Thinking about getting a MacBook

[anti-net]

But I want to know if anyone has any opinions on them, or alternative suggestions. Have you owned one and was it good?

I'm going for the macbook because I need something small, light and powerful for uni next year. I'm going to be travelling between Cornwall and Birmingham (the crap one in the UK, not the one in the US) which is a lovely 4 hour train journey on horrible cramped trains with about 4 billion changes! So having an ultraportable will make things easier. Plus I like small laptops...

[Viper007Bond]

Pick and OS and then pick a laptop.

If you want the Mac OS, then sure, get a MacBook. If you're just looking for something small though, there are much better alternatives IMO.


Disclaimer: I have absolutely zero interest in the Mac OS and see no reason to get it over XP or Vista.

[Momentum57]

why does it have to be powerful your only going to be using it to write papers buy something cheep and spend the rest on something useful like going out to bars and women

[Lilleput]

Normal Macbook or an Air?

If your priorities are Style > Functionality > Price Then you should get a Macbook / Air.

As someone who, a week ago got his first OS X Machine (MacBook Air) It's actually.. Fine, it's a lot easier to get started with than Windows and within 1-2 hours you should be well at home with OS X, that said it's really locked down and you can only do so much with it, but if the only thing you will be using you Macbook for is text and web it'll be good and it's actually nice to go from you Windows machine over to OS X just because it's so 'friendly'..

[anti-net]

Originally Posted by Momentum57

why does it have to be powerful your only going to be using it to write papers buy something cheep and spend the rest on something useful like going out to bars and women

I'm doing Computer Science!

Normal Macbook, the air is to expensive

I did look into alternatives and struggled to find a 13.3 or 12.1 laptop with a quick CPU for the same price as a macbook - which surprised me. I think Dell my be an exception, but I can't stand the keyboards on Dell laptops, its a personal thing.

[Shawn]

Okay, firstly, the MacBook is nowhere near an ultraportable. It's on the small side and not too heavy, but an ultraportable is like a MacBook Air or the Asus Eee.

Secondly, I have extensive experience with both Windows and Mac OS X, unlike most of the fanboys who are likely to comment in here one way or the other. I have used and continue to use Windows all my life, and about 4 years ago I bought myself a MacBook Pro for mobile use.

Both platforms have their advantages and drawbacks, but I believe for use on the go, Mac OS X works better than Windows. It has certain tools like Expose and built-in dictionary/thesaurus across the OS, PDF creation and very powerful search functions that will help greatly in the life of a student. Yes, most of these can be had on Windows with addon software, but you seem to like Macs and hey, built-in always works better.

Then there's the issue of crashing. While, against popular belief, Macs do crash and might even get viruses, they are far less common on Macs. This means you won't accidentally lose your 45 page paper the night before it's due.

As for machine recommendations, the MacBook and MacBook Pro are your two choices since the Air is ghey. I bought a Pro because I wasn't on a budget and I needed the bigger screen... the Pro is not much heavier than the MacBook, but then again doesn't offer much aside from better graphics and backlit keyboard.

Being in comp sci you're likely going to need Windows, but that's what Boot Camp is for. Once you install the drivers for it in Windows, everything works as it does under OS X. The first few releases of Boot Camp had missing drivers for things like Bluetooth, iSight camera and the backlit keyboard. With current drivers, Windows runs on Macs same as it does on Wintels... probably even better since you're not gonna get driver nags.

[anti-net]

Cheers for the feedback Shawn, I may keep Mac OS but only if I like it, I'll be either using Linux or Ubuntu

The reason for going for the MacBook is price and the package is nice, not to concerned about the software. Are there any alternatives that people can recommend? Needs to be in the price range of about £1k-1200

[smib]

I'd say go with the Macbook if you like or are willing to try OSX. I've never heard anything bad about them and if you've looked and they do seem like they have a better system for the money you might as well give it a go.

