Mac or Dell - Page 5

On February 04 2009 16:22 eX-Corgh wrote:
This thread is getting more and more retarded with such single-line replys like "Macs suck", "Plz dont get a Mac", "You can't game on a Mac", "Macs are for eye candy", "You can't do anything with Mac", "I have 5 TB RAM and over 9000 GHz CPU and Macs have nothing for more $$"........... sigh

To OP: please disregard such comments because they are posted by people who never seen/used/owned a Mac or they did but a looong time ago and don't know what they are talking about.

I see that you are planning to use the laptop for studying, editing/storing photos, playing SC and other general computer stuff (internet, IM, etc).

The main reason people use Macs is not the hardware - its the software. The Mac OS X "Leopard" operating system is considered by many to be "on the next level" compared to Windows. It has an intuitive and easy to use GUI, works fast, isn't bloated, supports all kinds of stuff, can be used in many fields, has UNIX base so its incredibly stable and secure (yes, NO viruses for Macs at ALL), doesn't require as much maintenance as Windows. Apple says it "Just works" and I agree with this statement. I've been using Macs for over 10 years and I have yet to run into a serious problem with them. When you connect a divice it doesn't require drives in most cases, setup is extremely easy and intuitive if necessary at all. In short, using a computer is much less frustrating.

Some of its features are really nice:

- Exposé. Press a button and all of your open windows are scaled and located on the screen so that all are visible at once without overlap. Select the one you want and it is brought to the foreground while the rest slide back to their original place. Press another button and all your open windows slide behind the screen edges and your is desktop visible at once. Do whatever you needed to do on a desktop and press that button again to have all those open windows back to their original place. A VERY useful feature for small screens (MacBook).

- Spaces. Make up to 16 screen spaces available and move between then with a press of a button. For example have web browser/mail/chat in one space, some Word documents in the other, music player in the 3rd, Microsoft Windows open in virtualization software (see 1) Study) in the 4th space, etc. Helps you organize your work (and play), especially helpful for small screens.

- QuickLook. Preview files without opening them just by pressing Space bar. Files can be anything from text documents to movies and multi-page PDFs.

- Time Machine. The automatic backup software, absolutely THE best I've ever seen. All you need is an external hard drive (you can get a Terabyte for less than 150$ these days). It is absolutely amazing! No setup required, just plug in the HD, press "On" and never worry about data loss ever again. For a demo of how great this is, watch the Leopard Guided Tour (Time Machine is at 9.35 minute mark)

- Spotlight. The fastest system-wide searching tool I've seen in any OS. Starts giving you the result as you are still typing a word to search for. Results are instantly grouped by kind with more recent items on top of the list (closer to the input point). Can be used to instantly find things from applications and files to areas in FDF maps, metadata in your photos music, etc. Windows XP search is pathetic in comparison, while the one in Vista is better than XPs, but still can't match Spotlight.

Thats just a few highlights of Mac OS X features that make people love Macs ^^

Now, to your requests:

1) Study.

Macs have a bunch of software to choose from for this.

- Apple's own iWork suite which contains easy to use/learn and intuitive applications for word processing, page layout, presentations, spreadsheets. Its compatible with Word, PowerPoint, Excel formats as well as PDF and other industry standards.

- The next package is Microsoft's Office 2008 which is basically a Mac version of Office 2007 for Windows. Its more expensive than iWork, but provides familiar environment if you're so used to Office and has ultimate compatibility with other Office documents.

- Free alternatives are NeoOffice, OpenOffice and others. These are viable alternatives, especially if you don't want to pay for your office suite (or dont want to download them from torrents), but they lack some features and are not as refined as payed software. I know a few people who use exclusively Open Office because they refuse to pay Microsoft any money for BS software they make ^^. The feature set is enough in most cases.

Besides office suite you may need some additional specialized software depending on your major, but if it doesn't have a Mac version or alternative you can use Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion to run Windows (or Linux, or other OS) alongside Mac OS X without need for rebooting each time you want to use a different OS and with other convenient features.

