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Apple Comments on Microsoft's Laptop Hunter Ads
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Yeah, and some do this better than others. Apple is in a different league all together.
Sorry, but I deal with the dog food that is Windows on a daily basis, and being merely "quite good" simply isn't good enough.
Earlier this month, we once again had a lost morning of productivity because of overnight patches that required multiple reboots.
Despite multiple layer of Enterprise-strength security protections, 100% of our Windows machine at work have their USB port drivers disabled for external media, because IT can't come up with a robust enough anti-malware solution to the autorun vulnerabilities such as Conflicker on Thumb Drives to satisfy management that Windows is adequate. We've been in this lock-down mode for 6 months now ... any solution yet in sight? Nope.
....YMMV, but I can think of a few reasons to lose faith ... and patience ... in Windows as being a robust, viable productivity tool & platform.
And it has been this way with Microsoft Windows for at least a decade, so why am I being expected to simply tolerate their low quality junk with all of its recurring problems for probably another decade? You don't think that I haven't already heard their "We promise that the next revision of MS-XYZ will solve everything" claim a hundred times before?
So your complaint essentially boils down to that you do like their product, but you don't like to have to pay the premium for it, because that is the price that the market will bear.
However, the reality is that many (if not most or all) markets have this problem where there's segments that are expensive due to "Brand" and segments that are cheap due to "Commodity".
Coffee and Tea are two analogous examples, since the same plant can literally be the source of both good (expensive) and blah (cheap) versions of the consumer's final products. The gradient exists because some pallets can't taste any difference...or they can, but aren't willing to pay the difference.
If Win7 is as 'fast' as some suggest, how would that not simply depress new hardware sales even further?
Of course, when the Retail version is $200 and the OEM $30, one may as well then use a business plan of: "Buy Win7, get a Free Computer From Dell".
IMO, MS's biggest problem is that they've relied on their OS for the past 25 years to be the enabling vehicle through which they sell their other, more profitable products. This is quite evident when you look at the price gradient between an OEM and Retail version of Windows. And given the current economy, when a corporate manager tells his IT staff "CUT 30%", to prevent themselves from walking out the door, the old MS Enterprise software paradigm is going to come under much closer scrutiny.
Everyone's got to have a hobby.
-hh
Microsoft and HP are closing in
My hobby is collecting Macs, and your hobby is trying desperately to win an argument.
The Mac has increased sales in the consumer market in recent years, but hasn't made much inroad in the enterprise IT area, because it is not perceived as a platform for "real IT". This is not going to change any time soon.
As I said before, Microsoft will be very successful with Windows 7, and HP has finally made a line of notebook PC's (Pavilion dv series) that can win a beauty contest against Apple's MacBook and MBP.
My hobby is collecting Macs, and your hobby is trying desperately to win an argument.
The Mac has increased sales in the consumer market in recent years, but hasn't made much inroad in the enterprise IT area, because it is not perceived as a platform for "real IT". This is not going to change any time soon.
As I said before, Microsoft will be very successful with Windows 7, and HP has finally made a line of notebook PC's (Pavilion dv series) that can win a beauty contest against Apple's MacBook and MBP.
Yeah I'm going to agree with this. Mac styling is unique and aesthetically pleasing. When you see a Mac, you know exactly what you're looking at. The HP's look like the 1000's of other PC's out there.
Well said, I'm a sucker for good design, which is one of the reasons I like Apple products. They just have well designed, good looking products. Sony also makes nice computers with the Vaios, now if those were mentioned with the Macs I would say its pretty close but HP, come on.
I was in Best Buy today and you could tell them Macs apart from the PC's just by looking at them, they all have similar styling from the mini to the air. With the PC's I couldn't tell which company made them without looking at the logo.
I bet if you were to take the logos off different computers and ask someone to group them by company, it would be easier for consumers to group the Apple computers because of the simplicity and similarities amongst their design theme. You can see this from the ipods to their computers, to Apple TV, to Airport, their keyboards, their software, their packaging, their stores, just simple and elegant.
So if my argument of product differentiation success is invalid, then please explain why (as you admit) Apple has successfully increased consumer market sales despite (as you point out) higher initial purchase prices?
