I keep my computers for a long time. The desktop machine I’m still working on is a Dell Dimension 4100 which I bought in 2001. It’s worked fine for years but now there’s no more space on it, the processor is slow and I need lots more RAM. I was too busy to shop for a new computer but now that I’m in between projects, the timing is right. I want something fast, a lot of RAM and room to expand. I’d like to do some basic video editing down the road so the machine has to be loaded enough to last me a while.
I’m a slow decision maker when it comes to spending money, especially mine. It took me weeks to decide that my next computer should be a laptop. You see, I mostly work from home but I’d like to be able to move around the house and take my computer to occasional meetings. Ideally, I’d like to get a laptop below 6 lbs. We have an iBook at home, which is slightly below 5lbs and I always get shoulder pain when I need to drag it around. I’m planning on buying a 20″ monitor so that I don’t have to stare at a small screen all day when I’m at home.
So I had decided to buy a laptop. Now I only needed to decide on a brand… A lot of my smart friends have Apple branded laptops so I figured there had to be something more than the hip factor there – or at least I hoped so because those damn machines are expensive. (Hey, I drive a Toyota Corolla so obviously I don’t define my cool factor on the machines I use.)
I went to see the Macbooks when they came out but for some reason they left me rather cold. I just didn’t like the feel of them. They felt like toys. Could be the keyboard. Could be the all white look, which reminds me too much of our old iBook. I wasn’t too keen on the black one either. Plus, when I load the Macbook with all the power, space and RAM I want, it ends up costing me around 2700$. That’s a lot of money for a machine I don’t love.
I thought I’d splurge for a Macbook Pro, even though I find them way too expensive, but like a lot of people, I’m waiting and waiting for Apple to upgrade them and it’s not happening. As the Cult of Mac blog explains:
« We are comparing silicon to silicon here, and it’s embarrassing that I can configure a Dell Inspiron E1705.25 or whatever to include a 2.16Ghz Core2 Duo, fully trick it out with ram and storage and still have it come in for the same price as a 15.4″ MacBook Pro. Not because the price is so close, but because the Dell machine is a full generation in hardware ahead. What on earth is the hold-up? There’s barely a reason to switch to Intel if it doesn’t mean moving the notebook line into comparable speed with what’s on the desktop. »
There’s no need to tell me that the switch to the Intel Core 2 Duo is not such a huge upgrade in speed and that I shouldn’t wait if I need a computer now. I know all of that. I also know that the week after I buy one of their laptops, Apple will come up with a much improved model for a lower price. It happened with my iPod. I know it’s silly and it’s just a matter of perception, but still, it’s frustrating. Everybody says that they’ll come up with new laptops in a few months but I don’t want to wait until January to buy a new machine.
So like a lot of people also waiting for Apple, I might forget about switching and I might stick with a Windows machine. This baby looks pretty good to me and experts seem to agree. It’s faster than a Macbook or even a Macbook Pro for much less money. I’ll still have some money left to buy an external 20″ monitor and a wireless keyboard and mouse.
I really thought for a while that 2006 was the year I was going to give Apple another try (I had a 512K Mac back in 1988). But I’m losing my patience. Oh well.
N’avais-tu pas vendu ton scooter pour t’acheter un MacBook � ton retour d’Italie?
What I don’t like about most thin and lightweight PC notebooks is that they either sacrifice connectivity by requiring a docking station, or they try to give you every legacy port in existence plus memory card readers, making a much bulkier product with more bits that can potentially go wrong on you. I think the MacBook hits the sweet spot in terms of connectivity and streamlining. Plus the hardware/software integration is superb.
Back when I used to sell PC laptops there would be endless cases of people deleting some proprietary driver, or erasing a HD to reinstall Windows and deleting a « secret » driver partition on the disk, and all sorts of nonsense like that. I’m sure it’s better nowadays, but at the very least with a Mac laptop it’s from the same company that makes the OS…they’re virtually impossible to kill.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve « resurrected » an apparently dead Mac by just running Disk Utility or DiskWarrior and at worst, doing a fresh install of the OS. Which, by the way, you don’t have to erase your whole HD to do, meaning your important information is usually all intact.
