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Howdy, all.

I find myself at that stage of life that we all secretly dread and look forward to in equal measure - I need a new laptop. The reason I need a new one is that the case of my current machine (Dell Inspiron 15) has suffered a critical existence failure and disintegrated into sharp, pointy plastic shards for no apparent reason - durability is going to be a major selling point.

Basically, I need my computer to be able to store large amounts of data and handle word processing and lots of web browsing. My work doesn't leave me with much time for gaming (), so that's not a major concern, but it's nice to be able to play a game in my free time, when I have some.

So, anybody have a recommendation? Alternatively, a warning? Reading your horror stories, be that quality, price, or warranty related, will keep me from adding my own horror stories to the next thread like this. Thanks in advance!

If the most processor-intensive task you're planning to undertake is word processing and browsing the web, your best bet might be a cheap ten-inch netbook and a large external hard drive; I've seen portable ones with a keypad for encryption purposes, and if memory serves they go up to 500GB in size. If you need to access more data than that on the move then you should probably look into an online storage solution. Expect to pay about £300/US$400 for the whole package.

Let me introduce you to my HP DV6 series
It's a great little laptop, has the 15 inch screen which is the smallest I can still type on and read, perfect for most flights while a 17 incher goes into your neighbors lap unless your in 1st class.
It's light enough for my purposes and because it runs on the new I-5 and I-7 core chips that means with the dual video card (One onboard the CPU, one discrete) I can both game as long as I'm plugged into the wall (Or for exactly 50 minutes on the standard battery) or I can do just surf the Internet, watch videos online or DVD's and just use the CPU's onboard GPU.

The side effect of this? When surfing the Internet on the standard battery I get between four hours to five and a half hours of juice before the battery goes dead. The extend 9cell battery I got for 90$ jumps that to almost eight hours if I'm just typing between recharges. Yes that's correct, typing a paper on my laptop can go for over seven hours between recharges. Even the 9cell however again craps out in less than an hour twenty if you turn the awesome GPU on. Without it on the laptop stays very cool and even with it on it's not the ball toasters some Dell's are.

I spent 1000$ on mine or roughly 820$ once you take off the accessories and discounts I have from my old account with HP from my personal business days. (HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition to be exact) and I'm happy as can be with my Laptop.
If that's more than you intend to spend well you can find cheaper online but I don't bother with them because to me 1000$ is always been about right for what to spend on a almost zero upgradable laptop.

Trying to type on a 10 inch laptop is just a request to get carpel tunnel IMHO.

13-inch MacBook Pro, if your occasional gaming includes 3D games and price isn't a limiting factor then perhaps a 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Much obliged, everybody - I'll go see what I think of the machines in person (feel of keyboard, etc.) and decide from there.

Master_Baerne wrote:durability is going to be a major selling point.

IBM Thinkpads are (at least they were, I haven't worked on new ones) tough as fucking nails. I've worked on numerous old models (even as recently as 6 months ago) that are beat to hell, but still functioning perfectly. The monitor swing-arms as well as the couplings they mount to, by far the first thing with regular use to go on laptops, are metal on every one I've worked on. Dells swing-arms tend to break down over routine use. I've seen many with metal arms, but plastic couplings. Guess what breaks?

You can get a decent Dell for around $500 that will do you. That gives you enough hardware over base to give the laptop a few more years of life, but without going crazy on upgrades you don't need. You're going to pay a bit more for the Thinkpad but the shit they can survive without even cracking the case is crazy. They start at around $700 and go up and up.

So, anybody have a recommendation? Alternatively, a warning? Reading your horror stories, be that quality, price, or warranty related, will keep me from adding my own horror stories to the next thread like this. Thanks in advance!

I've seen a Dell fall off a Kindergarten school desk (you know, the like 2 foot high ones) onto fairly flush carpet and almost explode. We had to duct-tape the monitor back together and scrounge up a USB keyboard so we could finish the install. Thankfully, the HDD wasn't damaged.

I've seen a Thinkpad slip out of a technicians hand (so about 4-5ft) while open and land on tile. It bent the monitor swing-arm barely enough that it wouldn't close all the way. He just picked it up and kept typing away. They're the Gameboy of laptops.

