I wish you all the luck with your MBP. I am going to cancel my order tonight for the max spec 15". Was going to make the jump over to mac for web design degree. But I just can't justify the cost vs pc. For an AlienWare Laptop, I can get double Ram, Double Graphics, and 17" screen for the same price. Was really looking foward to mac, but I cannot justify the cost. Wish you guys all the best and I love the iphones, but I just can't justify this purchase.
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I'm not buying a Patek Phillippe 5204R. Thought about it, but just can't justify the cost. Good luck to all the Patek 5204R owners.
LOL one of these posts again. You are still studying, you can't justify the cost of the Alienware as well, don't tell me you need double ram and double graphics (whatever that means) to design a website.
Why are you telling us this? Buy the computer you want. I'm not sure why we all needed to be informed about your purchase. I mean, the idea of coming onto a forum of anonymous people to tell them you bought a computer is already strange. But coming onto a forum to tell people you didn't buy a computer is even stranger.
What other things did you decide not to buy today? Want to tell us about those?
I hope he's running Linux on his Alienware box because Windows is a pain to build a website on.
I bought an Alienware for my son as a gaming machine. I paid 1600.00 for it. 6 months ago, after less than two years, we gave up on it. NEVER AGAIN.
My son has a 2011 MacBook Pro that still works like the day I gave it to him and it's very capable.
You get what you pay for.
R.
Did the thread you made two days ago on this subject not bear the fruit you expected?
Re: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/what-would-you-do.2020301/
Keep in mind that the cost of an Apple device is much more than just the hardware (seamless integration across devices, iCloud services, device security, company support, etc.).
Re: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/what-would-you-do.2020301/
Keep in mind that the cost of an Apple device is much more than just the hardware (seamless integration across devices, iCloud services, device security, company support, etc.).
How do they even find this forum? 
And all the likes? WTF
If I want to talk about my MacBook do I go to a Windows forum? Cuz this place is loony toons.
And all the likes? WTFIf I want to talk about my MacBook do I go to a Windows forum? Cuz this place is loony toons.
Of all your options to choose from, you're going with the turd Alienware brand? The thing is 1.5 inches thick.
If you think that integration is worth an extra grand, then more power to you I guess.
The problem would be that your son was gaming on the laptop. And likely for hours on end, day in and day out.
That will burn out any motherboard in a laptop. They just don't last.
Try gaming on a 15-inch MacBook Pro day in and day out. You'll have that GPU going at 100C+ for hours and hours in a day, each day. Over time, dust accumulation will render the cooling slightly less efficient, only speeding up the heat damage. The MacBook Pro 15-inch would burn out in 2 years too.
Playing demanding games on a laptop frequently, while convenient, is not economic. The unit will cost more, perform worse, and you will hit a brick wall with hardware failure. (In comparison to a console or desktop).
If you're not buying Apple, why are you buying now? Huge refreshes are imminent in most major brands. Those new Alienwares are short-cycle stop-gaps.
First off let me stop you from making a bad decision.
Web Design does not need an Alienware computer. Period. Get that crap Dell rebranded Alienware out of your head, those computers are utterly crap, for half the price of an Alienware you can custom build your own laptop at various websites.
In Web Design, your school will teach you Photoshop, maybe Illustrator, and possibly Lightroom. There are other alternatives both free and far cheaper commercial products (licensing costs one time payment vs monthly sub over time)
Although PS, LR, and IL are pretty much the industry standard, let the company pay for that.
As for web design, if you are doing the back end code, you want a faster processor and hard drive (SSD) with a good amount of RAM. As for graphics, if you are just using stock images and not creating anything of your own, you don't need a dedicated graphics card. if you are creating your own PC, you can easily fall back on an older nVidia or AMD (shiver).
My suggestion for you would be to get an quad-core i7 processor, at least 8 GB of RAM 16 is optimal, 32 if you can afford it and at least a 512 GB graphics card (nVidia suggested), 1 GB is optimal, and 2+ GB if you can afford it although I have a 680mx 2 GB which probably retails for a reasonably low price now since it's almost 4 years old.
Now IBM did a study on their computers which is a mix of both Windows and Mac, Mac was more expensive up front, but they found that the maintenance costs were less. That being said, all of my Macs have lasted at least 7 years before I sold them (running VMs and doing a lot of heavy processing on them). My Windows computers were lucky to have made it 3 years with far less processing. http://www.businessinsider.com/an-ibm-it-guy-macs-are-300-cheaper-to-own-than-windows-2016-10 and https://www.google.com/#safe=off&q=ibm+mac+windows for more info.
Now that being said, you can pick your poison in the long run, but do some research before you blindly post an "I'm not buying Mac and here's why" thread like all of the other disgruntled users on here.
In all honesty, you'll probably realize that ASP.NET isn't the easiest thing to read up on and instead wipe Windows off the computer, install Ubuntu, spin up an LAMP server (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) and host your server that way. You'll use GIMP and Inkscape while you wait for your business to come to fruition (as you'll probably do a lot of contract work as I've seen many of my web designer friends do) before you get hired. With macOS and just about every flavor of Linux, you have Apache and PHP installed by default which just leaves you to install MySQL and the dependencies.
