Mac v Win
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well said, in a perfect world we'd only need to decide what color of computer we wanted, the rest would just work for us and we could concentrate on what we are doing not what we're doing it on.
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O
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Jeff, This shows that it is possible to run OSX on a PC. There are ways to do this via software and by using a plug in card but both are illegal.
xrok1, I understand Windows does run natively under Bootcamp. The Apple OS is ONLY for Macs
Coming back to the point about Big Corporations not being honorable. I know this is the general perception and there is good reason for this. But
I believe Apple is an exception. They appear not to let greed govern their drive to make money. I think its more a case of producing quality products and letting the public decide. Although Ross may have a different opinion on this these days but I imagine he will forgive and forget
I strongly suggest that if you have not tried out a Mac you should give it a go. It does take a week to get used to the system but after a month most don't want to go back to PCs.
Pete, I think the reason Apple only have 10% of the market is because they decided not to open the doors to other companies to make clones. They did for a while but changed their minds as the clone quality was not the best. All PCs are IBM Clones. IBM opened the doors back in the 80s.
AutoCAD IMO did much the same thing in the CAD world when it allowed other companies make add ons. I think MicroCAD (now a little known program), a 3D application which was up and running at the same time as AutoCAD was spreading its wings would now be the No.1 in the world of draughting if it went 'open doors'.
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Alas, I agree that we're both right. And I concede that IF you could get the exact same progs for either system AND
I could get a mac for the same price as an hp, I'd probably be typing on a mac if for no other reason than they are damn cool. -
xrok1,
I think I getting close to converting you! I'll 'plant' one last seed. You mentioned the cost of a HP. Okay lets look at the cost of ownership over a 3 year period and see how it pans out.
What model HP would you consider going for?
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LOL, ok, I'll play.
I have an hp1701n $899, plus a nvidea 8600GT $89.
So $1000.BTW, have you seen the MasterCard commercials?
(price of HP computer $899; price of video card $89; price of being able to run any software you like: PRICELESS)
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I'll do a few calcs and see what happens but its too late for it now so it will be tomorrow
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There is one thing that Mac's suck with, the Mac standard shipped mouse, what's up with the nipple?
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You can use any mouse you want...
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@solo said:
:roflmao:
There is one thing that Mac's suck with, the Mac standard shipped mouse, what's up with the nipple?
I could not agreee more with you Pete. The Mighty Mouse looks and feels like a bar of soap! Who ever designed it should study some basic ergonomics
MicroSoft RULE when it comes to mose design for the masses
I currently use the MS Mobile Memory 3000 and find it perfect 
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I just bought some more ram for my imac, and the Mac technician said that Apple is considering quad cores for the next imac releases. He also said the new mac osx release (snow leopard) will be out this summer. Two interesting tidbits
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I will buy a laptop soon and I am sure it won't be Mac. I think it is especially good for those who has no clue how to maintain their soft and hardware. Nice and simple solution, but hugely overpriced.
I am not an expert, but for me Quadro is way stronger vs 9600 GT (9400 is not being used in parallel).
No one will convince me that it is worth paying twice as much for Mac (My laptop will have similar spec to Mac 17 Pro). For me it is just a matter of prestige, being 'cool'. There are people willing and being able to pay for it.
Tomasz
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Prices straight from manufacturers' websites:
MacBook Pro 17-inch
2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB Memory
320GB hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB
No internal optical drive
£1949
3 year extended warranty excluding accidental damage- £273
Total= £2222http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro?mco=MTI4MDI
HP dv7-1050ea 17-inch
2.26 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB Memory
500 GB
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD±R/RW Double Layer
£ 1069
3 year extended warranty including accidental damage- £155
Total= £1224http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/ho/WF06a/321957-321957-3329744-64354-64354-3744231.html
I've heard that you can buy and fit OEM RAM for Macs yourself (can anyone confirm this?), but just for comparison Apple will charge you an extra £840
to bump the Powerbook up to 8GB RAM, whereas the first price I found for the equivalent upgrade for the PC is £446- that aint no small potatoes.The Powerbook is unquestionably the more powerful of the two, Apple's build quality and QA is far superior (and this particular hp model hasn't had the best reviews to be honest) and it weighs about two thirds of the hp, but if I was looking for a laptop to use in my daily work, there's no question that the pc would be my choice, if only because effectively it's 95% as powerful as the Powerbook, 500% as useful (app-wise) and more or less half the price. Looking at it another way, if I was looking for a small portable office setup that I'd use for mostly modelling and rendering for £226 more than the cost of the Powerbook I could buy TWO of the hp machines which would
a) take care of me and a colleague and/or
b) be a pretty powerful, yet extremely compact and efficent render farm with approximately >180% of the speed of the one Powerbook and/or
c) be a desktop for the office plus a portable workstation for presentations, etc and/or
d) allow for almost zero down-time when anything does go wrong with one of the machines and it has to be serviced, repaired or recovered as you just switch to the other one and/or
e) allow for completely swappable (and of course cloneable) harddrives in the event of hardware, firmware or OS failure. Cloning the harddrive of one machine after it's set up properly with all major apps and updates installed could even save 1 or 2 days of setup time for the second machine.
Yep, no surprises that I'm a PC fanboy, but I just prefer to spread my money around rather than put it all in one company's coffers and for me the cons of a less stable/reliable platform are far outweighed by the pros of cost vs. power, self-reliance and tweakability which appeals to the I-like-to-take-things-apart-to-see-how-they-work part of my brain.
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I've just replaced the memory in my MacBook Pro (Late 2008) It came with 2Gb and I replaced the 2x1Gb with 2x2Gb from crucial. ~£57 inc delivery.
If you go to the crucial site - http://www.crucial.com you can pick your locale/make/model etc.