On top of that, I find the Windows specs change even faster than the Mac ones in order to keep ahead of the competition, which makes that problem of up-to-date drivers even worse. Whichever platform you choose — and there are some decent PC laptops like Toshiba Tecras — caveat emptor.
Andred: J’ai vendu mon scooter avec l’id�e de m’acheter un nouvel ordi, oui, mais finalement j’ai eu besoin de l’argent pour autre chose! ;-) J’avais vu le Macbook sur le Web mais une fois que je l’ai vu en magasin, ma baloune a d�gonfl�, comme on dit. Je n’arrive pas exactement � expliquer pourquoi. �a n’a pas vraiment cliqu�. Le fait qu’ils sont dus pour une mise � jour n’aide pas non plus, de m�me que leur prix. Quand je le configure avec tout ce que je veux (2 gig SDRAM, 120 GB hard dive, garantie prolong�e), le Macbook me revient � 2762$! Je peux avoir un PC laptop avec une configuration beaucoup plus int�ressante pour moins de 2,000$. C’est un pensez-y bien d’autant plus que XP est tr�s stable.
AJ: I’d love to experiment with this « problem free » life all Mac fans are raving about (even though the Macbook had hardware problems when it came out). But I don’t want to buy now when it’s a matter of weeks (or months) until the new systems come out, and I don’t want to spend 3,000$ on a new machine. So once again, I don’t know what to do… ;-)
By the way, AJ, I went from Windows 98 to XP without having to erase everything and my stuff was left intact.
i started on mac way back when (okay i started on a texas instrument 64k but does anyone honestly believes that counts for anything?) and have been on pc for a long time now. honestly, my systems are always stable. i just don’t do much stupid shit and when i do i fix it, and that’s all. money talks – i’d rather have a stable 2000$ system than a stable 3000$ system. well no, i’d rather have the 2000$ PC and have the additional thou to add more memory and stuff to it, but here in the real world… *sigh*
Moi je te conseille �a. C’est la nouvelle version de ce que j’ai achet� il y a d�j� plus d’un an. Et ce qui est bien des latitudes, c’est qu’ils sont dans la cat�gorie small business au lieu de home, ce qui veut dire qu’ils viennent automatiquement avec la full garantie de 3 ans.
Super pratique, tu n’as jamais � te d�faire de ton ordi. Il t’envoie les pi�ces qui fuckent (genre un power supply) en 2 jours et si t’as un probl�me interne, il t’envoie un technicien � la porte the next business day.
Il est super l�ger, je l’adore.
Celui l� commence � 3pounds d�pendamment de ce que tu mets dedans. Je te sugg�re la batterie 9cell, m�me si elle est un peu plus lourde.
Ah oui, sauf que comme dit AJ, le lecteur CD est externe. Mais bon, moi je m’en sers � peu pr�s une fois tous les trois mois, alors…
Sinon, pour un peu plus cher, ils font quelque chose de g�nial chez Toshiba
Comme Mac User, j’attend moi aussi plus de choix dans la gamme des ordi portables et que les derniers cpu Intel soit mis a profit. De plus, le prochain OS X est trop loin en 2007 et d�j� la connectivit� Wifi des macbook vieillis ( norme n – wimax???).
Go to PC et certifiez la compatibilit� avec Vista!
J’ai un imacG5 discontinu� apr�s 3 mois… Il va tr�s bien soit dit en passant mais… je n’acheterai plus de mac sans que le keynote soit pass�
If you’re ‘only’ processing text you don’t need a speedy computer. And the MacBooks are fast, almost as fast as the MacBook Pros.
And you can easily run Windows on Macs well, even simultaneously, if you need to use software that is only available for Windows.
