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How to convince my parents to get me a mac?

S

sjm-macbook

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 1, 2010
1
0
Hi, I am trying to convince my parents to get me a mac. My dad took me out shopping at the weekend and forced me into getting a toshiba laptop with windows 7 on it which i totally didn't want. :( I have an old one which is broken, and a windows desktop from 2003. My Dad and Mum have never used a Mac before. I was also wondering how to cut the costs down, cause we spent £450 on the new laptop. Ok enough of my rattling on, please help!!!! :apple::apple:
 
You were forced to buy a laptop? I wish my parents were that mean when I was growing up. Be grateful for what you got.
 
What about the Back to School promo? Free iPod Touch 8GB, Printer + ~14% off a Macbook! :)
 
sjm-macbook said:
Hi, I am trying to convince my parents to get me a mac. My dad took me out shopping at the weekend and forced me into getting a toshiba laptop with windows 7 on it which i totally didn't want. :( I have an old one which is broken, and a windows desktop from 2003. My Dad and Mum have never used a Mac before. I was also wondering how to cut the costs down, cause we spent £450 on the new laptop. Ok enough of my rattling on, please help!!!! :apple::apple:
Click to expand...

Just take them to an apple store and show them how gorgeous macs are. My mom loves apple, i also gifted her apple t shirts, apple mug for her coffe, apple pencils (Bought them at Apple Company Store @ my last trip to california :D) and the indispensable apple stickers. After your first mac you can show your dad how the os makes your life simple. Last night my dad called me with some video problem from facebook, so windows 7 was blocking online videos cause it think it was a virus? WTF! I told him that i was seeing perfectly that video on my mac.

Otherwise use that 450 and some of your savings and buy yourself a mac! You wont regret it!
 
stevensteven123 said:
You were forced to buy a laptop? I wish my parents were that mean when I was growing up. Be grateful for what you got.
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mikeo007 said:
Save up money and buy your own instead of complaining about gifts.
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Plutonius said:
Live with it until you can afford to buy the Mac you like.
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+1 to all of these. Macs are great and all, but what are you really missing with the laptop your parents bought for you? Macs are mostly a luxury item, if you want one get a job, save up and buy one.
 
I would just try and recite the list that people often use in Mac vs. PC arguments -

  • PCs and viruses
  • PCs being cheaper first off but then you have to pay for antivirus (which you don't have to do, but still)
  • PCs crashing (Although they can be as reliable as Macs
  • Easier to use (Not always)

I've tried to be as neutral as possible - I don't want to start an argument over which computing platform is better. But if you're going to try and convince your parents do what I did and reel off all of the points above - even if some of them aren't 100% true they probably won't realise :D
 
Save money or be happy with what you got.
It's hard to convince your parents if they don't even know how a Mac works...

Never give up, the day will come :)
 
sjm-macbook said:
Hi, I am trying to convince my parents to get me a mac. My dad took me out shopping at the weekend and forced me into getting a toshiba laptop with windows 7 on it which i totally didn't want. :( I have an old one which is broken, and a windows desktop from 2003. My Dad and Mum have never used a Mac before. I was also wondering how to cut the costs down, cause we spent £450 on the new laptop. Ok enough of my rattling on, please help!!!! :apple::apple:
Click to expand...

Try to finding a job and earning some money on your own, then you can buy whatever Mac you want.

The other option: Talk your dad into spending another 29 USD, buy a Snow Leopard DVD and turn your new PC into a Hackintosh. You will find help for this on insanelymac.com. It can be done and it can actually work as well as a genuine Mac.

But the very best option for you would be to dismiss both Windows and Mac OS X as options and put Ubuntu Linux on that new computer of yours. You will learn a lot and you will be in complete control over your gear. Furthermore, you will enter the world of FREE software - there won't be any artificial restrictions at all, and both OS X and Windows are full of artificial restrictions.

Other than that, be grateful for what your parents are doing for you. You should not take the luxury that you have for granted.
 
