Powerbook or Dell Inspiration?

[Belly-laughs]

Forget the Lynx effect

Did you know that PowerBooks attract women? See, yet another reason to get one. To add to the experience, the sleep mode light makes for funky illumination in the dark too.

 

[bigandy]

all my friends told me i was an idiot for the same reason, i chose a PB over a Dell.

now, two years down the line, out of the 13 people that told me i should get a Dell (despite them knowing NOTHING) about the world of computers, and were akin to CompUSA (in the states) and PC World (in the UK) employees when it came to their knowledge, all but TWO have a Mac.

why? because they saw and used mine, fell in love, bought one for themselves. now, too, the university's mac support (with my consultancy help *money!*) has got to the same level as the pc support.

result

 

[d_saum]

Friends dont let friends drive Dell!

I fell victim to letting my friends convince me to buy a windows machine several years ago (you can read about it here). Since then, I've convinced them to switch!!!

 

[Sun Baked]

How about buying something on your own terms, not on your friends'?

If he needs his friends to make all his decisions for him, then he better find a strong willed woman to take over his life as quick as possible.

Either that, or buy a spine on e-Bay -- since it seems like they are selling just about everything else.

 

[Chrispy]

Perhaps this little story will help you make a decision. My friend (who USED to hate macs up until recently) was making a video for his grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. He has a Dell Dimension 8700 or something and it has a 2.0GHz Pentium 4, 512MB or RAMBUS RAM (yes the long lost rd-ram for the PC savy who remember it), and all the other usual windows goodies that were on mid-end dells just over two years ago. He was using windows movie maker since it was free with windows (as he said "just like iTunes and iMovie are included with mac" trying to say it was just as good it seemed). He got about 400 pics into the slideshow and the computer just crapped out. We figured maybe he just needed more RAM so we were going to get some but the RAM used in his computer was almost impossible to find. When we did find a store that sold it they wanted $100 per stick for 256x2 (had to be installed in pairs). At this point I told him it would be best for him to just redo the video on my powerbook.

He was very reluctant becuase my powerbook "was much slower since it only had a 1.5GHz G4 and the same RAM (which as since been upgraded) as his computer". I just laughed and said trust me it will work. He was concerened there would be slow downs as the video got larger but he gave it a try since he had no other options. Sure enough, the 50 min video was complete in under 6 hours (it took him days to do it on the PC becuase it was being so slow). He was happy becuase the audio transitions were way better on the video when he made it on mac than they would have been on the Dell.

Since his computer has a DVD burner and my powerbook does not I encoded the video and burned it to a DVD as a file using my (at the time) 400MHz G4 Gigabit ethernet computer with a 16x DVD-/+RW drive. His computer could not play the file correclty because of the size so I told him I was sure my old 400MHz computer could do it. At this point, he was very reluctant given that the G4 computer was 5 years old haha. But sure enough, we used iDVD and within an hour we had a very nice DVD title menu. I burned the movie using the Gigabit Ethernet and we had ourselves a very nice video. All this was done on computer with specs far below what his Dell has.

Moral of this story... speed does not mean JACK CRAP if the computer's software is flawed. Go with the powerbook and for the love of god try to convince your friends to go with mac. It may take them losing days of work to see the light side like it did with my friend, but when they do, they will surely become dedicated mac users. Go with the powerbook!!!

 

[d_saum]

Moral of this story... speed does not mean JACK CRAP if the computer's software is flawed. Go with the powerbook and for the love of god try to convince your friends to go with mac. It may take them losing days of work to see the light side like it did with my friend, but when they do, they will surely become dedicated mac users. Go with the powerbook!!!

Bravo my friend! Bravo!

 

[thomasp]

If your friends are telling you to buy a Windows machine, then you need to drop those friends. Real friends would never do that to one another

Seriously now, one thing I've noticed about these so-called "Mac Haters" is that they've never used one and know absolutely NOTHING about it. Either that or the last Mac they used was an Apple II.

They've never used a mac. They're trying to brainwash me, and failing!

do the inspiron dell have a centrino pentium M derivative inside ? If yes, trust me it will be faster then the g4 if you do video and things like that. Not that the powerbook are slow (i have a 17" 1,5 ghz) but check www.barefeats.com low end centrino beat every powerbook in terms of power and battery. Dont trust people saying the ppc beat centrino clock for clock speed, its true for the pentium 4, not the pentium M.

If you dont need much power, consider an ibook with 1 gig ram.

That said, the inspiron dont run os X, wich is the only reason i have a powerbook (well they are indeed sexy).

Unless you need all the power you can have for video rendering, the powerbook will feel fast enough.

Are you a gamer ? if yes, take the inspiron.

I'm not a gamer on my mac - I have an XBox for that (I know, it's MS...)

At most, I'll be word processing some large documents, using PowerPoint and using Photoshop on some relatively large files.

