Thinking of defecting to a Apple: Macbook
 

Ok,
So I have been a hard core IBM user since I was about 10, and was always on the IBM/PC side of the house. I've built and owned a number of machines, all IBMs. My last laptop years ago (sold 2005) was a Dell which was fine.

However, as I am getting older I am getting less patient with messing around PCs and am more into get the job done mentality versus configure, build, try applications.

As my use is real simple - web browsing, pictures, movies, music, Office, and some graphic/video design, I am really thinking of defecting to Apple and getting a Mac Book.

With the whole hassle of Vista versus XP, I really just need a laptop that is going to work, don't hassle about incomptability, drivers, viruses, spam, etc.

Apple struck me as something simple, clean, good looking, that plain old works. I do not have much experience with Mac OS, but as an IT guy I presume that the learning curve would not be too much. As my application list is pretty simple, I also presume it would not be a problem locating same application as I use on IBM for a Mac.

I would be in a need of a lighter laptop. If Mac route, then Macbook or Macbook Air, or if sticking to PC route, then a Lenovo, probably one of the smaller ones. The only odd requirement is that I would like to have HDMI or DVI ouput to output to a 720p flat screen TV when playing movies. I would like the laptop to be light.

As Lenovo is not cheap, Macbook or IBM would run be about $1000-$1200 for what I am looking for. On the PC I play a lot of flight simulator, but I think the best is to build a small desktop just for that instead of spending $2000-$3000 on a large laptop and just keep the laptop for simple purposes, and the desktop for the simulator and games.

I would not consider other PC laptop brands, just Lenovo as I was never impressed with Sony, Toshiba, HP, and Dell has deteriorated in quality since years when I used it.

Any thoughts and feedback would be appreciated.

I've used Macs since the late 80s and my key suggestion is to pinpoint exactly what it is that you don't like about PCs--lots of the problems won't be solved by switching platforms.

Spam--won't be affected by platform
Viruses--if you're sloppy about security, then a Mac would probably help in this regard.
Drivers/Incompatibility--For all the fuss that happens whenever Microsoft releases a service pack, there's no small amount of anxiety whenever Apple releases a .1 update to MacOS X.

If all of your data can be moved to the Mac platform, then I think you'll be happy either way.

I've never been a Mac user, and love the PC. But I will agree that, even these days, there is often some amount of "configuration" required if one wants to go off-road at all. Most of the stuff just works, IME, but some things require intervention.

As an example, my Moto RAZR has a mini-USB for power, so I figured I could charge it from my computer. Well, I could, but it required a special driver to set it in a power-supply mode. I had to go out and find the driver, then install it. For me, no problem. For someone who doesn't want to muck with this, could be a bigger deal. Of course, I don't know what would happen on a Mac if one plugged a RAZR into a USB port and it didn't have the power supply driver.

I like the PC because of the configurability aspect, but I can see how this could be a detriment to some who don't want to do this sort of thing. Again, though, all the basic stuff (such as the thing that the OP mentions) have always just worked for me, at least through XP.

Cheers.

I would suggest before you make the switch and the investment in expensive apple hardware, you wait a couple of months until Windows 7 comes out. I have been playing with the Beta version and it hands down beats anything coming from Apple or Microsoft in the past.

Had they released this instead of Vista, Apple would be in big trouble now.

I think it's great that you want to switch and eventually you may like it, but I've found that IT guys are the ones who can not adjust easily when switching. They have to tinker, configure and tweak, and can't just let everything work.

That's hilarious - I've emailed this line to the ad guys at apple for their next set of commercials.

By the time Win 7 comes out, apple will probably introduce another OS that will make Win 7 obsolete (again)...IMHO :p

Why is that, it works as well, and is as easy to use as OS-X and runs on computers that are 1/3rd the cost of the cheapest Mac.

I've tried Mac. I really like the Mac software. I wanted to buy a Mac. But if I can get a similarly easy to use operating system on a $500 laptop (or $300 netbook), why am I going to spend more than $1000 (more like $1500 for the same configuration) for the alternative?

Apple got their biggest boost in computer sales due to the absolute failure that was Vista.

Well, there are always differing opinions. I have a co-worker who is a beta tester (and was for XP, Vista and others). He says that Windows 7 is just as bad as Vista. "It's Vista with the warning messages turned off."

This may not be the knight in shining armor that us PC folks are looking for :)

And it seems like Apple may not have anything to worry about on the OS score.

Cheers.

Apple has better security but also with better security means you won't be able to use all business programs that some of us need. A PC is of course less secure but has more functions. Overall I like the Mac better for business unless you do things via the web such as coding of websites and programs.

