LOL, so I guess software upgrades and hardware upgrades are the same thing now. I mean, it's not as though Apple has released a major software upgrade directly comparable to Vista recently that doesn't require you to get a new system.
#2: Yes, when you talk about "upgrading your PC", you're talking abour hardware, period. Nobody "upgrades" to a different OS. They use different words. "Upgrade" is hardware.
I'm a linux geek at heart (and at home) but my macbook was by far the best laptop purchase I've ever made. I've owned Toshiba and Thinkpad business class laptops, and they'll have to pry this Macbook out of my cold dead hands.
And having said that, their latest offering hardly merited a big flashy announcement. A few relatively minor hardware upgrades isn't that exciting, and I'll be waiting at least a year before even considering something new ;)
Hey, they're good machines, if you're willing to pay through the nose for them and never try to do something the designers didn't expect.
My objection to Macs comes in two flavours:
#1: Only one goddamn button on the fucking touchpad of the fucking MacBook - which is a short way of saying that Apple's designers hate you and want you to suffer because the idea that something might need to work in a way that they, personally, do not prefer is simply anathema to them.
#2: Holy crap the price is *insane* compared to what you actually get.
And if you don't mind #1 and you've got money to burn on #2, go nuts.
I've largely adjusted to the mouse the same way I do on any other laptop. I don't use it. That's what external mice are for. I actually prefer the Thinkpad nipples if I'm stuck using a laptop, but the touchpad isn't a deal breaker for me anymore.
$20 for a little laptop mouse with a clickable scroll wheel and 2 buttons is achievable ;)
It is really, really not that hard to right-click on a MacBook. I do it hundreds of times a day. Easy peasy.
Yeah, it would be nice if you could set it to right-click when you click on the right side of the button, like you can with the mighty mouse... Oh, wait! That's exactly what they've done with the new models!
And if you don't mind #1 and you've got money to burn on #2, go nuts.
This is more or less true for me, in that I have some money, access to some employee discounts, and an uncanny ability to convince Apple's support people to give me free stuff (such as, say, the laptop I'm typing this on right now). It's a good system for me, and so while I have no problem with you disliking Macs, or even hating them, I do have a problem with you calling me and all other Mac users categorically stupid, as you have before. Are you revising that position?
Based on equivalent price. For $2000, I can get a MacBook with a slower processor, less RAM, less software, and fewer repair options, than a $1000 HP machine.
(And the Mac has a completely inadequate warranty, at that point.)
I'm assuming that $2000 price tag is if you build it up on their website. I looked at the current crop, went with the 2.4Ghz processor and stopped. If I want a bigger drive, I'll pick one up somewhere else. Same with the RAM, it's something I can upgrade myself for a lot less.
And at that point, you have a damned fast laptop with 250G+ SATA drive and 4G of RAM, flawless wireless, and very portable. And make no mistake, the wireless on a macbook kicks the living hell out of anything HP/Dell/Lenovo put out. I pick up a LOT more AP's on my current macbook (about 2 years old) than you would on just about anything else out there. It even beats out my old wardriving d-link card, which was damned good.
All of that aside, they *are* pricey. I won't deny that. The price factor does seem to pay off though. The hardware is solid, and takes a lot of abuse. My laptop is almost always on (like, 24/7/365). I've killed two hard drives on it due to that abuse. Fortunately I'm a responsible geek who backs up regularly, and the Mac dealer has replaced the drive *next day* in both cases.
Add in OSX, and it's money well spent in my book :)
The $2000 price tag is based on the MacBook Pro, stock off the Apple Store website.
And at that point, you have a damned fast laptop with 250G+ SATA drive
5400 RPM. It's a *SLOW* drive.
and 4G of RAM,
No, 2G. 4G costs an extra $150 - which is down from just a few weeks ago, when it was 1GB stock and *$500* to up to 4. It's still more than the $25 it takes to up anyone else's RAM.
flawless wireless, [...] And make no mistake, the wireless on a macbook kicks the living hell out of anything HP/Dell/Lenovo put out. I pick up a LOT more AP's on my current macbook (about 2 years old) than you would on just about anything else out there.
I have to take issue with the "flawless wireless" - after the 10.5 update, the fucking things keep DOSing Linksys access points, because for some stupid reason the MacBook Pro doesn't speak WPA properly any more.
(As for picking up more APs: That's a software thing.)
