How do you deal with seeing great hardware on non Apple products?

MacNoobGuy said:

hey all, i've been wondering this for a long while now. software incompatibility doesn't seem like a big issue anymore with bootcamp, but what about hardware?

how do you handle seeing great hardware ideas that aren't available from Apple? things like USB3, really crisp monitors, fingerprint security etc etc.

thanks

Click to expand...

Lawl? USB3 is on the Retina Macbook. The monitor is the best out there period. No one cares about a finger print scanner?

MacNoobGuy said:

hey all, i've been wondering this for a long while now. software incompatibility doesn't seem like a big issue anymore with bootcamp, but what about hardware?

how do you handle seeing great hardware ideas that aren't available from Apple? things like USB3, really crisp monitors, fingerprint security etc etc.

thanks

Click to expand...

Current Macs have USB 3. As far as monitors go, external monitors work as well on Mac as on Windows. If you're talking about laptop displays, the retina macbook pro has as crisp a display as any. Most external hardware can at least be used in Boot Camp if there's no Mac driver available (which is happening less and less often), so that just leaves hardware features (like thumbprint scanners) that are integrated into the machine itself. Honestly, I don't know of any such features that I'd particularly want. If I absolutely needed a laptop with a built in thumbprint reader, I guess I'd get a Windows laptop.

Here's how most of us deal with it..

if that is the best?

MacNoobGuy said:

hey all, i've been wondering this for a long while now. software incompatibility doesn't seem like a big issue anymore with bootcamp, but what about hardware?

how do you handle seeing great hardware ideas that aren't available from Apple? things like USB3, really crisp monitors, fingerprint security etc etc.

thanks

Click to expand...

if that is about the 'best' the 'competition' has to offer - we're in a heap full of doo doo i tell ya.. i'm waiting for the day i see true innovative competition, so far only apple has those balls in the baskets

vpro said:

if that is about the 'best' the 'competition' has to offer - we're in a heap full of doo doo i tell ya.. i'm waiting for the day i see true innovative competition, so far only apple has those balls in the baskets

Click to expand...

People have been poo pooing it, but those Ultrabook commercials where the laptop converts into a tablet and even more appetizing, it has a touchscreen. I would love to see that come to a RMBP someday

MacNoobGuy said:

hey all, i've been wondering this for a long while now. software incompatibility doesn't seem like a big issue anymore with bootcamp, but what about hardware?

how do you handle seeing great hardware ideas that aren't available from Apple? things like USB3, really crisp monitors, fingerprint security etc etc.

thanks

Click to expand...

fingerprint security was the biggest computer fad a few years ago, then people realised how useless it was. And my mac has USB 3.0 and the highest res screen on the market

tmanto02 said:

fingerprint security was the biggest computer fad a few years ago, then people realised how useless it was. And my mac has USB 3.0 and the highest res screen on the market

Click to expand...

but 6 months ago, it had USB 2.0, a merely average or possibly below average resolution for such as size and price point, and lets face it: fingerprint readers are still useful for casual security in the library or against my roommate.

MacNoobGuy said:

how do you handle seeing great hardware ideas that aren't available from Apple?

thanks

Click to expand...

I haven't seen a single piece of Windows/PC hardware this year that's made me envious. Ditto for last year. A fingerprint scanner? It's a cute gadget but we'll survive without it.

First time I had a fingerprint scanner in a laptop was on a work laptop that was assigned to me about 6 years ago. Now I'm on my second work laptop since then, and it also has a fingerprint scanner in it.

Honestly, I thought it was cool for the first couple of weeks after I got the first machine. Now, I'm all "meh" about it. Haven't used one since those first couple of weeks. The novelty quickly died out for me.

I am not aware of a single consumer laptop on the market that would have more advanced hardware (considering the overall package) than my retina MBP.

As far as some features discussed in this thread go: I really don't see a point in fingerprint scanners when I can simply set my machine to request a password on wake; and I consider touchscreen to be useless on a non-tablet. As far as laptop-tablet convertibles go... a tablet is by definition something very compact and light. A fast(er) laptop cannot be meaningfully converted to a tablet without sacrificing all the things the tablets are good for.

thejadedmonkey said:

but 6 months ago, it had USB 2.0, a merely average or possibly below average resolution for such as size and price point, and lets face it: fingerprint readers are still useful for casual security in the library or against my roommate.

Click to expand...

USB 3 on the Mac was delayed by Intel Inc until 2012 when it was incorporated into Ivy Bridge this year.

