what is a split screen?

i agree the only major difference was Finder vs Explorer and Applications/Installation path. 99.9% of the time, you wont need to think about it. [Except when I had to dig deep into Adobe folder structure to manually swap some files]

the touchpad is supreme. cannot be matched. check the settings and familiarize yourself with the multi-finger swipe for 2/3/4 finger operations. and tap-to-click. 2 finger tap = right click. 2 finger drag = page scroll. cant go back to PC after that.

the other thing to remember is that applications and files can be launched from Spotlight - keyboard shortcut Apple + Spacebar. Everything is instantly indexed.

lastly a big trick is the ALT OPTION key. Hold it down while menus are opened, or on a mouseover, or with a right click option, to be presented with an alternate set of options. E.g. Save turns into Save As. Full screen turns into Maximize.

Pretty sure he means something like this:
http://techchannel.radioshack.com/us...ws-7-1367.html

(What used to be called "tiled windows" and later "show windows side by side) and is now doable by "snapping" them to the sides as described there.

I'm sure there's still a way to do it on Mac.

Unless you're a serious touch typist and do a lot of document prep or coding, in which case the pointing stick which used to be ubiquitous on business notebooks beats it hands down because you don't need to move your hands off the home row to navigate... and no touchpad can touch that.

Lenovo and Dell still have it on some of their notebooks, albeit only in a dual pointer configuration. Neither is as good as the old single-pointer Toshiba version but both still work very nicely compared to any Touchpad I've seen.

Dunno if you've seen it, but Apple sells certified refurbished products for assorted discounts. In the last few years I've purchased one new iMac and three refurbished machines. I can't tell the difference other than they arrive in a nondescript box. I bought two 15" MBP which I use for work, mainly, and have been entirely satisfied. My last purchase was in 9/2014 and I got a 15" MBP, quad-core i7 2.6 GHz, 512GB SSD for $1899, supposedly something like 20% off the MSRP. The warranty is the same as a new MBP, and so far as I understand the refurbishment process includes a new case. You may want to consider it...

BTW for me a major shortcoming of the MBP was the lack of a ten-key numerical keyboard, but I found a BlueTooth Canon 10-key which works great.

Accountant?

On the PC side, I hate the trend to adding a numeric keypad to 15" and larger models ; it means an off-center keyboard and much less comfortable typing experience.

Plenty of BlueTooth or USB number pads for those who need them, although it does make things a bit less portable.

This was among the primary reasons why I didn't want anything bigger than a 14'' screen. My mother has a 15.6'' dell and I used it once, it felt awkward using it on my lap and I was typing over to the right. Just felt unbalanced
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I looked at some of the refurbished machines. I've owned a few refurbed electronics, though I've never had anything major go wrong, and the manufacturers had always been good with repairs, if I'm buying a major electronic, I personally prefer to buy new.

Yes, this is it. I use it a lot when working on papers. I'll have Word on one side, and my resource or prompt on the other side. Even my Chromebook has an option to quickly do this. I'm still trying to figure out how to always go to "full screen," the + button only seems to make things bigger, not always filling the display.

So, I had been seriously looking since June (and not as seriously since about last December.) There's a few keys on my Samsung that stopped working. One that stopped was the "-" and "]" keys, the "0" is staring to act flaky. But that's all beyond the point. I ruled out HP, Dell, and Toshiba off the bat. I hated the HP computers for a lot of reasons that I had at my old job, I've had two Toshibas and neither aged well, and my mother (though she seems to love them) has had a few Dells and seems to replace them because of what turns into a never ending stream of issues. I would liked to have purchased a Gateway or Samsung again, but Gateway is essentially a dead brand, and Samsung has exited the market. Which left me with Lenovo and Acer. I have a few friends that work for IT in two different companies and asked their opinion. Both spoke highly of Lenovo's enterprise assistance, and how generally they're reliable, and durable. When I told them I was going to get at T440s or an X1 carbon, or a Macbook, one without a pause said to just get the Mac, the other said to get the T440s. I was still on the fence between the two, and it really came down to the battery life and reliablity that sealed the deal for me. I would have rather stayed with a PC, I just couldn't find an ultrabook that with affordable with the features that I liked, by a manufacturer I was willing to do business with.

Dell has very different models and quality control between its consumer lines and its business lines, and I still recommend the latter. Some of the top-tier consumer models (XPS) have done well for friends, and the business model I use (Precision M3800) is actually a rebadged XPS.

They also, for all the QC issues (and there are some even on the business line) have one of the easiest warranty-services to deal with on the PC side (Apple's is much better, if you're near an Apple store) and one of the cheapest upgrades to accidental damage protection which is a must for heavy use.

