Help me select my new computer

im actually not too surprised, we briefly went over this in our international business class, it seems the indian education system concentrates more on rote memorization instead of visualization, which explains the generally higher scores in math and science, where creativity isnt needed.

 

Wow, your discussion has turned into a typical student type of bashing. The only one holier than thou seems to be you.

Oh.. and check your facts, your biased links suck.

Try an independent one instead.
CNET Prizefight: Mac vs. PC laptops - CNET reviews

ZC1

 

What are you talking about?
You've just acted as prosecutor, judge and jury.
Your logic sucks.

ZC1

 

There is no fight. If the original poster is not being served, then I'm out. I've said enough to get the truth out.

ZC1

 

my friends have build quad cores for very cheap (under 1k). go quad core.

 

I wonder if ZC1 read and understood the CNET article he posted. It compares the performance of a MacBook Pro and a similarly matched PC. In the performance tests, it compared the performance of OS X and Windows XP Pro, not Windows vs Windows running natively on the MacBook Pro.

At the time of the CNET test, most of the software (Adobe, Sorenson, etc.) used in the test was written for the older PPC chip and was emulated by Apple's Rosetta (the test OS was 10.4.6 so this was obviously some time ago):

"As with Photoshop CS, the MacBook Pro has to translate Sorenson through Rosetta, significantly slowing the pace of encoding."

Since then, most applications - and all major applications - have been updated to run natively on an Intel Mac and the emulation of the PPC chip is no longer necessary. (Adobe's current CS3 runs natively on Apple's Intel Macs)

In a test of Windows vs Windows on a MacBook Pro and a similarly spec'd PC, performance would been determined by the speed of the hardware only - because Windows runs natively on both the Intel Apple and any other brand of PC.

So for ZC1, the truth may still be out there...

 

I think we're all agreed on this, including the OP. He even said he came here only to be better able to prepare his questions for a professional.

 

because obviously any source YOU quote will be bias free.

you've yet to impress me and anyone else in here. your article isnt even on the right subject, while mine are. and its sad that, as a student, i'm able to come up with a more convincing and backed argument than you.

feel free to find some more, i'm up late tonight, sleeping in tomorrow.

 

Now that's priceless!!! I suggest you move to Mars then.
Believe me, you do this every day again and again.

If you make the effort to read the OP again, you will notice that an explicit, sound reason was given why this is not applicable.


The whole Mac/PC speed issue gets funnier and funnier. A long time ago, Mac people said their Macs were faster because they had better CPU's (6800, PowerPC, ...). Depending on the application, that was true in some cases, and false in other.

Then, suddenly, Apple switched to those damned Intel CPU's that where claimed to be slower and inferior just 5 minuted before that switch. The same holds for most of hardware that you find in a Mac these days: graphics cards, hard disks, CPU's, ... They are all taken over from the PC camp.

Now, Mac people still claim that Intel based Macs are faster than Intel based PC's. And Apple sources go to great lengths in trying to prove this. Again, this may be true in some cases, and false in other. It depends on what type of computer you buy, what applications you run, what money you spend, how well you negotiate the price, ...

The simple fact is that the island of superiority Mac people crafted for themselves gets smaller and smaller every day, being washed away by the ocean of commoditization of computer hardware. They are based on PC hardware, and run a spiced up version of a very old publicly available OS that Apple did not develop. Long gone are the days of Motorola 6800 and MacOS.

Yes, Macs run WinOS perfectly well these days, and ofter even better than similar PC's. But that fact alone is the best proof that the traditional model of the Mac computer is dead and buried. Mac's will end their life as PC's. Better looking, and more user friendly than most of the competition, but PC's nevertheless. In the best case, you will have a choice of OS'es to run on your PC, of which OSX will hopefully be one (and I'm not even sure about that)

Join the Borg. Resistance is futile!!!

 

Agreed. My mom had an old Mac. It was dreadful. It was not until Apple switched to Unix that the Mac became a good choice. I have no interest in who's hardware is faster. I have no interest in whether a Mac can run Windows. I have no interest in devoting 3/4 of my computer's resources to the security software needed to plug the holes in a badly-designed and badly written OS.

Buying a Mac and then running Windows on it is like buying a Prius, and then taking out the engine and the electric motors and the battery, and putting in an engine from a Ford Pinto with 100,000 miles on it.

 

which is a very good point. which is why i'll stick with OSX until you pry my macbook pro from my cold, dead fingers, and also why my girlfriend will dual boot until the software she needs for school is available on mac.

 

the only reason the OP gave that he couldnt switch to mac was because of a lack of "software support"

you can tell me if i'm mistaken, but if i ran windows on my macbook, and had a software issue, theyre probably not going to tell me "sorry, we dont know how to fix the program while its running in windows-on a different brand computer"

 

Actually, depending on the software company, they might just tell you that...

I have seen that answer to problems with medical, accounting, automotive, dental, veterinary, and oil dealer software to name a few... many of these specialty firms have very specific hardware and operating system requirements and they will not budge on their support policies.

Sure, if a person knows enough about what they are doing there is usually a way around these issues, but it is usually a great deal of work to get to that point and businesses generally do not like problems of any sort so I would usually recommend that anyone who is using "mission critical" software adhere to the policies of the software manufacturer and exceed all their minimum specifications.

 

my family uses mac at home, and my dad has to use PC at the office-their records system is too cumbersome and outdated to make the switch without manually typing in all those hundreds of thousands of pages. but he installed *something* at home that was windows only (first using parallels, then bootcamp), and he's had to call the manufacturer once or twice for issues. i dont recall the fact he was using it on a mac ever came up. i still cant imagine why it would.

if you can run windows natively on a mac, whats the difference between a mac, a dell, a lenovo, and any other brand? if the computer meets the specific system requirements, i cant see a problem.

 

I agree, but industry vendors who provide vertical market software at inflated prices and often poorly written have their own policies in effect to minimize the variable matrix to reduce support costs.

 

Yes you are mistaken.
Many support departments will grab any excuse to close a case. Macs are no PCs (there are still differences), and, in lots of cases they will happily use this excuse(?) to blame it on you, or to say that you should contact Apple for this issue because it's their problem. They are so heavily time monitored that this is almost a natural reflex.

If you want a similar situation you are familiar with: OSX. Apple does not give support for OSX on non-Apple machines, and the EULA even explicitely forbids it to run on those machines. There is no technical reason, only commercial and legal issues. Google psystar for some background information.