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Jackson,
Looks like you did most of my work for me. There are just two further items that must be factored in to get a true picture.
As we all know, laptop manufactures like to bring out a new model every 18 months or so. I understand one reason for this is because CPUs used to double in speed at these intervals, not so sure now!
My question is what will the Secondhand Value of each of the above mentioned laptops be after 18 months of use? I feel VERY confident that the Mac will STILL have a good secondhand value whereas the HP will be difficult to stift.
This should be factored into the initial purchase decision, just like when buying a new car! Also there is a GREEN element to the purchase, Macs have far longer life spans than PCs due in part to the superior build quality.
I think when these items are factored in the Mac wins hands down
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..... I had a look around for some hard cold facts on the reliability issue and found this, http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20071023005996&ndmHsc=v2A1193137200000B1193173343000DgroupByDateJ1L1N1000837*ZApple&newsLang=en&beanID=202776713&viewID=news_view
%(#000080)['The Report calculated the "Reliability Score" for each PC vendor based on the calculated difference between overall U.S. market share, over a three-year period, and the percentage of calls requesting service received by RESCUECOM’s call center. Higher scores indicate that less calls for service were received for the specific computer vendor versus expected levels based upon market share estimates (scores are in parentheses)
Apple (357)
Lenovo/IBM (236)
HP (126)
Gateway (103)
Dell (94)
Others (79)]Jackson, I think you would need to consider buying 3 HP Laptops or 4 Dells just to be safe on the reliability issue
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wouldn't most mac users call 1-800-APL-CARE instead of 1-800-RESCUE-PC ?
dude, seriously, macs and pcs use the same hardware.. same hard drives, dvd burners, chips, motherboards, etc......
look inside your mac and you'll see intel, western digital, seagate, sony, panasonic, etc... nothing apple though some things will be 'designed' by apple (such as that tiny extra chip that's on your cpu that says 'i'm a mac' and prevents another OS from being installed)..
circumventing that chip (which is illegal due to copy write issues) will allow windows to run totally fine on a mac.. some things will actually perform better on the mac and vice versa..
mac vs win is only a battle of operating systems/software now... that's it.. (well, and the outer shell of said gadget)
apple isn't even pursuing anyone violating the copy write because they like the 'buzz' surrounding their OS.. the main reason microsoft has 90% share is due to familiarity.. so-and-so goes into best buy to get a new computer and they won't get a mac simply because they don't want to learn a new system..
as far as superior reliability with apple, i personally doubt the claims (though i don't have any ms purchases to compare).. it took me 3 iphones until i finally got one that worked properly and i had a motherboard replaced on a laptop.. this only in the past year..
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@unknownuser said:
My question is what will the Secondhand Value of each of the above mentioned laptops be after 18 months of use? I feel VERY confident that the Mac will STILL have a good secondhand value whereas the HP will be difficult to stift.
when is the last time you or anyone you know bought an 18 month or computer?
its preposterous, in the computer business there's likely two newer (faster) generations of processors and memory in that time frame? -
I have had PC's and Macs for 22 years by now. At present my Mac is quite old, running OS8 and not capable of running anything newer. Of the 8 Macs I have owned, three had faulty motherboards that were replaced by warranty, so my personal experience cannot rate Mac reliability very high. My own PCs have behaved better, with the graphics card in my laptop breaking down after some years of heavy use (I was able to replace it), but at work, where we're 16, I think we lose a harddrive about yearly.
Anssi
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Jeff (Dude
)I'm passing along the report. It speaks for itself. From a personal point of view my Service Calls have dropped to zero over the past 3 years of Mac use. Prior to this period it needed three to four call outs a year costing at €600 +.
Let me ask a question! Which (Independent) Computer Maintenance business would a (Dual System) Service Engineer choose, Mac or PC? I imagine if he wanted to make enough to eat he would opt for a PC Maintenance Shop.
I agree the hardware is now similar in both PCs and Macs. However Macs are put together to a higher standard with better drivers especially for video. I don't understand what you are saying about Macs being OSX only. Windows runs on Macs via BootCamp, often faster than on PCs.
IMO the reason MicroSoft have 90% of the market is because IBM 'opened the doors' back in the 80s and MS was their contracted OS. Apple remained a 'closed door' system and still is. IMB Clones (PCs) became a 'free for all' market and grew rapidly. AuotCAD and Word also played a big part in the growth. Apple cornered the Graphic Design market.
It is my experience that most first time buyers will always opt for a Mac over a PC after trying out both machines / operating systems. Of course price is also a factor but if they can stretch to it they normally do. Once they opt for a Mac they rarely change to PC. The same cannot be said for PC purchasers.
As regards the iPhone, it is well documented that the first batch had quite a few faulty units. I never buy market entry units of anything. Its always best to wait for a few months, then go for one. This applies to lots of products including software.
xrok 1,
I have been buying Macs for my daughter for the past 7 years and for myself since Mac started using the Intel chip.
In total I have bought three laptops for my daughter and two for myself. I always deal with a local company http://www.compub.com/. They always take our old laptops as trade-ins and offer good prices. Check out their current used machines and note that there are no MacBook Pros for sale. They a snapped up as soon as they are traded in. There are a few Airs for sale but I feel this particular laptop was not a good Apple idea as it had no CD Rom. This particular company deals with a lot of Graphic Design students (all Graphic Design Colleges over here use Macs) and they have a good secondhand market.
You can also check out eBay and see for yourself what Macs are available and their ages. Its is quite common to see 3 -4 year old laptops and desktops on sale AND being sold!
I will admit that power users, like many here, have the need for the fastest available CPU and an 18 month old machine would not suit them BUT a good quality used MAC will suit many normal users and there are far more of those guys than power users!
Mike
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