Dell and HP laptops are great if you can take care of them. You can get better hardware for cheaper than you would with IBM. But for high-mobility and high-use, it's hard to beat out a Thinkpad.

On the Apple front, my sister has used them for years (art major). She had to call Apple support and get transfered around for an hour or so because she couldn't login to any websites that required https or the like. They had her try everything from reinstalling.... what, Opera? Whatever browser they use, to resetting all her security information. Everything else worked fine, it was just her trying to do internet banking and the like.

See if you can guess what the issue was before clicking: When she finally called me, I immediately told her Spoiler

Vyraeth wrote:13-inch MacBook Pro, if your occasional gaming includes 3D games and price isn't a limiting factor then perhaps a 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Sometimes I think I'm being unfair to Mac, then I take a gander at specs and pricing over at the Apple store and groan. The 13" starts at $1200 and the 15" at $1,800. They're also using the hybrid Intel/ATI video card setup which I had nothing but trouble with on the ASUS I bought.

You can get almost any other name brand laptop with equivalent or better hardware and a bigger screen at a retail store (not even custom building one from something like Dell's website which usually save you at least $5-10% and has free shipping) for damn near 1/3 the price of the base price of the 15" Macbook. If money isn't a limiting factor, just buy 3 fucking Dells and throw one away every year.

You could even just buy up a bunch of those $200-250 Acer 11" Minis and throw the broken/slow ones at Mac users when you get bored. Those little bastards are surprisingly well made. I let my dad borrow mine for a business trip because his Dell Lattitude was having issues. He really only uses a laptop for e-mail and document viewing at meetings (which annoys me because I can't convince him to get a smart-phone) and he straight up stole the laptop from me. He just said "I owe you $200." You can also pick-up a 9-cell battery (which weighs 3 times what the laptop does) which will increase the battery life to around 8 hours.

Do not ever buy an Acer. That way only hassle and tech support lie.

ThinkPad T-series.

TheFeniX wrote:IBM Thinkpads are (at least they were, I haven't worked on new ones) tough as fucking nails. I've worked on numerous old models (even as recently as 6 months ago) that are beat to hell, but still functioning perfectly.

That's not the half of it. I picked up a Thinkpad 755CD from 1997 on Freecycle that'd been sitting in the owner's garden shed for about five years, and it booted first time. Only things really wrong with it were bad RAM, dead batteries and a broken CD drive; not bad for a computer made before I'd found out about girls and not very well looked after since. And I reckon the casing would have stood up to anything short of a small-calibre pistol shot.

Thanas wrote:Do not ever buy an Acer. That way only hassle and tech support lie.

Never had a problem with them myself, though I was lucky enough not to need their tech support because mine never actually broke, but the Linux distro the Aspire One shipped with for a while (Linpus Linux Lite, briefly mentioned elsewhere in this thread) is one of the worst operating systems I've ever had the misfortune to use.

Anyone have any opinion on what brands have what build quality? We're buying a netbook for my brother tomorrow, a netbook likely, and I'd like to avoid buying him something that will brake down after a few days. I don't think we can buy him a Thinkpad...

Zixinus wrote:Anyone have any opinion on what brands have what build quality? We're buying a netbook for my brother tomorrow, a netbook likely, and I'd like to avoid buying him something that will brake down after a few days. I don't think we can buy him a Thinkpad...

The Thinkpad X120e is not too expensive and is a competent little machine.

After just that I mentioned that I think we can't afford a Thinkpad...

EDIT: Let me clarify. Our price range is somewhere between 60k and 80k forints. The cheaper, non-used ThinkPads start at 110k. See the problem?

My current laptop is an Asus Eee PC. It's a fairly standard ten-inch model, with the same Intel Atom chipset and 160GB hard drive as almost everything similar on the market, and the maximum screen resolution is 1024x600. Good enough for standard office tasks and Internet browsing, can't cope with high-definition video too well but a DVD rip plays alright. Cost me £200 including next-day shipping from an online retailer, which is right in the middle of your budget going by Yahoo's currency converter.

Zixinus wrote:After just that I mentioned that I think we can't afford a Thinkpad...

EDIT: Let me clarify. Our price range is somewhere between 60k and 80k forints. The cheaper, non-used ThinkPads start at 110k. See the problem?

