New laptop. Mac or PC?

[oshta]

Hi, Im looking to buy a new laptop sometime soon, and i was wondering what peoples thoughts where between the varous PC offerings, and Mac's product line.
- Infact, more specificaly, my cosin is wondering. But im also very intrested in what people say, espcially as i might be up for a laptop within the next year too.

The laptop would be for him primary computer while at uni, and would proberbly spend most of its time on his desk avoiding beer, and running MSN. As well as doing a light bit of wordprocessing and 'browseing the net'. Be that facebook or "web-based research".

He has used macs a fair bit at school (lucky sod, beats my schools ageing RMs!) so is fairly famular with OSx, and would proberbly be runing it in its native mac mode, rather than just bootcamping over it all.

But yeah, just wondering what peoples thoughts are?
- Macs are obvously a little more priceage, but although the budget is as yet underdefined, its proberbly managable eather way.

Also, for my own personal curousty, performance wise or compatabilty wise, how would running a runing on bootcamp windows compair to runing stright off a pc?
- I mean, if i wanted to run copy of SolidEdge/ProEngineer/UniGraphics off it?


Daniel

[GoNz0]

good luck getting the logic board swapped for less than £500 on a mac.

[kalniel]

I'd go for the mac, and I've never owned one.

Sounds perfect for his uses, and he's familiar with osX. The markup for macs isn't as great as it used to be, and with the education discount they can actually work out cheaper for students than PCs.

Running windows on Bootcamp is practically identical to running windows on a PC, but it's expensive to buy another copy of windows just for occasional use.

[Fabula]

Hmm, tricky.

If I was getting a laptop, I would want a core2duo, 1gig ram, and a reasonable screen. HD/DVDRW etc are all about the same on laptops. Graphics cards are not good on laptops unless spending piles on them.

Getting that for mac with a 13" screen comes in at £880. I've seen essentialy the same hardware but with a 15" screen for £580 as laptop PC.


The £300 price premium for a mac is not worth it for me. Bootcamp is a very good idea, so you do potentially get the best of both worlds. OSX for security, UI, and coolness factor, and Windows for range of software, games, versatility. But that's not worth the price for me, though it may be for others.


We have a pile of imacs using bootcamp where I work, and it is great, and they work fine.
If I was richer and not bothered by games, I would definately consider a macbook pro, as they have a decent screen and hardware.

[Firebar]

Buy a Mac, without a doubt. You'll regret it otherwise and OS X is so lovely to use - your productivity will soar!

[tigerboyce]

dont get a crapple mac, PC all the way.

although if you did really want to get a mac you can actually have the two OS's on the same mac and choose which you want to boot. all you need is a genuine copy of windows XP and this:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

[b0redom]

I've got OSX, Windows and Linux. I personally, am finding more and more cool stuff with OSX, Frontrow etc. Out of choice, for a laptop I'd go with a MacBook every time.

[oshta]

You do need a genuine copy of XP for boot camp then... that might a small prevously unconsidered cost!

I'll pass all this info on anway!
- Im deffonatly going to have find a mac to play with for a bit though.
- Last time i spent a serous amount of time on one was with our old Perfomer5200, and i guess thinks have changed a bt lately?



Daniel

[derchris]

dont get a crapple mac, PC all the way.

Whats so bad about the Mac ?

You know that they come with Intel CPUs these days ?
So there is NO difference beside the OS.

[darrensen]

Defo get a mac and get Apple care as well!

I've been using Vista for the last week and i was ranting and raving about it. Even thinking of ditching my mac and getting back on the Windows wagon...... but then.... today after installing several apps i've noticed that Vista has started to slow down.

My mac is still ripping it up and it's 4 months old now, with 100's of gb's of data!!!

Bottom line, if you're not gaming get a mac!

[Vroomparrot]

If he's using it for uni it's probably worth finding out if there is any specialist course software that may be provided. For example if he's doing a geography course, there's a good probability he will have access to something like ArcGIS, and that doesn't run natively on macs - in this case he'd need to factor in the cost of xp and dual boot with bootcamp.

Other than that, if you want hassle free computing go for the mac - I would if it wasn't for the gaming and the fact I like to build my own pcs.

[hardflipman]

i've been using a macbook for the past few weeks and was considering getting one myself. but then my new hdd for my olcd compaq n620c arrived and it's so much better. in fact what i really mean is that the 14" 1440x1050 screen is so much better than the macbooks. because of that i would have to get a macbook pro if i was going mac but they are hugely expensive. of course my compaq was 1800 quid +vat i think!

someone above mentioned not being able to game on a macbook pro - it does actually have a good graphics card so what's the problem? especially if you use bootcamp

[Rack]

It all depends on budget TBH. If he is on a limited budget (<&#163;800) then the Mac is out of the question, as he may/will need bootcamp too at the cost of another OS, and will end up with a limited machine compared with what he could get for that from a PC Laptop.

However if you do spend the money, Apple do seem to make good quality laptops. You would probably have to spend similar (maybe a bit less) money to get a similar quality 'PC' (ie windows-native) laptop.

If he likes OSx, and has the cash, then Apple is the way to go. If he has a lower budget or wants to game, then PC Laptop.

[oshta]

Ok thanks for your thoughts.
- I think it basicaly confirms my thoughts, but its good to heard what others think, and some interesting point have been raised.

Any further thoughts welcome.


Thanks again, Daniel.

[flcherb]

I got a MAC at the end of last year. Its great. i run windows on it and it seems faster than my desktop. i use it all the time the only problem i had was random shutdowns but they fixed that with a patch and now it works great i even drooped it in the bath and it still worked amazing. it fixed itself :@) I work for Microsoft so getting a MAC was a real turn around but i think it is really worthwhile.

Herb