2) Editing/managing photos.

Again, a bunch of great software is available. If you are not a professional in this area:

- As a part of Apple's iLife suite that comes with every Mac for free, the iPhoto application does a great job of storing, organizing and editing your photos. The ease of use, very intuitive interface, integration with the rest of iLife's applications and some nice features make it my personal favorite application in its category.

- The next is Google Picasa. I have no first-hand experience with it, but from various reports online its a very good competitor to iPhoto. And its free too.

- Pixelmator. Inexpensive photo-editing software with great interface with similar layout as behemoth Photoshop and many similar features. Has the ability to use your graphics card and OS X's built it Core Image technology to edit photos fast and efficient.

- Adobe Photoshop Elements is more of an editing software, but has organizing funcionality too. Not free, but more advanced editing features.

If you're Pro or a serious hobbyist:

- Apple Aperture. Basically a much more advanced version of iPhoto with a more complicated, but more efficient for heavy use interface. Excellent for RAW processing and storing, powerful organization and editing tools, including batch processing. Has a very nice "image versions" feature that allows you to make as many versions of the original "Master" photo as you like, while taking very little space (only changes are saved, so each version os like a few KBs in size). This is the application I use myself.

- Adobe Lightroom. A competitor to Aperture and seems very well-made and refined too. Interface is similar to the Creative Suite apps and has tight integration with it. More expensive than Aperture.

- Adobe Photoshop. An industry-standard photo editor. Not much to tell, same as the Windows version basically.

3) Playing SC

That's already been said by other posters, but I'll say it again. Yes, there is Starcraft for Mac, yes its runs just like Windows version, yes you can play on ICCUP, BUT you can't have AntiHack, Lat changer, etc. But thats if you're running a Mac version. Windows version which you can run in either BootCamp (by dual-booting) or virtualization (see Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion above) lets you have all that.

4) General computer useage.

This includes web browsing, e-mail, chat, file transfers, music, moves, tv-shows, etc etc.

- For the web browser you have a ton of options. The default browser is Apple Safari and is very good. Its not bloated, runs fast, has a pleasant interface, tight integration with the OS (for links, bookmarks, search, etc). My favorite.

The competitor is of course Firefox. Most of people use either Safari or this, but there are less widespread browsers as well.

- E-mails are covered either by the default Mail or 3rd party software such as Microsoft Entourage (part of Office suite), Thunderbird, etc.

- IM chat is not deprived of vividness too. The king is (IMO) a multi-protocol-in-one application called Adium. Supports protocols such as MSN, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, GoogleTalk, Facebook Chat, MySpace IM, Jabber, QQ, etc. No need to keep multiple IM apps if you use multiple protocols. Open Adium and it lets you stay connected and being able to chat in all of them. No bloat, nice and tight. The most customizable software I've ever seen. Oh and its free of course. The drawback is that it doesn't yet support video/audio chat, but developers promise its inclusion in the next major version.

The next app is Apple's iChat which supports AIM, MobileMe, ICQ and other protocols, but also has the A/V chat feature. The best A/V chat app if your interlocutor also has a Mac.

Skype. A/V chat app, compatible with Windows version. The best cross-platform a/v chat software.

MSN Messenger. Part of the Microsoft Office suite or can be downloaded separately for free. Never used it so can't tell much about it. Obviously for MSN protocol only.

- File transfers: Download managers, torrent clients, FTP, P2P, etc.

Speed Download is one of the best download managers. Others include iGetter, etc

Torrent clients: Transmission, Vuze, paid Xtorrent, uTorrent (still a beta though), etc

FTP: Speed Download (see download managers), Cyberduck, etc

P2P: Limewire, etc.

- For music management and listening I strongly recommend Apple iTunes. The best jukebox software for Mac. There are alternatives though if you don't like it. An awesome add-on for iTunes is Coversutra - improves your experience with iTunes even more.

