Losing faith in Mac

[NickZac]

Whether he is a troll or not, the way some people have responded in this thread is appalling. I really hope they do not talk to people like this in real life...

I used Office 2011 on a daily basis and I have not had a single stability issue with it. I have used every office for both Mac and PC since the 1997 Windows release and IMO Mac Office 2011 is the best Office to date. If you are having instability issues with it, I would try reinstalling it. Virtually everyone I know with Office 2011 absolutely loves it.

I've said this before and that is that a MBP13 is not a 'gaming' laptop in the sense that a truly portable a gaming laptop really doesn't exist. As others have mentioned, the 13 inch favors portability over performance. It is made for users who want more performance than the Air, but aren't willing to accept the larger form factor of the 15. In this sense, it is really nice as the 13 is much easier to move around as it fits in smaller bags and is lighter. The 13 has 'integrated' graphics where as the 15 and 17 have a dedicated GPU (and a pretty good one at that). The graphics performance is a night and day difference and I imagine for gaming it is a big difference too (I don't do games other than Angry Birds so I can't say first hand). As others have mentioned, you can upgrade the RAM if you only have 4GB and you may get some difference there, but nonetheless the 13 is not really meant for gaming.

It is going to be hard to help you love your MBP as it honestly sounds like it is not a good match for you. You could try a reinstall of Office and a RAM upgrade, and possibly browse best practices for iWork integration, but your results may vary. If all else fails, the MBPs keep a pretty high resale value and so all would not be lost if you decided it was not the computer for you. The MBP has the best customer satisfaction ratings of any laptop on the market that I know about. However, that does not mean that it is necessarily the best laptop for everyone in the market. There are some really nice PC laptops that work well too (Samsung and Toshiba have some pretty cool models as does Levano). It may be worth evaluating if something could suit your needs better than what you have. If nothing else, you will then gain more appreciation (or at least knowledge) for what you currently have.

 

[sexiewasd]

I don't understand why anyone would get upset over anything in this thread, or think that people are being defensive. I posted my last post in this thread from my Windows 7 Rig (AMD 1100T, 16Gb DDR3 2000, AMD HD6970), and I'm posting this from bed with my Macbook air. (I find it funny that they both cost about the same amount.)

People need to stop thinking that you have to be in one camp or the other. My desktop is great for when I want to game, or run four virtual machines while encoding video and finding prime numbers, but for the everyday stuff the macbook is quicker, and it doesn't sound like a jet, or make my power meter spin like a gyro, I like them both because It's easy to understand that both are very good for different purposes, now if I could only get the latest ubuntu releases stable on either of them I could be truly happy.

 

[RockPortTech]

Do not feel distressed. I too am new to Mac's, but unlike you I knew I wanted one far in advance of my actual purchase. Listen it is perfectly fine to not like how one operating system performs to your expectations. Especially if you are used to doing things a certain way.

I still find issues that I struggle with on my Mac after decades of being a PC Windows user. Out of the 4 computers in our home, mine is the only one running Mac.

The way you are feeling perfectly fine, and being that we are all different and respond uniquely to certain experiences leads to my giving you this advice, simply to go out and get any new Windows machine, Dell has an "Air" look alike as well as the quite capable XPS line of gaming laptops.

Macs are not better than, more attractive than, last longer than, etc. etc. any other computer out there which is comparable. Do yourself a favor and simply get what you want right now, rather than getting something you are going to have to learn, and maybe reluctantly at that.

That bad resentful feeling is an ugly one, especially if it crops up every time you have to power up a computer you rely on.

 

[SkyBell]

Seems there's no issue with the hardware side of the equation so, two choices: Deal with the issues those programs have on OS X, and wait for updates that might, possibly help. Or, purchase Windows 7 and see if your issues are resolved with the programs on this OS. Your choice from there.

 

[mark28]

Can't blame Microsoft if Apple broke Office with Lion.

 

[roofz]

Play cs1.6
superior gameplay anyways..

 

[Risasi]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1102927/

There are at least a few guys playing CSS on their HD3000 laptops.

This is also straight from Steampowered's website:
Mac System Requirements
Minimum: OS X version Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.3, 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8 or higher, ATI X1600 or higher, or Intel HD 3000 or higher Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection


You either have the settings turned up too high, or something else is wrong. I have COD4 running native in OSX and it's newer than CSS. It runs fine.
I also bootcamp and play games sometimes. When guys are getting SC2 to run with a mix of low/medium settings, most everything prior to 2009 running at medium-high. I think you need to look elsewhere for the problem. I personally have run Shogun 2 at mostly low settings, with some medium. That's a game from March 2011, one month after I bought my 13" MBP!

---

As for the Office 2011 problem, I have one co-worker that will needs it for certain .gov forms. He's had one crash on his 13" 2011 MBA running Lion.

Maybe it's time to factory restore your machine and start over?

 

[taedouni]

Hi guys

I have a MBP 13" that I have had for less than a year. I bought it as I needed a new computer (my Windows laptop spent a long time dying) that would be more reliable. Mac was the obvious solution due to its supposed reliability.

Office 2011 is appalling (instability), iWork's compatibility with Microsoft Office docs is poor and exceeding 60fps in CS:S is unheard of, and it frequently drops below 20.

I am losing faith in this thing, and am wanting to go back to Windows. Can anyone reinstate the love for me, that you all have for your macs? I just don't enjoy it anymore!!

RBG.

I actually found OSX more stable than Windows. I also have not had any of the issues that you claim that you had. Perhaps you were using pirated software that have not been updated?

 

[throAU]

Personally I suspect the "memory bug" in lion is end users not understanding what inactive memory is.

Repeat after me: "Free memory is WASTED MEMORY"

If you have space available in RAM to cache recently accessed files/data, doing this is a good thing. This is what inactive memory is. if it is NEEDED, inactive memory will be reclaimed.

 

[itsmrjon]

Hi guys

I have a MBP 13" that I have had for less than a year. I bought it as I needed a new computer (my Windows laptop spent a long time dying) that would be more reliable. Mac was the obvious solution due to its supposed reliability.

Office 2011 is appalling (instability), iWork's compatibility with Microsoft Office docs is poor and exceeding 60fps in CS:S is unheard of, and it frequently drops below 20.

I am losing faith in this thing, and am wanting to go back to Windows. Can anyone reinstate the love for me, that you all have for your macs? I just don't enjoy it anymore!!

RBG.

Solution to problem #1: LaTeX.
Solution to problem #2: I don't have one because I don't play games.

Why do I love my mac? I don't. It is just the best option for me. I work in scientific computing, I need to be able to write software for clusters and run the utilities for them. All this means is I need a *NIX based box, which OSX is.

So what's the big perk? My industry requires that I update my work machines very regularly. I buy a new desktop and laptop every year at the minimum. Why is a mac good for this? The fan boys are willing to pay top dollar for my year old machine on craigslist/ebay. The resale value on macs is amazing, so I can afford to update yearly and lose the minimum amount of money (compared to a PC/linux box).

Do what's best for you. If you like playing games and have to use word, then buy a windows machine. There is no point in sacrificing productivity because you want to stick with a brand.

 

[throAU]

An alternative is to download virtualbox, buy a windows/office license and run Windows + Office in a VM. with much nicer hardware than you get from Dell, etc.