Hey Starfyre,
Have you ever tried to hackintosh the thing? The hardware is fantastic over the MAC (sorry, I do NOT use TB for anything and I need a working dock) but I like the stability of OSX.
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Why would anyone buy a Retina Macbook Pro vs Dell XPS 15?
- Thread starter Starfyre
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Hey Starfyre,
Have you ever tried to hackintosh the thing? The hardware is fantastic over the MAC (sorry, I do NOT use TB for anything and I need a working dock) but I like the stability of OSX.
That is too much money for something that is still quad core and does not support 32GB RAM.
And the Thinkpad W540 is too expensive just to get 32GB RAM.
That's why I'm getting a Clevo W230ST while I wait for a 6-core that weighs around 3Kg. At least this way I have something lighter than my 17" MBP.
If I did not have to send my MBP for repair because of the infamous graphics failure, I would buy nothing.
I have never really seen good reviews of Hackintosh laptop setups. Do you have one you like?
Hmm. Also too expensive for a power configuration. I would like to get a Thinkpad L, but it is not available with i7 here.
And L440 not available at all.
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I've only installed it on one PC - iATKOS. But I did that as a trial to see how it would install and work. No problems running OSX but it did take a while for me to figure out the install process. On laptops, it is of course one of the hardest things to do but on on tower PCs, it can be done.
I like MAC hardware but the thunderbolt thing isn't for me. I don't have single peripheral that is TB based and I personally don't think it's going to last. That, and the crappy repair-/upgrada-bility of the new macs. I've repaired/upgraded all my old MBP (2008, 2009, and 2010 models) and it was easy and great. I also don't OSX but I'm all for DOS and keyboard shortcutting everything out there which is a windows thing. But if I can have the stability of OSX on a PC, I'm all for it.
I think you are better off with a Macbook Pro, rather than going to the dark side. Made a few Hackintoshes just for the performance of it, but ended up buying the newest Macbook Pro instead, just to get everything working out of the box. I would only buy a PC like Dell to get more juice out of games in Windows.
This is a silly question.
Some people like Mac OSX.
These people will not use Windows 7 or 8. The underlying hardware & price of said hardware is not as important to them as the OS.
You can run OSX86/hackintosh crap on a PC, but this takes away from the whole "it just working" out of the box thing.. which is a big Apple selling point.
Not to mention the lack of production-level stability you see trying to run mavericks on a standard PC. Sometimes it works, sometimes it works until it freezes for no reason... which is a real pain in the ass.
Some people like Mac OSX.
These people will not use Windows 7 or 8. The underlying hardware & price of said hardware is not as important to them as the OS.
You can run OSX86/hackintosh crap on a PC, but this takes away from the whole "it just working" out of the box thing.. which is a big Apple selling point.
Not to mention the lack of production-level stability you see trying to run mavericks on a standard PC. Sometimes it works, sometimes it works until it freezes for no reason... which is a real pain in the ass.
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Well, the L does not even have Iris Pro
The T540p weighs almost as much as the W540, and does not offer a lot of power for the price.
I guess it's back to the Clevo,although no TPM at a reasonable price.
Maybe if the E540 had TPM I would buy it instead.
It's meant to be an alternative to the Retina MacBook Pro and for those who are used to business machines and need a Quadro GPU.
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I'd buy a Precision M3800 over a new 15" Retina MacBook Pro.
Why? For the following reasons:
Quadro GPU
Removable RAM
Multiple SSDs (standard interfaces)
NBD warraty service
etc.
I think I'm going for the E540, even if it is heavier and somewhat slower (and maybe the panel is not IPS)
It is cheaper, purchase/service is easier, and it is a Thinkpad.
It also has a DVD burner, so that justifies at least half of the extra weight.
Well that's the question isn't it. Nothing very impressive so far on the notebook side, which is pretty much essential for Apple to continue to sell notebooks at this point.
The E540 is not a real ThinkPad.
It's a budget model.
I'd definitely recommend the W540 over it.
I already bought an Edge 11 a couple years ago and it is very nice. And the price was great.
I know what the W540 is, but it is hard to justify when basically the only applicable improvement over my MBP, although very important, are the 32GB RAM. I will try to wait some time for something like that, but 6-core, that's why I don't want to spend much now.
