bye bye PC hello Mac
 

Well last Monday my PC laptop died again. This laptop is just over 3 years old. About a year and a half ago I had to send it back to HP 3 times for repair, they sent it back to me twice with the damn thing not working at all. I have been very disappointed with this computer in general. I had wanted a Mac when I bought it but I'm impatient and the apple store wasn't open at 3AM when my last one died so I went to Walmart and bought the best they had at the time. Fast forward to this week, I did a lot of searching for a new computer, via my iphone. I found a laptop at Bestbuy.com for $330 that had decent enough specs for my use and was on the verge of buying it. Deep down I wanted a Mac though, I just didn't have that kind of cash available, had $450 cash available. Took one last look at the apple site and seen an offer for 0% for 12 months! Well I was approved and I'm now playing on my MacBook Pro 13" screen. A 15" would have been nice but they are considerably more money and this is really close to the same size I had.

Biggest downfall now is CastleLink is PC based, luckily I have friends with them if I really want to tinker with the settings on my CC controllers but for the time being I just ordered one of their programming cards which should suit me fine. My Eagle Tree may be a problem though so I may sell it or pick up a cheap netbook in the future.

Anyways I'm back and enjoying my Mac. Are there any other Mac users out there that can answer any questions that may come up?

And Apple claims another poor soul....

I have loved my ipod since I got it like 4 years ago and I got the original iphone when it came out, which was my only link to the web to pay bills and chat when my computer died the last time. I recently tried a blackberry and thought it was hell on earth so I bought a iPhone 3GS and once again that phone was the only thing keeping me sane when my computer died again! My iphones and ipod have never let me down and my friends that have Macs have never had the issues I've had with their computers either! If you want to say they claimed another poor soul thats fine but I'm sick of my PC dying whenever it feels necessary. The biggest kick in the balls though, I ordered a 250GB portable hard drive 2 days before it died and it showed up 2 days after it died!

pretty hardcore mac user here. congrats on leaving the dark side.... :mdr:

you can partition your hard drive into a small amount...say, 10 gigs... and install windows on that.

nothing like having overpriced hardware and operating system where you have to pay for updates. enjoy :na:

Wow....Your kind of the poster child for your generation's "need it NOW" culture!!!!

Be sure to try to give us a comparison a month or two down the road (with out comparing break down rate).

You can't use portable HD's on a MAC?

Amen...

Yes you can... here's a good one - LaCie 500GB Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive

I will be able to use the portable HD on the Mac, it just sucks that I didn't get to back up everything I had on my old laptop. Now I have to pay someone to try recovering everything. I'm mostly interested in saving my music and movies, everything I had purchased from itunes transfered right over from my iphone to the mac but all the music I didn't purchase didn't. I have a lot of stuff backed up from when my computer went in for repair last time but I have added stuff since. I have no backup of the pictures I have of my neice. As far as running windows on my Mac, I don't even wanna mess with it! If it comes down to needing windows for CastleLink and the Eagle tree I would rather spend $200 on a netbook that I can take to the track with me and not worry so much about it.

why would he do that if he doesn't need to? he didn't say he needed more hard drive space... he said he wanted to run programs that are only available on windows. he can use what he has for that, without spending more money.

good god 170 for a 500GB...

check it out...
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+...=9258885&st=TB

sure this one needs to be plugged in but the price difference is well worth it.

I have this one for my house..

plus an additional 500GB portable one for on the road

both are pretty much full:lol:

I have a macbook as well and love it, i download like crazy, no viruses, great speed, runs windows 7 great with VMware fusion, i also have linux as well so i can run my ps3 through it so i can get hulu on my ps3 it shows up to the server as a windows based computer running firefox and i can watch all the movies on hulu off my ps3,my castle link works fine when running windows on my mac, I would never go back as im not a pc gamer, i just search the web and manage video and music for the most part.

I have never paid for an update with my mac:whistle:

nothing like having viruses, and slow loading pages, and constantly wondering why it is so slow.:whip:

my battery lasts about 5 hours if im just surfing the web, i cant complain a bit about my 1400dollar 13" mac book! Its expensive because its worth it!

why there are now viruses for mac? because what is the point of making viruses for minor OS. same with Linux. If it ever gets more users there will be viruses don't worry :)

$1400 for a little 13" notebook? OMG, my little toshiba 15" was $400 3yrs ago. Cuts movies, plays vids, does some games, certainly surfs well. Never got a virus either...

