told are pretty good with their Apple range and price.

It comes down to choice I guess.

 

[NMFCMUFC]

Ordered a new Dell XPS 15 can't wait.

 

[sens]

Have been using my new MacBook Pro for about a week now and, for me, it blows the competition away in terms of usability.

This is not my first mac but is my first mac laptop and I think the main difference between them and other laptops is the integration between the trackpad and features of the OS.

The mac trackpad is amazing. It makes scrolling very fluid and when coupled with it's multitouch features and expose it makes switching between applications so much more efficient. After using it for a while and switching to another laptop, you find yourself performing these gestures on just your generic trackpad to no avail. This just shows how natural this form of computing is and how easy it is to master.

Bottom line is if you have the money, then it is well worth it, and anybody who says it isn't either have never used one or does not understand how to use it.

 

[sblack]

Multitouch features are on plenty of laptops not Apple made.

Think I am going to get myself an Asus ULxxVT series laptop. Incredibly light weight and huge battery life.

Should do what my sisters MB does by half the price

 

[buzzbuzz]

There is no comparison. Macbooks and Macs are so, so, so better. Maybe if you're an awkward person who isn't totally coordinated, you might not appreciate the amazing fluidity of both Macbooks in a physical sense or the OS, but man.. I had to use a Dell laptop with WIndows 7 for work for a few months and it was hell.

 

[hubert_cumberdale]

There is no comparison. Macbooks and Macs are so, so, so better. Maybe if you're an awkward person who isn't totally coordinated, you might not appreciate the amazing fluidity of both Macbooks in a physical sense or the OS, but man.. I had to use a Dell laptop with Windows 7 for work for a few months and it was hell.

I am so glad that Apple has made such massive inroads into the Windows domination

This is going to provide such good competition with O/S's and with Google entering the mix, hopefully for the better.

I am a Windows man but came ever so close to jumping ship for a bit there. I had a friend a with Snow Leopard imac and also an macbook so I borrowed it for a while and thought it was pretty good.

Then W7 came out and finally MS had listened to their clients (and I imagine it's because they finally have competition) and produced an excellent O/S so I stuck. It actually has a lot of great features.

I'm hoping that this OS war will have 1 result, we will be the big winners

 

[Chief]

I picked up the MacBook 13" last week from www.geekworks.com.au (great shop in Stones Corner, Brisbane).

I'm using it now - I've pushed my desktop keyboard out of the way and fired it up. It's just a nice machine to use. The multi-touch trackpad is heaven for scrolling and flicking between windows. No way would I have this many windows open in Windows, they are just such a pain to navigate.

Notational Velocity is a great little tool - try it out. I'm using it for Uni notes instead of Word.

Overall it's just a great machine, but of course Mac does have some painful issues. Why can I only COPY files? Why can't I frickin cut and paste them?? The delete key... it's BACKSPACE ffs!!

And of course:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/06/john-naughton-apple-dominates-market

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/05/comment.media and...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/28/charlie-brooker-microsoft-mac-windows

But wait!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/28/charlie-brooker-pfroblem-with-macs

 

[sens]

Overall it's just a great machine, but of course Mac does have some painful issues. Why can I only COPY files? Why can't I frickin cut and paste them??

Yes, the Finder is crap. Check out a wee app called "move addict" for a solution to cut and paste.

 

[hubert_cumberdale]

Bingo, finally got snow leopard working in a VM session so now I can start using it a bit more

As I have stated earlier I am a Windows man but I wouldn't mind learning a wee bit more about OS X. Problem is Spit is my mate and he "don't like Apple.....period" and he's the only one that managed to get it working and set it up for me...damn

It will be good to experiment between the two now..

P.S. I can only say this online because Spit is on strike with this site and vowes never to come back..

 

[Bingles]

Just bought a brand new Macbook on eBay for well under RRP about a week ago. Seller was great and looked like he would be selling some HP laptops, Macbook Pros and Sony Vaio F-Series (from what I saw, can't confirm if he's selling them all on eBay or elsewhere). I only wanted the cheaper one as that's what fit my budget but I'd keep an eye out if you're looking for a good deal.

I got lucky with a great seller. Perhaps you can too.

 

[soonarmee]

Avoid HP laptops. I just got my third person tell me their HP is simply "falling apart". Must be just the way they are built

 

[Nardz]

Avoid HP laptops. I just got my third person tell me their HP is simply "falling apart". Must be just the way they are built

I had a hp-compaq about 4-5 years ago

Terrible, terrible build quality

My sister still has it for her kids, the have to use it up against a wall otherwise the screen will just fall over...

 

[Wickzki]

I have a Compaq right now. I had it for less than two months and the Smartdrive crashed on me. It would load into programs fine immediately before it happened and then it said "imminent failure" -- ridiculous. So they replaced the HD. Been okay since but it's coming up to a year and the warranty will expire and I know it will not last much longer past it.

On another point, prior to getting it shipped off for repair I took it into a local computer shop - guy is a genius at his computer stuff. Anyways, he proved the other point with them. They overheat like a mother and their cooling fans only truly work if you have it sitting on a surface where you can get space underneath the laptop and the surface itself. Forget it as a computer that you can carry around with you and use it on the go. The overheating is likely what killed my first hard drive.

Thanks for the tip Bingles. I'll keep an eye open on eBay. Been some great deals lately. Who was your seller (if you don't mind me asking).

 

[sabre_ac]

6 Months ago I was looking into laptops and put in a fair bit of research, after many questions and review reading I went with a Macbook pro 15 and haven't looked back.

Computers never last longer than 2 years for me, I show them little respect and have my files all over the place. At the end of their life they are loaded with virus's, half downloaded files and sluggish as hell.