If you want to stick with Windows, good luck, you'll need to know how they license their products well so you don't get slammed in an audit that at some point you'll go through every 3 years.
I loathe Windows for their licensing costs and their greed of money, charging subs for what used to be licensed by computer. Especially when I found out they license Windows Server 2016 per core, yes, per core, complete crap.
Ubuntu Server costs $0 except for CA Certs, a domain name, and your utilities (internet, electric, etc).
macOS costs you $20 if you use their server, or free if you decided to go the Apache route on a standard install.
Since you suggested an Alienware computer, I'm guessing you are a current or ex-gamer who just heard the hype about those computers and decided to jump on the bandwagon without doing proper research, and I'm guessing you haven't researched licensing costs, or the fact that you could get a computer cheaper through your college that is exactly what you need. As a SysAdmin who manages the computers in the Marketing department (everything you are going to college for) I'll tell you what they use. Core-i5, 8 GB of RAM, with a FirePro graphics card that needs to be replaced about every 3 years like clockwork. The nVidia Quadro has yet to be replaced. These computers are HP workstations and cost about $2,000 each, mostly due to the built in RAID controller which you will want.
My current home computer is pretty much a server, it has a 5820k i7 (6-core) @3.33 Ghz, 32 GB of RAM, a 6 GB 980Ti Seahawk, a 512 GB SSD, and a 4TB HDD. I bought it for $3,100 ($2,100 with discounts) and it does everything. For an extra $400 I could do a RAID 1 with another 512 GB SSD and 4TB HDD and call it protected. So yeah, a PC is cheaper up front with more power, but I will replace it before I replace the 2012 iMac that I'm typing this on.
See here for my references to my experiences in Windows vs Mac then think about how this will affect your productivity.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...spite-high-price.2015753/page-7#post-23938899
And the good one that will pertain to your productivity the most
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...spite-high-price.2015753/page-4#post-23938482
The only reason I wrote this much is because I want you to be informed so you don't stumble in the startup of your career. If you think it's too much or post TL;DR; web design and development is not for you because you will have to read and learn something new every single day, whether it's the latest trends in design, what next year's color of the year will be, or how to improve your productivity/workflow so you can meet the demands of your clients.
Does owning your 2016 MacBook make you feel like you have a $300 000 watch.....wow...
That's not necessarily what that means. There are many factors that go into it. It may simply be that they do not have the supply capabilities to keep a large number of warranty parts on hand, hence a higher price. It may also be that they did their research, and found that extended warranty buyers are inelastic (willing to pay higher prices), while other buyers won't pay even if it's cheap.
The issue with an Alienware laptop is the same as with any laptop: Gaming is going to produce too much heat, and break the thing down. Apple, Dell, Toshiba, whatever... doesn't matter.
A better comparison is 3 years plans, Apple £330 v dell £411, though dell is onsite support. One thing I like about dell is £25 protection plan so you can get damage protection added.
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Spot on. I've killed two MacBook pros gaming in the past, within 12 months, have since stopped . Alienware Has lasted the longest in my expericem, I'd expect any laptop to die within three years with constant gaming
I wasn't going to say anymore but I thought that it would be best if I did to clear somethings up. Never owned a mac and was very excited to own one. However seeing all the hardware/software depends who you talk to issues with this 1st gen mac book I got scared. I need this for school and work. I can't afford to send back if I have a issue and wait again for who knows how long. Money wasn't an issue: obviously I paid for the 15" mbp in the first place. However when I can pay the same price for a laptop with double specs. I'd be silly to stick with a 16 mac that has obvious issues. I found these issues on this website and many others. And as for the 4 year warranty I paid $300 dollars for 4 years. That covers anything on there end AND AND if I do something stupid. Apple care doesn't cover if I drop it and it's my fault. SO that is a major plus. I have two kids. God only knows what can happen. And I will be doing photo editing, etc. So the 32gb ram was a big deal for me also. And in my original post I wished you guys the best. No hate just stating why I went with PC. Maybe to possibly help someone out that is on the fence. Also I don't hate apple, I actually have an iphone that I love alot and will stick with an iphone. So again I wish you all the best with the 2016 mac book pros and for me it just wasn't a good fit.
[doublepost=1481380279][/doublepost]Also this wasn't and isn't going to be a gaming laptop. It was just the price, warranty, and specs that I liked. Could careless that its labeled as "gaming laptop". Needed something that had excessive cooling, sturdy, high spec laptop. And if the "gaming laptop" fits my needs. So be it, but mostly what will be ran on it will be Adobe CC, which is a resource hound.
[doublepost=1481380279][/doublepost]Also this wasn't and isn't going to be a gaming laptop. It was just the price, warranty, and specs that I liked. Could careless that its labeled as "gaming laptop". Needed something that had excessive cooling, sturdy, high spec laptop. And if the "gaming laptop" fits my needs. So be it, but mostly what will be ran on it will be Adobe CC, which is a resource hound.