You completely misunderstood my question. He has already paid for the hard drive - his statement sounded to me like he couldnt use the HD he had ordered........:whistle:
A portable HD is always of value. If you can get in the habit of backing up your system to it, a person wouldn't lose all that pirated music, let alone your financial records.

Im happy with what i have, i understand u can buy pc's for much cheaper and understand not every one gets viruses, its personal preference and ease of use for me

Do you know how the HP died?
Most data is easily recoverable if nothing has been written over it, unless the hard drive is FUBAR'd, like my old 500GB.

My external right now, had a bunch of all my pictures, and such, and I had quickly reformatted it to put on a new update, considering some of the pictures on the drive were corrupted, so without thinking I quickly reformatted...

Right now a file recovery program is running a recovery service on my external.

And yeah, $160 for a 500GB? That's outrageous...

I'm personally a PC kid... until I go to college, which I think I'm just gonna pick up a MacBook, it just...appeals to me, then again, it is just a PC with a new OS...
So...

If i ever did get a pc i would run a linux based operating system on it, there are some great linux builds out there and not nearly as many problems as windows.

[Threadjack]

Has anyone attempted and DID put Mac OS X on a regular PC?

[/Threadjack]

Sweet, thanks!

The 'Rugged' was an example of 'portable' (not just external drive that requires a wall socket) external drives available for MACs.... not a recommendation...
I agree, they are quite a few brands that are a lot cheaper and you can still get good dependability from them... And there is also the case of 'you get what you pay for'...
I have used MACs all my life (I'm a Graphic Designer) because of their stability and not necessarily for their speed (and yes, they are quite fast)...

Alien

Nother die hard Mac user.Ive also got a 13" MacBook Pro. I think you will find Macs are a LOT more straight forward than PCs.

On a side note, if you have a spouse, family member or friend who is a teacher or para professional see if the Apple Store will give them a discount. They do for my mom and she gets $100, free iPod touch and a free printer of her choice (out of like three) after a mail in rebate. Really a killer deal if you ask me. All thats required is a check stub I believe.

So the moral of the story here is: If you don't know how to maintain your PC, or don't want to, just go spend way too much money on a Mac! Problem solved!

It's like saying: I hate paying for oil changes on my G35, so I'll go buy a 760i 'cause they're included! :na:

I cant help but agree,
I really hate all the technical stuff, I just want to get on my computer and do what i want as simply as possible. kind of like my RC stuff, i dont want to fuss with tuning a nitro motor, i just want to plug my batteries in and go. and I dont mind paying extra for those conveniences.:yes:

I've had 5 computers since the age of 8, and they've all been Apple. They've never let me down and I'll likely keep using them for a long time to come. Say they're overpriced and whatever else, but the extra cost is worth it to me. And now that I can load up Windows with Boot Camp to play games and run a few PC-only apps I'm liking it even more.

The thing is guys, these discussions always turn into PC vs. Apple propaganda. Each system has it's pros and cons. Pick the one you like and use it.

Look at the can of worms I opened up! I have had 3 windows based PCs and they have all let me down. If you had 3 Feigao motors melt down would you go buy another or would you spend the extra money and get a Neu? I know I only melted one Feigao before I got a Neu!

So far these are my immediate observations. Start-up was simple and fast, took about 5 minutes from opening the box to being on RC-Monster yesterday. PC start-up isn't hard but it does take a couple minutes longer last time I did it. The fit and finish from packaging to the actual laptop is like comparing a Geo Metro to a Mercedes. The Mac has a truly finished look to it and feels like something of substance. One of my biggest gripes with my HP laptop was that the thing ran so hot you couldn't actually keep it on top of your lap cause it burned your legs! Even with the fan running it was still hot, I actually had a platform for it that ran two fans to help keep it cool, all them fans make a lot of noise. The mac has no fans and it still runs cooler, a lot cooler. I'm sure BrianG can appreciate that. Battery life is also much better. I just replaced my battery last summer with the double capacity pack and that gave me just enough juice to watch a full length movie. My first charge on the mac with no battery bulging out the bottom gave me about 3 1/2 hrs of use.