Its fine for you to shoot down my attempted explanation with a better one, but I've not seen anything other than what can be simplified as: "People are stupid and shouldn't be buying Apple" - - the problem with this type of statement is that it simply doesn't reconcile to reality: the reality is that that people are indeed buying Apple.
Isn't it just downright amazing how industries aren't successful in markets that they haven't targeted? I bet that Porsche isn't going to be selling many pickup trucks or motorcycles this year...again(!).
Define what "Very Successful" is supposed to mean when one already has 90% lock on the overall market (and higher still in Enterprise)?
I do agree that it will be hard for them to be as spectacularly as unsuccessful as they were with Vista, but since Win7 isn't v7.0 but actually 6.1 (note that Vista was 6.0 in cmd.exe), they're trying to walk a very fine line with Windows 7: MS is simultaneously trying to reassure IT folks that Win7 is not a radical departure from Vista while at the same time tell home consumers that it is.
YMMV, but self-contradiction doesn't sound like a real 'winner' of a marketing strategy to me.
In the meantime, Enterprise is getting increasingly fed up with the "MS Tax" on things like enterprise software costs. Expect Office to crack before the back office stuff...and with Home/Student prices being now what they are, one can suggest that this erosion is already taking place.
However, the bigger (and long term) problem that I see is that MS still hasn't shown that they've actually learned from Vista where their fundamental flaws are in their business plan for rolling out new technology developments.
While they have taken steps so that it won't bite them as badly on the Win7 cycle (hence version 6.1), they've still not recognized and fixed the fundamental problem of their offloading software development to unpaid hardware vendor "partners": under the metrics of (Cost, Schedule, Performance), their approach does save money (Cost), but the method by which it does so is at the expense of everything else (Schedule, Performance).
In other words, their own business plan is what hinders MS's ability to be a competitive technology innovator.
-hh
PS: I hear a rumor that the internal codenames for Windows 8, 9 and 10 are going to be "Saturn", "Saab" and "Pontiac".
I have to agree. No matter what they do (I've noticed they've all started producing laptops that look a little bit like MacBooks...), they still look rubbish...
Previous generation MacBook/MacBook Pro better looking
The uni-body MacBooks are unique alright, but IMO, they are not aesthetically pleasing. The chicket keyboard makes the MacBook look like a toy. It is not easier to type. The black keys contrast against the rest of the metallic silver computer color does not present a high quality appearance. I prefer the previous generation models.
As to your comment that "The HP's look like the 1000's of other PC's out there", I am pretty sure you have not seen it (HP Pavilion dv series), or that you can't tell a Ferrari from a Corvette.
The uni-body MacBooks are unique alright, but IMO, they are not aesthetically pleasing. The chicket keyboard makes the MacBook look like a toy. It is not easier to type. The black keys contrast against the rest of the metallic silver computer color does not present a high quality appearance. I prefer the previous generation models.
As to your comment that "The HP's look like the 1000's of other PC's out there", I am pretty sure you have not seen it (HP Pavilion dv series), or that you can't tell a Ferrari from a Corvette.
Nope, I looked them up when they were mentioned. The pictures on HP's site were admittedly bad, but from what I could see, I stand by what I said.
A Mac is a PC. Why is it so hard for Mac users to accept that?
That's dumb; who runs a virus and malware scan on a new computer?
I've had so many issues with a Mac, kernel panics, incompatible card reader; forget it.
That's dumb; who runs a virus and malware scan on a new computer?
I've had so many issues with a Mac, kernel panics, incompatible card reader; forget it.
Apple could do no wrong!?
This just goes to show that most Mac Heads are looking at Apple products like Apple could do no wrong. The look of the previous generation MacBook and MBP
is a carry-over from the PowerBook and indeed does look aesthetically pleasing. The new Uni-body MB and MBP are newer and have nice glass-surfaced trackpads and magnetic "latches" that won't break, but IMO, they do not look as good. I can understand that Apple probably needed to make products that look substantially different from the previous generation, but this time, Apple really has not made products that looked better.
