Not liking Mac as much.

Hey everybody, I just thought I should say that, I'm not really liking Mac as much as I used to. I just don't really feel it's too great of a computer, and I don't enjoy it as much. Sure it's nice, but, I really am kind of regretting the day we got the Mac. I'm actually really wanting a PC laptop from Toshiba or HP. Sorry, I went over to the dark side. Just thought I should say.

So install windows on it.

Dysfunction said:

So install windows on it.

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No I mean like, I don't like the computer itself or the OS. Sure it's "sexy", but I'd rather have a computer for the power. I just feel like, for $1500, we just didn't get enough computer.

I would then tell you, sell it ASAP while it's still worth a lot and get your PC and Windows.

What do you do with your computer so those specs in your sig are not powerful enough? If you say games, you should have never bought a Mac for gaming.

My dad bought it, and it's the whole families. None of us really have any superior advantage to it.

seems to me it costs the same as my thinkpad did, there are cheaper computers out there, but if you didn't pay for it....

Do the rest of the family share your feelings about OSX and the iMac?

My dad complains about being unfamiliar with it, and my mom and sister don't care.

What I guess I'll start doing is save up money. I'll probably buy a Toshiba, or HP laptop.

Start doing some research on specific models before you buy. I have a friend who loathes his Toshiba nearly as much as his work Dell.. both have had chronic system board problems since day one. I wasn't overly impressed with the HP I had for work for a while either. Then again, I'm pretty hard on laptops.

Dysfunction, just curious, what do you think is a good brand to purchase if you were to buy a Windows laptop? I know CWA has had very good luck at his place of work with Dells and overall so have I. As far as Laptops for doing work (not serious 3d gaming) I prefer the IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpads. Every one I have owned and the ones I still own are great machines and served me well.

I have heard the very same things about Toshiba's as you have.

Yep, I've seen some good Dells. I'm also certain that other brands have excellent models as well. I've just heard enough negative problems with most manufacturers (including Macs to be honest, anyone remember the PowerPC heatsink fiascos?) and figure that multiple system board issues are going to be more model specific than individual PC (chipset design, layout design, cooling, form factor etc).

That being said, the two laptops I'll buy are Macs and Thinkpads (they're also what I happen to own now ). I've had thinkpads back to the 560 days, and about 10 different models in between. I'm very happy with them, including my T61p now. The support is also excellent. That all being said, well.. they're not cheap either.

I just sold my HP and went for a white MacBook. Only had it for a year and a half but it had issues with the wireless card. In the months before I sold it, everything went out one by one: media card reader, dvd drive (temporarily), web camera, wireless card. I like HP's but just had horrible luck with mine.

What exactly does your family use the Mac for? More importantly what do you use it for that makes you say it doesn't have enough power?

Don't really know what you're talking about wanting one for the "power"?

You can't even find a pre-configured Toshiba notebook with anything much better than the 2.0 Ghz CPU and a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 instead of 1440 x 900 on the 15". Just went to their site, and to compete with a MBP I was up to $1549 for a 15.4" Tecra and they still must be embarrassed by the graphics in the thing because they don't even tell you which NVidia chip is in it nor even the mention of how much VRAM.

HP was not much better. The model starting at $1000 has the 2.0 Ghz chip.
The model starting at $1,200 only has the 2.26 Ghz chip. The rest only go down from there.
And funny how those are the same starting price points for the MB and MBP's with those CPU's.

You want power, yet you say you're going to save for a notebook? Better save a bunch, cause you're not going to get anything better than that 2.66 sitting in your iMac for less than about $1,600-$2,000 from any manufacturer including the ones that sell $400 notebooks.

Or, if you want some nice gaming power, how about the Alienware 15", 1440x900, 2.8 Ghz, 512 MB 9800GT, 4 GB RAM and only $3,349.

Sounds to me like you need to do some more homework in real comparison shopping. And if they don't start off with the same CPU, there is no price comparison that can be made as it and the motherboard are the 2 most expensive items in the case on most computers.

Even a build your own half decent gaming system right now with the low end Core i7 with good motherboard and power supply is going to run you $1,200-$1,300 minimum. And still no keyboard, mouse, webcam, monitor or any of the other little extras.

Like spending 20% of your computing time just keeping the thing virus and spam free, tweaking the services settings, keeping all your drivers up to date so you can even play that new game, keeping almost every single windows app from loading it's junk into startup so now it takes you 2-3 minutes to boot, etc.