Sorry, the X120e is a bit cheaper in the US - didn't realize the premium over there was that much.

TheFeniX wrote:

Master_Baerne wrote:durability is going to be a major selling point.

IBM Thinkpads are (at least they were, I haven't worked on new ones) tough as fucking nails. I've worked on numerous old models (even as recently as 6 months ago) that are beat to hell, but still functioning perfectly. The monitor swing-arms as well as the couplings they mount to, by far the first thing with regular use to go on laptops, are metal on every one I've worked on.

Yeah, of the current laptops only MacBooks have good build quality.

TheFeniX wrote:On the Apple front, my sister has used them for years (art major). She had to call Apple support and get transfered around for an hour or so because she couldn't login to any websites that required https or the like. They had her try everything from reinstalling.... what, Opera? Whatever browser they use, to resetting all her security information. Everything else worked fine, it was just her trying to do internet banking and the like.

See if you can guess what the issue was before clicking: When she finally called me, I immediately told her Spoiler

Check your date and time settings, which turned out to be set to 1970 (or something around there. Fucking worthless tech support. Although it really wasn't fair as I had run into many older PCs with dead CMOS batteries and time sensitive programs such as electronic Time-clocks. I had no clue how to actually fix it though. I assume she just double-clicked on the clock or something.

Vyraeth wrote:13-inch MacBook Pro, if your occasional gaming includes 3D games and price isn't a limiting factor then perhaps a 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Sometimes I think I'm being unfair to Mac, then I take a gander at specs and pricing over at the Apple store and groan. The 13" starts at $1200 and the 15" at $1,800. They're also using the hybrid Intel/ATI video card setup which I had nothing but trouble with on the ASUS I bought.

You can get almost any other name brand laptop with equivalent or better hardware and a bigger screen at a retail store (not even custom building one from something like Dell's website which usually save you at least $5-10% and has free shipping) for damn near 1/3 the price of the base price of the 15" Macbook. If money isn't a limiting factor, just buy 3 fucking Dells and throw one away every year.

Wow, were you bullied by a Mac user in school? No, you can't get hardware of the same quality for halve the price. Its bullshitty bullshit thats bullshit. If you buy a cheap laptop - you know, like ASUS - you are going to have the problems you have with cheap stuff. If you want a high quality product you have to pay the price. Apple doesn't sell cheap hardware, so you will invariable have to pay a little more to have the same numbers on the side of the box. Sony VAIOs supposedly are also great (they are in the same price class), but I know two people with VAIOs and they both had huge amounts of troble with them. Or can anyone name another 11" laptop that ISN'T a cheap netbook? Also, lets not talk about displays, because once you have used a Mac, everything else will make you cry.
And thats just the hardware. If you don't want to play (all) games, OSX is at least worth trying. I prefer it, but then again I am a computer scientist, I have higher requirements than most.

Skgoa wrote: Wow, were you bullied by a Mac user in school? No, you can't get hardware of the same quality for halve the price. Its bullshitty bullshit thats bullshit. If you buy a cheap laptop - you know, like ASUS - you are going to have the problems you have with cheap stuff.

Did you just call "ASUS" cheap in reference to quality? I'll let it go because the rest of your post makes it clear the argument would be a waste of time. Instead, I'll put one out there for the ASUS laptop. I got the larger one with a little better hardware for $540 walk-out from Best Buy. I don't usually bother with retail, but that was a pretty damn good deal. I've been an avid ASUS fan since ~2000. I home-built every PC I've had since I was 16. I have a closet full of ASUS parts that still work, but are past their life-cycle. Even back when I was dumb enough to overclock, I never had a part fail and lord knows I tried. At some point, they started making PCs and laptops, so I threw some money at them.

The laptop had a few issues like with some kind of proprietary OS ASUS had installed. You could completely bypass it, but it seemed to be the 2010 equivalent of a boot-disk, but with a GUI. I'm sure some people would find it useful, I did not. The other issue was with the dual intel (for low-power applications) and NVIDIA graphics (for gaming, obviously) that came shipped with a driver that didn't work with Windows 7 after some update from MS. I fixed it with another update from Windows Update, but it was still annoying. But the real kicker is that I wanted a laptop to output UFC PPVs to my Sony Bravia. The HDMI would not work with ANY Sony TV (it DID work on everything NOT Sony as the tech at Best Buy let me walk around the TV section and test it, so what the fuck...). So, I took it back and got a Dell with the same hardware except only with an Intel graphics card, and saved myself $50.

