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Help convince me to buy a Macbook

T

tnisatard

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 1, 2008
447
0
So right now, I want to buy the Macbook (black) and im about to get a really good deal on it 1200 brand new for the 2.4 ghz

but the thing is my dad is really trying to convince me to get a different laptop like HP or Dell and along with my cousins, they are saying why do you need a macbook anyways, you can just buy a laptop sub 1000 and save alot of money since all you need to do is write papers in college, also if something goes wrong with my laptop, no one i know would be able to fix it since its a mac

so im just looking for some convincing to push me towards my macbook purchase since my family does make a good point, but i would be the first in my family to own a mac

things ill be using it for, writing papers, surfing web, music, photoshop, and basic college stuff

so im pretty sure you guys are all happy with your macbooks, i never hear anyone complain about their macs, but anyways is it really a good way to spend my 1200 or should i take my money somewhere else?
 
In the unlikely event of your Mac going wrong - you now know thousands of people - who in my experience are more than willing to help and very able too.

Unless you really like black and need that extra hard drive space - buy the white 2.4 - its very nice.

And you can save some of that money your Dad is on about.
 
Get yourself a mac...ultimately, you'll convert your family into mac-heads once they see the true value in a mac.

plus...vista sucks...bootie.
 
Two weeks ago I knew nothing about Macs, and so I would never have considered one. Now having spent about 4 hours on demo units in stores, I would not consider Windows.

It's a whole lot of little things which make Mac better than a PC for me. Let's talk about MacBooks, because that's what we both want ^_^ .

1) MacBooks have seriously nice design. Although they are a little heavy, they are a fantastic size for their specs, and smaller than most other good 13" PCs. They also happen to look fantastic in their black/white plastic.

2) OS X Leopard. In honesty, this operating system is better than Windows in most ways. For two equivalently specced machines, one running Vista and one running Leopard, the Leopard will run far, far faster (haha pun). It also looks far nicer, with its pretty menus and zoomy effects.
But looks aren't everything, and Leopard delivers below its lovely surface.
One of Leopard's features is Exposé which means, at the press of a key, you can see all your open windows at once. Great for multitasking, and selecting a different window.
Another great feature is Spaces. It lets you have multiple theoretical desktops. So it's like there's an extra screen to the left/right/above/below (you can select 1 - 16 "screens") which you can scroll to with ctrl+arrow. It means you can have, say, messaging on one screen, safari on another, itunes on another... And you can switch between them really quickly.
So yes, Leopard IS amazing: go see for yourself in a store - it's the best way.

3) Customer care. So Macs go wrong. But just take it into an Apple Store and you can sit down with a "genius" who'll have a look and get it replaced if he can't fix it. This is free for a year (under guarantee), and can be purchased for 3 years if you REALLY love your Mac (as you will ^_^ ).


Ok, that's quite a long post... But what makes a Mac for me is Leopard. It's just superb. If you're still unconvinced please ask anything! Oh, and one slight "problem" is MacBook has no dedicated GPU. That means that you won't easily be able to play the newest games, but you will still get some gaming if you really want - WoW runs great, for example.
 
Get the Macbook. The user experience is so much better.

While some will tell you that nothing ever goes wrong with Macs, it's just not true. Macs have their own issues. However, Macrumors is a great community and most folks will help you through any problems.

Just make sure you wait until your cousins have problems before you do. Otherwise you'll be hearing boatloads of "I told you so" comments. ;)

ft
 
WPB2 said:
Dude, get a Macbook Air. Love it.
Click to expand...

Not within his price range, and not at all practical as his only machine.

To the OP- Yes, definitely get the one you're talking about. I have one, and It's amazing. As for repairs and problems, the people on this site are quite capable of helping you when you need it.
 
There are several good reason but the one for me was the operating system. Its fast and stable.

I highly suggest taking the leap. You really have nothing to lose. You will actually wonder why you put up with Windows in the first place.
 
Mac advantage

Reasons for paying $1000+ for a MacBook instead of less for a PC notebook.

I made that decision recently and have no regrets at all. Because

1. OS X much more pleasant experience than Windows. Much more logical and aesthetic in the way it works. A PC running Vista means using an OS Microsoft itself announces it intends to replace soon and which has not been taken up by MS Windows' core corporate base, and which has a declining market share. OS X, together with the Mac and iPhone hardware that uses it, is sky rocketing in sales. Must be a reason for that. Many reasons in fact.

2. Mac OS security is far far superior to Windows and far less intrusive. Both with regard to radically less virus problems (none as far as I know) and spyware problems, and a much more simple, non-intrusive user friendly approach to setting up security and maintaining it.

3. Macs look really beautiful, which must be worth some extra money.

4. Time machine back up on OS X Leopard automatically backs up everything on your hard drive to an external hard drive every hour and allows you to very easily pull up old versions of files.

5. Brilliant for work. Unique to Mac: TextEdit (pre-installed basic word processing) is ideal for quick note taking; if you install iWork, really great and beautiful ways of creating and editing documents, spread sheets, presentations; NeoOffice (free open source) allows maximum emulation of MS Office suite. If all the word processing/productivity application use you ever want to do is to take notes, create purely text term papers and other simple documents TextEdit is enough and very fast, though exploring other WP possibilities is good.

6. Brilliant for everyday creative and fun uses, e.g. creating webpages/blogging, if you use iWeb in iLife (pre-installed), which integrates particularly beautifully with blogging on dot mac (now becoming MobileMe, though that online service will cost you.