The hardware is solid, and takes a lot of abuse
You've lost two hard drives in two years, and you consider that *reliable*? Even at 24/7 usage, that's absurd.
(And you neglected to mention that you either paid $350 extra to get the warranty or paid for parts and labour on the new drives in both cases.)
I don't deny that Apple makes decent hardware. Their 2.4GHz processors are the same as anyone else's, their RAM is the same as anyone else's, their HDDs are the same as anyone else's (although you say they're unreliable, that's not been my experience), their monitors are the same as anyone else's. Their prices are just tripled on all of those.
(Also: Fucking Mac power supplies *are unsafe*. The wires break and they burn because they short instead of disconnecting.)
And if you have less than $1000 and want to buy new with a decent protection options, you might as well not say Apple. I'm not against the Mac per se, but it's like listening to condo dwellers talk about how renting's for suckers. In fact, Mac's pricing scheme strikes me as stuck in the bubble economy mindset.
You can get pretty reasonably priced refurbished ones right off the Apple site, and they have the same warranty.
Don't get me wrong. Apple *is* pricier up front. In my own experience so far though, they're cheaper to own in the long run. The hardware is rock solid, and you don't spend hours fixing the damn thing.
It also helps that the bundled software on a Mac isn't all useless shite you have to uninstall to get any performance back. And if you *do* want to uninstall sofware, it doesn't leave behind a bunch of crap you have to break open a registry editor for an hour to clean up.
The downside, obviously, is that the initial entry price is a barrier. Not everyone can afford to make the initial investment to reap the rewards later.
And yet, when I bought my macbook pro, the only manufacturer that had anything close to the specs of what I was looking at was Dell. Their offering was $1000 *more* than the Apple version, and had less RAM stock.
Dell's prices are always hyperinflated on high-end machines.
I'm curious about what you bought, and when, and what else you looked a - because right now, six months ago, six months before that, six months before that, and six months before THAT, the markup on Macs was such that you really are paying much more than for a non-Apple-branded machine of equivalent specs.
(Before two years ago, I really wasn't paying attention)
Heh, you wouldn't catch me using anything *but* Symantec - but I can say that because I use the Symantec corporate client, not that bloated retail product everyone else gets stuck with and can't configure properly.
Windows is generally a safe assumption. Not everyone can be cool like us *grin*
It's not Symantec, it's constant AV in general. You've got a piece of software that operates at an extremely low-level which also updates extremely often and is therefore highly prone to corruption. Corrupted AV software leads to the weirdest bugs imaginable, and almost always brings system performance to a crashing halt.
The big name home AV suites (Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro) all have tons of components that operate independently, which makes them more likely to suffer from these kinds of problems, but I've also come across the corporate versions, AVG, and Avast misbehaving as well. Oddly enough, when AVG or Avast go sour, they do it in much more catastrophic ways than the big names, so thankfully they don't seem to do it as often.
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Date: 2008-10-17 02:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 06:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 06:49 pm (UTC)#2: Yes, when you talk about "upgrading your PC", you're talking abour hardware, period. Nobody "upgrades" to a different OS. They use different words. "Upgrade" is hardware.
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Date: 2008-10-17 06:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-10-17 06:54 pm (UTC)What, you mean it's backwards and inferior?
no, but vista is a lot more comparable to leopard than it is to a hardware upgrade. plus a lot of people were comparing them at the time.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:07 pm (UTC)I'm a linux geek at heart (and at home) but my macbook was by far the best laptop purchase I've ever made. I've owned Toshiba and Thinkpad business class laptops, and they'll have to pry this Macbook out of my cold dead hands.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:15 pm (UTC)My objection to Macs comes in two flavours:
#1: Only one goddamn button on the fucking touchpad of the fucking MacBook - which is a short way of saying that Apple's designers hate you and want you to suffer because the idea that something might need to work in a way that they, personally, do not prefer is simply anathema to them.
#2: Holy crap the price is *insane* compared to what you actually get.
And if you don't mind #1 and you've got money to burn on #2, go nuts.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:27 pm (UTC)$20 for a little laptop mouse with a clickable scroll wheel and 2 buttons is achievable ;)
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Date: 2008-10-17 02:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-10-17 05:26 pm (UTC)Yeah, it would be nice if you could set it to right-click when you click on the right side of the button, like you can with the mighty mouse... Oh, wait! That's exactly what they've done with the new models!
And if you don't mind #1 and you've got money to burn on #2, go nuts.