6 months into my Mac experience and its almost impossible to kill this thing short of throwing it on the ground (I have dropped it repeatedly). For a internet junkie, frequent movie viewer, occasional work at home and casual gamer I can't fault this beauty. I will recommend getting the best screen you can get and anti reflection, otherwise I have am a true believer of once you go mac you don't go back.

 

[Nardz]

I have a Compaq right now. I had it for less than two months and the Smartdrive crashed on me. It would load into programs fine immediately before it happened and then it said "imminent failure" -- ridiculous. So they replaced the HD. Been okay since but it's coming up to a year and the warranty will expire and I know it will not last much longer past it.

On another point, prior to getting it shipped off for repair I took it into a local computer shop - guy is a genius at his computer stuff. Anyways, he proved the other point with them. They overheat like a mother and their cooling fans only truly work if you have it sitting on a surface where you can get space underneath the laptop and the surface itself. Forget it as a computer that you can carry around with you and use it on the go. The overheating is likely what killed my first hard drive.

Thanks for the tip Bingles. I'll keep an eye open on eBay. Been some great deals lately. Who was your seller (if you don't mind me asking).

lol funny you should mention the fan... i had an issue where my fan used to periodically stop working, because the vents at the bottom of the unit would pick up any dust and suck it into the fan.... i used to use it in bed a lot so it would pick up god knows what from the mattress or sometihng..

after getting a tech to fix it once or twice, i started actually holding a vacuum cleaner up to the vent to suck up any dust whenever it played up.. got me by for a while

 

[soonarmee]

6 months into my Mac experience and its almost impossible to kill this thing short of throwing it on the ground (I have dropped it repeatedly).

Gotta be a bit more careful, they ain't tennis balls

Saying that, I have two sisters who also treat their notebooks rather "casually" and have managed to keep them running very well for about 5 yrs now (time for an upgrade I think). I think with Notebooks PC based of course, the brand is quite important. One has a Sony Vaio (nice but expensive) and the other has...a DELL which has absolutely surprised me and performed extremely well given her relaxed way of treating it!!

I actually put Windows 7 on both of them and they run even better! I did recommend a new notebook in the not to distant future however

The one thing Apple have done in regards to moving forward is they have kept it ALL Apple. i.e. hardware Apple, software Apple etc which keeps the QA up. Problem with that is the lack of choise when it come to bargaining..

As an interesting note, my nephew did manage to kill his Mac, he hurled it from a moving car at 100k's on the freeway...He always said he hated it

 

[Team Mo']

Ok so I needed to put windows 7 on my computer to run AutoCAD but in the end it became too difficult and have decided (or thrown into) to buy a brand new PC. I need to run be able to run autocad and really that's about it apart from watching videos and browsing the net. Don't play games at all on the computer.

I've been pretty much given this laptop by my Dad and I don't really have much of say in the matter (don't want to suggest anything else as he might just not get me one anyway.) Any suggestions would be great.

Edit: Also any help on the differences between and AMD or Intel processor? I'm basically rating the laptops I see on price which could be a bit niave but really the numbers and names they give to a laptop can be quite confusing.

 

[Team Mo']

Meh bought it. Seems fine; CAD could be a bit smoother but it's better then nothing.

 

[xyakks]

":My name is Roland Poindexter and I have a MacBook and an iPod Touch and an iPad 1 and an iPad 2 and an iPhone 2 and an iPhone 3 and I've been waiting in line for 12 hours for an iPhone 4.

I love iTunes, everything I have on my iWhatever I paid for over iTunes using my special iCard. I don't like to try anything else because new things scare me. I live with my parents still even though I'm over 18. I would describe myself as adventurous. I drive a volvo.:"

You know what, apple piss me off. They make everything more difficult than it has to be. When putting music onto an MP3 player becomes a massive pain in the butt you know there's something wrong.

 

[sens]

They make everything more difficult than it has to be. When putting music onto an MP3 player becomes a massive pain in the butt you know there's something wrong.

Click, drag, sync. Difficult?

 

[soonarmee]

Click, drag, sync. Difficult?

Not difficult when you steal everyone elses ideas!!

 

[danzan22]

I have a Mac and would much prefer a Windows laptop. While the build quality is superior, i have had to deal with a fair few compatibility issues simply because everything is compatible with windows and not apple (mainly gaming, but other network problems have come up). Also after 6 months my macbook pro started failing on me, the graphics card as stuffed along with the logicboard. Also because it's apple, it cost a lot more to fix if you don't have a warranty. Asus and Dell would be my recommendations, better value for money, have them at work and they go fine.

Just my 2 cents

 

[soonarmee]

I have a Mac and would much prefer a Windows laptop. While the build quality is superior, i have had to deal with a fair few compatibility issues simply because everything is compatible with windows and not apple (mainly gaming, but other network problems have come up). Also after 6 months my macbook pro started failing on me, the graphics card as stuffed along with the logicboard. Also because it's apple, it cost a lot more to fix if you don't have a warranty. Asus and Dell would be my recommendations, better value for money, have them at work and they go fine.

Just my 2 cents

Be carefull danz, the Apple people are are a relentless mob and will hunt and kill you for these comments...remember...on the Eighth day god created Apple!!

Just humour them and they will behave

 

[seanoff]

Be carefull danz, the Apple people are are a relentless mob and will hunt and kill you for these comments...remember...on the Eighth day god created Apple!!

Just humour them and they will behave

there are some like that, and they are idiots.

I operate in a mixed environment.

and if that laptop has failed GC and motherboard within 6 months apple have to fix it or replace it.