You know what I mean (external hard drive with FW800) except you're trying to be cute. It's not working.
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Apple to Introduce Cheaper Macs?
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You know what I mean (external hard drive with FW800) except you're trying to be cute. It's not working.
At last...a netbook that isn't epic fail
I got to use a Dell mini 10 today (opened and set up a floor model at work) and was actually impressed. It has a good keyboard, decent-enough screen, flush frame around the edge of the screen just like the aluminium MacBooks/MacBook Pros, multi-touch trackpad, and feels very heavy and solid. Basically the only thing I didn't like about it was the presence of the Redmond Malware, but that's easily remedied.
I am sold on this as my first Hackint0sh.
This was a welcome surprise after dealing with lots of other netbooks, all of which were beyond sh*tty. *Points at Acer Aspire One*
I got to use a Dell mini 10 today (opened and set up a floor model at work) and was actually impressed. It has a good keyboard, decent-enough screen, flush frame around the edge of the screen just like the aluminium MacBooks/MacBook Pros, multi-touch trackpad, and feels very heavy and solid. Basically the only thing I didn't like about it was the presence of the Redmond Malware, but that's easily remedied.
I am sold on this as my first Hackint0sh. This was a welcome surprise after dealing with lots of other netbooks, all of which were beyond sh*tty.
*Points at Acer Aspire One*
yeah ever notice the entry level mac pro and out dated GPU or ecc memory? You have to spend a small fortune to upgrade the GPU. I remember the days before a typical user was a intel switcher and apple sold the same $75 graphic card for almost $450 dollars.
I can't belive the fan boys think that the mac pro with terrible graphics, over kill CPU is justified when apple could build i7 machines. It's a ploy to keep their margins up. Waiting for the day Jobs is gone for good. Did you see his last key note? How paranoid he was about developers holding the uni body frames? Talk about a medicated paranoid state. No wonder he flips his lid. Quick, the pro user can use motion on the MacBook so let's release the gm300 and cripple it. We cat have .001% of the pros do this. Then when we update to nvidia, we take away FireWire. Always a plan to screw the consumer and crap on the pro that kept them a float for years.
Well it did me - entice that is - new Apple store in local mall, opening sale 10% off all macs... so I bought myself a Macbook 2.4GHz 250Gig for Aus$2294. Plus thrown in free was wireless mouse, leather padded satchel and ear phones. Now I'll have to ebay my 14 month old 2.4GHz 250Gig Pro... well wife won't let me keep both! But I'm happy with the 10% discount... By the way, that new store was having a bumper day - in the midst of a recession. So yes, lowering price will and does entice some sales...
Before the days of the athlon, there was the power mac. MacBook pro is not pro. Sure you can run logic and a lot of plug in and I will say apple does will with os updates increasing CPU rendering and performance but it strikes me odd that PC developers can build great suites. That said, the hardware is over priced and you can build a hack rack for half that runs circles around the pro.
Has anyone been to osx86 lately? You no longer have to hack the os as the have developed a software FREE efi script that install the OS.
I wasn't trying to be cute. I was trying to be precise.
The drives you are referring to are either PATA or SATA (not that you don't know that) and with a powerful enough system, it won't make much difference whether they're hooked up to FW800, FW400 or USB2. The drives themselves are not capable of fully saturating those busses (certainly not FW800) so it's moot what they're hooked up to, bus-wise.
What matters more is the host system (i.e. the computer itself).
Absolutely excellent points.
Buying a computer based on the hardware is so 1990's.
In all seriousness, I can understand the frustrations of many watching Apple move away from their needs with machines that provide less value when measured solely by the hardware. What I think is important to keep in mind is that Apple is reflecting a market need. This market need exists because a certain segment of the market wants to buy computers like this, myself included:
- I'll accept less choice in configuration for a simpler buying experience.
- I don't even notice the specs of the hardware. Have computers even gotten faster in the last 3 years? I've barely noticed.
- I'll pay more for a computer if I perceive it provides more value: great design, great software, great OS meets that value equation for me.
That's just me and a small 10% sliver of the market. If Apple changed to meet the needs of the other 90%, the economics of that change would force a fundamental change in their ability to deliver superior value and a superior end-user experience. Any success derived from such a strategy would be short-lived as OS X ages and their hardware designs would go stale, and the low-margins associated with appeasing the 90% market would kill the economics of innovating new values. Eventually, they would shrivel up and die. But here is the thing: that small 10% segment of the market that wants to buy computers done the "Apple way" would not go away - it would still exist. And some new player would fill in to meet that demand, to the wonderment and bewilderment of the 90%.
This post really impressed me. Especially the last paragraph, and to be even more precise, the emboldened line.
I genuinely believe anybody posting a complaint re Apple's pricing should be made to read that last paragraph before doing so.
Great stuff.
Learn the firewire/USB technology before posting incorrect info.
There are hard drives that can do more than 80MBps and latest 1/2TB hard drives more than 100MBps. While USB 2.0 can only do 60MBps on paper, but with overhead, it can does mostly 40MBps and uses up CPU as it struggle to maintain the speed, it will drop down to 30-35MBps. Firewire400 can maintain the high speed forever and doesn't use much CPU at 50MBps. Firewire800 can do 90-100MBps.
