New Apple hardware

Marty_J

shell1000 wrote: »

ive been thinking of investing in a macbook for a few months now, as i have a radio show and get a lot of music promos as well as editing interviews. My friends have advised me i would be far better off with a mac, and as my old pc is on its last legs ive been looking into it.

A Mac would be a good choice, especially as it would come with Garageband.

I had heard rumours that they were releasing new models, but can you tell me whats the difference between this new macbook and the older model? just interested to know!

The main features of the new MacBook are an LED display, a glass multi-touch trackpad, and a 7 hour battery, which is good for 1,000 charges (laptop batteries are generally only good for 300 − 500 charges). It also meets Energy Star 5 requirements for energy efficiency.

As someone who has always used pcs for work and study, its a bit mindblowing! and its going to get some getting used to! But i rely on itunes for everything, and now i have an ipod as well as my new iphone i guess it makes sense to go 'apple'!

Most of the complaints regarding iTunes seem to come from Windows users, so I'm guessing it works better on the Mac (hardly surprising really).

kwikbreaks

For those looking for a purely financial reason to buy a Mac it would lie in their resale value. An old PC is usually worth very little but Macs are a different story.

My son hates all things Windows with a vengeance and swears by Macs. I did buy a Mac Mini so I could see how I liked them myself but simply haven't had the time spare to devote to it yet. All I could say so far is it is different and not as intuitively obvious to use as Mac devotees would have us believe.

Those iMacs are a thing of beauty though - but at a price premium.

.. and then there is the question of upgrades...

Marty_J

qw3rt7 wrote: »

Can someone please explain why macs are considered so fantastic.

I realise a while ago they used different hardware, but nowdays dont they run on intel core2duos/quads?
For the same price as a top spec imac you could get blisteringly faster intel i7 pc, plus change.
Is the OS really that good? Or is it just branding.

Im not mac bashing, but i just cant find a non-biased answer anywhere, its either:
"macs are the best, you would understand if you had one"
or
"Expensive waste of money"

I do feel im leaning towards the latter atm.

They're just a high-end product, and like any other high-end product they cost more. If you want something, whether it's a car, computer or vacuum cleaner, that's built very well, looks good, and will last a long time (and keep a good resale value), you're going to pay more for it. That's just how the world works. Those things aren't high on the list of priorities for a lot of people, which is fine.

But many people are blinded by a computer having a little Apple on the front, and instead of treating it as they'd treat any other computer, complain that it's really expensive. If you compare a cheap Dell laptop with an expensive Dell laptop, it's patently obvious why the expensive one costs more. Many computer manufacturers make models that are comparable to Macs, and they're priced accordingly. Often, they're more expensive than the equivalent Mac.

Rather than lowering their prices to compete, Apple choose to build added value into their computers instead. So, they could have just lowered the price of the MacBook and not bothered updating it. Instead, they added an LED screen, a faster processor, a glass multi-touch trackpad, and a 7 hour battery for no additional cost. For the same amount of money, you get a better computer. The new iMacs, while being relatively expensive in broad terms, are stunningly good value. A 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display costs £1,173 (before anyone complains how expensive that is, good (and big) displays cost a lot of money, so get over it). A 27 inch iMac costs £1,349. So for £170 more than the cost of the display by itself, while you get a smaller screen by 3 inches (though the screen you get is LED), you get an iMac thrown in.

Apple just don't have a range of cheap computers, so unlike most manufacturers, they only sell the expensive models. Other companies are fighting over market share, and so are seemingly in a race to see who can build the cheapest nastiest computers and sell the most of them. They have to sell lots of them because they don't make much profit on each one sold. Dell sell many many more computers than Apple do, yet Apple make twice as much profit. The average price of a computer has dropped so low, I don't see how it can be sustained over the long term.

Back in the 1930s and 40s, the tobacco industry would try to out-do on another on price. They would make cheaper and cheaper products in a bid to compete with one another. But, they discovered that tobacco is an inelastic commodity; people don't buy more if it's cheaper, they buy the same amount. The result of them lowering their prices was that they all just made less money. That's the reason tobacco products cost pretty much the same everywhere. A company could easily sell a pack of cigarettes for £1, and everyone else would have to follow suit, but the only result would be a loss of money for all concerned. Well, the still nascent computer industry is going through the same thing today, and I honestly believe they can't keep it up forever.

So there will always be a disparity between the average cost of a Mac and the average cost of a Dell, because Apple don't sell cheaper models. But this disparity has grown wider not by Apple increasing their prices too much, but by other companies lowering their prices too much.