And yes, the Inspirons do come with Pentium M's.

To top off the achievements of Apple, they also make beautiful products. I urge you to not be swayed by your Windows-calling friends; some people have natural aversions and prejudices and it seems your friends are just attempting to control and manipulate you. If you want that PowerBook, go for it.

I'm getting pretty sure I want a PB now! They're brainwashing attempts have failed.

It depends on what you need, what you have software for, etc. For example, if your uni says we'll give you free Office, Photoshop, etc. for Windwos but not Mac, I would choose the PC. I'm not attached to one or the other like many people here are (not saying that's a bad thing). I think generally, overall, I like Mac better. If you're considering which one is made better and easier to carry around (tougher), I would recommend an iBook adn they are VERY rugged. Of course the PowerBook will also probably be more rugged than the dell.

If you are carrying around a laptop do NOT get an XPS, they're HUGE.

The only free software the uni give out is Virex for Mac users

I also thought the Inspiron range (not the XPS) was very big and bulky

thomasp, you might also want to get your friends to give you specific reasons why they think Macs suck. List them here and we, as a community, can rebut each and every one of these points as best we can. If they have no specific reasons, they are just being "brandists"...

Their reasons are "They can't play games"

My answer: "I don't want to play games"

If he needs his friends to make all his decisions for him, then he better find a strong willed woman to take over his life as quick as possible.

They're just trying to brainwash me

 

[Sun Baked]

They're just trying to brainwash me

Television works much better...

 

[thomasp]

Moral of this story... speed does not mean JACK CRAP if the computer's software is flawed. Go with the powerbook and for the love of god try to convince your friends to go with mac. It may take them losing days of work to see the light side like it did with my friend, but when they do, they will surely become dedicated mac users. Go with the powerbook!!!

It'll take more than a few days to get them to switch!

My main reason for going for a mac is that they are less prone to viruses and spyware. My friends say that Windows don't get viruses & spyware, providing you know how to use it properly. However, the same friend re-installed XP (as you do ), and went online (via broadband) to download SP2, since he didn't have it on CD. However, he forgot to turn on his antivirus software. 10 seconds later, he had a virus and had to reinstall. To be honest, I'd rather not have the hassle of having to be constantly thinking one step ahead of the virus writers - I'd rather be one step ahead with OSX

Television works much better...

Too true. We (my family) had to control ourselves from running out and buying a G5 after we saw the G5 ad - the one where someone is using a computer and suddenly gets blown through the wall of their house and across their garden, and they end up crashing into a tree.


Thanks for all the "wise" words of wisdom - I'll pass some of them on

 

[camomac]

Television works much better...

huh?

 

[camomac]

buy new friends and steal the laptop... wait thats bad.
i mean get new friends and buy the powerbook.

 

[CelticBhoy]

The dell of course.

1) the mac can't access the internet
2) You can't run microsoft office on the mac
3) the mac is difficult to use
4) the mac is full of viruses, spyware and malware, much more so than windows
5) you can't get broadband, wifi, firewire or usb on a mac
6) the mac is so 20th century now
7) the mac uses unix which is so old that it can be hacked easily
8) hardly anyone uses a mac, and you can't get any software for it
9) Microsoft invented the iPod so it'll connect more easily to the dell

Can I be your new best friend ?

 

[dsharits]

And the reasons for the Dell's

• They're Windows based computers (my friend's hate macs...)

Since when is that a reason to buy a product? That, by rule, is a prime reason to repel a certain brand/product. By the way, with a powerbook, you will make it throught college running the latest OS available. In less than two years, the Dells will be at least one OS behind (assuming that MS releases Longhorn in the projected decade ). There is no question here. The PowerBook is not the best choice, it is the only choice. There is no comparison between the two, no contest.

 

[thomasp]

The dell of course.

1) the mac can't access the internet
2) You can't run microsoft office on the mac
3) the mac is difficult to use
4) the mac is full of viruses, spyware and malware, much more so than windows
5) you can't get broadband, wifi, firewire or usb on a mac
6) the mac is so 20th century now
7) the mac uses unix which is so old that it can be hacked easily
8) hardly anyone uses a mac, and you can't get any software for it
9) Microsoft invented the iPod so it'll connect more easily to the dell

Can I be your new best friend ?

It's like I've known you all my life

Since when is that a reason to buy a product? That, by rule, is a prime reason to repel a certain brand/product.

They said "Because it runs WinXP" because I said a good reason to buy the PB is that it runs OSX

By the way, with a powerbook, you will make it throught college running the latest OS available. In less than two years, the Dells will be at least one OS behind (assuming that MS releases Longhorn in the projected decade ). There is no question here. The PowerBook is not the best choice, it is the only choice. There is no comparison between the two, no contest.

So will Longhorn not run on current machines? I haven't really been following Longhorn, apart from Apple have released more OSes than MS in the last few years.