This thread is quite old and alot of things have been said, but being neither particularly pro Apple nor pro PC i wanted to raise a few points:
1. OSX isnt better, its different. It might be better for you and your usecase which is fine, but Windows might be better for other people.
2. Dell XPS run Linux pretty fine and Dell actually does alot of work with Ubuntu and pushes driver updates upstream for everyone to benefit. A PC still offers alot more freedom and choice.
3. OSX is not for free. The mac business adds so little to Apples bottom line that they decided to make it free because it doesn't make a difference. Looks noble from the outside, but its cold math on the inside.
4. MS and Apple have totally different business models, Apple makes money with Hardware while MS makes money with Software, so don't compare prices, just don't.
5. You can upgrade a PC from MS DOS all the way to Windows 8.1. The business heritage of Windows is the reason for an enormous backwards compatibility. With Apple anything before Lion (without the Appstore) is hardly usable today. This has its pros and cons of course.
6. MS contributes to Open Source and has public research facilities, Apple couldn't care less.
7. Apple doesn't care for standards and has alot of Software that is not compatible with anything not-Apple. Total vendor lock-in.
8. My encounters with Dells support (business) has been wonderful. Technican at my house the next day, fixing the Problem. With Apple in Europe where there are very few Apple Stores its not that easy.
9. Macs aren't flawless. I had a 2011 15 MBP which got extremely hot and loud under light load to the point where it was barely usable, after a year the screen died. My Late 2011 MBA has a broken speaker, barely working webcam and a depleted battery. Because of only 1 year warranty Apple does not care to fix it.
10. Macs are not cheap. Yes, they tend to have a good resale value, but if you use your Mac for a couple of years and give it to someone else for free or use it until its dead you still spend more money.
And yet, i still use a Mac. Personally i couldn't care less for OSX. I don't use any major OSX specific software, so why do i use it ? Unix, Touchpad, Battery Life and Build Quality are my main reasons. Id like to use Linux, but i am quite certain Desktop Linux will never reach up to OSX, and when it does someone will just fork it and start from scratch.
1. OSX isnt better, its different. It might be better for you and your usecase which is fine, but Windows might be better for other people.
2. Dell XPS run Linux pretty fine and Dell actually does alot of work with Ubuntu and pushes driver updates upstream for everyone to benefit. A PC still offers alot more freedom and choice.
3. OSX is not for free. The mac business adds so little to Apples bottom line that they decided to make it free because it doesn't make a difference. Looks noble from the outside, but its cold math on the inside.
4. MS and Apple have totally different business models, Apple makes money with Hardware while MS makes money with Software, so don't compare prices, just don't.
5. You can upgrade a PC from MS DOS all the way to Windows 8.1. The business heritage of Windows is the reason for an enormous backwards compatibility. With Apple anything before Lion (without the Appstore) is hardly usable today. This has its pros and cons of course.
6. MS contributes to Open Source and has public research facilities, Apple couldn't care less.
7. Apple doesn't care for standards and has alot of Software that is not compatible with anything not-Apple. Total vendor lock-in.
8. My encounters with Dells support (business) has been wonderful. Technican at my house the next day, fixing the Problem. With Apple in Europe where there are very few Apple Stores its not that easy.
9. Macs aren't flawless. I had a 2011 15 MBP which got extremely hot and loud under light load to the point where it was barely usable, after a year the screen died. My Late 2011 MBA has a broken speaker, barely working webcam and a depleted battery. Because of only 1 year warranty Apple does not care to fix it.
10. Macs are not cheap. Yes, they tend to have a good resale value, but if you use your Mac for a couple of years and give it to someone else for free or use it until its dead you still spend more money.
And yet, i still use a Mac. Personally i couldn't care less for OSX. I don't use any major OSX specific software, so why do i use it ? Unix, Touchpad, Battery Life and Build Quality are my main reasons. Id like to use Linux, but i am quite certain Desktop Linux will never reach up to OSX, and when it does someone will just fork it and start from scratch.
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The reason for enormous backwards compatibility of Windows are its stagnant and stale API (the win32 API is still on the level of late 80-ties). That said, have fun running a modern application on Windows 95/98.