I wish I could have kept that laptop. Even only having 1 day to play with it, it ran nice.

If you want a high quality product you have to pay the price. ::snip::

Ugh, this whole post is one huge advertisement for Apple: all glitz, no actual content. It's like listening to that guy at Best Buy try and convince you to spend $90 for an HDMI cable when you know you can get online and buy the same thing for $15. Just apply for a job working for them and get it over with. Macitosh is the BOSE of computing: decent hardware priced as if the shit was made of solid gold. No matter what you think you're getting, you're paying upwards of 300% markup for the same hardware every other manufacturer is using. This is why I made the joke about throwing ACERs at MAc users, it because they are so full of shit. They actually buy into the bullshit, just like fans of BOSE and people who buy Monster cables at 1000% markup, that they're actually getting something better than all us lowly scrubs. It's bullshit and we wish you'd shut the fuck up about it.

On the Sony VAIO front, I still have one putting around that works which originally had Windows 98 on it. Sony released BIOS patches and other driver updates up until 2003-2004, which let me load XP on it. This is good because from the 3 Sony laptops I've worked on, they have some strange drivers. I would rate them more sturdy than dells or HPs, but I've never had to pleasure of dropping one. They're also moderately priced, but can be loaded down with bloatware out of the box. As much as I despise SOE, I'm still a big fan of Sony hardware. They build to last, but it's unlikely the laptops will take the physical abuse something like a Thinkpad will. But they also support their hardware and software for years after you should have thrown it away. Notable companies that do NOT are Acer and eMachines. Fucking eMachines.....

Your nerd tears taste very sweet.

I came back to post about the deal Dell is having on their 10" Minis (you could get one shipped for around $300), but they still aren't offering to put more than 1GB of RAM in them, so you really can't do shit as Windows 7 will eat that little RAM for breakfast. You could, however, void the warranty first thing and pop in another 1GB of RAM. Reviews seem to claim that run very well with 2GBs.

Skgoa wrote:Your nerd tears taste very sweet.

Since your second post is about as useful as your last one, I'll go ahead and actually offer something on Macs since I can obviously only count on you to gloat about how awesome they are while you look down your nose at your super cool awesome monitor. You know, Apple user SOP: offer nothing except platitudes, then get smug when called on it.

My sister picked up a used MacBook (about 1.5 years old) from a friend who was told she needed to upgrade (for what reason, I have no idea. I can only assume she was being looked down upon because she didn't have this years Air Jordans.... I mean MacBook). She originally wanted $1,000 for it, but I told my sister I wouldn't pay a dime more than $600. They settled on $700. After being forced to work on it to setup iTunes and transfer all of my sister's music and sync it with her iPod, I realized I could see someone paying ~around $800 for it considering the functionality. Two nice things were the screen size and switching applications was generally painless (as it should be considering the hardware). But also, being in the hands of my sister over the course of 2 months before I took a look at it and still running at all, much less running at what I assume is 90%+ speed, is a fucking miracle.

A huge mark against Apple in my book is that iTunes is a bloated, DRM infested piece of shit. On a Windows PC, it's more a nuisance than anything. But on a Mac, it's like Internet Explorer on a Windows 98 machine: you may not be able to see it, but it's there fucking everything up. For a Laptop that ran so smooth with everything else, iTunes couldn't decide what it wanted to do half the time. Multiple times trying to sync, it would just sit there, doing nothing. Considering it takes control of all your content anyway, I can't fathom why it gave me so many problems syncing two Apple products.

If you can get a MacBook used (or new) for $600-$1000, they are pretty well-made laptops. Basically, take the Apple store's prices, take $600 off across the board: and the laptops are priced about right. The problem with getting them second-hand is that I don't know what it does to the warranty. My personal experience with Apple tech support and what I've read online does not give me much confidence in them. If you're dying to use OSX, just load it on a PC or dual boot it. I've read it runs just as well, if not better, on PC hardware.

