macbooks

sillyvixen

i love macs.. my first mac was a performa 400 and i am now using a g4ibook i recently had to use a pc while my mac was away for repair... it was clumsy and i hated it!!

under-the-thumb

I am also needing a laptop, mainly for my matched betting and poker, and all the other usual stuff.

Now, lets say I can get any apple product half price, is this a no brainer? I am guessing it is mac all the way? I have around £500-£600 to spend.

kev7n84

definetely. and if u can get a mac for half price, can i be your friend!?

Moneymaker

I would buy a used Mac instead of a new PC laptop. The cost will be about the same and the Mac should last just as long as the new (cheap) PC would. In addition, a used Mac often comes with additional software (paid for or otherwise!) I got a Mac iBook via eBay recently for £200. It has a 1.2GHz G4 processor (adequate for word processing, web browsing and playing DVDs). The 12 inch screen is decidedly on the small size but I use it only for holiday and business trips. It's VERY portable. If I were using it every day, I'd buy a 19" monitor for £99.

Macs come with "TextEdit" (a very basic word processor) but I bought a cheap used copy of "AppleWorks" (no longer sold new) for £40 and it does everything I need.

There's also a lot high quality of Freeware and cheap Shareware for Mac OSX including (as mentioned above) "Open Office".

starbump

Willowx wrote: »

Hi,

I've been looking at the Apple website trying to work out if they are worth the extra money compared to a standard laptop as some people seem to swear by them and I have a few questions.

Is the only difference (other than the colour) between the black macbook and the higher spec white one the size of the harddrive?

Do they come with any word processing software as they didn't seem to mention any on the program list?

Also is a 13inch display alright to use as a quick look on ebuyer seems to show 15inch as the standard small size for laptop.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Willow

I have a white MacBook. I think the 13 inch screen is fine. I use MS Office (probably out of habit) but there are lots of free/cheap alternatives. If you buy direct from Apple then you can custom build your laptop so you can change the size of the hard drive. The black colour is just cosmetic; I think white is a nicer colour anyway. If you don't want to alter the specs (apart from memory, which you can buy from Crucial, etc) then I'd buy from John Lewis because they have a free 2 year guarantee - 1 year more than Apple. Having said that, Apple provide very good aftercare (which I have used).

rorton

dont forget that the applestore (online) do a good range of referbished apple products.

You can get a white macbook for £639....

Refurbished MacBook 2,2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - White
13.3 inch (diagonal), (1280 x 800 resolution), Glossy TFT Widescreen 1GB (two 512MB) 667Mhz DDR2 SDRAM 120GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory Built-in Airport Extreme Wi-Fi (802.11n) Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR

Bit of a bargain, and the referb products come with full 12 month warranty, and are in prefect condition (not knocked about etc)

Guapa1

taff007 wrote: »

Despite being a big macbook fan myself, I do think that you need to weigh up what you will be using your laptop for. If it is just word processing, spreadsheets etc as you suggest then a lower-end PC probably will do the trick. Why spend more than you need to? Also, if you generally have regular access to a PC then you may find yourself having to think about keystrokes etc when switching from one machine to another. I use a PC all day in work and sometimes find myself staring blankly at the screen when at home, despite both using microsoft office.

Go to a shop and have a look for yourself. If you do decide on a macbook I can recommend the refurb section on the apple store. There are some really good bargains on 'used' machines, but when I bought mine it was totally spotless, and still had that new smell.

Am I reading this right? Are you saying in the actual shop there is a refurb section? If so I could kiss you just now for writing that!

Riq wrote: »

I'd just buy a mac purely based on it being damn sexy.

Here's someone on my page. :beer: I'm saving up for one right now.

pulliptears

Im working on 13" Macbook now, I bought it gor Graphics/Digital Design stuff at Uni and previously used a Toshiba Laptop.

Unfortunately I now cat use the Toshiba because I find it big, clunky and incredibly difficult to navigate compared to Mac!

Little tip, dont pay extra for the black, they show fingerprints like you wouldnt believe. Buy yourself a coloured speck case instead:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/MacBook-13-See-Thru-Case/dp/B000KG6H10/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1207116682&sr=8-4

I have a pink one on mine, Amazon dont have them online but you can buy 13"Speks in Black.
HTH

isofa

You must compare like with like. Comparing a decent quality PC notebook with a MacBook and there is little in the pricing - it amazes me how many times people wheel out the "PCs are cheaper than Macs" falicy on here. You get many extras built into the MacBook, including unique features like the MagSafe connector which PCs don't come with, built in camera, firewire etc. Plus lots of software. Pricing argument is a non-issue. Choose which you prefer.

Personally I'd not pay extra for the MacBook black model, but do think the white ones are excellent value for money, you get a ton of tools built into the OS, and also iLife which has the a raft on unique apps, which can put together some stunning DVDs and home movie editing, photos and if you are into music, GarageBand is stunning.

If you use graphic design and standard software, the built in graphics of the MacBook are fine, you only need the additional "pro" graphics cards in the MacBook Pro for CAD/CAM and games etc. Software like Photoshop and Illustrator cannot make any use of these additional cards.

They were all recently speed bumped (a few weeks ago), so represent better value for money than before.

If you want a Mac portable, they are an excellent buy. The RAM is simple to upgrade, don't pay extra for more from Apple, buy from places like Crucial and do it yourself. The HD can be upgraded, but is a bit more complex, but there are plenty of guides on the web. It is the MacBook Pro which HDs are very tricky to upgrade (but can be done by competent people).

As a PC and Mac laptop and desktop user, I'd highly recommend the MacBook. (Or if you have deep pockets and want the bigger screens the MBPs are fantastic). The current issue of MacUser reviews all the models "Every Laptop Reviewed" on the front page, so might be worth a read too.

Other software obviously you have all Adobe suites, MS Office 2008, OpenOffice, FileMaker and pretty much everything else you need available too.

Free software links: OpenSource Mac and Simon Elliott's Massive List of Apps.

Don't forget you can also dual boot into Windows (you need a legal copy of Windows XP, Vista etc), or use Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion to run PC apps direct on the desktop should you need to. Best of both worlds.

The Refub shop at Apple has excellent deals, and it often sighted for bargains on the forums at www.macuser.co.uk
The standard store is here.