This is more or less true for me, in that I have some money, access to some employee discounts, and an uncanny ability to convince Apple's support people to give me free stuff (such as, say, the laptop I'm typing this on right now). It's a good system for me, and so while I have no problem with you disliking Macs, or even hating them, I do have a problem with you calling me and all other Mac users categorically stupid, as you have before. Are you revising that position?
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From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:12 pm (UTC)(And the Mac has a completely inadequate warranty, at that point.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:25 pm (UTC)And at that point, you have a damned fast laptop with 250G+ SATA drive and 4G of RAM, flawless wireless, and very portable. And make no mistake, the wireless on a macbook kicks the living hell out of anything HP/Dell/Lenovo put out. I pick up a LOT more AP's on my current macbook (about 2 years old) than you would on just about anything else out there. It even beats out my old wardriving d-link card, which was damned good.
All of that aside, they *are* pricey. I won't deny that. The price factor does seem to pay off though. The hardware is solid, and takes a lot of abuse. My laptop is almost always on (like, 24/7/365). I've killed two hard drives on it due to that abuse. Fortunately I'm a responsible geek who backs up regularly, and the Mac dealer has replaced the drive *next day* in both cases.
Add in OSX, and it's money well spent in my book :)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:37 pm (UTC)And at that point, you have a damned fast laptop with 250G+ SATA drive
5400 RPM. It's a *SLOW* drive.
and 4G of RAM,
No, 2G. 4G costs an extra $150 - which is down from just a few weeks ago, when it was 1GB stock and *$500* to up to 4. It's still more than the $25 it takes to up anyone else's RAM.
flawless wireless, [...] And make no mistake, the wireless on a macbook kicks the living hell out of anything HP/Dell/Lenovo put out. I pick up a LOT more AP's on my current macbook (about 2 years old) than you would on just about anything else out there.
I have to take issue with the "flawless wireless" - after the 10.5 update, the fucking things keep DOSing Linksys access points, because for some stupid reason the MacBook Pro doesn't speak WPA properly any more.
(As for picking up more APs: That's a software thing.)
The hardware is solid, and takes a lot of abuse
You've lost two hard drives in two years, and you consider that *reliable*? Even at 24/7 usage, that's absurd.
(And you neglected to mention that you either paid $350 extra to get the warranty or paid for parts and labour on the new drives in both cases.)
I don't deny that Apple makes decent hardware. Their 2.4GHz processors are the same as anyone else's, their RAM is the same as anyone else's, their HDDs are the same as anyone else's (although you say they're unreliable, that's not been my experience), their monitors are the same as anyone else's. Their prices are just tripled on all of those.
(Also: Fucking Mac power supplies *are unsafe*. The wires break and they burn because they short instead of disconnecting.)
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Date: 2008-10-17 02:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:41 pm (UTC)Don't get me wrong. Apple *is* pricier up front. In my own experience so far though, they're cheaper to own in the long run. The hardware is rock solid, and you don't spend hours fixing the damn thing.
It also helps that the bundled software on a Mac isn't all useless shite you have to uninstall to get any performance back. And if you *do* want to uninstall sofware, it doesn't leave behind a bunch of crap you have to break open a registry editor for an hour to clean up.
The downside, obviously, is that the initial entry price is a barrier. Not everyone can afford to make the initial investment to reap the rewards later.
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Date: 2008-10-17 02:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:51 pm (UTC)I'm curious about what you bought, and when, and what else you looked a - because right now, six months ago, six months before that, six months before that, and six months before THAT, the markup on Macs was such that you really are paying much more than for a non-Apple-branded machine of equivalent specs.
(Before two years ago, I really wasn't paying attention)
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Date: 2008-10-17 02:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 02:40 pm (UTC)#2: Constant AV is a trivial performance hit as long as you're not dumb enough to use Symantec products
#3: You're assuming Windows.
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Date: 2008-10-17 02:42 pm (UTC)Windows is generally a safe assumption. Not everyone can be cool like us *grin*
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Date: 2008-10-17 02:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-10-17 05:24 pm (UTC)The big name home AV suites (Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro) all have tons of components that operate independently, which makes them more likely to suffer from these kinds of problems, but I've also come across the corporate versions, AVG, and Avast misbehaving as well. Oddly enough, when AVG or Avast go sour, they do it in much more catastrophic ways than the big names, so thankfully they don't seem to do it as often.
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Date: 2008-10-17 03:15 pm (UTC)