TheFeniX wrote:I came back to post about the deal Dell is having on their 10" Minis (you could get one shipped for around $300), but they still aren't offering to put more than 1GB of RAM in them, so you really can't do shit as Windows 7 will eat that little RAM for breakfast. You could, however, void the warranty first thing and pop in another 1GB of RAM. Reviews seem to claim that run very well with 2GBs.

Installing one of the more user-friendly Linux distros would preserve the warranty and be a hell of a lot less hassle.

TheFeniX wrote:You can get almost any other name brand laptop with equivalent or better hardware and a bigger screen at a retail store (not even custom building one from something like Dell's website which usually save you at least $5-10% and has free shipping) for damn near 1/3 the price of the base price of the 15" Macbook. If money isn't a limiting factor, just buy 3 fucking Dells and throw one away every year.

TheFeniX wrote:Did you just call "ASUS" cheap in reference to quality? I'll let it go because the rest of your post makes it clear the argument would be a waste of time. Instead, I'll put one out there for the ASUS laptop. I got the larger one with a little better hardware for $540 walk-out from Best Buy. I don't usually bother with retail, but that was a pretty damn good deal.

Prove it. Let's focus on the ASUS laptop you linked earlier:

http://www.google.com/search?q=u36jc&hl ... p%3A1&aq=f

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834220988

The cheapest price I can find on a Google shopping search is 830.99 listed on Buy.com, who has decent seller ratings but I've never personally bought from. I do have experience with Newegg however, and their price is 899. That's a far cry from $540 price you claim to have gotten from a deal at Best Buy. And while it's possible that you may have lucked out on some sort of special deal, that 500 dollar price point is hardly accurate given that Google clearly shows that the price of the laptop varies between 800-1000+ depending on who you buy it from.

Even assuming that the laptop is 800 dollars (and I trust Newegg who has it priced at $900 more than I do buy.com), that's a 400 dollar difference versus the 700 dollar difference you first made it out to be.

And in that difference of price, while that ASUS laptop does have all right specs, it also has a few shortcomings, notably:

1) A 0.3 megapixel camera. Is that a joke? The 13-inch MacBook Pro has a far superior camera quality.
2) A plastic underside compared to the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
3) An outdated processor - it's running an Arrandale processor compared to the 13-inch MacBook Pro's Sandy Bridge processor.

It does have some nice features, like a bigger hard drive, and a discrete graphics card, but it's hardly the pinnacle of value you try to make it out to be.

Furthermore, there's far more to purchasing a computer than a simple specs/price analysis. What kind of software does the ASUS come with? Most likely garbage trial bloatware. What does the Mac come with? Three great software titles that most people who have lives outside of their computer find useful - iPhoto for pictures, iMovie for home movies, and GarageBand for recording music. Is there a Windows equivalent? If so, how does it honestly compare? I doubt nearly as well.

That's not even considering the fact that the operating system upgrades for a Mac are far less expensive than for a Windows user. Leopard to Snow Leopard was a $29 dollar upgrade, Snow Leopard to Lion will be a $29 dollar upgrade as well. Compare that to XP -> Vista -> Windows 7, where the average price is 100-200 per upgrade depending on which version of Windows you chose to go with (that also begs the question, why the fuck are there three different tiers of OS software that carry the same product name?).

Additionally, you also seem to forget that Apple has actual retail stores that provide training for the computer, work shops, and repairs. If you have a warranty issue with your ASUS, Dell, HP, etc. the procedure is to send it off to a depot for repair after wrangling with someone on the phone in the first place.

If you have a warranty issue with a Mac, you can take it to an Apple Store, where repairs can begin on site immediately (most of the time), that cuts down on the transit time for the computer. Not to mention that Apple's customer service is excellent and technicians make an effort to finish repairs as soon as possible. Can you honestly say the same for other computer companies? Doubtful.

TheFeniX wrote:On the Apple front, my sister has used them for years (art major). She had to call Apple support and get transfered around for an hour or so because she couldn't login to any websites that required https or the like. They had her try everything from reinstalling.... what, Opera? Whatever browser they use, to resetting all her security information. Everything else worked fine, it was just her trying to do internet banking and the like.

