Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Why i bought a HP over a Apple

garybUK

garybUK

Guest
Original poster
Jun 3, 2002
1,466
3
Okay myself, my brother and my sisters boyfriend clubbed together last Christmas and got my sister a macbook (the basic £699 model) and a few weeks ago she dropped it (tripped over the cat) and the open screen corner hit the floor shattering the screen ...... :eek:

We claimed on the house insurance and they said it was beyond economical repair so they gave us a Comet voucher for £699.

We went down to Comet to have a look and we saw:

Apple Macbook £699 (old Model) with 2.1ghz / 1gb Ram / 80gb hdd/ Combo Drive

Apple Macbook £719 2.1ghz / 1gb Ram / 120gb hdd / super drive

Apple Macbook £900 odd (i forget) for the new model.

Anyway...... next to it was a HP Pavilion DV5-1009EA for £649 (cheaper than the old crappy macbook)!!

2.0ghz P7350 CPU, 4gb RAM, 250gb HDD, DVD Lightscribe, Geforce 9200 256mb Dedicated Memory + Can use additional system memory, Webcam, HDMI Output, eSATA Connector, Remote for Vista Media Centre, etc. etc.

So we got that! i wiped the hdd put a clean install of Vista Ultimate and it runs like a absolute dream, is very well built and looks very nice too, (even has a glowing HP Logo on the lid!) :p

I think we got a LOT more for our money than the Macbook, she didn't use iLife and didn't know how to use OSX very well.
 
Actually, I think every Macbook I have seen is great though some have been overpriced in the past. That HP sounds like a great deal for the money. On the PC front; HP, Alien, Dell XPS, and anything Sony are great and will get the job done for almost anybody.

Windows Vista has become more user friendly than XP and according to PC World, it's because they copied Apple's OS X, instead of Microsoft suddenly becoming "innovative". But to be fair, Macworld and PC World are owned by the same group. :)

In the past, the big problem with some PC laptops were the Pentium I and II chips as they were slow and would overheat, thus making the machine even slower. But with the core duo, PC laptops shine, they are fast, and maximize battery time, unless the lcd screen is too big.
 
For a lot of people, Macs are far too expensive. The usual arguments about OS X and iLife sound thin. If they really want to push on with marketshare, it's time for Apple to trim some of those margins. In these economic times, people are going to be increasingly looking at the price tag.

Still, saying that, I would never buy a PC. ;)
 
That's a very good deal. If I had £700 to spend on a new laptop I'd likely get the same (or just build my own desktop).

Apple do need to work on their 'bang for buck', or whatever the British term is. I've never had a problem with any of my Apple products so (for me) there is the higher build quality and that it runs OSX without any fiddling about - but sometimes it would be best to get a higher spec machine for cheaper.
 
nick9191 said:
She used the Macbook for nearly a year and still didn't know hoe to use OS X?
Click to expand...

I found that surprising as well. How can you use _anything_ for a year and not have at least a working knowledge of it, for the stuff you want to do? Maybe OP meant it differently *shrug*
 
lol PC laptops always look great on paper when you are first buying them.... later on when the bloated operating system starts slowing it down people start getting all pissed off, and suddenly all those nice shiny specs dont even matter. :rolleyes:
 
roisin and mac said:
I found that surprising as well. How can you use _anything_ for a year and not have at least a working knowledge of it, for the stuff you want to do? Maybe OP meant it differently *shrug*
Click to expand...

I've been using OSX for >18 months as my main day to day OS - and there is still a hell of a lot of stuff that I don't understand or makes no sense whatsoever.

And I'm a Multimedia Producer who's been building my own PC's for 15 years.

Doug
 
djellison said:
I've been using OSX for >18 months as my main day to day OS - and there is still a hell of a lot of stuff that I don't understand or makes no sense whatsoever.
Click to expand...

I've been using it for nearly twice as long as that, and there are still things I don't understand - roisin and mac was referring to a working knowledge of it though. I may have to refer to manuals occasionally, but I know what I'm doing with the things I do on my Mac every day.
 
Dropping the laptop and having the screen crack could happen on any system, doesn't make Apple's laptop builds any more susceptible to breaking than a PC.

