My Dilema, HP or Macbook

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I have a dilema. My wife just purchasd a brand new, nice, shiny, HP dv6226us entertainment notebook. t has a gorgeous 15.4" screen, core-duo processors, media card slot, remote, quickplay buttons. Glossy wxpa widescreen. 2-button trackpad and windows xp. Now here is the problem. While waiting for my new macbook to arrive from apple, I have been playng with this thing. I think I am falling in love. I actually kinda like the new Vista os. From the looks of it, it has a lot of features copied from mac. Anyway, I finally recieved my new macbook 2 days ago and have yet to open it. i thought I would be thrilled, but I am having fun on the HP. now my wife told me to get my hands off her computer. So I am having doubts about openeing the macbook. I am thinking about sending the macbook back to apple and going to the local electronics store and throwing some money down on one of these HPs. In fact i am using it now to type this post. So, what should i do? open the mac, or get the HP?
 
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Is there an Apple Store near you? If so, go spend half an hour playing with a MB at the store and see if you like it.

I replaced my HP entertainment notebook with a MBP and I'd never look back. The Mac has some features the HP didn't, and vice versa. The HP wasn't really a bad computer, though I found its construction pretty flimsy (one of the keys popped off and due to the weird way HP connects keys to the computer, it needs to go back to HP for two weeks to get repaired).

Which features are most important to you?
 
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Well, features inportant to me.... HMMMM, I have to admit the edia card slot is nice, I never understood macs reluctance to put one in the ibook. The big screen is nice, but then you lose portability. I had an ibook and a huge selling point for me was that i coud still use my software. Now I am hearing that the older software lags on the newer intel machines. UUUGGGHHH This is so complicated. I was looking for a copy of windows xp to load onto the macbook, and have trouble finding it, and when i did find it, it was pricey. Why cant buying a new computer be a lot simpler. And the nearest apple store is over an hour away, so trying it is difficult and if i open the box, i have to pay a 100 dollar restocking fee.
 
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I'd say it was worth $100 to be sure and definitely wouldn't recommend getting the HP before playing with the Macbook. I would hate to feel a few months down the line that I'd made the wrong decision and you have the luxury of comparing them side by side and knowing for sure which you prefer...
 
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If you like the HP, don't get a Mac just to have a Mac, get what you LIKE. Like others said, play with the MacBook and then see which one you want. If you don't want your MacBook, send it back and get the HP. Get whatever makes you happy, not us.
 

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If you like the HP, don't get a Mac just to have a Mac, get what you LIKE. Like others said, play with the MacBook and then see which one you want. If you don't want your MacBook, send it back and get the HP. Get whatever makes you happy, not us.

I couldn't agree more with this statement. Too many people get hung up on "which is better" which is entirely too subjective. If Windows works for you, suits your needs and is not a frustrating experience, then by all means, send that MacBook back and buy another HP.

Personally, I find my MacBook Pro to be the best of both worlds since I can run Windows, Mac OS or Linux at will. But if Vista floats your boat, more power to you.
 
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personally i would keep the mac
when i 1st got mine i wasnt so fond of it, however it has grown into an obsession, when im not with it i crave 2 be with my mac lol
Also, bootcamp is out soon, so you can have best of both worlds

But do what you want... like the hp get an hp like the mac keep the mac :)
 
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Oh come ON people!

I've just ordered Vista (cheap upgrade) for the Windows laptop I use at work. I've polled everybody I know who has tried it to find out whether it's worth installing it.

WITHOUT EXCEPTION people have said - NO - stick to XP. Vista is slow, eats up disk and memory, fully of nasty DRM stuff, and not very reliable yet.

And if you're going to stick to XP, why wouldn't you want to go for OS X instead? Much more reliable, focus on productivity, easy to use, looks good, secure, etc etc...

Open the MacBook and I bet your HP laptop will be gathering dust in a cupboard in a few days.
 
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Well, I finally convinced the wife to "share" her hp with me. So I just went out to the garage and pulled in the macbook and opened the box. Very Nice. Although I see that tiger takes up a LOT more hard-drive space n my mac than panther did on my ibook. Oh well, otherwise it seems like a nice solid notebook. Now time to play with it a bit!!
P.S. Does nyone have link of where I can get a cheap version of xp?
 
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Your MacBook comes with trial versions of Office and iWork, not to mention the entire iLife suite and many gigabytes of alternate language options.
 
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well what finally convinced me to open the macbook after it sat for 2 days n the garage was my call to HP customer service. I called their U.S. based 1888 number. I get a computer. After pressing a few numbers i get transferred to a really bad connection to someone in India. With the bad connection and their accent it took me a few minutes to get to the next level of service. That next level was another Indian connection with an even thicker accent. Finally after 49 minutes on the phone (yes I timed it), I finally get transferred to the right department. All of a sudden i get a great connection, (although really low volume on the phone), a female voice with no accent comes on and my issue is resolved in 3 minutes of that final transfer. Now I am not trying to come across as anti-multi-cultural or whatever, but if i purchase an american product, in an american store, from an american company, is it too much to ask for prompt customer in a voice I can easily and radily understand? If i was in india, then sure i would love to talk to an Indian rep. I had called apple a few days ago for shipment info on my macbook and got a rep in 4 minutes flat, and I understood every word. Apple almost lost me, but HP fialed to close the deal.
P.S. Is it possible to remove the multi-language stuff and iwork trial on the hard-drive without damaging the os?
 
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jaster -- I hate to disrupt your pro-Apple feelings but I am pretty sure that Apple also outsources their tech support overseas. In fact, I think Gateway is the only major computer manufacturer that doesn't, and it's a big part of their current advertising campaign.

In fairness, I've spoken to "foreign" tech support people who knew far more about both the hardware/software in question and the English language than some native speakers. :) But I agree that when you get someone whose accent is too heavy to understand, it makes the experience incredibly frustrating. In fact, it was an experience like that with Dell that got me to give up on their computers after years of loyal repeat buying.
 
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Luckily I have never been outourced with apple help, and I needed a lot when learning on my ibook. I have to agree, tech peple know their stuff whether in country or out, but the knowledge does no good when you take an already thick accent and compound it with a bad overseas connection, and add to that a computer illiterate american.
 
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jaster -

I have always run delocalizer (http://www.bombich.com/software/local.html) to remove all those unneeded languages. Usually ends up freeing up a few gigs if i remember correctly.

Something I never noticed before is that the developer had stop updating the program after 10.2 or so! But I have used it on Tiger in the past with no issues (that I've seen to date). Obviously, this also means it's not a universal binary program, but snooping around the net seems to give me the impression people haven't really had issues with it with their Intel macs.

Maybe someone who's used it on an Intel machine could chime in with their experience.

You could also look at Monolingual (http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/) which is designed for Tiger... but be careful not to let it remove any architecture support you may need (Rosetta).

Another method would be just reloading the O/S from the CDs and selecting what programs and install options you like... I know people who often will do this with a new machine

Oh... and...for what it's worth, I would have went for the MacBook too! ;)
 
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P.S. Is it possible to remove the multi-language stuff and iwork trial on the hard-drive without damaging the os?

You can delete the iWork and Office2003 trial software simply by dragging their folders to the trashcan.

You can use Monolingual to remove the unwanted language files.
 
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Multilanguage removal

There is a freeware utility you can download from the Apple site that will remove all but the language you choose. It works great and doesn't seem to affect the utility of the OS.
 
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Thanks I already erased all the languages using monolingual. Actually freed up a full 2gb of space.
 

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