[cl191]

My experience is similar to Shawn's, even though I have to say I've seen crashes on OSX probably more often than one would expect, but those crashes are 99% just application level, not kernel panic type that will take the entire OS with it. I would recommend a regular Macbook to you (unless you play games or do 3D works, then a Macbook Pro) over the Air. The reason is that as you are going to be in computer science, you will need to use Windows pretty often like Shawn has mentioned. But with the Air, you are going to have limited HDD space and the memory max out at 2GB. Vista requires 15GB for installation and that will leave you not much room in that tiny 80GB HDD in the Air. Also, I found myself running Parallels more often than Bootcamp, and you probably want to have more than 2GB of ram if you plan to run that.

[Prost264]

I got my MacBook in March and I love it. Using a different OS took some time to get used to but once I did it was definitely worth it.

I wanted something where I didn't have to mess with too much. People say OS X is for people who don't want to be bothered, thats exactly how I feel about my laptop, I don't want to have to fiddle with stuff while I'm on the road somewhere, besides thats what I have my PC desktop for.

I upped it to 4gb of ram rather than 2gb just because the 4gb was so cheap (dont do this through Apple!). I've never come close to needing it but its nice to have regardless.

Overall its a great smaller laptop that will do everything you need it to.

[SirSmash]

Originally Posted by anti-net

Cheers for the feedback Shawn, I may keep Mac OS but only if I like it, I'll be either using Linux or Ubuntu

The reason for going for the MacBook is price and the package is nice, not to concerned about the software. Are there any alternatives that people can recommend? Needs to be in the price range of about £1k-1200

Well I'd either get the MacBook or a Thinkpad. (Definitely a Thinkpad if your not going to be using OSX) There the only systems really that I haven't had issues with. I avoid both Acer and HP like the plague; had their laptops break quick, but to be fair I do use them for 6-7 hours or so a day. Thinkpads, or the 3000 family if you want even cheaper, aren't all that expensive anymore; they are now owned by Lenovo rather than IBM but I haven't seen a noticeable quality difference between the two.

http://www.pc.ibm.com/uk/notebook/

As far as Thinkpads go, I normally stick with T series as they are in between super light and super heavy with a decent feature set. I just checked their website real quick and you can get a T61 for £998 (including VAT) or an X series (the real light and small ones) for £1,304 (including VAT).

[anti-net]

I will look at thinkpads but they are quite expensive for what you get, compared to the Macbook. I had a thinkpad years ago, and I loved how tough it was and how well the keyboard felt. Also I have a HP which has faired quite I can be using a laptop for 10hrs a day for a week. Only issue I had was the fan stopped working which was due to crap clogging the thing up, however after less than 2yrs it kinda needs replacing.

[The Chad]

Originally Posted by Shawn

Okay, firstly, the MacBook is nowhere near an ultraportable. It's on the small side and not too heavy, but an ultraportable is like a MacBook Air or the Asus Eee.

Secondly, I have extensive experience with both Windows and Mac OS X, unlike most of the fanboys who are likely to comment in here one way or the other. I have used and continue to use Windows all my life, and about 4 years ago I bought myself a MacBook Pro for mobile use.

Both platforms have their advantages and drawbacks, but I believe for use on the go, Mac OS X works better than Windows. It has certain tools like Expose and built-in dictionary/thesaurus across the OS, PDF creation and very powerful search functions that will help greatly in the life of a student. Yes, most of these can be had on Windows with addon software, but you seem to like Macs and hey, built-in always works better.

Then there's the issue of crashing. While, against popular belief, Macs do crash and might even get viruses, they are far less common on Macs. This means you won't accidentally lose your 45 page paper the night before it's due.

As for machine recommendations, the MacBook and MacBook Pro are your two choices since the Air is ghey. I bought a Pro because I wasn't on a budget and I needed the bigger screen... the Pro is not much heavier than the MacBook, but then again doesn't offer much aside from better graphics and backlit keyboard.

Being in comp sci you're likely going to need Windows, but that's what Boot Camp is for. Once you install the drivers for it in Windows, everything works as it does under OS X. The first few releases of Boot Camp had missing drivers for things like Bluetooth, iSight camera and the backlit keyboard. With current drivers, Windows runs on Macs same as it does on Wintels... probably even better since you're not gonna get driver nags.