Another case in point is the new third generation iPod Shuffle. The design is minimalist for sure, but it does not make using it easier, and the look isn't better either. If Apple had put the controls on the earbuds in ADDITION to the ones on the Suffle itself, that would have been much better, as users can choose which to use depending on different circumstances. Of course this leaves lots of room for third-party "enhancement" products to alleviate this 3G Shuffle's shortcomings, but this is absurd. One might as well get a 4G nano and get a LCD screen to boot. Oh, this may have been Apple's intention all along.
Normally, consumers "vote" on the popularity of products with their money. But if people buy Apple products regardless of their design, convenience, price, etc., Apple will have wild products that detract from its tradition as the years progress. Keep your eyes peeled.
This just goes to show that most Mac Heads are looking at Apple products like Apple could do no wrong. The look of the previous generation MacBook and MBP
is a carry-over from the PowerBook and indeed does look aesthetically pleasing. The new Uni-body MB and MBP are newer and have nice glass-surfaced trackpads and magnetic "latches" that won't break, but IMO, they do not look as good. I can understand that Apple probably needed to make products that look substantially different from the previous generation, but this time, Apple really has not made products that looked better.
Another case in point is the new third generation iPod Shuffle. The design is minimalist for sure, but it does not make using it easier, and the look isn't better either. If Apple had put the controls on the earbuds in ADDITION to the ones on the Suffle itself, that would have been much better, as users can choose which to use depending on different circumstances. Of course this leaves lots of room for third-party "enhancement" products to alleviate this 3G Shuffle's shortcomings, but this is absurd. One might as well get a 4G nano and get a LCD screen to boot. Oh, this may have been Apple's intention all along.
Normally, consumers "vote" on the popularity of products with their money. But if people buy Apple products regardless of their design, convenience, price, etc., Apple will have wild products that detract from its tradition as the years progress. Keep your eyes peeled.
After downloading and updating online, a scan would not be unreasonable. Besides, updating and running malware and virus scans from hereon in will become a ritual - might as well get used to it from the outset.
Yes, but since most PCs come with a crippled OEM version of Windows and bloatware pre-installed on it, one soon realizes that although a Mac is a PC, a PC is not a Mac.
Kernel panics? How? Incompatible card reader? Quite likely that the manufacturer did not provide a driver.
On the contrary: Apple has made plenty of mistakes. The IIvi for but one example. They'll also make more mistakes in the future, since no one is able to somehow magically be infallable.
How many mistakes one makes can be an element of corporate leadership and culture: if your goal is to "play it safe" to avoid mistakes, you're going to be fairly timid ... the baseball analogy is to be content hitting singles. On the other hand, if you're going to swing for the fences to strive for a home run (product), you're going to have more strike-outs too. Which strategy is better for your business depends on your business and its strategic position within the marketplace.
I agree that the current generation doesn't look as visually appealing. To my eye, the black keys seem harsh. As to why they chose this design, I don't know, but what I do know is that white keys (which Apple has used at times) look great initially when you unbox, but after a few week/smonths of use, their accumulation of dirt & grunge on the keys make them look downright horrible. So black could be a fancy design cue ... or it could simply be pragmatic because black hides dirt better. We can ask John Ives the next time he stops by MacRumors
Part of the whole 'buttonless' bit can be dismissed as a mindshare gimmick...or it might be something more that they're rolling out here to gage reaction prior to it showing up in the next generation iPhone, where it might include features like hands-free phone dialing, etc. Short answer is that we don't know all of the motivational reasons why they chose to do what they do...nor is it reasonable for us to believe that we're somehow entitled to know.
Actually, consumers always vote with their wallet.
And companies always have to be able to change and adapt to the marketplace, or else they become irrelevant and then decline. Its a fundamental element of capitalism.
-hh
OMG, look at how ugly - the sides are full of holes.
Let's count:
- 4 USB ports
- eSATA port (shared with 1 USB port)
- 1394 port
- 5 in 1 media card reader
- Ethernet RJ45
- ExpressCard 54
- HDMI
- Docking expansion port
- VGA
- Antenna for builtin HDTV tuner
Wow, what a bunch of ugly crap in a $1050 17.3" system with available Blu-ray and quad-core options!
