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#16 2006-11-26 05:42:29
- slim
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- From: California
- Registered: 2006-11-14
- Posts: 46
Re: Why Mac?
jstubbs, it sounds like your friends need new computers themselves. My wife has an HP Pavilion, about 2 yrs old, with internal wireless. I have never had any problems with network compatability, and it jumps online every chance it gets. The only thing that prevents it is being out of range, or secured networks. Even Apple hasn’t solved that problem yet.
I love the computer, and am leaning heavily right now at a next gen HP laptop. One nice feature that I noticed Macs to be lacking was a card slot for memory cards from multiple kinds of cameras. I think it is compatable with 4 or 5 different card formats, in one slot.Offline
Re: Why Mac?
slim wrote:
jstubbs, it sounds like your friends need new computers themselves. My wife has an HP Pavilion, about 2 yrs old, with internal wireless. I have never had any problems with network compatability, and it jumps online every chance it gets. The only thing that prevents it is being out of range, or secured networks. Even Apple hasn’t solved that problem yet.
Not sure how Apple could solve that!
My friends have new laptops. One is an HP, the other a Korean model with built-in web cam. The HP laptop wireless did not work while travelling in another country, and the Korean model had issues with the camera card thing you mention.
I don’t know much about the camera cards, but my friend had big issues connecting his camera. It did not work for him. All I know is on the Mac, you just plug in the cable. I have a large memory card in my camera, but I use the cable to connect and never had any problems.
If yu buy a Mac it should be because you like what it can do for you, and the design/practicality does no harm ;-)
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Re: Why Mac?
The Apple store has a refurbished section that usually has pretty good deals. (If the link doesn’t work go to Apple.com then go to their store. Towards the bottom right will be a link saying something like “Looking for a great deal.”) I have had my MBP for about 8 months and have had no problems. You can also purchase an Apple care program for a refurbished machine if you’d like.
I hear a lot about Macs being more stable than PCs and I have noticed that the Mac is a very stable platform. On the other hand, our PC has performed well for us too so I think some PC stability issues are related to the user. If you’re not crashing your PC now it doesn’t seem to reason that you would start crashing it on a new machine.
jstubbs mentioned the whole “it just works” thing and though it sounds like marketing hype I have found it to be true. I never realized using a computer could be so simple. He also mentioned the cost savings with software that is built in already. I’m a big fan of FOSS so with the exception of Photoshop I haven’t spent a penny on software. Also, and this is one of those little things that I love, there is no more system tray overload. Along the top of the screen there is a simple little bar free from the clutter of a million programs thinking they need to be allowed some screen real estate. I have cleaned out the system tray as much as possible on the PC and there are still 10 different icons down there – it drives me crazy.
I don’t know of any Macs with built in card readers so if that’s a deal killer… Here are two fair looks at Macs and OS X: What I do like about Apple’s Tiger and 10 things every new Mac owner should know.
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#19 2006-11-27 17:39:54
- slim
- Member
- From: California
- Registered: 2006-11-14
- Posts: 46
Re: Why Mac?
The 13” MacBook has caught my eye, but only if I can hook it up to a monitor for graphics and such. Does the Mini-DVI port connect to external monitors (with an adapter, im assuming)? Or is there another way to do it?
Thanks for the refurbished tip by the way, the issue of price has gone out the window.
And coincidentally (maybe), as soon as I say how I have never had issues with my wife’s PC, it starts to act up. Typical. I’m not so convinced one way or the other now.
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Re: Why Mac?
If we had the cash I would buy a MacBook for my wife right now – I wouldn’t even finish responding to what you just said! Yes you can hook up an external monitor via an adapter. Looking through the Apple store it didn’t seem to be included but you can add it for $19 (Store > Essentials > Displays). My MBP came with one in the box. I ran across an article after my last reply that, in part, mentioned how Macs render text better than a PC. The article deals primarily with Japanese text but it’s the case with standard English as well. I didn’t realize what a difference it would make but I’m hooked. At the risk of sounding like a broken record I’d switch, especially if you can snag a machine near your price point.
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Re: Why Mac?
If you don’t value the ergonomics of a Mac over an HP, you’re right: you’re probably not going to get the value out of a MacBook Pro.
When I look at people using Dell or HP laptops, I’m always struck with the question “why?”. Why do the users put up with a laptop with a lumpy, uneven base that hurts your legs to rest it there? Why do they continue to put up with little useless flaps at the back of the laptop for plugging things in? Why do people still struggle with those God-awful tray-loading optical drives? And why do all the PC laptops have these stupid tap-tap-drag functions enabled by default on the trackpads? By the time you take out the centimetre each side worth of scrolling and stuff, you end up with a trackpad that’s like two inches square. Add to that the simple ergonomics, the addition of DVI instead of VGA, MagSafe, etc., etc., I still can’t believe people choose to buy PCs!