The first USB 3.0 consumer products were announced and shipped by Buffalo Technology in November 2009, while the first certified USB 3.0 consumer products were announced January 5, 2010, at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES), including two motherboards by ASUS and Gigabyte Technology.

Intel rival, AMD, began supporting USB 3 with its Fusion Controller Hubs in 2011.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0

Yes, Apple is 2 years late but other computer makers got USB 3 by dealing with non-Intel USB 3 host controller makers.

I would have wanted it in my 2010 and 2011 MBPro but the past is the past. USB 3 on the Mac would have meant cheaper external HDD.

I think you can buy a 3rd party fingerprint reader that will attach via USB 2 for your Mac. As for software... I do not know.

As for touchscreen notebooks... hasn't this been done before with the original Tablet PC in 2000? The tablet market only perked up with the original iPad.

Apple will incorporate touchscreen into notebooks when the technology and price are appropriate. As such I do not mind the wait.

to be honest touchscreen on a laptop is highly unpractical...

Ploki said:

to be honest touchscreen on a laptop is highly unpractical...

Click to expand...

Usually said by someone that doesn't have one, and/or is using an OS that doesn't support it.

Ccrew said:

Usually said by someone that doesn't have one, and/or is using an OS that doesn't support it.

Click to expand...

Would you be so kind to cite the source of this bold claim?

Ccrew said:

Usually said by someone that doesn't have one, and/or is using an OS that doesn't support it.

Click to expand...

I don't know - Mac's gesture features are really great for me. I'm not knocking Windows touch but just saying.

Ccrew said:

Usually said by someone that doesn't have one, and/or is using an OS that doesn't support it.

Click to expand...

I've worked with it on a Win7 laptop, 15" with a measly 1366 resolution. It's just not ergonomic to type away and raise your hand to tap something on the screen.
It's too clunky to do serious editing (video/photo/audio) with it because mouse or tablet is far more accurate.

If it's not detachable (but then again it's not really a laptop but a tablet with keyboard and batterypack, and seriously underpowered) then it's pretty useless...

Hexley said:

USB 3 on the Mac was delayed by Intel Inc until 2012 when it was incorporated into Ivy Bridge this year.

The first USB 3.0 consumer products were announced and shipped by Buffalo Technology in November 2009, while the first certified USB 3.0 consumer products were announced January 5, 2010, at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES), including two motherboards by ASUS and Gigabyte Technology.

Intel rival, AMD, began supporting USB 3 with its Fusion Controller Hubs in 2011.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0

Yes, Apple is 2 years late but other computer makers got USB 3 by dealing with non-Intel USB 3 host controller makers.

I would have wanted it in my 2010 and 2011 MBPro but the past is the past. USB 3 on the Mac would have meant cheaper external HDD.

I think you can buy a 3rd party fingerprint reader that will attach via USB 2 for your Mac. As for software... I do not know.

As for touchscreen notebooks... hasn't this been done before with the original Tablet PC in 2000? The tablet market only perked up with the original iPad.

Apple will incorporate touchscreen into notebooks when the technology and price are appropriate. As such I do not mind the wait.

Click to expand...

You're not wrong about anything, but I fail to see why you would defend a company that charges 2x-3x the cost of their competitors. I bought a Dell laptop in the summer of 2011, and it had USB 3.0 standard. If Intel was dragging their feet, than maybe Apple should have considered a different controller for 3.0. The beauty of USB is that it's a standard, so you can choose different vendors for the chipset.

Likewise, I'm not saying that fingerprint readers are a necessity, but rather there are so many options that Apple doesn't even consider because they'd rather make (even more) money than offer what the consumer wants.

You misread, we don't mind not having USB 3 earlier or the scanner. If we did sales of Macs would reflect this.

For me, it's a small trade off from what I had to deal with when I used to use Windows as a primary system. My Mac user experience overcomes the the piecemeal user experience found on any PC maker.

Apple charging 2-3x is misleading. These comparisons are often done between say a Ivy Bridge Core i3 Mac and a Cedarview Intel Atom PC of which half the ports and features on the Mac are missing on the Atom PC. Not to mention no price tag is assigned to the physical design of the Mac being compared to. Like say in terms of physical dimensions and weight. Is the PC that's 2-3x cheaper using many plastic parts or are they of the same aluminum unibody design? Unibody design is being used in the manufacturing of aircraft, armored vehicles and rockets.

Dealing with a 3rd party USB 3 controller and scanner would mean added cost. Apple will never sacrifice their profit margin without good reason. Either the other components of the Mac will be a step lower or the price will maintain the level of parts but be priced a step higher.