- Videos are covered partly by iTunes for viewing and storing them, but other software includes:

VLC - a player that supports virtually all video formats. Can also be used for live SC watching.

Perian QuickTime component significantly broadens the number of supported formats in QuickTime (iTunes and Front Row as well). A must-have.

Handbrake - Mainly a DVD conversion tool. Insert a movie on DVD, choose the preset (for iPod, for PSP, just for computer screen, etc) and click start, wait, enjoy the result ready for storing/archiving/viewing/, etc. Can also be used to convert movies other than DVDs, like an AVI you've downloaded, or FLV, XVID, whatever.

In short, despite a popular belief, there is absolutely no problem with software on Macs.

Hardware

As for the hardware part of the question, I can tell you this. Macs aren't overpriced. If you match a comparable PC in specs the price difference is virtually none or probably slightly more for Macs. When I say "comparable" I mean comparable in ALL or MOST aspects of the specification. This includes not only CPU, RAM, graphics and screen, but also case thickness, battery life, quality, etc. The only real drawback Macs have now is that there's no way to watch Blue-Ray (other than in Windows with an external blue-ray drive plugged in), but additional features in Mac laptops like MultiTouch trackpad, MagSafe power cord (that will save your laptop from flying down from the table or bed more times than you can imagine), better design, (in most cases) thinner and more solid construction, lighter weight, Wi-Fi N, Bluetooth 2.1, keyboard backlight (on higher end models), better case materials usually make up for it in terms of price.

You just can't compare a loud 1.3" thick 2.5 kg cheap plastic ugly PC laptop with nothing in it except for basic computer components and with a battery that lasts 2 hours max to a 0.9" thick 2 kg beautiful MacBook in the strong aluminium case, LED display, MagSafe, Multitouch glass trackpad, newest Bluetooth and wi-fi chips and over 4 hours of real battery life that is still just as fast in performance. Its just not the same league. Again, its all about selecting comparable hardware.

Aslo, considering the value of the software that comes free on all Macs and no need to buy Anti-virus (annually) its safe to say that the actual cost is lower than PC.

If you think you don't need any of this stuff - fine, no problems, go and buy a PC. Macs aren't for everyone (same with PCs). Both have their uses.

Sorry for the huge post, I'm done. Hope this helped someone.

On February 04 2009 19:23 LimitlessSky wrote:
Wow..so in-depth.

MACs sound indestructible...

so Macs already have free fall sensors of some sort?

On February 04 2009 07:35 joohyunee wrote:
btw Macs get RIDICULOUSLY nice benefits in terms of warranty - my friend's mac broke down once, she sent it to the repair shop, and they sent her a NEW macbook. getting a 2.2GHz instead of the 2.0 she sent them was an added bonus.

On February 04 2009 16:22 eX-Corgh wrote:

Macs aren't overpriced.

On February 04 2009 16:22 eX-Corgh wrote:

Macs aren't overpriced.

On February 04 2009 16:22 eX-Corgh wrote:
The main reason people use Macs is not the hardware - its the software.

...but additional features in Mac laptops like MultiTouch trackpad, MagSafe power cord (that will save your laptop from flying down from the table or bed more times than you can imagine), better design, (in most cases) thinner and more solid construction, lighter weight, Wi-Fi N, Bluetooth 2.1, keyboard backlight (on higher end models), better case materials usually make up for it in terms of price.

On February 05 2009 03:26 Fontong wrote:

Yeah they are. And in addition to being overpriced they suck.

LOL I took a look at the apple site. woww In order to get a computer that is equivalent to mine costs about 4000$. I assembled mine for about 600$ + reused a few old parts.

Going from 2gb ram to 4gb ram costs 500$. Please tell me that isn't overprice, I would love to hear you say that.
Edit: The ram isn't even 1066mhz, 800 only lol and in 4 slots

Also many of the problems that you get from using vista are actually caused by all the bloatware that ships with it. I'm using a clean install on my custom gaming computer and I haven't had any problems yet.