bye bye PC hello Mac

[What's_nitro?]

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.

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.

[ClodMaxx]

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.

[mistercrash]

+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.

[JThiessen]

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?

[Finnster]

Originally Posted by What's_nitro?

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.

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.

I always built my computers as well. The last OEM I had (other than the said cheapie laptop) was an Acer with a Pentium 75, which I later overclocked to 90mhz, w00t! My most favorite pc was a ~'98 asus 440bx MB based computer. It started life as a 300mhz slot1 celeron/ 24mb ram, and was my main comp until ~2004, when it had an OC'd P3 tualatin @1.6mhz/ 512mb ram that was faster than a lot of the early P4s. You actually had to rewire some of the pins on that last processor to get it to work in the bx. Def not mac friendly lol.

I had a p4 comp for a little while, but soon replaced that one with a C2D/socket 775 board in 2005. The S775 processors are just now really being phased out, so I may hold on a bit and pick up a quad core for cheap and just run that for a several more years. I don't game anymore, so the most intensive thing I need it for is occasional vid editing. Getting 7-8yrs out of a comp and staying relatively state of the art the whole time is awesome. I always bought inexpensive but quality components, and rarely ever had issues. Still have and use older Hdds and dvd drives that have moved from one comp to the next. The 10yo black Chieftec case I have still looks sweet.
Lost lots of usb and firewire cards to static tho... I doubt I've spent $1500 on comp parts in the last 10 yrs.

[Modding_out]

You will burn in cyber space for defecting to the company with the halve eaten apple logo

[E-Revonut]

Originally Posted by Modding_out

You will burn in cyber space for defecting to the company with the halve eaten apple logo

I guess I'm gonna burn then! The first computers I ever used where Apple IIE's back in elementary and middle school. Never had a computer living at home, got my first one in 2003. Started with a HP desktop that did ok, went to a Compaq laptop that lasted 4 years and never gave me a problem until it suddenly died. My HP laptop that just died was 3 years old and has been nothing but a POS for the last year and a half. I got my first and only ipod when they first released the ipod video like 4 years ago or however long ago it was. It has never given me a problem and it's used everyday, I'm sure the battery isn't up to par anymore, but since it's hooked up to the radio in my truck and is powered that way it doesn't matter anyways. My iphones have been great phones and have kept me in touch with people and the internet even when my HP laptop had died. I can honestly say I don't think I will ever look back!

[rawfuls]

Originally Posted by E-Revonut

I guess I'm gonna burn then! The first computers I ever used where Apple IIE's back in elementary and middle school. Never had a computer living at home, got my first one in 2003. Started with a HP desktop that did ok, went to a Compaq laptop that lasted 4 years and never gave me a problem until it suddenly died. My HP laptop that just died was 3 years old and has been nothing but a POS for the last year and a half. I got my first and only ipod when they first released the ipod video like 4 years ago or however long ago it was. It has never given me a problem and it's used everyday, I'm sure the battery isn't up to par anymore, but since it's hooked up to the radio in my truck and is powered that way it doesn't matter anyways. My iphones have been great phones and have kept me in touch with people and the internet even when my HP laptop had died. I can honestly say I don't think I will ever look back!

I'm in the same boat as you are with the iPods!

I bought my very first iPod, the 5.5G iPod Video, a month or two later the iPod Classic came out, boy was I pissed, 50 more GB for the same price? Yes, I actually use 30GB..

I STILL use it every day (when I go running, boy is it heavy now compared to the iPod Touch), I switched out the battery, which is quite easy to do btw, I'd recommend you do it if you need to..

And the iPod touch I now have, has left me happy!

One day on a Pupil-Free Day (noschool!) my hard drive decided to explode on me, literally, no way was it coming back, if it weren't for my iPod, I would've gone insane, I was on my iPod Touch day and night! Talking to friends via AIM, and even on RC-Monster!

My English teacher told me a funny story the other day, she's kinda mad at Apple, even though I guess you could consider her a diehard Apple fan.

Her very first laptop (A PowerBook G3 or G4 I believe), oldest of the old, she dropped it at least 20 times in class (once in my period! Smack down on the screen and hard drive), and it still works perfect.

The other day she dropped her newer Macbook Pro on her bed and it went poofed. Hard drive was corrupted.

She was furious because all our essays were saved on there

Needless to say I got an A..

Then she saw the "iPad" and thought it was a joke, an oversized iPhone without the phone!

Threadjack over.

[rawfuls]

Originally Posted by Finnster

I always built my computers as well. The last OEM I had (other than the said cheapie laptop) was an Acer with a Pentium 75, which I later overclocked to 90mhz, w00t! My most favorite pc was a ~'98 asus 440bx MB based computer. It started life as a 300mhz slot1 celeron/ 24mb ram, and was my main comp until ~2004, when it had an OC'd P3 tualatin @1.6mhz/ 512mb ram that was faster than a lot of the early P4s. You actually had to rewire some of the pins on that last processor to get it to work in the bx. Def not mac friendly lol.

I had a p4 comp for a little while, but soon replaced that one with a C2D/socket 775 board in 2005. The S775 processors are just now really being phased out, so I may hold on a bit and pick up a quad core for cheap and just run that for a several more years. I don't game anymore, so the most intensive thing I need it for is occasional vid editing. Getting 7-8yrs out of a comp and staying relatively state of the art the whole time is awesome. I always bought inexpensive but quality components, and rarely ever had issues. Still have and use older Hdds and dvd drives that have moved from one comp to the next. The 10yo black Chieftec case I have still looks sweet.
Lost lots of usb and firewire cards to static tho... I doubt I've spent $1500 on comp parts in the last 10 yrs.

You may wanna look into the AMD Athlon II X4 620... Its' a rather cheap quad core.. Runs well, even gaming..

I've still an intel fanboy using an AMD CPU.. I need Intel to go onto a sale!