Question for NickFitz et al

[EqualOpportunities]

Need to buy my little Sis a laptop for Uni. She says she wants a Mac.

My knowledge of Macs is contained within this post.

Help.

[Moscow Mule]

Two big choices, Macbook or Macbook Pro.

Macbook Pro has a dedicated graphics card and other shiny bits.

Unless she's doing an animation/other graphics intensive course the Macbook should be fine.

Then, just decide how much you want to spend...

[HairyArsedBloke]

MAC's are for girls and gays.

Anyone who recommends them in posts below takes it up the aris more than I do.

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Damn. MM got a post in before me.

[cojak]

I hate aris,

I'm more of a casewise girl meself...

[bogeyman]

Any specific reason she wants a Mac or is it just for the pose value?

What's she reading at Uni. If she's doing anything art/design related then a Mac would be a good choice as it still seems to be what most 'creatives' use.

The Macbook is nice:

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/hom...ok?mco=MTE3MjE

The Macbook Pro is probably overkill.

You may want to upgrade RAM from the supplied 2Gb but don't buy the memory from Apple - it's a huge ripoff. Buy Kingston memory and fit it yourself for less than half the price.

Add on the cost of MS Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition. There's NeoOffice as a free alternative, but sometimes it just doesn't cut it.

You might want to get an OEM copy of Win XP as well just in case she needs to run some Windows app or other in the future (dual boot or in a VM).

[Bear]

I hate aris,

I'm more of a casewise girl meself...

me too

[Fred Bloggs]

£1799.00p for a 17" Mac Book Pro ?

That must be double or more the price of an equivalent PC laptop?

[bogeyman]

£1799.00p for a 17" Mac Book Pro ?

That must be double or more the price of an equivalent PC laptop?

Spec out the nearest Dell (Precision M6300) to the same level (esp. graphics card) and the price difference drops considerably. The Mac is still more expensive but for some people it's worth the premium.

I can't imagine who'd want to lug a 17" laptop around though.

[Fred Bloggs]

Spec out the nearest Dell (Precision M6300) to the same level (esp. graphics card) and the price difference drops considerably. The Mac is still more expensive but for some people it's worth the premium.

I can't imagine who'd want to lug a 17" laptop around though.

I'll take your word on the Dell. But FWIW the Mac uses the same Intel Core 2 CPU, the same Geforce graphics card, memory etc... that I'm sat here using in my Wintel box. This cost me £500. My conclusion is that you're paying a LOT of money for the brand and a very overpriced operating system.

Just a thought though, if the hardware is now very, very similar on a bog standard Wintel box to the Mac, won't the Apple OS run the Wintel box? As a "hackintosh"? Would be a lot cheaper I guess.

[bogeyman]

I'll take your word on the Dell. But FWIW the Mac uses the same Intel Core 2 CPU, the same Geforce graphics card, memory etc... that I'm sat here using in my Wintel box. This cost me £500. My conclusion is that you're paying a LOT of money for the brand and a very overpriced operating system.

Just a thought though, if the hardware is now very, very similar on a bog standard Wintel box to the Mac, won't the Apple OS run the Wintel box? As a "hackintosh"? Would be a lot cheaper I guess.

Yes it's undeniably true that you pay a price premium. But in my experience, it's worth the extra to have a nicely designed and engineered bit of kit rather than a thrown-together beige box. I spend a lot of time working on it, so I want it to look and feel good.

I much prefer using OS X to Windows. I still need Visual Studio (still nothing else to touch it IMO) occasionally, but less and less.

Apple are currently suing some firm for selling 'hackintosh' boxes, which I think is a shame, but understandable.

Apple still can't make a decent mouse though. The 'mighty mouse' is a sick joke. First thing you do when you unpack a new Mac is throw it away and get an MS or Logitech one.