What laptop this year, Wintel or Mac?

kerpow said:

I've asked this same question at work with people who are very PC biased so its only fair that I ask a very Mac biased crowd as well.

I should point out that I do know Macs and OS X. I use a G5 iMac at work. I like them, but honestly, for my needs there's little to choose between OS X, XP and hell, Linux as well (though I'd probably have a hard time getting it running with such new hardware). All of them are capable of providing the software I want.

What I want is:

2.0 ghz Sonoma or G5
>1gb RAM
800mhz FSB
>60gb HDD 7200rpm 8mb buffer
15" screen 1200 by 800
802.11g
Gigabit Ethernet
Bluetooth 2
USB2 (don't need FireWire)
<6lbs
Budget is around $2500
Something stylish (To me that includes Apple, Sony, Samsung and Alienware)

I'll be able to buy pretty close to that on a PC within a month or so. Should I wait for the G5 PB this summer?

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A G5 powerbook is not coming out this summer.
Maybe not even next.

sorry. And Why don't you need firewire? And you said you asked people (who are PC biased) about the suggestion.. I am curious to know what they thought.

It depends on what you need it for. i don't see how you don't see the advantages of OS X... But if you don't mind either, and you want to risk virii - then get a x86. There is a problem. YOu aren't going to find a Windows lappy that is under 6 pounds from alienware.

kyle

Err Sony overcharges out the butt. You may want to find another place for your laptops unless you are willing to stomach their premium there.

Now, if you really value the "ultra-thins", then the premium will be worth it.

You should just wait for the next revision that comes out. Could be dual-core... or something huge. It has too. wait until then. If you are disapointed get a Wintel. you can get Powerbooks with 128megs... they are pretty quick as is now.

kyle

I've been a long time PC user and recently decided to switch to Mac. I bought an iMac G5 and a 15" PowerBook.

I have owned several laptops (Sony Vaio Z600, Compaq Tablet). I have to say I get more enjoyment out of using my PowerBook.

The Vaio was good for a small laptop although CD-ROM and floppy were external units. A bit of a pain for installing software, and writing discs. I found the battery life was bad, no more than two hours and now its non-existent (battery fault?). It's now retired to the back of a wardrobe. I then moved onto a Tablet PC (nice idea, badly executed). It's got a pants CPU and is very slow. The writing thing is a bit of a gimmick, I now don't use it, as it's sooooo slow. It's now retired to web-browsing in the kitchen.

Now, my new PowerBook is great, it does everything my PCs did and then some. It runs all the apps I need which is mainly MS Office. And you get a lot of software included with it (iLife anyone?). Everything just works.

For AV use it's ready out of the box, better than a Vaio IMO. It's compact, light and very well designed (have Apple ever produced a badly designed item?). Any hardware addons have been specifically designed to be used on the platform.

There are so may combinations of hardware for PCs and getting them to work in harmony can be an issue, if you are a computer newbie, or just generally non-technical.

I don't (yet) know the internal workings of OS X, but it's rock solid (only 1 serious crash since I've had it). I am no longer worried about viruses and adware. That is a big plus, as anti virus seems to suck the speed out of PCs IMO. It's just another added task that can be forgotten under OS X.

I don't know much about the Alienware laptops but they look clunky behemoths. The 17" PB whilst big, doesn't look clunky. I know it's a cosmetic issue, but once you get the Mac bug, it's hard to shift it 😀

I still need to use a PC laptop for work (for applications that are simply not developed for OS X), but the best user experience I have had is with the PowerBook. Maybe VPC can sort that out for me, I simply have not had the time to try it.

If you go for a PB, I am sure you will not regret it.

Good luck with your choice!

kerpow said:

It's my consumer's right to want the best hardware for (the substantial) amount of money I'm willing to throw down.

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It is also your right to want the best software (and OS) for the amount of money you throw down.

kerpow, it seems to me you are too focused on the specs of the hardware. You may be better served to start "from the other end". What is it you want this laptop to do, what software is there to help you do it, what hardware is needed to satisfy the requirements of that software?

kerpow said:

I've asked this same question at work with people who are very PC biased so its only fair that I ask a very Mac biased crowd as well.

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One very important difference:
The Mac-biased crowd often have a lot of experience with Wintel machines. The PC-biased crowd usually know very little about Macs...

I especially want to second dejo. You may in fact have an excellent grasp of your own needs and desires, but when I hear someone say "I need 2.0 GHz" my first thought is, well, for what. It's just a number that by itself means relatively little; I find it far more helpful to advise in terms of task-based metrics. Computers are tools, you use them to do things, so they should be judged by how well they do them. This is just a suggestion, for all I know you have very definite ideas for why you need each of the hardware-specific metrics you gave. But I and possibly others here can be more helpful, maybe, when I know what it is you want the laptop to do.

I'll also second Blue Velvet, although it's probably not that important to our discussion here, my experience agrees with what she said. I'll go out on a limb and generalize that most Mac users have at some point in the not-too-distant past owned a PC (like myself), or at least have used them at a job or something that provides regular contact of a more than passing nature (also like myself). If not most, at least it's a substantial minority. Most PC-only users I know have never owned or even used a Mac beyond maybe the occasional stroll into an Apple store at the mall. Or worse yet, they had a Mac or an Apple II 15-20 years ago and have no idea what's happened since. You, though, sound like you know both sides better than average, but I thought I'd second the notion anyway.

Blue Velvet said:

One very important difference:
The Mac-biased crowd often have a lot of experience with Wintel machines. The PC-biased crowd usually know very little about Macs...

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I believe that should read "a lot of negative experience with Wintel machines". Which is inherent in their bias of course 😀