Oh my, here we go. What an eye opening anecdote about how terrible Apple phone support is. Let's go back to reality here and put some actual evidence on the table.

http://www.macworld.com/article/133293/ ... sumer.html

Consumer Reports ranks Apple's support top in both the laptop and desktop category - easily beating out the likes of Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, HP, and Gateway. But yeah, don't let actual research stand in your way, bud.

TheFeniX wrote: Two nice things were the screen size and switching applications was generally painless (as it should be considering the hardware). But also, being in the hands of my sister over the course of 2 months before I took a look at it and still running at all, much less running at what I assume is 90%+ speed, is a fucking miracle.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe that's because Apple designs the operating system and a good majority of the software that runs on it? That there's costs associated with that kind of research and development? There's a reason Apple's Mac business continues to grow quarter after quarter while the PC business declines - because they make a top notch product. And more often than not, you get what you pay for.

TheFeniX wrote:If you can get a MacBook used (or new) for $600-$1000, they are pretty well-made laptops.

You can get a brand new MacBook for 999, 899 with an education discount. Both of those prices are within your range, and not used. You can get a brand new MacBook Pro for 1199, 1099 with an education discount. Those prices are only slightly out of your range.

Thank you for confirming that Apple makes good laptops, although that's already been well established.

TheFenix wrote:The problem with getting them second-hand is that I don't know what it does to the warranty. My personal experience with Apple tech support and what I've read online does not give me much confidence in them.

We've already established that your personal experiences and reality are not in line with one another. Therefore, your confidence on this issue doesn't really matter.

TheFeniX wrote:My sister picked up a used MacBook (about 1.5 years old) from a friend who was told she needed to upgrade (for what reason, I have no idea. I can only assume she was being looked down upon because she didn't have this years Air Jordans.... I mean MacBook). She originally wanted $1,000 for it, but I told my sister I wouldn't pay a dime more than $600. They settled on $700.

Thanks for confirming another good reason to buy a Mac. The fact that Mac's tend to hold their value longer than a PC - your sister paid 700 dollars for a machine that cost 999 when it debuted 1.5 years ago. That means the person she bought it from retained 70% of the value of their investment. Think about it.

Now, of course, it's possible you're confusing MacBook with MacBook Pro because you're not familiar with the proper model names for the computers, and if that's the case, my calculations are certainly off. Not to mention I don't know which model of MacBook your sister has. But even if that's the case, I'm sure if we reassessed things, the point - as it often is - would be proven that the Mac still retained a ton of value.

TheFeniX wrote:Macitosh is the BOSE of computing: decent hardware priced as if the shit was made of solid gold. No matter what you think you're getting, you're paying upwards of 300% markup for the same hardware every other manufacturer is using.

And yet, where is the proof of this? Your earlier example didn't pan out, and I doubt you can show me a comparatively spec'd Dell that is 300% less expensive than an equivalent Mac. Cut the hyperbole, the myth that Mac's are overpriced is just that - a myth.

TheFenix wrote:This is why I made the joke about throwing ACERs at MAc users, it because they are so full of shit. They actually buy into the bullshit, just like fans of BOSE and people who buy Monster cables at 1000% markup, that they're actually getting something better than all us lowly scrubs. It's bullshit and we wish you'd shut the fuck up about it.

Please prove how Mac users are so full of shit. If anything, it's clearly you who are - with your magical 500 dollar ASUS laptops that end up being 800+ when priced online.

Let's say nothing of your bullshit assertion that Mac user's are smug, that's simply not true. There's a reason Apple's Mac business has continually grown year over year (sometimes with double digit numbers), because consumers are buying them (many for the first time), and there's a reason for that. Mac users don't sit around drinking the Apple Kool Aid, and they certainly are not stupid. They realize a quality product for what it is, quality.

There are boons to the PC world - you can configure custom machines with parts from Newegg that are great for gaming, or photoshop. Windows 7 has a very good UI, and Microsoft Security Essentials is a nice add on. There are also manufacturer's with great build quality like Lenovo. Believe me, I'm hardly anti-PC.

But don't come into this thread making up bullshit prices and generally misrepresenting Mac's. Show me some numbers that prove Mac's are overpriced. And make sure you factor in the quality of the display, the level of support, the software included while doing so. I know you can't, but I'll enjoy the attempt.