Now this is complete nonsense. Apple's OS is built on FreeBSD and lots of Apple development goes back into the FreeBSD codebase. OpenCL, Webkit, LLVM compiler suite - all examples of Apple's Open Source initiatives. I don't know a single one from Microsoft. Not to mention that Apple's core OS source code is freely available.
Which standards are we talking about? Like XML and SQLLite used through the whole OS for storing data and configuration settings? Or maybe OpenGL? Or are we talking about developing standards like FireWire, OpenCL and Thunderbolt? Quite in contrary, Microsoft is known for its practice of destroying standards with their 'Embrace, extend and extinguish' approach.
#3 on this guys list was such non-sense I stopped reading and realized I had already wasted too much time.
Hilarious. I am sure Apple executives have meetings and say to each other "Mac is a small part of our business so let's not grow the business and make as much money as we can...let's just give away free stuff". I am sure that is why they made OSX free. Probably the same reason it used to cost $20 when Microsoft was charging $300. :rolls eyes:
Apple makes money on premium hardware, innovation, and brand loyalty after purchase. Microsoft makes money by forcing people to buy things they don't want to buy and over charging for them. No one has ever felt good paying for Microsoft operating systems .......ever! No one ever feels like they get their money's worth. That is why Apple made OSX free; perceived added value.
By the way, have you looked over Apple's financial statements lately? Mac makes Apple a lot of money.
Hilarious. I am sure Apple executives have meetings and say to each other "Mac is a small part of our business so let's not grow the business and make as much money as we can...let's just give away free stuff". I am sure that is why they made OSX free. Probably the same reason it used to cost $20 when Microsoft was charging $300. :rolls eyes:
Apple makes money on premium hardware, innovation, and brand loyalty after purchase. Microsoft makes money by forcing people to buy things they don't want to buy and over charging for them. No one has ever felt good paying for Microsoft operating systems .......ever! No one ever feels like they get their money's worth. That is why Apple made OSX free; perceived added value.
By the way, have you looked over Apple's financial statements lately? Mac makes Apple a lot of money.
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Or better yet - try running contemporary 64-bit Windows on a vintage 1995 PC!!
Microsoft Windows is as proprietary environment, as it gets. Just because 90% of the planet is using it, doesn't make it open.
Just to add heat: I've seen many people simply shocked when they realised that MS Office bundle (no, no, not the Home & Student edition!) is going to cost them the same amount of money they spent on their "reasonably priced" notebook. At the end of the day - PC comes in cheap if you don't buy the software.
There are pages among pages among pages among pages of complaints and replacements done on the XPS 9530 about "Coil Whine" (An annoying buzzing sound) that the laptop makes during normal usage. Just google XPS 9530 and coil whine and go read the 400+ pages these forums are turning up.
My 15" Macbook Pro Retina doesn't coil whine or make stupid sounds. So if you want a laptop that sings high pitch tunes for you go right ahead and pick up one of these m3800s or XPS 9530s. The Outlet is loaded with them and you can get them max spec'ed out for $1420. Because they are being returned and replaced by the boatload.
My 15" Macbook Pro Retina doesn't coil whine or make stupid sounds. So if you want a laptop that sings high pitch tunes for you go right ahead and pick up one of these m3800s or XPS 9530s. The Outlet is loaded with them and you can get them max spec'ed out for $1420. Because they are being returned and replaced by the boatload.
Its no nonsense, read up on it...
Apple make money with hardware, Microsoft makes money with Software. Apple wants to drive people to spend more money on iTunes, iCloud and other services regularly instead of a small one time OS fee. So in the end they will make more money but yet people glorify them because Mavericks is now free.
Obviously they have to open source the stuff they forked from other open source projects in the first place, like FreeBsd (OSX) or KHTML (Webkit).
Regarding standards one only has to mention the iDevice connectors while the rest of the world is using usb, proprietary AirPlay vs open source Miracast, Thunderbolt and the extremely late inclusion of USB3, holder of gazillions of patents etc.
Dont get me wrong, i am all Apple fanboy, but they aren't better than MS in many respects.
regarding that, i really wonder how the rMBP is in terms of fan noise when you have 2 external displays hooked up and are running an IDE and a VM or something similar.
I had a 2011 MBP which was quite annoying in terms of heat and fan noise, i dont want to have that again :/
I had a 2011 MBP which was quite annoying in terms of heat and fan noise, i dont want to have that again :/