I switched from PC to Mac about 3 years ago, and am not going back to PCs. I like that it's Unix underneath, and consider the "eye candy" aspects to be nice though not essential. However, you ain't gonna get a Macbook Air for $1200. You also have to buy new copies of software like Microsoft Office etc., and this can add to the cost. At the same time, you can also still run Windows programs using Parallels or VMWare Fusion, which actually works pretty well.

I have both a MacBook Pro which I use for travel and at home, and a Macbook that I use in the office where I have less time to work on the computer. The Macbook is really pretty functional if your eyes are happy with the screen size; in my case I use the Macbook with a big, cheap external screen (plus the Macbook by itself which is easy to drag to meetings). But you should visit a Best Buy or an Apple store and play with the three flavors (Macbook, Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air) before you decide.

Excel runs better on a PC, that is fine but I won't be using that except for simple tables and formulas. Work always provides me a PC to use.

The Lenovo SL300s or the X61, when configured run about $1000, which is a little bit less than the Macbook. I do not trust others (HP, Sony, Dell, Lenovo) see them as consumer machines with all nice buttons and crap software that is useless.

I have been an IT guy all my life, I just hate spending time to configure stuff anymore. My brother got an SL400, I added some RAM to it, waited 5 minutes for Vista to load up, then rebooted, loaded XP. It took me 2 days to try to find all the drivers for XP because they are almost non-existen. I am sick of troubleshooting laptops and have reduced my computers to the less applications the better.

This is the complete opposite of what I used to be, a gamer, a developer, a person who would always try the newest version of everything. Right now I need the Web, Office, Adobe for music, pictures, video streaming to TV, Internet and voila. The more web applications, the better.

With XP I still need to reformat every once in a while, clean everything, image, etc.

The last two operating systems from Microsoft that I considered a success were NT 4.0 and XP. I don't remember NT, but I do recall it took a year or two until SP2 came out for the bugs to be weeded out.

If the past is the predictor of the future, I'd wait until at least a year until Win7 release before jumping on the bandwagon. Of course, upgrade all the hardware to support it as well.

Question - MAC OS can support more than 3gig RAM like Vista? Also is it hard to add a solid state disc and ram to a Mac (I hope its not like the iPOD)?

Thanks

Thoughts from one who switched
 

I switched to a MAC notebook about 15 months ago mainly because I did not like the other machine our company offered. Like you I was a PC user for years, and if a IBM THinkpad (Lenovo) had been available I would of have acquired this. First the good points, The display is great and the machine is stable. Now for the but, being a IBM user I did not find the switch easy. The way I was thinking did not translate into the way I needed to think to use a Mac. Also, using Office on a Mac works well but does not have all the features that the windows version does. ALso, I do not use Vista in my windows environment only XP Pro. I have run into some things that only work on Internet explorer and not on Safari or Firefox. Also, for email you could use Entourage from Microsoft if you use Microsoft office. For free things you could use Thunderbird for email, and open office instead of MS office.
In summary the Mac is nice but I would have been better served with a Windows machine, since this is what I know. When running XP/Pro and the software you mentioned this is very stable and easy to use. It is also the least expensive solution. If given a choice I would get a Thinkpad with XP/PRO as well as office.

I have been using PCs since the first ones in 1982 or whenever. I have almost entirely switched to Macs now. They are just better in every day use. This past Saturday I decided to hook up a speaker to a Airport Express and stream music to it from my Mac Book for the first time. Less than 10 minutes. It is like magic to a PC user. My wife has more than 20 years experience as a programmer (mostly C++ on Unix/Windows) and said she was shocked as well. She has a very nice Dell notebook that she never uses. She got a Mac Book and that is the only computer she uses at home now. It just works.

Apple machines are definitely not cheap - but my $1600 G3 iBook lasted 6 yrs before my latest upgrade. And thank god i'm an apple shareholder; it's the only stock that has not plummeted in my entire portfolio.

But to credit their success due to failure of Vista is just plain wrong - their hardware sales started their climb way before the Vista debacle.

And keep an eye out for snow leopard.....

Of course, they were at around $180 in August and are now at about $90. So I'm not quite sure how you define plummet :)

Cheers.

Oooooops - my basis is low 20's, sorry. That run to 180-200 was short-lived after the first iPhone launch. It actually settled back down to 150's before the last crash.;)

I do this all day long on my Mac.

