Mac or not

calen1979

Yes people are fans of Apple Mac's, and on the whole they are rightly so. I have used both Operating systems a fair bit and there's nothing quite like OS X out there. Yes, you could argue that it's just a Window Manager on top of FreeBSD (Darwin), but it's a damn good Window Manager, over the top of a damn good operating system.

If I had a choice out of £350 for an Apple Macbook, or a £350 PC laptop, I'd go with the former without question. The hardware is good and the operating system very well rounded, Vista has attempted to copy many of the features of OS X and to do so now means that Vista takes up a huge chunk of memory and system resources - but this hopefully will improve with patches, otherwise I'm sticking with XP!

I do find, however, that I work more efficiently on a Mac than a PC, as the applications do seem to integrate better both with the operating system and other applications. I constantly try to find equivalent to Mac programs on my PC - there's nothing close to Adium available on the freeware scene (that I have found), not to mention many other applications.

I still think, that at half price, assuming that games aren't that big of a deal, or if you don't mind booting into XP to run them (and they don't need a high powered graphics card), then it's a no-brainer, Mac all the way.

... Oh and I was serious, I'd love a Macbook ;-)

calen1979

masterthief wrote: »

Go to ww.mac.com and check out what the .mac online accounts can do - if you wanna set up a merged work/play calender, or a persoal website, or share photos and stuff like that, then its worth looking into - you can access .mac accounts on PCs, but again its much easier to troubleshoot on a Mac than a PC.

The .mac accounts are good, but there are a number of other alternatives out there, and I would say that Google do a storming range of applications in this department - and though admittedly they may not have the full range of Apps (yet) that .mac supports, Google Calendar is amazing - I have it set to SMS me for free to remind me of when I should pay off my credit card, when I'm getting paid (though it's hard to forget that one!) etc. Picasa is also amazingly good, and I use that to publish web photo albums..

Still .mac accounts do it nicely, if you're willing to pay a slight premium (£15 a year?) for it, as we're on the moneysaving forums, it's nice to point out the free equivalents

the-master-man

I went into the apple shop in manchester today to have a look at a mac and have a proper play. It was stunning. I have just one issue, though, and that is the screen size, it is just too damn small.
I will more than likely get one, I just need to convince myself that a smaller screen is good, and I also need to choose the colour, white or black decisions decisions

masterthief

calen1979 - thanks for pointing that out. I'm not as well versed as I'd like to be on the alternatives to .mac since that adequately meets my needs. the price I paid for .mac was 10quid but I can't remember if that was an introductory offer or not (last january lol). I've gone down the everything-apple route to a certain extent simply because of integration (e.g. synicing calenders then throwing said calenders onto ipod, etc) - what are the alternatives you mentioned like for doing that with an ipod (might save myself some cash next year if its pretty straightforward)?

the-master-man - what size laptop was it? I've had a 15" powerbook for a few years and found that size great although the performance is sluggish for my music stuff (not enough RAM or memory, but my work demands tons of both, so its a bit of a specilaist problem, you needn't worry about it), but they also do a 17" powerbook which might be in your range (can't recall prices for it off the top of my head) rather than a macbook.

also, does the 50% discount work at certified apple resellers shops? if so, you can get an even better deal.

kendalls_cave

I have am mac mini I love it For the price is is just cool

calen1979

masterthief wrote: »

calen1979 - thanks for pointing that out. I'm not as well versed as I'd like to be on the alternatives to .mac since that adequately meets my needs. the price I paid for .mac was 10quid but I can't remember if that was an introductory offer or not (last january lol). I've gone down the everything-apple route to a certain extent simply because of integration (e.g. synicing calenders then throwing said calenders onto ipod, etc) - what are the alternatives you mentioned like for doing that with an ipod (might save myself some cash next year if its pretty straightforward)?

If you can get the .mac account for £10 a year then that's not a bad deal at all, a quick look on the website seems to suggest it's now £70 a year which still may be worth the outlay. The integration is extremely nice, though the following link describes how to integrate iCal with Google Calendar, and use the Google Calendar as your primary calendar (it can be accessed via the web so it's quite handy)

http://www.googletutor.com/2007/01/24/syncing-google-calendar-with-ical/

Though it's continually being developed and improved - it's looking better and better.


Hope this helps, at least a little!

burnsguitarman

After buying an Imac in August after many frustrating years with a pc, I am totally converted to apple, so much so that I have just changed my, all singing and dancing 15"pc lap top for a mac book, my only reservation was the size of the screen, but I can honestly say I haven't even noticed it since the swap and am perfectly happy with the macbook with its small screen and less extras.