And that’s before you even look at the software, which is extraordinary. Admittedly, I’ve been using Macs since 1991, but I repair Windows PCs for a living. When I’m on-site and the customer is having wireless networking issues, I see if the issues affect my laptop (a 1GHz PowerBook G4). I’ve been in a situation where four PCs independently exhibited the same quirk that meant each of them was unable to connect to each-other via network, while my Mac (never once formatted in the two-and-a-half years I’ve had it) instantly works, allowing me to diagnose issues instantly.
Add to that the fact that the Core 2 Duo MBPs are just insanely fast. Remember that on a Mac you no longer have to worry about viruses (and therefore CPU-hogging virus-scanners). Remember that if you decide you hate OS X you can always revert to Windows.
But if you’re never going to use Front Row, Dashboard, the iSight, two-finger scrolling, backlit keyboards, etc., and you can’t instantly tell that you don’t get near the same level of ergonomics in an HP than you do on a Mac, stick with a PC.
The software licensing costs are always a consideration, though. CS3 isn’t due out until late 2007, IIRC, so you’d be using Rosetta-translated PPC binaries until then (CS2 is still PowerPC only, but can be run on the Intel Macs with a performance hit. If you’re dealing with massive files and want more than about a gig of RAM in PS or Illustrator, you’d want to run Photoshop etc. in Windows (where at least you have a license).
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#22 2006-11-28 06:52:54
- slim
- Member
- From: California
- Registered: 2006-11-14
- Posts: 46
Re: Why Mac?
You know, I can always do my graphics and such on our household PC, and just transfer them to the Mac. I don’t spend too much time doing that, its more coding, CSS, TXP, fun stuff like that where I spend my hours.
You do have a point that I can’t deny, if the prices are similar, it can’t hurt anyone to give these Macs a try (myself included).
The demo of iWork seemed to be pretty similar to Adobe InDesign, only easier. Any opinions on that? I use ID primarily to do initial layouts without having to worry about code.
Last edited by slim (2006-11-28 06:53:29)
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Re: Why Mac?
Pages (the part of iWork you’re referring to) competes most against MS Publisher, and doesn’t come anywhere near holding a candle to InDesign (though I’m a very heavy InDesign user).
Keynote, which is the other part of iWork, is a very worthy Powerpoint replacement (though Powerpoint is also available as part of MS Office for Mac).
Perhaps you should consider renting a Mac for a short while?
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#24 2006-11-28 09:31:37
- slim
- Member
- From: California
- Registered: 2006-11-14
- Posts: 46
Re: Why Mac?
Not a bad idea. I’ll look into renting.
Is keynote compatable with powerpoint files? And can it export powerpoint files? Everyone and their mother seems to use powerpoint when speaking these days, even the military.
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Re: Why Mac?
If you can hold out until CS3 comes out to do your cross licensing there’s definitely no reason not to switch. All of that fun stuff you were talking about (coding, CSS, TXP) would present no problem for you whatsoever. I did a quick check to see if it was possible to import PowerPoint files into Keynote and it seems that it is, though I didn’t take down the instructions. You can find a review of iWork ’05 here, but keep in mind that Apple is now selling iWork ’06. Your Mac will come with a 30 trial of iWork installed.
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#26 2006-11-29 04:01:38
- slim
- Member
- From: California
- Registered: 2006-11-14
- Posts: 46
Re: Why Mac?
Its not too bad either, $80 for the full version. Not a bad price if its as good as it looks.
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Re: Why Mac?
No joke consider MS Office costs an arm and a leg. I’m using NeoOffice and enjoy it. It’s not nearly as polished as Office but it certainly meets my needs. I tried using OpenOffice but it required using X11 and it wasn’t worth the extra layer to use it. For the price and my needs NeoOffice works quite well. I’ve been looking at iWork myself because I have begun to need to do some page layout again. The price of iWork versus InDesign is very nice.
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Re: Why Mac?
jdykast wrote:
The price of iWork versus InDesign is very nice.
Yes but they do 2 totally different tasks. iwork consists of apple pages and keynote. Pages is very good for short texts and letters. Keynote is apple’s answer to powerpoint.
Indesign however is a publishing tool which can handle 100s of pages with a unique layout each…
Yiannis
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I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
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#29 2006-11-29 15:56:15
- slim
- Member
- From: California
- Registered: 2006-11-14
- Posts: 46
Re: Why Mac?
colak wrote:
Indesign however is a publishing tool which can handle 100s of pages with a unique layout each…
Since I only use InDesign for initial site layouts and the occasional term paper for college, I really am not utilizing the full power of ID. My wife is the one who does that with the print publishing that she does. If Pages can be versatile enough to create rough skins of websites (columns, headers, boxes of different colors, etc.), and can be exported to very universal document types (ie pdf), then it would do just what I need it to do.
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Re: Why Mac?
I’m in the same boat. Right now there is no need for me to be doing large documents like the type that InDesign excels at. When the money is available I’ll be springing for iWork.
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