Apple's computers aren't too expensive; other manufacturers' computers are too cheap.

fox2319

I don't think the price difference is as much as people make out. Sure, the entry level mac costs X and an entry level PC is Y but try getting a PC with the same spec and build quality as the mac and it's a lot closer to X than Y

jaydeeuk1

fox2319 wrote: »

I don't think the price difference is as much as people make out. Sure, the entry level mac costs X and an entry level PC is Y but try getting a PC with the same spec and build quality as the mac and it's a lot closer to X than Y

Can you quote me some figures on that please? I build PC's for a living, using quality components, and screwed together better than anything mass produced. Like for like, my prices are far lower than a mac, even including my not so tiny 30% profit margin.

shell1000

it looks like my reply has started the usual debate!

Yes Marty, thanks for your advice, thats exactly what im thinking, garage band and podcasting software as im hoping to get my shows online, im getting some interviews with big international acts, such as the temper trap so i want to make the most of the shows and get them out there!

The only thing that worries me is the battery, i know this is a better battery than the old one, but ive read lots about them failing after a year/18 months and costing 100 to fix, plus this battery is not easily accessible from what ive read..

Thanks for all your help

Marty_J

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

Can you quote me some figures on that please? I build PC's for a living, using quality components, and screwed together better than anything mass produced. Like for like, my prices are far lower than a mac, even including my not so tiny 30% profit margin.

But do you build them like a Mac?

You use your own custom designed cases and whatnot?

Do you squeeze all of the components into a case that's an inch wide?

Do you build webcams into your computers?

Do you bundle Vista Ultimate with your computers?

What other software do you provide?

Movie, photo, music, web and DVD authoring software?

Are your computers Energy Star 5 rated?

Are you circuit boards, cables, insulators, and adhesives free of brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride?

Do your LED displays have mercury-free backlighting and arsenic-free glass?

Are your computers made from one single recyclable piece of metal?

Do your computers have an EPEAT Gold rating for their recyclable content?

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Marty_J

shell1000 wrote: »

it looks like my reply has started the usual debate!

Yes Marty, thanks for your advice, thats exactly what im thinking, garage band and podcasting software as im hoping to get my shows online, im getting some interviews with big international acts, such as the temper trap so i want to make the most of the shows and get them out there!

Macs are widely used in the media industry, so it's a very good choice.

The only thing that worries me is the battery, i know this is a better battery than the old one, but ive read lots about them failing after a year/18 months and costing 100 to fix, plus this battery is not easily accessible from what ive read..

Apple no longer make a laptop with a removable battery, so it's a case of take it or leave it I'm afraid. The battery isn't intended to be user-replaceable at all, so if it fails, it's a trip to Apple.

You could always look for an older model MacBook from somewhere (I'm sure lots of retailers still have them in stock), but then you wouldn't get that nice LED screen or the multi-touch trackpad. Though even then, all things being equal, its battery would probably fail sooner and cost just as much to replace.

Thanks for all your help

You're welcome!

fox2319

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

Can you quote me some figures on that please? I build PC's for a living, using quality components, and screwed together better than anything mass produced. Like for like, my prices are far lower than a mac, even including my not so tiny 30% profit margin.

Better still, quote me for the following basic spec Laptop PC:

13.3" LED Backlit display
Core2Duo P7350
2GB DDR @ 1066MHz
250GB SATA HDD
WiFi 802.11n
Bluetooth 2.1
DVD-RW
nVidia 9400 with 256MB RAM
Webcam
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
and all the software which comes in iLife (Garageband, iPhoto, iDVD

Marty_J

fox2319 wrote: »

Better still, quote me for the following basic spec Laptop PC:

13.3" LED Backlit display
Core2Duo P7350
2GB DDR @ 1066MHz
250GB SATA HDD
WiFi 802.11n
Bluetooth 2.1
DVD-RW
nVidia 9400 with 256MB RAM
Webcam
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
and all the software which comes in iLife (Garageband, iPhoto, iDVD

The above MacBook is £799.

A Dell 13 XPS laptop with similar specs is £979.

The Dell comes with 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB HD and a 512 MB video card, but costs £180 more. It doesn't come with anything comparable to iLife. The MacBook also has a better battery, a faster processor, and a built-in iSight webcam.

A MacBook from Apple with a 500 GB HDD is £879 (though you could find a larger HDD for much cheaper if you felt up to fitting it yourself). 4 GB of DDR3 RAM for the MacBook is £67, bringing the total to £946.

So for £33 less than the Dell, you get a faster processor, a better battery, iLife, a webcam, Mac OS X (with the ability to run Windows and/or Linux as well if you want), and a multi-touch trackpad.

For £33 more than the MacBook, you get a slower processor, worse battery, no webcam, no iLife, you can't run Mac OS X, and there's no multi-touch trackpad. You do however, get more video memory.

The MacBook is quite competitive, price-wise.