Should I get a Mac Laptop?

[Theoketos]

First has anyone switched from an Apple back to a PC?

Seriously.

I am so sick of unreliable computers. I know too much about them because they are constantly broken.

My lappy is died and soon to be gone...

And I am about to be in full time Gradshcool. There is not room enough in my family's apartment to get anything other than a laptop. And the fact my current lappy quite on me four days after the experation of the warrenty leads me to distrust the conventional laptop.

So is mac really more reliable? Do you own one? Is it awesome if you do?
Should I get a iBook or a PowerBook? Maybe I should look for a reconditioned one?

Please give me your advice, or at least prayers.

[curtins]

get a dell

[Dudette]

no, dells are evil. GET A MAC!!

[Thy Geekdom Come]

When I read that title, the first thing that came to mind was a laptop, supersized, with the golden arches on them...McLaptop...

[curtins]

rofl

[Extra ecclesiam nulla salus]

get a mac but they are pricy.

[StColette]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Aug 23 2005, 04:09 PM']When I read that title, the first thing that came to mind was a laptop, supersized, with the golden arches on them...McLaptop...
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[Lil Red]

theotokos, i love the mac i have for work. i was so fed up with the pc machine the church had, so unreliable, wouldn't connect to the printer, i was so sick of the blue screen of death! i have a powerbook g4 and i love it. so worth how much we spent (plus, if you're a student/school, you get an educational discount). works wonderfully! ibooks are more for personal use, powerbooks are more geared for work stuff. depends on what you need it for.

[Sirklawd]

mac laptops are fine. being macs they take care of everything for you. (i am personally against this philosophy) macs will get the job done and are relatively safe - especially "out of the box". unfortunately macs are also very expensive, and you will not be playing any computer games on a powerbook. So if you are a gamer of anthing more comlex than Snood or TussToss you are out of luck with a mac powerbook (and im not even certain either of those games are available for mac - TussToss for sure isnt).

as for PC. you can most certainly do everything you wanted to do on a mac on a PC - especially graphics (for those people in THAT group..) - except on PC you can do alot more. you have alot more direct control over your system and how it works (if you are a techy) and you can play games. they also come in a much wider range of sizes, prices, and custimaztions.

i just got a new Dell laptop (inspiron 9300). i really love it. i can do all of my graphics stuff, and play all of the games i want. i too am about to start grad school. I assume the Dell came with all sorts of safety stuff to prevent viruses, and helper programs for a new computer user. i didnt pay attention and immediately formated it and started from scratch.

[Theoketos]

[quote name='Lil Red' date='Aug 23 2005, 04:21 PM']theotokos, i love the mac i have for work. i was so fed up with the pc machine the church had, so unreliable, wouldn't connect to the printer, i was so sick of the blue screen of death! i have a powerbook g4 and i love it. so worth how much we spent (plus, if you're a student/school, you get an educational discount). works wonderfully! ibooks are more for personal use, powerbooks are more geared for work stuff. depends on what you need it for.
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I am leaning toward an iBook, because really, what I need is a powerful and reliable machine with which to both research and write papers . That and money is an issue (As I have a future family to look out for.)

[Jaime]

If I wasn't a corporate shill, I would go back to Mac in a heartbeat!

[Lil Red]

what's a corporate shill?

[morostheos]

I would highly reccommend a Mac. As long as you don't want to do anything that takes up a lot of memory (i.e. video editing and such), you should be fine with an ibook, and they are cheaper. A good website for finding macs cheap is dealmac.com. I have an iMac that I have had for 5 years now and with nothing more than a RAM upgrade and an external harddrive to store music and pictures on as improvements made to it, I am running great with NO crashing or major problems.

oh, and btw, sirklawd, you CAN have plenty of direct control over your system and how it works on a mac. The options are there, they just don't list them all so they don't confuse people too much. They are all there in UNIX as well as by using any of the myriad of freeware programs that create a graphical interface for the options.

*steps back down off her soapbox*

:

[philothea]

FWIW, I am a hardcore nerd, and next laptop I buy will be an iBook. (Real soon, I hope!)

[Lil Red]

[quote name='morostheos' date='Aug 23 2005, 04:31 PM']oh, and btw, sirklawd, you CAN have plenty of direct control over your system and how it works on a mac.  The options are there, they just don't list them all so they don't confuse people too much.  They are all there in UNIX as well as by using any of the myriad of freeware programs that create a graphical interface for the options. 

*steps back down off her soapbox*

:
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amen!

[Theologian in Training]

I purchased a mac about a few months ago, and have not had any problems since. I have never had to reboot it for a failed program, never had to troubleshoot something not working right, and I never had to clean a virus, spyware, or adware from this computer. (wait I did have one problem. The Safari browser used to close for no reason when I first installed Tiger OSX, yet, since the updates, have not had that problem anymore)

Also, if something crashes, the program itself crashes not the entire computer, so no need to reboot and fight with the stupid BSoD.

They just recently released a big group of updates dealing with issues that they foresaw [i]might[/i] happen. When was the last time M$ did that?

I talked to my uncle yesterday and had to help him with reformatting his computer over the phone because he has Window$ XP and, turns out he got a serious virus, which originated in Turkey, is also a trojan, and has keylogging capabilities. When I went to Symantec to see which systems it affects, wouldn't you know, Macs and Linux were not affected.

Hands down probably the strongest, most versatile, stylish, and powerful system I have ever owned. I have a 12" Powerbook, 80 gig HDD, 512MB RAM and a G4 processor. It is a very light and powerful notebook that I use for just about everything, including watching Simpsons.

Also, if you are a student you get a $200.00 discount, at least I did when I purchased it.

Cannot recommend it enough, can ramble forever about how great it is.

Get one, you will not be disappointed.

God Bless

Edited August 24, 2005 by Theologian in Training

[track2004]

I made the switch and love my iBook. The powerBooks are amazing and with the new Tiger even better. I'd vote to switch because... well... Macs don't have a blue screen of death. 98% of the time the programs won't just quit on you like they tend to do on pcs. Don't buy a Dell though, they smell of elderberries, and they aren't adaptable. I really like my iBook and I have Microsoft Office for it so I can type a paper on here and take it to any computer on campus to edit it (in AppleWorks you can save it as a Word doc too).

[Theoketos]

Maybe I will write Steve Jobs an Email and see if he responds.

Thanks for teh link to dealmacs.com

[Theologian in Training]

[url="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1851295,00.asp"]http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1851295,00.asp[/url]

I thought you might find this helpful

God Bless

[morostheos]

[quote]The company's scores are so high there's some concern that they can't be completely trusted: that Apple users are so passionate—almost fanatic—about the company and its products, they're not quite as objective as other computer owners.[/quote]



Of course we're fanatic, we never get the Blue Screen of Death!!!!! :