My experience with Wintel laptops is that they suck. They use too much power (or are very slow), are bulky and ugly and I managed to crash them all the time when I just closed the lid of the laptop. The Mac just sleeps immediately and wakes up in seconds. Just for the OS I would choose the Mac. Not that it’s perfect, but in many respects it’s much better than Windows.
I do more than process text and I often have multiple apps open at the same time, which is why I need more than 512 MB of memory. I know that people who love the Mac and its OS really, really love it. But is it worth the extra 800 to 1000$ I’d need to pay to get the proper configuration I want? And should I wait another 3 months until the new Apple laptops come out? That’s the dilemma I’m struggling with.
About upgrading the OS, well, of course you don’t have to erase the whole disk in a normal case — it’s when the OS goes kafluey that, so I read, people often have to nuke their disk and reinstall from scratch. It’s usually from a combination of weird Registry issues, spyware and other cruft that starts gumming up the works; there doesn’t seem to be any built-in or automatic utilities that keep the system free of this.
I’m not sure if you can repair or reinstall a new Windows system over a damaged (i.e. crashy or non-booting) disk without erasing it, or having an option analogous to OS X’s « Archive and Install » which tucks away the old System folder and makes a brand new clean one on the same disk. In my past experience, it hasn’t been the case, but with XPSP2 it might have changed.
anyway, don’t agonize over the purchasing decisions — get the best machine that meets your needs, balancing the pros and cons. if you think you’ll want to upgrade or switch in less than 3 years, consider leasing instead of buying outright. And hey, RAM is cheap these days — anything less than 1GB is hobbled, max it out with as much as you can afford.
I recently switched for a lot of the same reasons. I work from home, but still like the freedom of being able to move room to room, to the deck, couch, etc.
I chose the Macbook (and got rid of desktop and PC laptop but still have XP available using Parallels), and I had never used Mac before. The transition to Mac OS is easy, and there’s so much great help out there, but I am already starting to feel the need for a bigger screen to accompany it. Sometimes for the eyes, but also for more space depending what (and how many) tasks I’m doing.
The Macbook has been good to me so far but, as you’ve probably noticed when researching them, Macs in general aren’t exactly as « problem free » as the fans rave. ;) One thing is for sure, it can handle stress. I run Photoshop and multple apps simulateneously for hours without any hiccups. (I also upgraded to 2GB ram and bigger HD out of the box which helps).
I’ll be checking in to see what you decide on! :) I’m sticking with Mac, but the extra 20″+ display is on my wishlist!
La solution, c’est Apple. J’ai un iMAC depuis peu, moi qui s’accrochait amoureusement � mon Acer qui �tait devenu une extension de mon corps… jusqu’qu’� ce que je me le fasse voler avec une bonne partie de mon travail et de mes souvenirs. J’ai remplac� mon portable par un iMac et depuis je me demande comment j’ai pu ignorer si longtemps une si belle technologie.
Keep in mind that an overly powerful processor means shorter battery life. Portable notebooks tend to have a lot less processing power than notebooks intended to replace a desktop (to extend battery life). But the clock speed (in GHz) isn’t the only factor that determines performance. PCs have typically higher clock speeds than Macs, without necessarily being faster. I have a Toshiba notebook (which I highly don’t recommend!). It’s lightweight with a beautiful screen, but the XP on it is unnervingly slow at startup and multitasking, connectivity is often tricky, and XP never really goes to sleep when you want it to, it kinda commits suicide at that point. I wish I’d gone for the Mac, but the cost of hardware and software licenses was a deciding factor.
AJ: Me? Not agonizing over a purchasing decision? ;-)
Jay: I checked out your « My black Mac » web site and you remind me of me a lot, except for the fact that you purchase things a little faster than I do! ;-) Your experience is exactly what I need to hear about before I make a decision. If we listen to true Mac fans, we start believing the « trouble free » claims but I have to remember that a lot of people I know had to have something replaced in their Mac within the first couple of months (dead hard drives, over heating, plastic yellowing, etc).
