NineMeister

Steve,

I have a 20" Mac at home and it's a joy to use once you get your head out of thinking windows, especially for photos & itunes. But, I also have an old Dell Latitude laptop that I use for all things work related. In comparison with the Mac, the Dell can only be considered a tool to do a job and I never switch it on unless I have to work. In comparison the Mac is a joy to use and I often lose hours messing around with stuff on it just because I can. I would have a Macbook today if I could easily get it to run all my windows based business programs (including Motec), but I'm not a computer nerd so I chose the easy life with one of each.

95 C4 993

Mac no worky with some of the technology my company develops.

Like HD video to the desktop. Everyone is welcome to download a 30 day trail and call me at 64.47.55.148 I have T1 in my house and lots of bandwith. Sorry Mac users, it doesnt work........today.

Imagine---Rennlist garage forums with video.

http://www.lifesize.com/products/lifesize_desktop/

Mike J

Steve, get the Apple care...cheap insurance and you get three years of phone support.

Cheers,

Mike

Amfab

+1 on the apple care

Cant you guys who need the PC compatibility just run Boot Camp or Parallels?

Winders runs natively under boot camp on the intel chipped macs

User 121721

I just spent $700 for a case, powersupply, chip, motherboard, heatsink, hard drive, memory and OS (reused the optical drive) and assembled the computer myself. Installed XP Pro.

I saved $700 off what a similarly equipped Dell would have cost and had fun doing it (except for the LGA 775 slot with push pins for the heatsink). The components are all MUCH higher quality that what you get from a vendor -- the motherboard for example is a work of art with all kinds of customizability and the case is built like a tank. It's a very fast machine. Went with a 2.83 GHz quad core chip & have almost 2 terabytes of storage. Machine is completely silent.

mongrelcat

This is really OT in an already OT thread.. There have been a few posts about "running Windows on Mac hardware" this is a bit different....

I needed a small laptop for the road, mainly to browse, catch up on email on a decent sized desktop (i.e., not a phone, iPod touch,,,) I also wanted to be able to play videos - either TV or Movies - typically re-encoded DVD's as the Wind itself does not have a DVD drive. It's a perfect solution for what I needed it for, pretty geeky though.

MSI Wind Notebook w/ XP (from Costco) ~$400
1GB extra RAM plus larger, faster HDisk (from NewEgg) ~250


Hackintosh installed:





Here's an episode of HBO's Big Love running in MediaPlayerClassic under VMWare Fusion, in XP:



I wish I could say it was usable running virtually under XP, but it wasn't. Simply too overpowering for the little machine. Any decent desktop PC hardware would have no trouble, but for a NetBook it was too much, even with the hardware upgrades and running the CPU overclocked. Here's the same app running as if by itself within OSX, one of the coolest things Fusion can do.




The videos run fine full-screen or not using a native player under OSX, which as I mentioned was the whole idea. And I can still reboot into XP if need be. Anyway, just another idea.


Here's a Wind compared with a 17" laptop.

kr994

There is number of Windows-only applications out there (like VAG-COM software for VW/Audi). But there is also many applications that run on Macs only. Most PrePress apps or photo capture software for LEAF high-end digital cameras that I work with are not compatible with Windows PCs.

You can stream, record and edit all sorts of HD video on a Mac since around 2006 (iSight FireWire cams). Apple's iChat software supported HD video since day one. QuickTime player was the first desktop application to support HD video back in 2002.

Dudley

I purchased a MacBook last winter and I have never become comfortable with it. I bought it because I thought my wife would have an easier time updating her Ipod with a Mac. We now have a Dell desktop and two Dell laptops that see the bulk of our computing and a Mac that charges our Ipods. What a waste.

mongrelcat

Sell the MacBook (craigslist or eBay or here,) and use an adapter to charge the iPod with any of the PCs. You could use a wall-wart (A/C charger) too. You don't need iTunes on the PCs, either. Personally, I can't stand it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari..._iPod_Managers
Here's one I like:
http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home/

Amfab

I still dont understand why people cant just run Windows on the mac if they need certain apps

zone5

It's all about $$. I'd have to agree with the prior poster, building it yourself is a great idea.

Steve 96C4S

So I tell my buddy today I'm about to buy the 24" iMac and he says "What? I'm about to buy this new Sony Vaio (he's actually buying the much more expensive 25" but the 24" is closer in price to the iMac): VGC-LV180J 24-Inch All-in-One PC (3.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB Hard Drive, Blu-ray Drive, Vista Premium) Silver )
It's awesome." he says...and I won't have to learn a whole new computer "language".


Another friend says the the 25.5" HP Touchsmart is the way to go.
HP 25.5" TouchSmart IQ804 Desktop PC TV Touch Smart
<img src="http://i10.ebayimg.com/01/i/001/59/70/5104_1_bo.JPG">

I didn't realize there are so many nice all-in-one machines. I still am leaning towards the Mac, but it would be nice to get a PC that's comparable as I wouldn't need to learn much new stuff to run everything, and I'm really comfortable in the windows operating environment. I realize I can equip a iMac with Windows, but then wouldn't one be just as well off with one of these 2 machines?



Hmmm.... thoughts here? I'm doing the right thing buying the Mac, right?!?

jo-hans

Bought my first computer in 1992, a Mac LC II, replaced in 1996 with a Performa, then in 2003 a G4, in late 2005 my current G5 and one for Jr. then in 2006 added 15"MacBook Pro. We have another 24" iMac and two iPhones, an iTouch and many generations of iPod's in the Family. My son is looking to buy a MacBook Pro for university soon. Never any issues with viruses - it has been a great experience.
Also the local school district here are running all Macs so my two kids were surrounded by them.
Anyways I have no reason to upgrade any of my machines any time soon - I think I am good for another year or so or more - sure hope so anyways. A Mac family for almost 18 years.

nshanny

The Mac's might cost a bit more, but they are great computers with a really nice operating system. I have been using them since the first powerbook came out many years ago and have switched my entire family over to them. I also use them at work.

Mark in Baltimore

Late to the game on this thread. Congrats on going Mac, Steve!

I have three Dells (one Inspiron and two Latitude D630/620's) and used to run Macs when I was a photographer. The Dells have been fairly reliable, but I hate the build quality of them (trackpads whose surfaces wear out after less than a year of use, floppy hinges, keys that get too shiny with wear, button imprints that wear out). Admittedly, the hinge problem seems to have been fixed with the 630/620's.

The Mac Wallstreet PowerBooks that I bought in the late '90's are still with me today and serve as my accounting computers. They are far sturdier machines than the Dells, but, ten years ago, they cost more than the Dells do now ($2,500 for the Macs versus about $1,900 for the Dells). Macs usually have some very smart designs.

BTW, my workaround for not wearing out my trackpad . . . is to use an optical mouse.