(...I'm in the function over form camp - I'll take the extra holes over a crippled but pretty Apple laptop
)
This is all from my personal needs, but:
-4 USB ports
I've never needed more than the 2 at once in my MBP. If you need more than 2, you're likely sitting at a desk where you have a USB hub handy anyway.
-eSATA
Ok, one of the things I would like, but I don't have an external HDD anyway, so oh well.
-1394 port
Check. And anyway, people still use firewire? Complete waste of space imo. USB is king.
-Card reader
Something else I've never needed.
-Ethernet
Check again, got one.
-Expresscard 54
I've got Expresscard 34, but once again, I've never used it, nor would I use 54.
-HDMI
Could be useful, but I have DVI soo..
-Docking port
Why does anyone need a docking port? Just a plain USB hub should work for most people.
-VGA
Once again, DVI.
-HDTV tuner antenna
Nice feature, but using a slingbox would be much more versatile.
And this is for a 15.4" which has less space for ports than a 17.3" I would hardly call my Mac crippled.
Understood, and to a degree, the same here...but also from a pragmatic perspective that fewer ports = stronger case ("Form Over Function"), which can also allow it to be lighter at the same strength. Considering that this anchor of an HP weighs nearly 8lbs, it could clearly benefit from being lighter.
Plus since there's that docking port, that is another venue for having USB's.
On the road, I've found that it is nice to have 2 ports free to be able to quickly transferring files between two thumb drives without having to drop it onto the desktop.
However, the ability to do this varies by PC and Flash media device: I've seen many newer (larger) flash drives which are figuratively big & chunky, which end up blocking adjacent USB ports in both the "side by side" as well as "stacked" USB port configurations. As such, this utility mostly only exists with the older slim memory stick designs, which can fit into a USB port without blocking any of its neighbors. Its a pretty sad situation when you need 5 ports in order to get 3 useful ones.
From a personal perspective, because our IT disabled all autorun USB media as a security risk (Conficker) six months ago, the only thing that I can use USB for today under Windows while I'm on the road would be for a mouse and to synch/recharge my Blackberry...a total of 2 ports.
And for any of these, one could suggest another USB port to hook up a printer, but one doesn't generally carry around a printer, and a hub is tiny in comparison to any printer....and only costs $5 for the stereotypical 'poor college student'...I think we can skip ONE Starbucks coffee to pay for this.
Nice to have for an external HD, but its questionable on a laptop that has that docking port, particularly since the eSATA drive will always require a second cable for power too. So long as the docking station isn't expensive, you're much better off getting it and going for cabling convenience. Finally, it is effectively duplicative of the Firewire port, with the caveat that while it is a faster, it is unfortunately less capable, since eSATA can only be used to hook up just a HD - nothing else.
Yes and No. FW is arguably friendlier for "on the road" HD's (think digital still photography - 2nd HD data backup) and unlike eSATA, it can also be used for interfacing to digital camcorders....plus with a reader, its a nice speedy I/O for still photography media cards.
OTOH, using it for an external HD generally runs into the same issue as the eSATA: why not just use the docking port? Personally, I'd keep this one, as the HP's docking station is $126 before $23 rebate ($103 net), unless I'm really looking at making a strong docking setup with external monitor, HDs, keyboard, mice, etc.
I've had need, but the built-ins are a bad joke IMNSHO.
First off, very few people have ever needed to use 5 different types of Media within the same 6 months, so there's again an inefficiency here...and if someone is crazy enough to have that many formats, what they really probably need is to cover all bases, which means a "23-in-one".
But more importantly, a built-in media card reader is functionally non-upgradable, and since flash media keeps on getting upgrades & changing, one can easily end up in 18 months with a slot that's incompatible with some the newest (highest capacity) formats....so you're going to end up with another reader anyway.
And from a pragmatic standpoint, they're dirt, water, & lint magnets that have no protective covers on most laptops...they become yet another source of failure for hardware that can't be easily serviced/replaced for the very reason that they are built-in.
Overall, if you want good I/O speed, you'll probably lean towards using a Firewire reader, and if you want the best of both worlds (speed & 'built-in'), you'll put the reader you need into the ExpressCard slot. For either approach, as your equipment changes (or technology), you can upgrade through simple replacement of a minor peripheral...helps to avoid premature obsolescence.