I don't know the max the OS supports, but the MacPro towers support up to 32gb of memory and can use all of it. My Macbook supports up to 4gb and the 17" MacbookPro goes up to 8gb.

The upgrade is very easy, but you can order your MacBook with the SSD already installed from Apple. And for once, their prices are competitive with what you can get from 3rd party.

After about 20 years of PC use, I switched for these same reasons a year ago and have been very happy. I don't have anti-virus software - spam is unrelated. My MacBook Pro boots quickly, is really reliable, and a lot of things "just work." I think the real aha! moment was when I brought the (4 GB RAM) MBP home and it autoconfigured the wireless network and then (unprompted) magically found my network printer, and it all worked perfectly in under a minute: "would you like to use this as your default printer?"

That's in contrast to my XP-based Lenovo, which needed to know the wireless network type (WPA2), the encryption style (AES) before requesting the password, and "Add Printer" in Windows, which needed me to create a TCP/IP adapter, enter the IP of the printer, download a driver, and configure the laser printer for "raw LP" style before working properly. It was like moving from a Heathkit TV to a new LCD.

I would strongly suggest that you consider a $99 investment in Apple's One to One program. This buys you one year of personal training, which can be used at the rate of one hour per week, at any Apple store. I only used it four times over the past year, and they had trouble answering my tougher questions (setup TFTP, console cable adapters) but those few sessions helped increase my productivity a lot.

I was out at 200$, it was getting ridiculous.

That's easy. It won't charge on a mac either without a driver, if you can find one for it. This is the Razr, not the PC, because they are doing something non-standard with usb power. Yeah, I have a Razr also, so I know what you are talking about w.r.t. needing the driver so it will charge when plugged into a standard usb computer port.

This really has nothing to do with this topic.

Anyway, if you have a mac, you're supposed to have an iphone. hahaha. (in addition to your collection of ipods, apple tv, airports, airport express, apple time machine, .mac subscription, etc, etc.)

-David

Actually, it does. It speaks to the ability to do non-standard things through (extremely simple- maybe 2 minutes from google search to working) configuration. For those OK with doing a little work it seems like they may be able to do more (I had a feeling that the charging on the Mac was a likely no-go, but I wasn't sure)).

I can certainly see why someone may not want to configure for anything; others are OK with that, and can do more.

As for the comment about "magically" finding wireless items and adding them- I'd rather it wanted to know something about my encryption and password the first time before adding anything to my LAN. But that's just me :) My XP machines have found all the stuff out there right off the bat, and they do know what encryption I'm using...but I have to enter the password the first time...then it just works, each and every time.

Cheers.

Not really any different on a PC or a MAC for the Razr. Again, it's because of the Razr, not the computer or standard USB software on the computer.

http://blog.gruby.com/2006/11/27/cha...razr-over-usb/

You can write drivers and/or custom apps for either platform or both if you want to. And you can find them out there also.

-David

apple: typically more expensive but more reliable and less crashes and less viruses and anti-spyware.

ms windows: typically cheaper, easier to adapt but the cost and time involved to stop viruses and anti-spyware is quite straining. Each and every single update in the past have also been merely a "top-up" to existing software and due to its code, it will always be vulnerable to attacks.

Oh, I fully realize that it's the RAZR and not the USB port. This is a non-standard application. I was just commenting that it's frightfully easy and fast to configure this to work on a Windows box, and wasn't sure about the Mac. Your comment about the Mac driver- "if you can find one for it" made me think it was not so easy. I found many locations for Windows driver in a matter of seconds, and it was a trivial install process...and just worked.

Cheers.

I switched back to Mac three years ago - having deserted the platform since 1995 - and couldn't be happier. I'll never go back to Windows in it's current form (Vista).

Make sure you ask for student discount ($50.00 on a Macbook or so) - Best Buy and usually Apple store doesn't ask for student ID.

I hope you bought another MBA with your capital gains :)

I love my Macbook Pro. I switched a few months back but still have an XP Thinkpad also.

I don't like on the Mac:

1. Lack of End and Home keys operating the way they "should"
2. My Blackberry just doesn't work, tried everything...doesn't sync

I have a MacBook, bought in November.

I have multiple operating system partitions:

(1) Work (our software is Windows) - Vista. I can run the image either as a virtual machine in VMware Fusion or I can boot it natively.

(2) Home - Mac.

I replaced the boot menu with this:

http://refit.sourceforge.net/

Now when I boot my machine, I get a screen that asks me whether I want my Mac or Windows. If I don't choose one in 120 seconds (I configured this), the Mac boots. (The Boot Camp boot menu required a press of the "option" key in order to give a choice and I'd miss it 75% of the time when I wanted to boot into Windows and I'd have to reboot AGAIN.)