During the period of 2010-2012 very very few external HDD would be able to saturate the 80+MB/s of FW800.

The nice thing about Windows is you have a diversity of choice and price drives *better* spec'd models. So you can go with a Dell with USB 3 and a scanner.

The nicer thing about Macs is it is driven by design that is often aped by PC makers.

thejadedmonkey said:

You're not wrong about anything, but I fail to see why you would defend a company that charges 2x-3x the cost of their competitors. I bought a Dell laptop in the summer of 2011, and it had USB 3.0 standard. If Intel was dragging their feet, than maybe Apple should have considered a different controller for 3.0. The beauty of USB is that it's a standard, so you can choose different vendors for the chipset.

Likewise, I'm not saying that fingerprint readers are a necessity, but rather there are so many options that Apple doesn't even consider because they'd rather make (even more) money than offer what the consumer wants.

Click to expand...

I give credit when credit is due, but at the same time Apple is usually out in front.

In 2011, Dell was selling a 13" i5 Aluminum laptop with a 6630m video card, fingerprint reader, 3 USB 3.0 ports, esata, HDMI, for something like $650. A 13" MacBook was $1299, with way less.

The fingerprint scanner is a rip-off, just think about it for a moment...

(based on experience - I have a Dell Latitude XT)

The scanner itself is very poorly made. It's like a $1-5 piece of plastic. It barely is good enough for you to swipe your finger in there and let it see it accurately. I've used it and it works 50 percent of the time.

The sensor also can't read in the dark. So what happens when you need to use your laptop in the middle of the night? You can't.

As for touch screens. The XT also has one, and by gosh is it awful. It came with Vista, but then the drivers are all jerky in Windows 7 and 8 that it's practically unusable, nor have they had an update for 8. Literally, you'd turn on the machine and would have a hard time even logging in because it was EXTREMELY sensitive and the mouse would move all over the place. You couldn't even calibrate it without issues due to that.

I ended up just disabling the drivers so they wouldn't start at boot.

And yes, the technology has improved since then, but really, it's just the same story with the Surface RT and the other current Windows based tablets. The OS is just NOT suitable for touch screens period.

lightz39 said:

Lawl? USB3 is on the Retina Macbook. The monitor is the best out there period. No one cares about a finger print scanner?

Click to expand...

USB3 is on all of the 2012 Macs aside from the Mac Pro's extremely minor revision, as it still uses older hardware. The screen is one of the best I've seen on a notebook, but it's only definitively best on resolution. HP had a really nice Dreamcolor configuration that's at least comparable in some aspects (quite possibly better in some ways), but the configuration was extremely expensive. There are desktop displays that I'd take over the rMBP display, but that isn't on a notebook. The Asus ultrabook one was ahead of the rMBP in some of Anandtech's tests, but I don't really agree with their testing methods in determining quality. Some of the methods are also a bit fuzzy. It went on things like contrast ratio and profiling results and gamut volume. Wider gamut and contrast ratio aren't necessarily better. In fact high contrast ratios can make it difficult to preserve shadow detail. The rMBP aligns quite well with sRGB, which is good. They gave a generic Delta E measurement on profile quality where the rMBP lost to the Asus. It's not the greatest way to do that, and they didn't mention equipment used or warmup time, both of which can affect the results.

The absolute declarations are generally by people that have never looked at anything else. Apple needed some kind of display update. Many far less expensive models have started to implement IPS over TN in notebooks, although Apple's engineering team may need to work with LG on the image persistence issues. Everyone assumes it's all in the panel, but if they take what is available in panels, they need to work with it from there. Other display manufacturers have attempted to engineer around things like long warmup times and backlight uniformity issues. It's not a great idea to place all the blame on the component vendor.

ok end semi rant..

Jessica Lares said:

The OS is just NOT suitable for touch screens period.

Click to expand...

I have a Lenovo Yoga running Win 8 Pro and Office 2013 RTM. Touchscreen works pretty swimmingly here. Nice 1600x900 IPS screen to boot. If I drive my 13" rMBP to that resolution it's not really retina now anymore is it? Let's face it, it's only quadruple pixels making it sharper, it's still an effective 1280x800.

The Yoga while still having some minor warts is a nice machine. Show me a convertible Apple product please that can be a tablet or notebook, Ivy Bridge and carries two SSD drives and 8gb of mem with USB3 and HDMI?

On edit: Oh, and cost hundreds less than a base 13" rMBP