What kind of software does the ASUS come with? Most likely garbage trial bloatware. What does the Mac come with? Three great software titles that most people who have lives outside of their computer find useful - iPhoto for pictures, iMovie for home movies, and GarageBand for recording music. Is there a Windows equivalent?

Actually, as someone who has brought an EEEpc and a regular notebook, Asus does not come with any more bloatware than any other laptop I know of.

As for your iSoftware, please don't make us laugh: yes, they have native windows equivalent (although I admit that I am unsure how the sound recording software compares). Not to mention a large, online availability of equivalents, if not likely superior versions.

Beyond that, it would be a shot in the foot for any sane OS developer not to have these functions: media management are basic functions nowadays for personal computers. Pointing out that Macs come with it is like pointing out that cars have lights.

Oh, and regard to pricing:

I'm checking a store here and comparing that [url˛=http://www.pcx.hu/termek/lenovo-ideapad ... book-74365]this Ideapad[/url].
Price comparision? 293k (yes, there is a sale on it at the moment) which is 1619$ ATM versus 118k (roughly 639$) for the Ideapad. Mostly the same, except for a smaller webcam and the Ideapad using a HDD instead of a flashdrive. If I were to buy a netbook in the price range I gave earlier, I could indeed buy three regular netbooks for the price of one Apple netbook.

So, I think the pricing thing may have to do with the region you are in. In the USA, of course it's cheaper.

Zixinus wrote:Actually, as someone who has brought an EEEpc and a regular notebook, Asus does not come with any more bloatware than any other laptop I know of.

What the fuck does that matter? My point is that it comes with bloatware in the first place, which you've just confirmed. A Mac doesn't.

Zixinus wrote:As for your iSoftware, please don't make us laugh: yes, they have native windows equivalent (although I admit that I am unsure how the sound recording software compares).

OK, I looked into it and there is both photo and movie editing software on Windows 7. I also did a quick Google search to see what people said about them compared to iPhoto and iMovie, and it looks like the thought on them ranges from mediocre to junk. Admittedly, I have no objective evidence to present about both sets of software compared to one another, so I suppose we'll leave it there.

I will say that the one advantage to iMovie and iPhoto is that there's comprehensive support behind them, you can go to an Apple retail store to learn to use them, in addition to more advanced software brethren they have like Aperture and Final Cut Pro. I'm certain Microsoft doesn't offer more advanced photo and movie editing software, nor training for their own software like Apple does.

I could find no sound recording software made by Microsoft for Windows, and you don't even seem to have a clear idea of what Windows software comes for these tasks in the first place, that simply goes back to my original point.

Zixinus wrote: Not to mention a large, online availability of equivalents, if not likely superior versions.

You do realize there's "a large, online availability of equivalents" for Mac OS X as well, right? Obviously not, because the fucking point sailed over your head.

I brought up the software that comes with Mac OS X because for many customers it adds value to the computer. iMovie, iPhoto, and Garageband are programmed well, excellently thought out, and furthermore - supported by the company, allowing the end user to attend workshops in Apple's retail stores or take lessons to furthermore learn about these titles.

That kind of easy access to those tasks and support justify part of the cost of the computer. The fact that there may or may not be third party software you can install that replicates some or all of the functionality is irrelevant, because it almost certainly does not have the same level of support the native software does.

Not to mention, you like to talk about vague alternatives to the Mac OS X software, but I've yet to see you point to specific third party or Microsoft replacements - you couldn't even come up with a decent alternative for Garageband.

Zixinus wrote:Beyond that, it would be a shot in the foot for any sane OS developer not to have these functions: media management are basic functions nowadays for personal computers. Pointing out that Macs come with it is like pointing out that cars have lights.

What wit you have, Zixinus. No shit other computers come with media management software, my point isn't that alternatives don't exist - it's how good those alternatives are. Now, I can't make an objective argument for the superiority of the Apple software titles on a web forum, but I can tell you, with an anecdotal side note, that I've never seen anyone heartily recommend Windows Movie Maker over iMovie - if anything, it is much the opposite.

I would only encourage that you try it for yourself and tell me what you think. Admittedly, I also haven't used Windows Movie Maker, so perhaps I don't give it enough credit.

