Buying a Macbook

DMCSCH10

Hi everyone

I'm a student and I've been saving my work money to buy a mac. Basically, I thought I would seek advice on it because
a) I want a mac because I heard they are reliable and would last me for years. This saves money in the long term, along with the fact that macs don't require antivirus software - is that true?
b) I'm confused about which machine to go for: I'm really attracted to the Air because I'll be carrying the thing around a lot, and I wouldn't be too disadvantaged by the lack of a DVD drive I don't think. I'd go for the Pro however if I thought that it was a more reliable or useful machine. The difference in price is negligible in relative terms so I'm open to both.
c) I know there is lots of speculation about the next generation of the mac coming out - and I wanted to ask if you guys thought I would be prejudiced if I bought a a mac only for it to become obsolete in tech terms within a short time - I'll only be using the mac for word, internet, itunes, etc. Basic stuff really.

Sorry for what must seem like idiotic questions! D

AgentMyth

I wouldn't say any of those questions are idiotic!

I'm a long term Windows user and a Windows admin in work, but I treated myself to a 13" Macbook Pro 3 years ago when my first kid was born. I have to say that it's a great piece of hardware and that Apple have a number of advantages over Windows - particularly how they've integrated search so well into all their applications.

On saying that, my next laptop will be a Windows machine because it suits how I work.

What you should get depends on what you'll use it for. Given that you're not doing any kind of audio or video production, I'd suggest applying the same budget to a Windows machine with a good spec and a 3 year warranty.

My top tip for getting any new PC is to spend an extra 100-200 quid and use an SSD (solid state disk) as your boot disk because it increases the responsiveness of your system so significantly, you'll notice every time you use a machine without it. I spent an extra 300 quid for a 128GB SSD on my Macbook and it's unbelievably responsive. Other Mac users have tried it and agreed - it makes the system snappy.

The key thing to remember when considering an alternative to Macs is that on the Pro models, they choose the base architecture really well and add on stuff that's useful day-to-day, like a backlit keyboard, a 3x3 802.11n antenna, and so on. When comparing a MBP to similarly specced Windows machine from Dell, HP, etc. the price difference is not huge.

For the record, if I was to buy a machine now, I'd go for the following spec:
Core i5-2400 or better
8GB 1333MHz
128GB SSD SATA-3 drive
ATI or nVidia graphics - at least 512Mb memory - to allow playback of HD content well into the future.
And then an external drive for lots of storage.

If you're considering a Macbook Air, there's a lot of competition in that space because Intel is pushing its 'Ultrabook' brand - basically an MBA clone.

Check out this story for some background/options:
http://www.reghardware.com/2012/02/09/review_asus_ux21_zenbook_laptop/

After all that, if you do invest in a Macbook, you'll probably love it!

Simon

DMCSCH10

Thanks Simon, that's really helpful!

Only reason I committed myself to a mac over windows was because i heard they have a long life - i have a friend who has his six years. I've had a Sony for three years now & it's given me nothing but trouble!

AgentMyth

I wouldn't plan to get anything more than 3 years out of any laptop - by that time the software has usually moved on anyway, and you need more power.

hoodwinked

DMCSCH10 wrote: »

Thanks Simon, that's really helpful!

Only reason I committed myself to a mac over windows was because i heard they have a long life - i have a friend who has his six years. I've had a Sony for three years now & it's given me nothing but trouble!

Just be careful it might be rare but macs are not guaranteed too, I too bought a mac for longetivity and as you can probably guess from my thread it's 18 months old and has no wifi connectivity due to a hardware fault, apple are refusing to fix it.

In my case I would have been better off buying a pc with 3 years warranty for less then what I paid!

opinion guy

hoodwinked wrote: »

Just be careful it might be rare but macs are not guaranteed too, I too bought a mac for longetivity and as you can probably guess from my thread it's 18 months old and has no wifi connectivity due to a hardware fault, apple are refusing to fix it.

In my case I would have been better off buying a pc with 3 years warranty for less then what I paid!

Why didn't you get Applecare 3 years warranty on your Apple ?

I have mine almost 3 years and its working perfectly. Previous Dell and an Acer laptop I had both failed to last 2 years and both only had 1 year warranty.