We already have an iBook at home so I know that getting used to working with the OS full time will only take a few weeks.
I don’t want to buy a Macbook now though because it seems like a new one will come out between now and December, perhaps with a basic, less expensive package that includes a bigger hard drive, more RAM and the latest processor.
I don’t know much about computers, but I have an HP laptop at home and it works great. Steve has an older Dell and it has heating problems, but I’m sure they’ve fixed that and the exploding battery problem by now :-)
The only thing that I do is get more than I need in terms of storage and power, and then the darn thing won’t become extinct in 5 seconds.
Go for PC!
Mac is not for you!
Il semblerait que Dell offre un des meilleurs rapports qualit�-prix d’apr�s des commentaires que j’entends. Ce serait donc fort probablement un tr�s bon choix. Perso, je ne suis pas expert en la mati�re donc je ne sais pas trop. J’ai un eMac qui marche bien et ne me cause aucun probl�me.
Dell fait des supers prix:
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/10/04/dell-shares-downgraded-to-neutral/
Hey Martine,
Yeah, I thought it was funny when I read the similarities as well. :)
You’re right, I am a slight bit impulsive! lol. I always research, but try not to wait too long, as I know there’ll always be « something better coming soon ».
One thing I do, with everything, is save packaging and keep the items in good condition with hopes that I can get the highest price possible when I sell/upgrade. I notice quite a difference when selling – especially on eBay – if I have original packaging, etc. but unfortunately, you almost always lose with computers.
Anyway, it’s 3am and I’m roaming off topic here…so…good luck with your decision! :)
you have a geek readership. 20 comments.
Time is money. You can’t afford to wait three month wondering what’s the best solution… Get one of those nice black Mac Book, with 1 Gig of RAM (1769$).
Only the MacBook Pro will be upgraded before xmas (if they are…)
How come no one is telling me to buy an iMac?
biiin… p’t �tre parce que tu as dit vouloir t’acheter un portable?
En passant, IMHO, video editing est antinomique � portable… M�me si tu as la puissance n�cessaire, tu bouffes ta pile et remplis ton disque, mais c’est s�r �a impressionne le n�ophyte du si�ge voisin… 8-)
Raymond: Oui (pour le iMac) sauf que les r�ponses n’ont pas toutes �t� logiques puisque j’ai clairement dit que je n’aimais pas trop le « look and feel » du Macbook et qu’on me conseille de m’en acheter un quand m�me. ;-)
Pour ce qui est du montage vid�o, j’en suis venue aux m�mes conclusions: pas id�al sur un laptop. Mes buts sont modestes cependant et je connais plusieurs personnes qui font de petits montages sur leur Mac sans probl�me.
J’ai repens� � tout �a et je suis sur le bord d’aller m’acheter un iMac… sauf que mon chum m’a mis en t�te que je devrais peut-�tre aller vers le 24 pouces au lieu du 20! Arrrggh! Il ne faut pas faire des suggestions comme �a � quelqu’un qui souffre d’anxi�t� de l’achat!
Ah si tu laisses tomber le portable, voici ma suggestion: un mac mini de base avec un moniteur Dell Widescreen de 24″ (Apple est trop cher pour ses moniteurs)
750$ + 950$ = 1700 CDN$
Ce syst�me veillira tr�s bien: quand tu le trouveras trop lent et trop restreint (et que les prix des composantes auront chut� encore plus) l’ordi pourra changer de CPU pour un Merom (il est socketed) et tu passeras aussi de 1 GB � 2 GB, de 60 GB � 160 GB tout �a pour des peanuts… 8-). Le mini est dur � ouvrir aussi bien en profiter!
Et le moniteur (bien acceuilli par la critique) te restera quand le mac sera bon pour le recyclage chez un neveu… 8-)
Mac mini
Dell 2407FPW