Zixinus wrote:Price comparision? 293k (yes, there is a sale on it at the moment) which is 1619$ ATM versus 118k (roughly 639$) for the Ideapad. Mostly the same, except for a smaller webcam and the Ideapad using a HDD instead of a flashdrive. If I were to buy a netbook in the price range I gave earlier, I could indeed buy three regular netbooks for the price of one Apple netbook.

So, I think the pricing thing may have to do with the region you are in. In the USA, of course it's cheaper.

1) Flash HD storage is far more expensive per gigabyte than regular HD storage, it also offers superior performance.
2) The webcam is not nearly as good.
3) Where are the specs for the laptop's dimensions on that page? I'll bet you it's not nearly as thin as the MacBook Air, which is a huge selling point for the Mac.
4) I don't buy your assertion that the processor on that netbook and the MacBook Air are mostly the same. The clock speed is the same, but that doesn't mean nearly as much as the architecture of the chip. And I'd be willing to bet that a Core 2 Duo can beat that Bravo in head to head benchmarks. Unfortunately, although I searched for some, I couldn't find any detailed benchmarks on the Bravo processor. Mind linking me?

I do agree though, Apple's prices outside of the US tend to be higher than they are in the US, sometimes far more than you'd expect.

My point is that it comes with bloatware in the first place, which you've just confirmed. A Mac doesn't.

According to you.

Frankly, the rest of your counter-arguments regarding software quality can be simply summed up as such: Macs are just better. That's it. Anything Apple apparently makes is made of pure gold.
Excuse me for being sceptical.

I could find no sound recording software made by Microsoft for Windows

There is a sound recording software (aptly named Sound Recorder in Vista), it was in it all way since Win98 at least.

Not to mention, you like to talk about vague alternatives to the Mac OS X software, but I've yet to see you point to specific third party or Microsoft replacements - you couldn't even come up with a decent alternative for Garageband.

I was not asked for ones. But I can mention at least one from the top of my head: Audacity.

No shit other computers come with media management software, my point isn't that alternatives don't exist - it's how good those alternatives are

In your own post you asked and you implied that there isn't.

1) Flash HD storage is far more expensive per gigabyte than regular HD storage, it also offers superior performance.

If I brought a regular netbook and brought a 64 gig SDD, I would still would have come out cheaper than the Mac. In fact, I could buy a 128 Gig SDD and still be cheaper.

) The webcam is not nearly as good.

The only comment I can give, is that the only thing I was able to tell about the camera that it was an Apple camera because rather than specs, it has a fancy name. I have no idea how many megapixels the webcam has and frankly, I don't care much: I simply don't use webcams.

I do agree though, Apple's prices outside of the US tend to be higher than they are in the US, sometimes far more than you'd expect.

To an American, maybe Macs are affordable. For the prices it goes here, I would expect a Mac to sprout legs and be able to do wizardry ,like Spot from Young Wizards.

Seriously, I've looked around the store I've linked: that was the cheapest laptop in there.

The price is simply outragous. I am willing to believe that it is of better quality, but at simply far too high a price to be even worth considering.
As far as I can see from specs alone, Macs good but only by a step or so. Definitely not enough to justify going not 20% more or even 50% more but 100% more than a laptop of similar capability from Lenovo.

Even for a Mac netbook (which again, is the cheapest netbook I can find in that store), I could buy a far more powerful full-sized laptop, with an OS that is compatible with most of the programs I already use and familiar with, with several accessories (including more memory and SDD drives) and still have plenty of left over.

I could buy a motorcycle even!
I simply don't believe that such a price reflects value. As for "you get what you paid for" mentality: just because something is expensive doesn't mean that it's better. Maybe in the USA, where the price is less it may be worth to you. But to me, Macs just seem far too overexpensive to be even worth considering.

Macs are only for people who like no choices, Apple bloatware/stupid outdated stuff like quicktime etc. Oh, and if you are in a university setting and have to travel, sometimes Mac will have huge problems with configuring wireless lan. It has gotten to the point that some people had to create whole new user accounts just because Mac refuses to accept changes to wlan or has some hidden stuff that prevents a complete change.

Oh, and no VGA port forces you to carry around a stupid adapter if you ever want to give a presentation on a beamer.