Best of both worlds.

I love Vista SP2 RC 64-bit and my Macbook Air both. I guess I think their both decent O/S's. I guess I really love the Thinkpad keyboard. I'd be much happier if my MBA had a thinkpad keyboard. To be blunt they are both great. the 64-bit Vista has been rock solid. I have not had 1 crash yet.

The Missing Sync has been very nice to me and every question I've asked has been promptly handled.

only if 'should' means the way microsoft implemented it.

home and end keys predate both mac and windows and always meant beginning and end of the document or screen (thus the names of the keys).

if you want beginning or end of the current line, use command-left arrow or command-right arrow (which makes sense, as it's an extension of what the left and right arrows do).

you aren't getting the same configuration in a $500 laptop as you do in a $1000 macbook.

I have both: a macbook and a PC dualbooting Vista and Ubuntu sitting on my desk at home and a Dell laptop for work. I love having my e-mail and other general browsing on my macbook. I love being able to use my desktop for number crunching or movies. I don't think a mac will solve many problems that couldn't just as easily be solved by good antivirus software and vigilance on the PC as far as malware and viruses. On the other hand, my mac is good for not worrying, honestly it just works, I don't have to worry about drivers or system crashes or downloading a nasty bug, the PC is a utility machine, most of the software out there is available for both, but you will run into problems where you can't get the software you need to run on OS X. In the end it comes down to how important it is for you to not worry about the little things and whether that trade is worth complete compatibility.

I switched from my Dell laptop to a macbook pro last fall. I am very happy and probably won't go back for personal use (still use my windows laptop for work which is provided by my employer). For web surfing, I like Safari, and the apple mail program is good for email. I tried iwork, but decided on microsoft office to keep compatability with my excel files and work documents. There is no contest for photos, my dell laptop choked on editing raw files from my digital SLR. The coolest thing is that for the few programs I want to run under windows, I use vmware fusion. This includes Quicken, Turbo Tax and a couple of excel files that use macros (not compatible with msoffice for mac 2008). Using vmware fusion, i was able to port over my whole windows laptop without reloading the operating system or any of the applications. My macbook pro runs windows better and faster than my 3 year old dell laptop.

Point 1. I agree with most that Apple's just "work" out the box with no muss, no fuss..which make them great machines. However, given the fact of the smaller platform, you really should expect something like this. MS is trying to create compatible drivers for many different configurations that Apple hasn't even touched yet but somehow I believe as Apple expands their market share, esp on the Intel platform, this will eventually become the case for them as well....i.e. Hackintosh

Point 2. I agree with your assesment of the Windows 7 OS. I'm running the beta as well and it has been rock solid even with me throwing a ton of programs at it....this is what vista "should" have been

Turbo Tax CD also has a Mac version that you just drag over. Works fine and probably will import your Quicken files without any problems as well as import W-2 and 1098-DIV from online brokerages.

The unibody MacBooks, the ones made from a single block of silver-colored aluminum, has mini Displayports, the new thing. You'd have to get a mini DP to DVI or HDMI cable or adaptor to hook up to an HDTV.

The cheaper $999 white MacBooks may still have mini DVI ports. You'd probably need a cable for that as well.

That wouldn't strictly be streaming though, it would be a direct connection from the laptop to the TV.

But I know people do stream from Macs to say PS3s which are hooked up to TVs. You have to really fiddle though to make that work.

The hassle free approach would be getting an AppleTV to complement the Mac (or PC, they work with iTunes for the PC as well).

As others have noted, you can run Office for the Mac or you can install Boot Camp (you need your own copy of Windows) which comes with the Mac OS 10.5.x or you can buy Parallels or VMWare Fusion. Then you can install the Windows version of Office or whatever else you want.

Boot Camp boots Windows natively or Parallels and Fusion run Windows within virtual machines.

As for Adobe, I believe there are Mac versions of Photoshop but of course it's not cheap. Nor is Light Room.

On the Mac side, you get iLife with your Mac, which includes iPhoto 09, which is a great photo management software with RAW support, face-detection and tagging, geotagging, syncing with Flicker or Facebook.

It also includes iMovie for video editing, Garage Band for learning to play music or playing with music composition, iWeb for simple web page composition.

Aperture is a competitor to Adobe Lightroom, which costs about the same. Final Cut is for serious video editing, which competes with Adobe Premier.

Tekserve, my local Mac place, is advertising the earlier version of the Air for $1100.