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Macbook Pro or Ipad?

abevins

abevins

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 5, 2011
3
0
Kentucky
Okay. So I have a Windows 7 Acer. It's a year and a half old,so it still works pretty good. The thing is I of course want to buy a Mac,because they are the inferior in some aspects. Well, with all of the new OS5 updates its enhanced the iPhone,iPod,and iPad even more. I already have an iPod touch,but I'm not sure how much long that one will last. I of course want to keep costs down as much as possible and keep performance up. I would basically be using the ipad to substitute as a cheaper macbook. As it does about the same,I hear. I have enough money to buy the ipad,but it would be a while for me to save up enough for the macbook pro that I want.

Hopefully someone who has used either of these devices can help me. And if I get an ipad,would 32gs be enough? I know on the ipod touch it is.

Thanks in advance.:D
 
abevins said:
Okay. So I have a Windows 7 Acer. It's a year and a half old,so it still works pretty good. The thing is I of course want to buy a Mac,because they are the inferior in some aspects. Well, with all of the new OS5 updates its enhanced the iPhone,iPod,and iPad even more. I already have an iPod touch,but I'm not sure how much long that one will last. I of course want to keep costs down as much as possible and keep performance up. I would basically be using the ipad to substitute as a cheaper macbook. As it does about the same,I hear. I have enough money to buy the ipad,but it would be a while for me to save up enough for the macbook pro that I want.

Hopefully someone who has used either of these devices can help me. And if I get an ipad,would 32gs be enough? I know on the ipod touch it is.

Thanks in advance.:D
Click to expand...

An iPad is not a very good substitute for a computer. If you use it to take to meetings and classes for notes, read books and play games then great. If you hope to use it to edit video, edit and compile code or even to create documents that exceed 5 or 10 pages, you should consider a Macbook Pro instead.

I use Windows 7 at work. Every time I want to view a Word document, I'm faced with 90 seconds of startup delay. This is on a 6 month old Dell E6400 that scores 3100 on Geekbench. Meanwhile on my 3 year old Macbook, to do the same thing I highlight the file, right click and pick quick view and in under 1/10 of a second I can read through the entire document.

I use OS X at home. For my purposes I find it to be superior to Windows 7 in several key areas. For me quick view (mentioned above) is one of them. Another is Spotlight. If you want to experience Spotlight on Windows, try Launchy, only the performance leaves something to be desired.

I use a Wifi iPad 1 with 16 gig of RAM. It's about 2/3 full. I avoid putting movies or lots of photos on it. I have dozens of ebooks, hundreds of apps, only a few hundred songs on it. I'm delighted with it but even with dropbox and mobile me it is a poor computer substitute. Also the browsers have a few quirks such as crashing and making me start over. Lastly I can use my Macbook via my iPad with a number of VNC applications.

If you can afford only one computer, get the $999 Macbook Pro. If you can afford only an iPad, at least get more memory or avoid putting a lot of media on it and bear in mind it's not a true computer replacement... yet. If you are able to get the 3G iPad, get it even if you never activate the cellular data so you have a first class large screen gps nav system because the Wifi iPads do not come with GPS.

hope this helps...
 
An iPad can suffice many needs, but it can't replace a computer. So if it is a one or the other situation, the macbook pro is the better idea
signature_SmileSPB.jpg
 
keep saving your money to buy the MBP, your acer will do just fine for the time being. It is better to wait and get a product that will actually do everything you need it to, instead of settling for a product JUST so you can have something resembling an Apple computer.

Another thought, would the macbook air suffice for your needs? It is not that much more expensive than a maxed out ipad.
 
The basic question is what do you want to use with a laptop/iPad?

MBPs excel at
Running multiple programs at once
Viewing content in multiple windows, e.g., a word document next to a spreadsheet
Photo management
Content creation
Running windows

The iPad excels at
Content consumption
reading books
listening to music
playing games
being highly portable.

The iPad can be a powerful tool, but its strengths do not lie in the areas of content creation, i.e., typing or data storage. This is where I think laptops still have an edge. I'd rather type on a physical keyboard then the iPad's keyboard. Yeah I can buy a physical keyboard for the iPad and then a stand but at the point it seems more work to lug that stuff around then a laptop
 
maflynn said:
The basic question is what do you want to use with a laptop/iPad?

MBPs excel at
Running multiple programs at once
Viewing content in multiple windows, e.g., a word document next to a spreadsheet
Photo management
Content creation
Running windows

The iPad excels at
Content consumption
reading books
listening to music
playing games
being highly portable.

The iPad can be a powerful tool, but its strengths do not lie in the areas of content creation, i.e., typing or data storage. This is where I think laptops still have an edge. I'd rather type on a physical keyboard then the iPad's keyboard. Yeah I can buy a physical keyboard for the iPad and then a stand but at the point it seems more work to lug that stuff around then a laptop
Click to expand...

The thing is,I'm looking for just about all of those things. lol One thing I like is that it would double as an e-reader which would save money from buying one. But I suppose it would be smarter to wait and buy the mbp,as I would want it to last a long time. As to who asked about the Macbook Air, the lack of usb ports and a disk drive kinda push me away from it. I would buy a Macbook, but all of the users I know tell me to go ahead and buy the Macbook Pro. So,that's what I'm going for. I mean, everything they say lacks in a Macbook and excels in a Pro is what I need.

Thanks for you guys help. :)
 
Funny, I am in a similar situation.

I already have a Toshiba windows 7 laptop that's about a year and a half old which is pretty fast and performs most of the tasks that I use it for quite well. I also have a macbook late 2006 that I have had since jan 2007. I use it way more than my PC and have become really comfortable and prefer mac os over windows. Though my macbook works great its a bit out dated (still using tiger) and compared to my PC (4 GB of Ram, 500 GB HDD, i3 processor) my macbook (1 GB Ram, about 80 GB HDD, c2d processor) is slower and can't handle some of the things I want to do like edit HD video in FCE.

I, much like you, have enough to buy an iPad but the MBP would take up all that I have saved (i'm just a college student) i'm not sure if I should just update the OS on my macbook and possibly the ram (i'm not sure how this would work though) and start using my PC for more intensive work. Then get the iPad to use for on the go convenience or if I should just go ahead and get the MBP and sell my old macbook to get some extra cash.

Any suggestions?
 
as stated before, ipads are awesome, there just not a substitute for a computer and dont let them fool you on that
 
The price differce between an iPad and a MBP is significant IMO. If I had to have one, it would be a MBP. Though I use my iPad the most. MBP can do so much more and you don't have a mac yet so again I would go with the MBP.
 
If you have the money and NEED both then get both. I had an MBP and an iPad at the same time last year, two totally different pieces of kit for different things.
 
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