There are reasons people use Firewire800 for intensive video editing. Try to use iMovie on a USB 2.0 drives and compare it to Firewire 800. You'll see a major difference.
Also, you can't daisy-chain USB 2.0 drives, you can with Firewire 800, very helpful for some people.
cough *eSATA* cough
Get a $5 USB hub, and now what's the difference?
...and smaller. The MP is humongous, go for mid-tower or mini-tower size.
Or even a couple of different sizes using same or similar parts.
Anything over $500 is not a netbook.
$900 for an Intel Atom.
Dump some kool-ade on it and WALLAH! New, Innovative, Apple product!
I have to say that Microsoft is right when it spoke about the Apple tax. There really is an Apple tax. This thread, about Mac prices, has got 500+ posts. The threads about Microsoft's Laptop Hunters ads were also massive successes, with almost 7,000 posts combined. It's quite obvious that people aren't comfortable with Mac prices.
I think we will eventually see a Core i7 Mac Pro. Same-sized case as the current quad- and octo-core models.
Or it could be that many of us are f**king sick and tired of seeing the same old dead horse being dug up and flogged once again.
"Macs are overpriced". Seriously, it's been around since the 80's. PLEASE. STOP.
Or it could be that many of us are f**king sick and tired of seeing the same old dead horse being dug up and flogged once again.
"Macs are overpriced". Seriously, it's been around since the 80's. PLEASE. STOP.
Most of the posts in those threads actually are agreement though.or that we don't like Microsoft
"Macs are overpriced". Seriously, it's been around since the 80's. PLEASE. STOP.
I'll stop when apple can offer competitive prices. They are kinda smart about their price scheme though. Its low enough that its affordable, but high enough that only a few dare spend that much on a computer. At this point Apple can pretty much do whatever they want because theres always that small amount of users who will buy apple products no matter what. Why should they lower the prices when the fanboys line up to buy the next great "innovation" regardless of the cost? Apple's elitism attitude is one of the greatest social engineering endeavors i have ever seen.
These guys also spin for Apple:
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090424/did-apple-just-fire-1600-retail-workers-nope/
still some truth, though
Only Apple can make us stop, by offering reasonably priced configurations.
Note that is not an argument that Apples are over-priced per se, so don't go there - the problem is that many Apples are over-configured for many customers.
The typical response series here seems to be along the lines
FAIL: That's the same story/writer that was quoted before - same story on a different website.
"Macs are overpriced". Seriously, it's been around since the 80's. PLEASE. STOP.
Only Apple can make us stop, by offering reasonably priced configurations.
Note that is not an argument that Apples are over-priced per se, so don't go there - the problem is that many Apples are over-configured for many customers.
The typical response series here seems to be along the lines
- #1: Dell has a 2.66GHz Core i7 with 3 GiB for $799 - why is the Mac Pro so over-priced at $2499?
- #2: The Dell doesn't have a Xeon processor, or 1394turbo, or micro-proprietary-display-port, or four SATA drive slots, or... The matching Dell is the Precision Workstation T7500, which with 6 GiB of 1333MHz registered DDR3 ECC and X5550 CPU and Quadro 512MiB graphics and... is $4750 - much more expensive than the Apple.
- #1: But I only have $1000 to spend in total, time to call 1-800-BUY-DELL
- #2: You need to find a better job
FAIL: That's the same story/writer that was quoted before - same story on a different website.
Oh so the guy on this site is also Apple PR?
Take another look - your link is the original story, the earlier link was an Apple fan site to your story.
Only one writer - doesn't matter how many times Apple fan sites copy or link to that one story.
Look go and look why I was replying to dude. Besides all this is irrelevant, the source of the original article even said he was wrong, lol.
<<raises hand>> There are still a few fans like me wondering where DELL is going. They were a great company, building great machines until they outsourced in a BIG way. What really defined DELL and set them above the rest in the past was their outstanding support. Sure, it seems everyone is outsourcing these days, but in a market hard hit by the economy, something needs to set your product and service model above the others. DELL has arguably lost this edge. I love what they've done to some of their laptops, but it's a shame a thick accent and general apathy toward customers on the phone has more or less ruined a great reputation. That and Vista's problems certainly didn't help matters any.
Still, I think it bears mentioning DELL still offers some customers choices to downgrade a system configuration to XP, choose a system with an AMD processor, or I think - choose a Linux system. How many others did or still do this? If you need or want a PC, I still think DELL is a viable option for someone not terribly concerned about the support.
As for Apple, they may not be Enterprise customers' best choice, but as for the average consumer, at least I can get OS software support for less of a hassle and cost than from a Microsoft product. Apple may arguably use laptop hardware in their desktop products, but these products work very well and are ample for most everyone's needs. I am particularly impressed with the unibody re-design. It was a bold and outstanding upgrade! However, let's be frank here. For most - it's all about the "cat". Mac OS X is an elegant, yet useful and very powerful operating system!
This said, I would also like to see Cupertino set Mac OS X free and allow the pairing of the software with higher end, third party hardware or vendors at reasonable prices. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. I could live with average aesthetics if there was Mac OS X under the hood. I'm kinda torn though ... Until that day happens, however, I'm saving and looking forward to getting that Mac Pro.
It's called conservation of misery. Apple taxes my wallet and MS taxes my time and patience.