Christmas seems a long, long, LONG way away, but I have given it some thought, and I would like a laptop. It'll be nice to take a laptop into my school and use it, because the school computers at my school are crap. It takes 10 minutes to logon, and by then 1/3 of the lessons have passed. It'll be easier to use my own laptop.

Trouble is, I don't know which laptop I want. I have used Windows all my life (and I'm a bit bored of it), so I'd like a Mac. That means either a Macbook or an iBook G4. But Apple don't make iBooks anymore, and I don't want a second-hand laptop that somebody's placed viruses on, so I'd like a Macbook.

My parents are bothered that I won't have anything to run on it, as all our programs are for PC, but all new apple computers come with software so :-)

Now, there are 3 types of macbooks. White one A, white one B (faster than A) and black one A (same as white one B but in black). I don't want a black one as it costs wayyy to much and gets fingermarks everywhere, and I don't want to spend too much money...

Aaahhh! to many decisions!!!

Please give me some thoughts! Please!!!!!

 

 

 

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macbook seems pretty decent for me , the price - not cheap ( based on the specs n bundled softwares given - apple should explain to the consumers why they are always cost more than their competitors - we want to know ! )

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Macbooks are , infact any Mac is good. They come pre-installed with the operating system and it seems much more natural than windows.
Ilife (Microsoft office for mac) Only costs about $70 New Zealand dollars, thats only about $35 US. Its alot cheaper than the microsoft office for windows isnt it?

Macs are great, i highly suggest you get it. You might not be able to get it linked up in the school network though. Theyre pretty tough.

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MacBooks look nice and have enough features alright, if I had the money I wouldn't buy it tho.. with the ICT study I'm going to follow next year we will be developing programs for Windows, and emulating Windows on a MacBook seems to me like a lot of stress, so I'm forced to use a windows (intel / amd) notebook anyway.

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The MacBooks are pretty capable mchines, as PC World proves (http://www.pcworld.com/search/results?st=q...;sort=relevance. They are pretty well performing, look nice, and don't force you to use windows. iLife is a pretty good deal I suppose (don't quote me on that because my experience with Macs is limited to playing around with them at CompUSA).


You no longer have to emulate Windows - you can use Apple's boot Camp software (get it for free on Apple's site) to make your Mac dual boot with Windows XP (bring your own, unused license, as Apple doesn't provide them). It works with any Intel-powered Mac.

 

 

 

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yeh this is one of the reasons why i was considering macs. with both windows and macos they might just be worth the buy. i really like how macs looks and i'm used to teh interface being forced into them at school. we use macs all teh time being in multimedia design classes so having a mac of my own may not be a waste after all. the only thing holding me back is how much they costs, they're not cheap pieces of equipemtn macs, pretty expensive actually.

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I haven't switched to the intel based system (I'm still using my trusty old Titanium Powerbook [1ghz G4, 1GB ram])


Still, at work we have a few of the new intel iMacs and they work extremely well.

Personally, the one thing I don't like about the new Macbooks is their size, 13" screens. It's a compromise between the 12.1 and 14.1 inch iBooks. I did own a 14.1" iBook before this powerbook and I do have to say, if your planning to do any traveling, the smaller size is nice. Lugging around a 6lb Laptop around Europe wasn't fun. I would have liked the 4lb smaller iBook. That's why my work bought a couple 12.1 inch Powerbooks when they came out. We use those for traveling because they fit nicely onto airplane tray tables.

If you do get one, make sure you get the glossy screen. Those are nice from what I've seen.

My next big purchase is going to be a new Macbook Pro in the next year or two. Basically I plan to switch from Final Cut Pro 4.5HD to 5 when the next version of Shake is released.

That being said, iLife is the media applications, iWork is the office application and Keynote (like PowerPoint).

iWork is a good little application if your not going to be needing a spread sheet. Personally I use MS Office 2004 for Mac and love it. Powerpoint works so much better on the Mac as does all the office applications. The big thing your missing is an easy to use database system like Access.

That being said, if your familar with MySQL, no big deal, use a real database (same with PostgreSQL), but it doesn't sound like your be needing those.

Still I'd wait until lepord (OS 10.5) is released. Then you'll have native 64-bit support and Apple's pretty bad about not letting you upgrade to the latest OS if you just purchased a product.

(I bought my iBook in July with OS 10.1. IN Oct they released 10.2, but I had to buy the upgrade.)

Also something else to note: iLife no longer comes with your computer. It's preinstalled, no media. So if you do wipe out your harddive, you'll have to go and BUY a copy of iLife.

I found that out the hardway. I had the last free version of iLife and did a fresh install of OS 10.4 on my laptop the other day and had to go out and spend the USD 80 in iLife '06. I was not happy about that.

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I haven't heard of macbooks before, but after reading this topic, have learnt that their are Macintosh laptops out there to buy.

I haven't used Apple computers before, so I don't know whether they're any good or whether it's best to stay with Windows. Windows seems to have bult itself such a reputation, that wherever you go, there's bound to be a computer with Windows as its operating system. Whenever someone mentions a computer, the image people view in their heads is a picture of a computer with the Windows operating system built in.

I know Windows can get boring sometimes and that sometimes you fancy a change, well, I suggest forgetting about getting rid of Windows. It is by far the best operating system in my opinion, and I know others agree. I haven't really heard of Macs, i believe they do have quite a bit of functionality though, so are probably the next leading operating system after Windows.

Anyway, as I said, I'd suggest trying Windows. If you decide to definitely go to Mac, then do that. I've never used a Mac, so I wouldn't really know whether to go for that or not, but I know Windows is the leading operating system. However, cost sounds like it could be an issue for you. Windows, as it's top, costs a fair bit of money, however, I assume that Mac isn't a lot cheaper. It sounds like software is cheaper for Mac, but there's less software around. It's really up to you.

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I love apple products, having both a Gateway PC and an iMac. However, the MacBook's track record isn't great. My aunt's has been replaced 5 times for various defects. Hopefully the MacBook Pro and later MacBooks don't ship with these defects. If you buy one, wait a few months until these issues are ironed out.

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I have always to try out a Mac Book and just last tuesday I did try it when I was uploading some pictures and videos I took on an event I was attending. The interface is cool no doubt about that, but the difficult was in realising that there is no right click and reading a USB device is a little trickier. All in all, if you have been using Windows all your life, you will take quite a while to suit yourself to a Mac. Anything would be fine if you stop using Windows, though it is the popular OS in the world, people tend to be forgetting the liabilities it has caused us, I do not want to list any of them because it is such a long list.

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