If she couldn't figure out how to use OS X within a few weeks, i doubt she is going to be using the eSata connector, HDMI output or doing anything on the laptop that will need 4gb of ram or a 256mb dedicated gpu.
 
glad to hear that you got the money back from insurance. that's gotta be nice. and pc's these days are getting cheaper and cheaper. i am not surprised at this deal. good luck with it
 
She's 19 years old and is not a computer geek!!!

She knows how to use MSN though to her it's 'not real MSN because she can't use webcam etc'

'Office is different to work and where's outlook?' lol

But anyway, we have used the HDMI connector she has it hooked up to her TV in her bedroom so she can use Media Centre. eSata connector is nice for external hdd's for backups etc. though I think she'd never use it, i'd probably do that for her.

I have Vista Ultimate on a windows server for deployment using WDS, so i just network booted the laptop and re-built it using that.

I have 2 mac's (a old G5 Powermac that i don't use anymore) and a Macbook Pro 2.4ghz C2D 15.4" and my brother has my old Powerbook G4 1.5 that he uses for music and internet along side his main PC.

I was just pointing out.... why would i 'add a few more pounds' towards something that's really old technology, i'd have had to add at least £200 to get their current Gen technology that imo just about competes with this.

As far as lasting long ..... i've got 3 pc's here that are AMD XP 2400, 1.5gb Ram, Geforce 4800's that have lasted me 5 years without any trouble (except fans + hdd's dieing) so the argument that PC's can't last as long as Mac's is cobblers.

Edit: it's actually 6 years now! wow!
 
bigjnyc said:
lol PC laptops always look great on paper when you are first buying them.... later on when the bloated operating system starts slowing it down people start getting all pissed off, and suddenly all those nice shiny specs dont even matter. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

And that's different to ... OSX ? don't think so..... i've seen installs of OSX bloated and laggy because so much is starting up......
 
garybUK said:
And that's different to ... OSX ? don't think so..... i've seen installs of OSX bloated and laggy because so much is starting up......
Click to expand...

You don't see what he is saying. XP, Vista, any Windows OS gets slow and bloated after a while. It has nothing to do with how many programs are starting up. It's all in the DLLs and the whole setup of the OS. OSX is NOT like that in any way. To keep my pc fast, would have to reinstall the OS every three or so months. I never need to do so on OSX.
 
Rapmastac1 said:
You don't see what he is saying. XP, Vista, any Windows OS gets slow and bloated after a while. It has nothing to do with how many programs are starting up. It's all in the DLLs and the whole setup of the OS. OSX is NOT like that in any way. To keep my pc fast, would have to reinstall the OS every three or so months. I never need to do so on OSX.
Click to expand...

That's funny because i have PC's that haven't been rebuilt in years that are running fine ...... my laptop now, Build Date: 27-11-2007 11:16:48

Your doing something wrong if you have to re-install every few months.
 
Rapmastac1 said:
You don't see what he is saying. XP, Vista, any Windows OS gets slow and bloated after a while. It has nothing to do with how many programs are starting up. It's all in the DLLs and the whole setup of the OS. OSX is NOT like that in any way. To keep my pc fast, would have to reinstall the OS every three or so months. I never need to do so on OSX.
Click to expand...

My e-machines which was bought 4 years ago, upgraded to vista 2 years ago, has never needed to have the Os reinstalled. Quit looking at so much porn
 
Blue Velvet said:
For a lot of people, Macs are far too expensive. The usual arguments about OS X and iLife sound thin. If they really want to push on with marketshare, it's time for Apple to trim some of those margins. In these economic times, people are going to be increasingly looking at the price tag.

Still, saying that, I would never buy a PC. ;)
Click to expand...

Agreed, I would have never said this before, but i understand now why people might get PCs over Macs. Part of the problem is that Macs are now Intel based. People have a hard time justifying buying a Mac over a PC, when they're getting more graphics and processing power from a PC with better insides. Apple does really need to step up here.

I never would have said that during the Power PC days. There was a much clearer difference then. And no- I'm not arguing a return to PPC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back