I will not argue that Macs are capable machines, and for those who can't bother to take care of their system, are much simpler to use. Please do not take that last statement as an implication of laziness.

I just can't justify the extra cost for an Apple system versus a PC. Price vs. performance is unmatched if you build a PC for yourself. I have the unfair advantage of being technologically intuitive, so maintaining a PC is no biggie. In fact, I don't even have any type of protection on my system. It's been that way for 5 years and I haven't had a problem that was caused by outside sources other than myself. :whistle:

I can vouch for the burned legs c/o HP laptops. My sister had an HP... Seems like companies who start with the letter "A" make good stuff. As in Acer or Asus. My sister has the Acer, and my Mom has the Asus. Both of which I recommended to them, and they are working great.

So I guess all I can say is: "To each his own." ...and leave it at that.

one other tidbit to help justify a mac's extra cost (aside from the small marketshare and lack of 'clones' to lower the cost): i worked at the apple store, and confirmed what i had heard all along....almost all parts made (the same parts as PC's, true) are made of premium materials, so they last longer. when you price out a custom mac on apple's website and add more ram, it's EXPENSIVE. you think, 'i can buy a few 1 gig ram chips for a fraction of that!'. but, apple gets the best of the best, to ensure that RAM you're buying lasts almost forever. plus, when you get it from apple, they're also there to back it up. sure, companies like kensington have warranties too, but i can tell you i've had to exchange a few ram chips in the past. free under warranty, but a pain. i've never, ever in my 20 years on macs ever had a ram chip/board go bad. (i have seen hard drives go bad over time on macs, but the computers were at least 8 years old).

dell, for example, gets the 'best deal' at the time from manufacturers on their parts to make their machines. at least, the old dell did. most of those parts had a really high fail rate, which admittedly was what almost lead to dell's downfall. the new dell may be better.

+1 on Dell and your example on RAM. My wife got rid of her PC and got herself a 21.5 inch iMac and a 15 inch MacBook Pro 5 or 6 months ago. She never looked back and I get jealous when I look at how user friendly they are, how well they perform and just looking at the quality of the whole thing. It's just top notch. Nothing is perfect but Macs are pretty close to it.
To get back on the RAM thing, the RAM on my Dell PC failed a year ago and when that happens, it is destructive. Not much was saved of all the files and software I had on my Dell. I am patiently waiting for the time when I will get to make the leap out of the PC grasp and get a Mac for myself. Then I two will never look back.

Anybody here know enough about laptops to know how the MAC can get away without having a cooling fan? Is it because they use a smaller battery, which doesn't get as hot?

I'm pretty sure it does have one, it's just a lot smaller and has a lower decibal rating.

Also willing to be on the newer MacBooks, the aluminum unibody aids in spreading the heat (pretty much a heatsink, just a lot bigger)..

Could be wrong.

I think my brothers old, white, regular MacBook had a small fan on the bottom..

my macbook gets hot sometimes, and the fans kick up to higher rpms, I use istat nano in my dashboard and it monitors all my good stuff like that, it does get warm thought ive seen my cpu at around 180 degrees which makes for a warm lap for sure. do the new macbooks not have fans? mine is about 2 years old, but it is the intel based macbook.

I thought all the MacBooks were intel-based? :neutral:

when i bought mine some were and some were not, and alot of the downloads for mac are intel or non intel specified
here is what is on my mac
Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB31.008E.B02
SMC Version (system): 1.24f2
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

Ah, okay, didn't know that, mah bad.

Mac themselves have stated they don't know how to make a $500 computer that isn't a piece of crap. That explains alot right there.... :no:

I honestly don't know how there could be a fan on mine, there are no openings in the case for airflow, so even if there was a fan it'd have no fresh air for cooling.

theres vent on the backside under the screen that runs right up to where it folds thats where mine blows the hot air out. i dont hear it most of the time unless it gets hot, but right now my istat says my fan is running at about 1800rpms and i cant even hear it.

Yeah, there are fans on the sides and out back...

On the iMac desktops (the screen ones), it's on top of the monitor..

EDIT: Apple is tricky about hiding those vents..