There's also ASUS; some of their ultrabooks are quite nice, and competitively priced.

I've lost track -- did you get the MBP or the MBA? The T440s went to an ultrabook processor this generation, and is actually slower than the T430s as a result (and only goes to 12GB.)

The X1 Carbon is an absolutely beautiful business ultrabook (IMO, a better piece of design than the MacBook Air) but they are still limited to an ultrabook processor, and I don't think they can go to 16GB. So neither of them would have been appropriate as a comparison to the MBP.

Rather chunkier, but I am very fond of the Lenovo T440p, which has a quad core CPU and a discrete GPU in a very nicely compact 14" package.

256GB Macbook Pro

In the end the size and speed was when I basically threw the towel in and ended up with the Macbook. (The other was once I got the X1 with everything I wanted it was more than the Pro. Didn't expect to see something more than an Apple, but it apparently happens.)

I had a bit wide of a net, but eventually narrowed it down to a few. We'll see how long it is before I can't stand the way things are done. I really like Chrome OS, and wish that it was more capable than it was (to at least the point of full Word and Excel. The way that Microsoft is moving to be everywhere now, it wouldn't be a shocker to see it within a year.)

I really like my MBP with the SSD. It's much faster than the first one I bought. I think you'll be pleased.

Watch over it carefully when you travel; a few days ago a coworker related to me how his MBA was lifted from his backpack by a (apparently very skillful) pickpocket as he bought train tickets in Europe sometime during the summer.

Since I use both Mac OSX and Windows for work, I was initially ambivalent about the brand of laptop I was going to buy. One factor that guided my decision was learning that Apple earns about 50% of all the profits earned in the PC/laptop business, in spite of having less than 5% of the market share. In other words, the manufacturers who control the other 95% of the market are basically in a race to the bottom, making their products more and more cheaply as they attempt to eke out a margin.

As an aside, to carry my MBP I use a Thule bag (similar to this), and one day I was going down some stairs. The bag slipped off my shoulder before I could even react, and impacted the edge of a stair. Now my MBP was in a sleeve in addition to being protected by the padding of the Thule bag, but it hit hard and sustained a barely-noticeable dent, right at the front. Even so, it still works fine. I'm not sure if another laptop, like the Gateway I used for many years, would have survived.

Well, it arrived today. It sure is small.

I have had some "words" with it so far. I'll give a few days before it gets thrown, though since it is all metal it will probably break the floor a la a Nokia 5165 circa 2001.

Off topic, but if you want to see (and read) about a very skilled pick-pocket, check out this New Yorker article and video from a year or two back:

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cul...-pickpocketing

Oh wow. The memories of bouncing a 5185i off pavement in college... as long as all the pieces stayed within reach, 5 seconds reassembly and you were back in action. I kind of miss that, actually.

It'll take you a couple months to get used to OS X's quirks, but ride them out.

In my opinion, you can try Mac when you are completely tired with the windows OS. I once had a Mac sometime back that gave me a lot of issues with some programs, that i used to operate with windows. I don't know if they made changes since then, but hey! maybe it's better now.

I've been looking for a laptop to take travelling for months. Around 11" screen with enough power to be able to run a Football (soccer) Manager game I play, comfortably run Photoshop and process RAW images etc

Tested loads of Lenovo's, Dell, ASUS, all of them OK but a little heavy and bulky to be carrying around for months on end.

Kept looking at the Macbook Air 11", so slim and light...but it's Mac, haven't used one for years and all the programs I have paid for won't run on it.

Suddenly had a lightbulb moment...took the plunge and first thing I did was install Windows 7 on it via Boot Camp. Now I've got the perfect light/slim laptop that runs Windows which was not seemingly available anywhere else.

Sorry Mr Jobs! I like the hardware though

Another log in the fire - first I know your pain of having to switch, went through it myself a while back and I don't change easily. As much as I hate to admit it, I couldn't imagine going back to a PC now.

So I have both - the current top model retina pro in 15" and the 13" air - the air is what I grab every time, it's been all over the world a few times over, it's light, the current model battery lasts forever, it seems to last a lot longer than my Retina (I think its not supposed to, but it does?). It's light enough in my bag that I have to double-check it's in there sometimes and it's easy to pop out on a flight.

The retina indeed has a beautiful display but I tend to only use it when sitting at a table or desk at home. The extra screen real estate is nice but really, the 13" has been my rock star and I'll buy a new one every time they come out with a newer one and trickle the old one down to family. Love the thing.

AC power supply is smaller/lighter too and it's paper thin.

I just replaced my MacBook 2008 with MacBook Pro 2014. I can use AirDrop with my iPhone now, it's so much convenient.