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| | #1 |
| 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...
__________________ ![]() My Twitter You'd be surprised how close it is. I've actually got 57 cubic feet of cheese in there, and if you covert cheese into dogs, that's 4.3 great Danes - J.Clarkson | |
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| | #2 |
| Lazy Head Dude Joined: Sep 21st, 2003 Last Online: 02:10 AM Location: Portland, Oregon Age: 24 Posts: 20,714
Car: Dodge Viper (I wish!) Rep Power: 230 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | 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.
__________________ Fight back against the evil Quiky by +1'ing this post! There is no replacement for displacement. - Wolfgang Bernhard, Chief Operating Officer, Chrysler Group talking about the Dodge Viper SRT-10 ... I ask Herb Helbig, vehicle synthesis manager for SRT and a member of the original Team Viper development group since day one, if they'd ever thought of adding traction control. "It comes with two," he says, pointing at my feet. "Learn to use them." Got it. - Motor Trend on the 2006 Dodge Viper Coupe, November 2005 |
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| | #3 |
| Joined: Aug 26th, 2005 Last Online: October 11th, 2008 Location: Manlius Outside of Syracuse Age: 24 Posts: 1,109
Car: Jaguar X-Type 3.0 Rep Power: 17 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | 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 |
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| | #4 |
| Evo-less | 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'..
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| | #5 | |
| Quote:
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.
__________________ ![]() My Twitter You'd be surprised how close it is. I've actually got 57 cubic feet of cheese in there, and if you covert cheese into dogs, that's 4.3 great Danes - J.Clarkson | ||
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| | #6 |
| FG's Highest Paid Male Whore Joined: May 26th, 2005 Last Online: 04:29 AM Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 7,690
Car: IS250 RWD Rep Power: 66 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | 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. Last edited by Shawn; June 27th, 2008 at 01:34 PM. |
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| | #7 |
| 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
__________________ ![]() My Twitter You'd be surprised how close it is. I've actually got 57 cubic feet of cheese in there, and if you covert cheese into dogs, that's 4.3 great Danes - J.Clarkson | |
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| | #8 |
| 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.
__________________ PunisherBass: ANYONE with an IQ higher than a jar of mayo wouldn't be able to get through the scientology mumbojumbo without laughing their ass off. Clegg: PunisherBass, quit insulting mayo. "Sorry for the short replies, I can't use my left hand. In fact the whole left side of my body feels like it got hit by a planet. The right side is better, it only got hit by a truck." -Blind_Io | |
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| | #9 |
| Joined: Nov 9th, 2006 Last Online: 03:00 AM Location: San Francisco, CA, USA Posts: 106
Car: lawn mower Rep Power: 8 ![]() | 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. |
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| | #10 |
| 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. | |
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| | #11 | |
| Joined: May 20th, 2008 Last Online: 03:19 AM Location: Los Angeles, CA Age: 22 Posts: 65
Car: Porsche 944 Turbo Rep Power: 3 ![]() ![]() | Quote:
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). | |
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| | #12 |
| 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.
__________________ ![]() My Twitter You'd be surprised how close it is. I've actually got 57 cubic feet of cheese in there, and if you covert cheese into dogs, that's 4.3 great Danes - J.Clarkson | |
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| | #13 | |
| Quote:
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.
__________________ 15" MacBook Pro 2.4ghz, 4 gigs RAM ![]() "- ... But don't dawdle. Get the car into top gear as quickly as is reasonable. Fifth gear, remember, is no good at all." -- Jeremy Clarkson | ||
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| | #14 |
| Joined: Jul 28th, 2007 Last Online: Yesterday Posts: 734
Rep Power: 7 ![]() ![]() ![]() | *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) |
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| | #15 | |
| Joined: Oct 12th, 2007 Last Online: Yesterday Posts: 166
Rep Power: 14 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | Just an update on Macbook Air, Apple seems to have cut down the price especially for their SSD version. Quote:
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| | #16 |
| Previously Known As CSL Joined: Dec 20th, 2006 Last Online: Yesterday Location: Australia Posts: 1,779
Car: Aston Martin DB9 (In GT4!) Rep Power: 15 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | 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.
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| | #17 |
| 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.
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| | #18 |
| FG's Highest Paid Male Whore Joined: May 26th, 2005 Last Online: 04:29 AM Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 7,690
Car: IS250 RWD Rep Power: 66 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ^ Sounds like maybe you had a lemon or something. What model did you have and when? |
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| | #19 | |
| Quote:
I bought it not long after I started culinary school, so mid 2005?
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| | #20 |
| FG's Highest Paid Male Whore Joined: May 26th, 2005 Last Online: 04:29 AM Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 7,690
Car: IS250 RWD Rep Power: 66 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ^ 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. |
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