As much of a fanboy that I am of Apple these days (I wouldn't use Windows on a home machine), Boot Camp and Windows is an excellent way to go. I also completely agree with the above about the MacBook not being an ultraportable.

When I was doing the Computer Science thing, several of my professors insisted that I run and compile programs in Linux. I would have loved to have a Mac then, because with VMWare I can emulate both Windows and Linux in VM when I need it.

If you are only going to run Windows, there is no need to buy a Macbook (unless you simply have to have it), because there are better ultraportables out there.

However, the MacBook is quite a versatile machine, if not all that fast or all that light.

[emil_t]

*cough* metrosexual *cough* , my contribution to this thread.

i really don't see the price diffrence between a normal laptop and a macbook, i'd always choose a normal one, probably put linux on it, my style may no be up to date with all the trends, but seriously ... (yes, i'm saying that mac is just a trend)

[PaSSoA]

Just an update on Macbook Air, Apple seems to have cut down the price especially for their SSD version.

Apple cuts price of high-end SSD MacBook Air by $500
Gregg Keizer
______________________________________________

July 04, 2008 (Computerworld) Apple Inc. has quietly reduced the price of its most expensive notebook by $500, cutting the cost of the upper-end MacBook Air to $2,598.

The MacBook Air, which Apple launched in January to some fanfare, has been sold in two configurations since then: with a traditional 80GB magnetic platter hard drive and a 1.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, or with a 64GB solid-state drive and a 1.8-GHz CPU. Solid-state drives (SSD) are built from flash memory and, unlike hard drives, have no moving parts.

The MacBook Air with the solid-state drive is more expensive than the one with the hard drive, but several Apple-specific Web sites, including AppleInsider, noticed that Apple had dropped the price of the SSD-equipped model by 16% on Thursday, July 3. Prior to the price cut, the solid-state MacBook Air sold for $3,098.

The less expensive hard-drive-equipped MacBook Air retained its $1,799 price tag, according to the Apple online store.

The price cut came from changes on two of the MacBook Air options. Selecting the SSD now adds $599 to the price of the notebook, compared to $999 earlier. Also lowered was the 1.8-GHz processor option, from $300 extra to $200.

Traditionally, Apple announces price reductions -- which in themselves are relatively rare, since the company often retains earlier models' prices but changes the configurations to, for instance, add more RAM -- when it rolls out refreshed or new hardware.

The price cut means that the SSD-equipped MacBook Air is no longer Apple's most expensive notebook. That honor has now passed to the 17-in. MacBook Pro, which continues to sell for $2,799 in its default configuration.

[LeMans GTR]

If you want a small, powerful, portable and reliable laptop you don't have many choices

If you want a Mac it's definenately a MacBook, the Air is only for those who value style more than function

If you want a PC then you have three choices

Sony: On the expensive side, but the final product very slick and the build quality is excellent.

ASUS: Only Slightly worse than the Sony, but much much cheaper, has a better graphics/video card as well.

Thinkpad: Solid as a brick, can be used as a self defense item, isn't as pretty as the other two but makes up for it in its performance.

HP and Toshiba's smaller laptops don't have that much grunt and Acer's fall apart at the drop of a hat.

[Deviate]

My limited experience with Mac laptops has been absolute hell. Crappy battery life and OS-X crashed even more often than XP (which is saying A LOT).

Maybe they've gotten better over the last couple years. I wouldn't know. I still have a bad taste in my mouth after the last one, and won't be giving them another shot any time soon.

[Shawn]

^ Sounds like maybe you had a lemon or something. What model did you have and when?

[Deviate]

Originally Posted by Shawn

^ Sounds like maybe you had a lemon or something. What model did you have and when?

It was an iBook (one of the plain white square ones, not the ghey multi-colored clamshell looking ones).

I bought it not long after I started culinary school, so mid 2005?

[Shawn]

^ The clamshell was hilarious...

I dunno, the old iBooks were pretty big and clunky but they shouldn't be like your experience. Probably just a fluke.