MacBook or Laptop?

toasterman

If you're buying from Comet, because you HAVE to.. because of the vouchers. Can you pay through Comet's website?

You can get 3% cashback from Quidco, for buying off Comet's website. That's a nice £24 back (on £800)

isofa

It's definitely worth upgrading to the lastest version of Parallels toasterman, especially with Leopard. Have you tried VMWare Fusion?

1canshortofasixpack

Hi

Just to add my twopence worth

I bought a black macbook, at the time it was down to the 120gb hard drive as opposed to only 80 on the white tho it was a few hundred quid more, just over a year ago. Fantastic machine much preferred over pc, i have installed the latest leopard on it and increased the mem to 2 gb, i am running parrallels on it and tbh it has played up a bit worst thing happened just last week when screen cracked, £365 :eek: to fix but have sourced a place in london that will do it while i wait with genuine parts for 250 + vat still a big ouch but better. I am 23 days out of warranty and yes i should have gone for the extended warranty, we live and learn.

Back to the original query the mac is a pleasure to use and is just so user friendly, i am considering putting them in at work.

Good luck whichever way you go.

Justin_Scotland

So the only downsides I see for the Mac that your friend likes is the the 13.3" screen and the 1gb RAM and the small 80gb drive.

However if she doesnt mind spending out a little on an external Harddrive £70 for about 500gb and approx another £50 or so on additional memory (not sure if these come pre fitted with one or two memory chips) then she would have a comparable spec PC laptop. Its about £100 price premium for Mac design and usability. The other question is does she have other friends that have and use Mac's as it might be reassuring if she knows people that can help her out if she does have problems or want advice on getting things sorted depending on how computer literate she is.

Now if the question had been what to buy if she had £1800 then it would have been a walk in the park for the Macbook Pro and the discussion would have been finished ages ago.

gazzak_2

As I have qualifications regarding both Mac and PC platforms, (honestly I really do ), then I can tell you from someone who is a fan of both operating systems the ONLY things you need to know.

Your sister will be happy with either, Macbooks are great, Laptops are great.

You will get slightly more bang for your buck with a Laptop

Nothing else is relevant


I'd buy a notebook

toasterman

isofa wrote: »

It's definitely worth upgrading to the lastest version of Parallels toasterman, especially with Leopard. Have you tried VMWare Fusion?

I haven't tried it, no.
\Might be worth a look, although like I say.. I'm not sure I really have a need to run Windows on my Mac anymore. I've only ran Parallels recently to show off to a friend. They were impressed that the Windows startup sounds were audible.

They were more impressed with the iMac in general though.. they told me: "if I had one of those, I wouldn't have to move it and hide it out of the way when people came round!" :eek:
Some people's wants in a computer system are so basic....lol. And imagine hiding a Mac away! Love them or hate them, you have to admit that Apple products are (normally) about as sexy as it's possible for electronics to look.

toasterman

Justin_Scotland wrote: »

So the only downsides I see for the Mac that your friend likes is the the 13.3" screen and the 1gb RAM and the small 80gb drive.

However if she doesnt mind spending out a little on an external Harddrive £70 for about 500gb and approx another £50 or so on additional memory (not sure if these come pre fitted with one or two memory chips) then she would have a comparable spec PC laptop. Its about £100 price premium for Mac design and usability.

I think the ram is irrelevant. My iMac has 1gb ram, and its easily enough for editing photos, listening to music, editing sound, watching movies..etc. It starts up in 35 seconds, shuts down in <10..I don't find myself waiting for anything to load really. What do you need more for?
Maybe if you're doing a lot of video editing...which I've not got into yet. I'd say I use mine more than the average home user though, and I don't find it sluggish at all.

On a Vista laptop, you do seem to need 2gb ram, but I'm not sure its a requirement of a Mac in the same way.. correct me if I'm wrong, anyone?

The 80gb hard drive might be more of an issue, if you have a lot of files...because Apple's hardware "options" when you buy are hugely overpriced. An extra 1gb of ram for this (I can buy for about £20) would have added £90 to the price I paid for the computer.
Other manufacturers (certainly Dell do) pull this same stunt when you start deviating from the spec they set out.

Garz

isofa wrote: »

I feel it only fair I respond to this ridiculous post. I'm not scoring cheap points. I'm a well established user of this site and have no need to, nor time to waste, on boosting your, mine, or anyone elses ego.

Really, now I dont think it was rediculous but whos arguing hey?

If you are such an established user then why take offence? I apologised in the post text yet you felt the need to continue. I also stated that I would also prefer the macbook.

We had already discussed in length MacBooks earlier. The discussion then moved onto whether you can run Windows software natively or not. then indicated how this could be done, and as an example compared a top end MacBook Pro with other top end PCs for speed comparisons. You'll find discussion threads do this - hence they are called discussions...which is what this thread was about (read the OP).

This is what I was reffering to. The OP has stated clearly that they have £800 to spend, why do you start 'comparing' high end machines for as they are a completely different end of the market? (this is a discussion by the way in case you get wrong end of the stick again).

If you read the comparitive reviews in publications such as MacUser, PC Pro or the vast other range of quality publications on the subject you'll see there is little performance difference between the low end MacBook and top end Black MacBook.

What? Where did I or anyone say anything about the Macbook and Black version other than yourself? Ahh yes these are your facts. If there is such low performance difference then perhaps thats why people plump for the bog standard.

I've been using both platforms for around 17-20 years, I own 2 of each, I run a company which uses both - so I'm not biased.
.

:T

I enjoy a good discussion also. If you still have a problem or want to continue then take this to a PM. Sorry to the OP, or anyone in this thread that I may have offended. :beer:

1canshortofasixpack

£829 will get you 2.2ghz 120gb hard drive 1g of ram white macbook which is fine i upgraded mine coz i do a lot of video editing what that will buy in pc land i have no idea. A year ago i paid £1100 for 2ghz and everything else was the same.

Garz

If you can get further discounts through vouchers or student i.d then like all other posters I think the macbook is the choice of weapon.