And all this from one who is considering building a new Win box right now. But, you need to know what's out there and do your homework before you just take off on some "feeling".

I'd be willing to wager that for every 2-3 computers you can show me that are less expensive than a Mac, I can show you one that is more expensive.

Dysfunction said:

Start doing some research on specific models before you buy. I have a friend who loathes his Toshiba nearly as much as his work Dell.. both have had chronic system board problems since day one. I wasn't overly impressed with the HP I had for work for a while either. Then again, I'm pretty hard on laptops.

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I always research, actually, I spent almost 13 months just researching which camera to buy .



Crimson to answer your question, I feel cheated in that my computer only has of 2GB RAM whilst a $650 HP laptop has a greater HD capacity and 4 GB of RAM. Now, yes, I know some of the hardware is better and the screen is bigger on the imac and blah blah blah but really when it comes to it, I don't need a huge screen. but I don't need such great stuff. I'm going to save for the laptop, rake leaves in fall and shovel driveways in winter. Hopefully, I'll have the new laptop by spring.



I actually have two laptops, Toshiba one that is good but I can't figure out how to wirelessly connect, the other is a Thinkpad (even still has the IBM logo!) which runs great but, gets hot and is heavy. It cannot connect to the internet for some reason.

Toshiba is absolutely awful. I won't even work on their machines, period. I've seen more broken DC-in jacks with Toshiba than any other brand and they're almost impossible to replace. In addition, they're usually bass-ackwards in the way they're put together, and you get the rather dubious benefit of a Toshiba-branded hard drive.

HPs tend to be rather cheesy too, especially the cheaper models. Their high end stuff is decent. I like Dell's high end stuff too. If I were buying one today, it would be an XPS M11330 or M1530.

Of course, if you're just looking for a disposable machine, it doesn't matter. But if you want one that's going to last, make sure it's a serviceable brand like Dell, Lenovo or HP. I'd also wait until Windows 7, because we all know that Vista is just a big bag of hurt.

Just my $0.02...

BlueMac said:

Crimson to answer your question, I feel cheated in that my computer only has of 2GB RAM whilst a $650 HP laptop has a greater HD capacity and 4 GB of RAM. Now, yes, I know some of the hardware is better and the screen is bigger on the imac and blah blah blah but really when it comes to it, I don't need a huge screen. but I don't need such great stuff. I'm going to save for the laptop, rake leaves in fall and shovel driveways in winter. Hopefully, I'll have the new laptop by spring.

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RAM is cheap. Not sure why 2GB vs. 4GB would make you feel cheated. For one, unless you're running a virtual machine, I'd be surprised if you had any need for more than 2GB. Secondly, if that is a need, you're talking about a very easy and cheap upgrade.

What would make me feel cheated is buying a $650 HP laptop and finding that although it has 4GB of RAM physically, the OS only sees 3GB, as is often the case.

I'll second what cwa said. If you feel cheated due to a mere lack of ram, spend the 50-150 on extra ram. You can run Windows inside of OSX via Parallels or Bootcamp if you absolutely need windows.

Personally that's the method I would choose, and will go after when I finally purchase an Intel mac later this year. Best of both worlds, the absolute rock solid stability of Unix (We call the pretty version of Unix OSX), programs that work as they are told, and the ability to run your Windows games or other programs that you feel have no suitable OSX alternative.

If the suitable alternative is your problem, pm me with what you need, I've got a rather large list of programs I can recommend for OSX.

BlueMac said:

...

...I feel cheated in that my computer only has of 2GB RAM whilst a $650 HP laptop has a greater HD capacity and 4 GB of RAM. Now, yes, I know some of the hardware is better and the screen is bigger on the imac and blah blah blah ...

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And that's what I'm talking about. They give you the extra $40 in RAM and the extra $20 in hard drive size (both of which are user upgradable) and take away the extra $250 or more they would have had to pay Intel for the higher end processor (which is not upgradable in most notebooks).

A Mac, higher end Dell XPS, IBM or Alienware are not the machines to be looking at if you don't care what processor is in the machine.

For sure the # of GB's on a hard drive has nothing to do with the computing "power" of a given machine. And all the RAM you could put in a machine is not going to help a 1.83 Ghz CPU run like a 2.66.