 

[camomac]

i can't believe this was asked on a mac site.

Exactly.
I think you got your answer by now, didn't you?
And if you still need reassurance, then buy the dell.

 

[dsharits]

They said "Because it runs WinXP" because I said a good reason to buy the PB is that it runs OSX

Like I said, Windows XP is definitely a reason to not buy a computer.

So will Longhorn not run on current machines? I haven't really been following Longhorn, apart from Apple have released more OSes than MS in the last few years.

It's quite likely that Longhorn will require a much faster processor that is available today. Some new computers will be able to run it, but more than likely, it will only be the high-end machines, which Dell is not. Dell is there to sell cheap (price and quality) hardware that looks good on paper and will sell to the average PC shopper. Like their commercials say, "Buy this package, and we'll give you a free cd burner upgrade!!!"

 

[sw1tcher]

I have 4 computers total at home, so I dont need any more windows machines(I do software development, so I need to have some kicking around)

.... I will likely farm it out to my 9 yr old son.

I'd consider that parental abuse. Time to call Social Service....

 

[dsharits]

I'd consider that parental abuse. Time to call Social Service....

ROFL!! Really, when i think of a place that would make a goo home for that computer, the city dump comes to mind.

I am so convinced that guys like Michael Dell and Bill Gates are secret Mac users. How could they possibly use their own products and not complain about them?

 

[faintember]

Do it for the Chicks..and other reasons too...

Everyone that has posted has mentioned many good reasons to get the PB, however i would like to pose my own, less intelligent reason.

I have met more random girls with my PB and iPod. ( i know this sounds geeky...wow)

But while doing some typing or other things sitting out in a common area, or chilling on a lawn area I have had several women just say, "wow, thats the PB i want, it looks so good, do you like it?" Of course i always offer them the ability to experience my PB, which is then typically followed by a invitation for them join me for drink or the like. It actually has worked a few times, thats the sad (but great) part. Not to mention the attention my rev A iPod used to get back in the day. (may my revA R.I.P., died of a failing HD)

Apple=chick magnet
(i intensely apologize if you are either a woman or not attracted to women as i dont mean to sound like a Mac-womanizer or anything..lol )

 

[thomasp]

I think you got your answer by now, didn't you?
And if you still need reassurance, then buy the dell.

Yes I have my answer now - I'm going for the 15" PB (not sure on processor speed) with 80Gb HD and at least a gig of RAM


faintember: I'll try to bear that in mind

 

[dsharits]

Yes I have my answer now - I'm going for the 15" PB (not sure on processor speed) with 80Gb HD and at least a gig of RAM


faintember: I'll try to bear that in mind

Congratulations, my friend! You won't be disappointed......but your friends will, when their Dells crap out before the end of their first year.

 

[faintember]

Yes I have my answer now - I'm going for the 15" PB (not sure on processor speed) with 80Gb HD and at least a gig of RAM


faintember: I'll try to bear that in mind

Congrats. Rub it in your friends faces.
Them putting down your PB is just another way of them saying "i hate me".

You may want to buy a stick to beat all of those women off of ya as well. (although it never really bothered me)

 

[camomac]

good news. i am glad you didn't let your friends persuade you.

wise choise, have a good time.

 

[thomasp]

good news. i am glad you didn't let your friends persuade you.

wise choise, have a good time.

I will have a good time Won't be getting it for a couple of months though.

Another major turning point was the cost. With the Dell laptops, they only ship with MS Works (evil, evil software - even Windows people say so - even my mac-hating friends say so!!). MS Office would be an extra £210. But, I can get the student edition of Office for Mac for only £100. However, there is no student edition for Windows (well there is, but it's quite old*). Seeing as I'd be spending almost £2k on a Dell laptop, I'd want it to come with MS Office.

£1500 for a PB of similar specs (apart from processor, bluetooth functionality and screensize), plus Office for £100 - saving of around £500 And I'd get a better computer.


*There may be others, but I've only seen a really old one on sale in the UK

 

[plinden]

What kind of battery length (from max charge to completely
flat) can you expect from the Dell? Their website didn't seem to say anything. Apply says you can squeeze about 4.5 hours out of the 15" PB batteries.

Dells are notoriously bad for battery life. Even their skinny 700m gets about only about 2.5 hours according to CNET - CNET 700m review and CNET isn't renowned for being critical of Dells.

But the 9300 seems to do better. No CNET review, but PCMag says it gets 3.5 hours (PCMag review)

If you really, really must get a Wintel laptop and are willing to spend $2000+, get an IBM (aka Lenovo) Thinkpad. My year old T40p gets 5+ hours with screen brightness at its highest and they're generally much better quality. My last Thinkpad (600E) lasted me five years, although it was unusable at the end - not because it just fell apart, but it just wasn't fast enough for newer software.