Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Less than stellar so far

7enderbender

7enderbender

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 11, 2012
513
12
North East US
So actually my dad is the one lately moving out the electronic frontier exploring new stuff. After his positive experience with the iPhone (didn't get a single call for help with this) he bought himself a 21" iMac to retire his old Win XP PC. Fine by me, since I was curious to hear about his experience before making my own decision about switching.

I was expecting the same low to zero help call rate. Unfortunately, not so much. It started with the transfer assistant that didn't work and kept asking for updating this and updating that. Mail accounts were in the end still messed up and most stuff needed manual setup in the end.

Then the printer (Canon 5250) was difficult to install and only worked intermittently until we upgraded some obscure driver. Even with that the scanning function didn't work until I found a setting somewhere deep in the menu that activated networking. Plug and play? Far from it. More of the kind of nonsense we've been dealing with in the Windows world for decades. Maybe it's Canon's fault. Not sure.

Now the wifi connection to the brand new router craps out every other day (while it still works with other devices in the house it seems). Restarts of the router take care of it. So again, not sure if the new router has issues or if this is the same issue people have been discussing with wifi settings issues in Lion.

So, I'm really on the fence here if this is really that much better an experience.
 
Last edited:
Wow. That is definitely the opposite of my experience. My 74 year-old mother could never get her PC to work, and my wife used to call me at work a few times a week with complaints about her Lenovo laptop. I had bought them both good laptops, with then-new Core2Duo processors, but things just wouldn't work for them, and it was driving us all nuts. These were things I could fix quickly, when I could see the screen and type. But over the phone, it was just a weekly trainwreck.

I bought my wife a MacBook Pro and then my mother got a white MacBook and... silence. For two and a half years, my wife hasn't called with computer problems. Well, my mother still thinks Firefox is an evil corporation that's out to get her with all of these ads that keep appearing on webpages... and she hates Firefox when they change the appearance of one of her favorite sites... I can't quite get her to understand it all, but the machine keeps running.

I have heard that the metal cases on Macs result in lower WiFi signal strength. Maybe if your dad can move his WiFi router to a higher shelf, signal strength will improve and the problem will go away. But if he has a strong signal, it shouldn't just drop; mine don't.

I also found that Time Machine, their backup system, works spectacularly well. Our family now has a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air, a Mac Mini, and a Hackintosh. The wife really loves her MacBook Pro. It makes her very happy.

I realize that none of this helps you with the problems he's had; a search on this board will do that. But I hope it reassures you that Mac is a good decision. After many years of Windows, I'm very happy in MacLand.
 
Alameda said:
Wow. That is definitely the opposite of my experience. My 74 year-old mother could never get her PC to work, and my wife used to call me at work a few times a week with complaints about her Lenovo laptop. I had bought them both good laptops, with then-new Core2Duo processors, but things just wouldn't work for them, and it was driving us all nuts. These were things I could fix quickly, when I could see the screen and type. But over the phone, it was just a weekly trainwreck.

I bought my wife a MacBook Pro and then my mother got a white MacBook and... silence. For two and a half years, my wife hasn't called with computer problems. Well, my mother still thinks Firefox is an evil corporation that's out to get her with all of these ads that keep appearing on webpages... and she hates Firefox when they change the appearance of one of her favorite sites... I can't quite get her to understand it all, but the machine keeps running.

I have heard that the metal cases on Macs result in lower WiFi signal strength. Maybe if your dad can move his WiFi router to a higher shelf, signal strength will improve and the problem will go away. But if he has a strong signal, it shouldn't just drop; mine don't.

I also found that Time Machine, their backup system, works spectacularly well. Our family now has a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air, a Mac Mini, and a Hackintosh. The wife really loves her MacBook Pro. It makes her very happy.

I realize that none of this helps you with the problems he's had; a search on this board will do that. But I hope it reassures you that Mac is a good decision. After many years of Windows, I'm very happy in MacLand.
Click to expand...


Yep, that's exactly what I've been hoping for - especially since fixing this kind of nonsense from a few thousand miles away across a few time zones gets old pretty quickly even with TeamViewer which greatly improved my existence. And no remote access is of any use when the friggin computer doesn't connect to the router.

Anyway, we'll see how this all plays out now. As a non Mac user I must say that I found my way around pretty quickly which is a plus - especially when considering that it was sitting on a different continent and I was driving it from my Windows laptop. Pretty amazing really given how much of an issue all this was only a few years ago. Maybe he just needs yet another new router and everything will be great after that.

But I have a feeling there is more coming my way. The latest complaint was that the Mac starts up automatically with the last windows and programs open. Annoying indeed, especially since there seem to be no easy way to make that "feature" go away.
 
7enderbender said:
The latest complaint was that the Mac starts up automatically with the last windows and programs open. Annoying indeed, especially since there seem to be no easy way to make that "feature" go away.
Click to expand...
It is indeed a feature. The Mac doesn't need to be shut down or rebooted. Ever. Just use the Energy preferences panel to set a sleep time that he wants.

I know you're used to rebooting, but it's really true, you don't need to reboot a Mac. If something seems squirrelly, log out and back in.

However, tell him if he opens System Preferences and then "General," he should check the box titled, "Close windows when quitting an application."
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back