But on the HP its a 10/100 10bT and not Gigabit Ethernet. True, this doesn't really matter for generic email or surfing, but for customers with a good LAN who's using network storage, you'll definitely notice the fact that the bandwidth of 100bT is much slower than USB2 (roughly 1/5th) when trying to do data backups, etc. Even wireless N is faster than 100bT today.
Personally, I'd use it for memory cards. Since a CF reader for EC54 fits flush whereas it sticks out 1/4" for EC34, I'd prefer to have EC54, all other factors being equal...but EC34 works too. Either is significantly preferable to a permanently built-in slot for the reasons already mentioned.
Having both is trying to be accommodating to various corporate meeting rooms where you never know how new/old the projector is going to be. But since HDMI is relatively new, you'll need to carry a DVI adaptor with you anyway. Of course, if its a business machine, then why is there a TV tuner?
It will, but a docking station is useful for when one is building up a healthy desktop system while also needing to unplug relatively frequently. I've been using docking stations on my Thinkpads and it is handy. For an Enterprise application, HP's asking price of $126 ($103 after rebate) is worth spending, although for the stereotypical poor college student, he's going to get 90% of his utility from a simple $10 USB hub.
TV tuners in laptops are an odd idea, IMO. To be able to record means that your laptop is tied down to its desktop home and is thus, non-portable during that time. As such, if you're doing it to time-shift, you can't be on the road with the laptop....but if you're not on the road, then you're at home and there's probably a normal TV in the other room. As such, most of the perceived utility here seems to be for a college student in their dorm room who's supposed to be busy doing homework.
A good catch, since much of this is a case of "There's a lot of ports because we can", because its a big honking 17" machine.
The Windows PC vendors are effectively stuck with a lack of product differentiation in many other areas, so they use 'feature counts' like this one: its not about if XYZ ports really provides customer value - its about having more XYZ than what Dell offers, so hopefully that the customer will buy the HP instead.
And "More Stuff!" is effectively what the message of this marketing campaign is about - - its not about if the 'Stuff' is really actually useful or not - - its merely the 'More (Bigger) is better' mantra. So golly gosh gee ... let's go buy that SUV of laptops without even thinking about if we really need seating for 7 (and 273 cup holders) when we only have one kid.
-hh
I'm quite aware of it, as its been a topic under some discussions I've followed to create an eSATA version of a USB thumb drive.
However, while power-over-eSATA was announced in 2008 as topic for standardization by SATA-IO, at present, is still under development and not yet a Real World Feature.
You can check out the SATA-IO webpage on eSATA where you'll find that power isn't yet listed as an eSATA feature.
Thus, the eSATA port on this HP laptop is a "normal" eSATA port, not a power-over eSATA.
Kind of hard, since the standard to which it would be built to doesn't exist yet...and FWIW, my major complaint with external SATA is that they're always been behind the power curve in getting things standardized, which has caused adoption headaches and customer confusion between External SATA versus eSATA and "now soon come" variants of eSATA's power over implimentations ... such as this one, which taps into eSATA for signal and a USB port for power...and this one, which claims to have Power over eSATA by apparently having a patented (eSATA + USB) connector design...due to there being a patent, its not particularly likely that that's going to be adopted as the International Standard by SATA-IO, so its going to be a White Elephant.
True, plus its not uncommon on many laptops (Windows laptops in particular) to only offer the less useful powerless variant of 1394.
And at least powered Firewire does have enough output to honestly run a 2.5" external drive ... there's some 2.5" USB externals that come with a "double dongle" USB cable so that it can tap into two USB ports for power, so that it doesn't exceed the USB spec when the HD spools up...this is a work-around for those smarter systems that actually monitor USB power draws in real time and which then shut off ports when they're drawing more power than they're technically allowed to (the D-Link 8 port USB hubs that I have do this).
-hh
I'd go as far to say that it's fugley. A Swiss Army Laptop, which really needs to be renamed, a desktop. What's the point of carrying everything with you when you travel? That's what peripherals are meant for - for choosing what you need to bring with you on any given day. Sure hope the wheels for that thing don't cost extra.