I wonder what I would think if I bought a luxury device like a laptop for my child -- after presumably paying for everything else that kid has -- and then found out that he or she was on a board trying to figure out ways to get me to spend more of my money. I think I might be inclined to take that new laptop back to the store. But I'm mean. :)

I'll add my voice to the chorus saying to be happy for what you have, save your pennies, buy what you want when you can buy it with your own money.
 
Clearly you need new Mac-loving parents.



Joking! You should be happy with what you have... in fact, you could even use this as an opportunity to learn the ins and outs of hackintoshing your new laptop, or even try one of the Linux flavors out there. If you really can't be happy with this gift... save up money or use the money you might have already have saved and offer to pay the difference.

Okay, one more joke:

Maybe your parents got you a Windows lappy to build your character. :)
 
Windows 7 isn't bad - just use the Toshiba. But from experience, I can tell you that Windows 7 is still very susceptible to malware when using the internet (even with MS Security Essentials enabled). I can't believe they haven't locked these issues down yet.
 
stevensteven123 said:
You were forced to buy a laptop? I wish my parents were that mean when I was growing up. Be grateful for what you got.
Click to expand...

mikeo007 said:
Save up money and buy your own instead of complaining about gifts.
Click to expand...

mdatwood said:
+1 to all of these. Macs are great and all, but what are you really missing with the laptop your parents bought for you? Macs are mostly a luxury item, if you want one get a job, save up and buy one.
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Patrick J said:
You just got a band spanking new laptop!
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the thing you fail to see is his parents basically wasted money buying the laptop since he didnt want it.

if you go out and buy a family member a car they dont want, you dont go, oh just use it, i paid so much for it and you better use it. Thats pretty lousy.

what I would do is tell them the least expensive macbook is like $950 with education discount. Return your crap new laptop and with that money put it towards the macbook. If need be, tell them you will make up the rest of the cost somehow.
 
or you could sell your laptop on craigslist/ return it and pay the difference. That's what I had to do a haven't regretted it at all.
 
7thMac said:
Windows 7 isn't bad - just use the Toshiba. But from experience, I can tell you that Windows 7 is still very susceptible to malware when using the internet (even with MS Security Essentials enabled). I can't believe they haven't locked these issues down yet.
Click to expand...

The only way to really lock down the issues would be to lock the clueless users in a room without computers. Seriously, there is a little bit of unavoidable malware out there (drive-by) which I have yet to see on Windows 7. The rest of the crap on people's machines is installed by them knowingly installing something.


iOrlando said:
the thing you fail to see is his parents basically wasted money buying the laptop since he didnt want it.

if you go out and buy a family member a car they dont want, you dont go, oh just use it, i paid so much for it and you better use it. Thats pretty lousy.

what I would do is tell them the least expensive macbook is like $950 with education discount. Return your crap new laptop and with that money put it towards the macbook. If need be, tell them you will make up the rest of the cost somehow.
Click to expand...

Unbelievable. It was a gift. Turning down a gift is akin to being a spoiled brat. It's like the spoiled kids you see in walmart. The parents buy them a red ball and they throw a fit because they wanted the blue one.
 
I would be appreciative of a gift laptop. Doesn't matter if it's Windows or OS X.

I'm having a hard time believing that they bought you any laptop without your approval. Your parents would have probably been ecstatic had you told them not to buy anything for you until you found an equivalently priced Mac. I know mine would have been.

How come you couldn't "stop" your parents? I'm curious... I've told my parents not to spend money on me before, and they listened in most cases.
 
if you go out and buy a family member a car they dont want, you dont go, oh just use it, i paid so much for it and you better use it. Thats pretty lousy.
Click to expand...
I sure as hell would if that "family member" were my kids. Kids don't get to make the rules on things like this unless they've got the money. The OP says that before this he was struggling along on a 7-year-old computer. He hasn't mentioned any Mac-specific reasons for wanting a Macbook, so I'm going to guess it's just to be cool. Which is FINE -- when you're making choices with your own money.
 
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