IMHO the only company that ever came close to Apple in terms of build quantity were IBM - their Thinkpads were damn solid yokes. But they got out of the game. I recently went looking at windows machines due to high price of replacement apple. Yes they were cheaper, but they had sh1te build quality and sh1te specs - you can't even seem to get windows laptops with i7 chips - not as far as I could find. And when you look at windows desktops and match spec for spec with a macbookpro the freaking desktop comes to the same price more or less.

Hands down - macbook pros are easily the most solid best specced personal computers on the market

squonk

OP, what are you doing in college?

Not knowing what you are doing I would recommend the MacBook. If all you want is something for note taking and project work with documents, then the Air would be fine but for anything else, a goodly specced pro will be the way to go.

If you're going to longevity then get 8Gb ram and do try to plumb for the AppleCare add on. I bought a MacBook pro in 2006 and it's still going. I recently consigned it to my parents house where it's used a s reference machine for the odd more technical task that the iPhone or iPad can't manage. It's been a great machine but I did have to ruturn it for repair after about 18 months after the HD died. That was all done under warranty. I've dropped it and it's still ran afterwards.

Also, when you buy a Mac you can also dual boot Windows and any other OS you wish on it. If you buy a Windows laptop, you don't get access to OS X which is, in itself, a great OS and it's a far more productive environment than Windows is. OS X doesn't bloat between releases to the same extent Windows does. Windows has improved lately but I don't trust MS to continue in that vein.

yes, it's true that you don't need AV software for OS X. Up til recently it wasn't worth the time to write them for OS X but now that is changing. OS X however is keeping up and Gatekeeper (coming later this year in Mountain Lion) will give the option of only allowing software from the App Store to run on a mac, or App Store and third party signed software, or all software. With the first two options you're fairly sure that only reputable developers are involved. With the 3rd option you're on your own and it may become the case over time that you'll need AV but, relatively speeking, there are still very few OS X viruses out there.

I would favour a Mac over a Windows machine. They're very well built and integrated. Even if you spend 50% of your time running Windows via dual boot, you will still have an extremely nice Windows laptop.

As you're in college I should also add that it'd be well worth your while buying a spare external HD also. Time Machine on the Mac is absolutely excellent. If you do suffer any sort of issue, as long as the machine is backed up you can restore everything, which is hugely useful for college projects etc. You can also get back to a previous version of a document you're working on while editing. You can even reinstall from a backup. It's free features like Time Machine that mean the Mac beats any other OS for day-to-day use hands down in my book.

Finally, the time to buy a Mac is when you need to buy a Mac. If you can afford to wait for the machines to be updated in a month or two, then do that and you'll be getting the latest and greatest. So far they've been just updating the processors and such and if a new form factor is coming then that might be a bigger thing. there's certainly talk of that but I haven't seen much proof so far. As always with Apple, it's hard to know til they make an annoucement. If you can wait, I'd recommend waiting.

DMCSCH10

Thanks everyone for the advice. Just to answer your question, I study Law, and plan on doing a postgrad in England next year. All I really use the machine for is note taking, light web-surfing, some Skype and iTunes stuff. So a good sturdy machine is needed. Apple give decent discounts to students of about 12% and I've been thinking of a Macbook Air before I graduate and lose the discount! I have no need for the CD drive on the pro, but if I thought the difference in performance/functionality/longevity was substantial, I wouldn't be put off by having to spring the extra few hundred for the latter.
Again, thanks to all for their help!

opinion guy

DMCSCH10 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the advice. Just to answer your question, I study Law, and plan on doing a postgrad in England next year. All I really use the machine for is note taking, light web-surfing, some Skype and iTunes stuff. So a good sturdy machine is needed. Apple give decent discounts to students of about 12% and I've been thinking of a Macbook Air before I graduate and lose the discount! I have no need for the CD drive on the pro, but if I thought the difference in performance/functionality/longevity was substantial, I wouldn't be put off by having to spring the extra few hundred for the latter.
Again, thanks to all for their help!

FYI if you wait until you are a student in England they give better student discounts there (you can get applecare extended care for 60 pound instead of 240EUR here)