New computer - Mac or PC?

[deeter]

I'd never spent my own money on a Mac before, so took the plunge recently and got a refurbished MacBook Pro. I pretty much regret it. The quality has slipped since their heydey and I've had various repeated, niggling problems with it. The peripherals are appallingly overpriced (£125 for a thunderbolt to USB/HDMI/DP adapter? Really??) and I think the OSX UI is badly designed at times.

I should have trusted my gut and got a Dell or Lenovo and installed Ubuntu. I would've saved at least £500...


The build quality of the chassis isn't as nice on an XPS, but that's a tiny price to pay, _especially_ if you have it docked and connected to a monitor most of the time.

[ladymuck]

Just bought a new Dell XPS13, light and nippy enough for what I need.

Last two ClientCos have supplied Lenovos which aren't bad either, although the Yoga X380 I'm currently using is woefully underpowered for what I do.

Never owned any Apple product, I doubt I ever will.

[woohoo]

I switched to Mac a few years ago now, 4-5 I think. What I really like is never having to worry about virus scans or quarantine or Malwarebytes. I recall my PC was filled with utilities for this or that and I had a cupboard full of AV boot discs. And I was very much an ordinary user, a bit of SFW web browsing and MS office.

As a bonus, I'm now doing dev work and I love Xcode, although I'm no hard-core coder by any means and I doubt I scratch the surface of its capabilities.

I'm trying to muster the courage to spend £5k on a new fully specced Mac Mini, but I probably won't just yet!

For me, the extra cost of the Mac is no bother compared to just how nice and easy to use it is

Agree of course that is you need Project or Visio, get a PC !

I do wonder if this kind of advice is a bit outdated now, no offence. I also like the Mac OS and Xcode is fine.

But I’ve been running windows 10 with the built in antivirus for a good while now without any issues. I take basic precautions like not installing software I don’t know or trust. But same for Mac OS.
I don’t know anyone that has had a virus in the last few years.

[Hobosapien]

Just bought a replacement win 10 pro laptop, more or less identical to what you mention (8gb, i5, 256gb ssd storage, 14-15"), it's a Lenovo...no touchscreen but I never use that anyway. £668 delivered next day; eBuyer - Thinkpad E590, does the job.

I recently bought similar but a grade 1 refurbed Thinkpad T440 (a proper Thinkpad ) for £250 with 1 year warranty.

Ok so the trackpad is a crap iteration (they went back to proper buttons with the T450) but for my use it's currently 100% deskbound with a usb mouse. It also only had 120gb SSD but banged in a second 240gb SSD (M.2) for £40.

My last two laptops have been refurbished Lenovo from reputable reseller sources. It seems a no-brainer way of getting a decent quality business focused laptop that is built to last a good few more years, for peanuts, seeing as there are thousands of them being refurbed and resold after their short corporate life has ended.

[Platypus]

I switched to Mac a few years ago now, 4-5 I think. What I really like is never having to worry about virus scans or quarantine or Malwarebytes. I recall my PC was filled with utilities for this or that and I had a cupboard full of AV boot discs. And I was very much an ordinary user, a bit of SFW web browsing and MS office.

As a bonus, I'm now doing dev work and I love Xcode, although I'm no hard-core coder by any means and I doubt I scratch the surface of its capabilities.

I'm trying to muster the courage to spend £5k on a new fully specced Mac Mini, but I probably won't just yet!

For me, the extra cost of the Mac is no bother compared to just how nice and easy to use it is

Agree of course that is you need Project or Visio, get a PC !

[SteelyDan]

For a generic business laptop, is Dell as good as anyone these days, or is it worth shopping around? I've never got on with HP (crapware) but I haven't bought a Windows laptop new for perhaps a decade!

I think my only hard requirement is SSD. I'd probably spec at 8gb, i5, 256gb storage, 14-15".

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

Just bought a replacement win 10 pro laptop, more or less identical to what you mention (8gb, i5, 256gb ssd storage, 14-15"), it's a Lenovo...no touchscreen but I never use that anyway. £668 delivered next day; eBuyer - Thinkpad E590, does the job.

[cojak]

For a generic business laptop, is Dell as good as anyone these days, or is it worth shopping around? I've never got on with HP (crapware) but I haven't bought a Windows laptop new for perhaps a decade!

I think my only hard requirement is SSD. I'd probably spec at 8gb, i5, 256gb storage, 14-15".

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

My Dell has all that plus 500gb SSD and a graphics card for my Enterprise Architect application.

[d000hg]

For a generic business laptop, is Dell as good as anyone these days, or is it worth shopping around? I've never got on with HP (crapware) but I haven't bought a Windows laptop new for perhaps a decade!

I think my only hard requirement is SSD. I'd probably spec at 8gb, i5, 256gb storage, 14-15".

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

[sal]

I had the same dilemma, just a month ago. My main Desktop PC is a massive gaming rig with triple GPU, full water cooling and what not.

My problem is that I no longer play much/at all and the gaming PC is emitting ungodly amount of heat (not to mention consuming too much leecy), which is bad news in hot summer days. So I was looking at options to retire the monster and replace it with something that would still allow me to play games if I want to, but be cool and quiet for the 95% of the time that I don't play. The best way to achieve this is an external eGPU enclosure on TB3 and laptop/PC with TB3 ports. I narrowed it down to essentially 3 options:

Mac Mini, Macbook air, or non-apple Laptop.

Although we are "Apple shop" when it comes to mobiles and the missus is using an aged Macbook air as her laptop, I just couldn't stomach the price premium and lack of warranty/repair-ability of the first 2 options. For the price of a high spec Mac mini / Macbook Air (Core i5 / 16GB RAM / 256-512 SSD) with 1 year warranty, where if something goes wrong with customised gear you have to wait for days/weeks for a replacement. I ended up with a top spec Core i7 16GB RAM 1TB Dell XPS13 Laptop with 5 years of next business day on site warranty.

Desktop PC isn't really worth it, unless it's for pure gaming. For like £100-200 more you will get a laptop with same specs and decent screen, that is quieter and portable.

[d000hg]

Currently, have a new mac mini for iOS dev work and have a Surface book2 for .Net development. I can tell you which one I prefer but I don't think it would help you if all your work is remote. I guess go for a laptop with a good screen, keyboard, battery and sounds like any OS will do you.

It's also my main home PC - I think I've come to prefer MacOS for general use but probably not enough to pay an extra £500 for it.

I was thinking about this the other day, I use a Mac for home and typically clients give me a PC. If it's new enough and nicely specced (screen, ram, basic CPU, nothing drastic), I'd happily work on either.

The only thing I would say is that Macs don't run Visio or Project unless you use something like Parallels. That can come up quite a lot and in one situation I was emailed a project plan and expected to feed back on it half an hour later and had to do some very quick installing

I have had that before. Equally for non-work stuff, some apps are Mac only (in music for example).

Technically, a Mac will let you do both via BootCamp/Parallels but a PC won't let you run MacOS (I cannot be arsed with Hackintosh stuff).


I was looking at Dell yesterday and seems like even for £500 you can get a reasonable 15" laptop. Nothing special but probably enough IF I want a laptop. Though I'd have to check it can drive my QHD monitor via HDMI. Of course, I'd love a proper dock but they are £200 which I balk at rather!

I assume I can find a PC equivalent of MacMini if I don't want a beige box - I do like the small form factor