7. Continuing the brilliant for fun theme: various applications in iLife make it very easy and pleasurable to use the MacBook for photography, films, editing and organising content of that kind. The Mac, even in its darkest years, has always been the first choice of professionals working with visual content. Even if all you are doing is photoshop stuff, it must be better to do that on the ideal platform for dealing with visual content.

8. All these things and others are very easy to access and use, and everything integrates smoothly.

9. If you really have to use Windows and/or MS Office, these will work just as well as on a PC.

10. Yes a MacBook costs more than some PC notebooks with decent specs, but it's an investment. Macs keep their price. Just look at how heavily discounted PC notebooks often are (as far as I can see, once you strip out discount offers the general price difference becomes much more marginal) and think about what that says about resale price.

11. Point out to you Dad, and family, that in pure hard headed accounting terms assets which depreciate more slowly are very desirable financially and are worth a greater initial investment. Presumably you Dad wouldn't advise you to buy a car which is 20% cheaper but loses value twice as fast as another car you are considering. That kind of financial advantage is rather theoretical if you never sell the MacBook (but there is a good chance you will), but even so that lack of depreciation reflects 'real world' advantages in using a Mac, including greater basic reliability and customer support.
 
BarryS said:
Reasons for paying $1000+ for a MacBook instead of less for a PC notebook.

I made that decision recently and have no regrets at all. Because

1. OS X much more pleasant experience than Windows. Much more logical and aesthetic in the way it works. A PC running Vista means using an OS Microsoft itself announces it intends to replace soon and which has not been taken up by MS Windows' core corporate base, and which has a declining market share. OS X, together with the Mac and iPhone hardware that uses it, is sky rocketing in sales. Must be a reason for that. Many reasons in fact.

2. Mac OS security is far far superior to Windows and far less intrusive. Both with regard to radically less virus problems (none as far as I know) and spyware problems, and a much more simple, non-intrusive user friendly approach to setting up security and maintaining it.

3. Macs look really beautiful, which must be worth some extra money.

4. Time machine back up on OS X Leopard automatically backs up everything on your hard drive to an external hard drive every hour and allows you to very easily pull up old versions of files.

5. Brilliant for work. Unique to Mac: TextEdit (pre-installed basic word processing) is ideal for quick note taking; if you install iWork, really great and beautiful ways of creating and editing documents, spread sheets, presentations; NeoOffice (free open source) allows maximum emulation of MS Office suite. If all the word processing/productivity application use you ever want to do is to take notes, create purely text term papers and other simple documents TextEdit is enough and very fast, though exploring other WP possibilities is good.

6. Brilliant for everyday creative and fun uses, e.g. creating webpages/blogging, if you use iWeb in iLife (pre-installed), which integrates particularly beautifully with blogging on dot mac (now becoming MobileMe, though that online service will cost you.

7. Continuing the brilliant for fun theme: various applications in iLife make it very easy and pleasurable to use the MacBook for photography, films, editing and organising content of that kind. The Mac, even in its darkest years, has always been the first choice of professionals working with visual content. Even if all you are doing is photoshop stuff, it must be better to do that on the ideal platform for dealing with visual content.

8. All these things and others are very easy to access and use, and everything integrates smoothly.

9. If you really have to use Windows and/or MS Office, these will work just as well as on a PC.

10. Yes a MacBook costs more than some PC notebooks with decent specs, but it's an investment. Macs keep their price. Just look at how heavily discounted PC notebooks often are (as far as I can see, once you strip out discount offers the general price difference becomes much more marginal) and think about what that says about resale price.

11. Point out to you Dad, and family, that in pure hard headed accounting terms assets which depreciate more slowly are very desirable financially and are worth a greater initial investment. Presumably you Dad wouldn't advise you to buy a car which is 20% cheaper but loses value twice as fast as another car you are considering. That kind of financial advantage is rather theoretical if you never sell the MacBook (but there is a good chance you will), but even so that lack of depreciation reflects 'real world' advantages in using a Mac, including greater basic reliability and customer support.
Click to expand...

12. Do it or i'll kill you. (how's that for convincing?) :p

For real though, what you would be using yours for is the same thing I use mine for. I was the first person I knew to get a mac product too. I enjoy it more than I ever did a PC and that's what counts.
 
I just recently purchased a MacBook. I got a fantastic deal on the low-end 2.1 GHz model and threw in 4 GB ram right away so that now the differences between mine and the higher cost models are small.

It's taking time to get used to the Mac and OS X, but so far so good! I just watched some high definition movie trailers for the first time and they look beautiful on this machine.
 
I got a new 2.4 white a month or so ago. It is an amazingly fast machine.
My last mac was an ibook I sold to a friend after 4.5 years of trouble free use.
The benchmarks say my new mb is roughly SIX times as fast.

I added 4gb of ram. Mac's are the way to go. Spend not one minute messing with os reloads or spyware crap.
 
thanx im gettin the macbook now guys

for people telling me to wait

the thing is some guy from apple bought a blackbook with an employee discount for 25% off

so it is 1200

he bought it for his relative, but his relative left to another country, so its just sitting in his house, unopened

he offered it to me for 1200 + software like ms word and etc


 
$1200 plus that software?!? I'd say hell yeah do it...

I'm only on day 3 with my new Macbook after using PCs for 15 years and I'm seriously in love with it. I've already had plenty of questions about it (which you might too) but I've found it's easy ot just come on these forums and ask about it and you'll likely get a great answer.

Do it :)
 
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