Well well, its my first visit here since the 28th of April this year
How time fly's....

Anyways, onto the topic:

I was in a computer store the other day and a nice MacBook Pro caught my attention. I had a fiddle around with it and I enjoyed it (seeing that it was pretty much my first time ever fiddling around with the programs and functions on a Mac). It had (as I can remember) a 2.0GHz processor and 168GB hard drive space.

My questions are: Have any of you ever used one? If so: What are they like? Pros + Cons? - ...you get the idea.

GarageBand would be a great program for me as I am a guitar player. Also, would it run games like Call of Duty 4?

I currently have a Toshiba A200 Satellite w/ Vista Home Premium - pretty good laptop, but it has many flaws. Overheating being one of the more major problems - but I manage it okay.

Your responses are appreciated =)

EDIT: It was NOT white. I made a mistake. It WAS an aluminum MacBook Pro. Sorry for the confusion

~Cheers

My Toshiba Satellite (which I'm on now) never overheats.

Anyways, Macs I guess are good if you're not the most technologically advanced. They've got some cool features like garage band.

CoD4 should also work: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/game...ernwarfare.html

Macs also have heating problems. It will also put a hole through your wallet, but some people are in a situation where they can afford it.

Hope you like it (if you go with it).

Any other info as far as graphics card and memory go? If that processor is a single core, and the graphics department isn't up to spec, you would have a hard time running Call of Duty. Might also have trouble with Garage Band if you don't have a good amount of memory aka RAM. If you can find out that info we would be able to help you more.

MBPs don't come in single core flavors.

If it's a recent mac, most anything made for macs should work with it (eewww...reminds me of console gaming ).

DO NOT BUY THE WHITE ONE.

That is my advice.

You can get much better hardware with a Windows/Linux computer for the same money, so I wouldn't recommend it, but if you don't care about hardware then go ahead.

If it's white, it's a Macbook.

Macbook Pros are the aluminium (or aluminum, whatever you prefer) ones.

Do not get a Macbook right now, they're gonna be updated very soon. Macbook Pros might be updated around January or February. But anyway, Macbooks aren't that good. Get a Macbook Pro if you want a nice Apple laptop.

Don't get the white one, get an aluminum one. The white one is a MacBook, while the aluminum ones are MacBook Pros. MBP have much better graphics cards than the white/black ones.

I use a MacBook as my daily machine and I love it. The ease and unity of doing everything is unmatched. We just had a big Mac vs PC debate in another topic, so I'd go read through that for some more information.

But get an aluminum one, not a white one. I've got a white MacBook because I'm not a gamer, but I do miss the graphics power of the MBP's. You don't know how many MBP's I've nearly bought just to have even more power.

~Bcloutier~

This the one?

http://runescape.salmoneus.net/forums/inde...howtopic=296543


Thanks for your advise guys

That's barely fair; it's just 2/3 windows fan boys against 1/3 Mac fanboys, go talk to the people in the Apple Store, they'll give you the real details

I don't know if you're serious or not.

I wasn't. But I don't think it would be fair to judge a product on that thread.

Again... you completely forget about Linux. This is getting tedious.

Yea, most non skilled people don't care for linux/don't know what it is/don't want to go through the hassle that is linux.

Exactly, there's a reason we keep "forgetting" Linux.

And as for that thread, I thought it would be a good read for him. It doesn't answer every question, but it can point out some differences. But the best thing to do is to go to your local Apple Store or wherever you're looking at buying the MBP from and get some hands on time with it and comparable PC's to see what you want.

~Bcloutier~

~ Yeah, I bought this MacBook almost completely blindly, didn't expect I would be buying a Mac in the beginning, but I was frustrated with Windows and wanted a new experience. Not regretting anything about it.

Personally, I like my plain old white MacBook.

I dunno, seems like a Pro would be a bit much, though if you're going for a full media suite, the Pro would probably be better. I wouldn't know much more than basics because I don't really get into that sort of thing awfully much. I just know from firsthand experience that Mac has better editing tools, beyond that, I don't really know.

Yeah, I'm rambling.

To be honest with you, I actually looked at Macs... I then saw the price tag, and exited the site.
I get everything I can get on a Mac with my Vista (Yes, I know, but free Windows 7 upgrade and Dual Booting Ubuntu FTW), and most of the software has a similar free counterpart you can get on Windows.
And heck, you can buy a custom build online, with no OS, and just put Linux on the computer.
~Vincent

Maybe he has the money and he's willing to pay that much?

And please, why would any non techie guy that has a computer that can run any OS want linux?

Oh and not everyone wants a desktop pc or wants to build one.

I wish people would stop hating Linux. It certainly isn't the solution to everything but it's a very capable OS, and distros like Linux Mint are perfectly user-friendly.

But they are less capable at practically everything than Windows or Mac OS.

Uh...no?

Gaming is the only example I can think of, because whilst there are some perfectly good Linux games, the vast majority of titles have no Linux version, and it can be difficult to get modern games working through Wine/other emulators.

But apart from that area I don't see why Linux is inferior.

Because Linux (at least Ubuntu) is a complete pain in the ass to set up.

As a complete Linux newbie, the first distro I used was Ubuntu and I had very little problem with it. What did you find made it so difficult?

Anyway, Kwinten said it was less capable rather than harder to use. Harder to use is an opinion thing really and also depends on your tech ability and the distro, but less capable is definitely not true and that's what I was querying.

My driver support was absolutely terrible. I had to manually edit GRUB because kgrubeditor was down.

I spent hours googling solutions to my problems, too.

Hmm, I had a very different experience but I guess it just depends whether you're lucky with driver support for your hardware. If only the big hardware manufacturers like Nvidia would stop being so stuck-up and release the code for their drivers as open-source so Linux drivers can legally be created :@

Anyway, this is besides the point. Kwinten was talking about capability.

I own a MacBook for work. It's good it's a few months old so the battery is obliviously still pretty good. Of course they get worse as the years go on but whatever.

As for usability it's good. I have no real problem using it around on the train, work and at home etc. It's easier to watch DVD's and surf the internet on my desktop Mac but like again that's only personal preference.

Thing is though, buying new you should be able to check Linux support very easily anyway.

It seems I have created quite a debate lol.

By the way it WAS a MacBook Pro. I made a mistake when I said it was white. It WAS an aluminum one. I Google'd the MacBook and the Pro in Google Images and I found a significant difference. The MacBook was not what I described in at the beginning of the thread



Cheers

linix and runescape are for poor people and nazits!


i think we did get off topic just a bit, remember were helping not starting a "who" is better flame

I would say that if you can buy it as a fiscally responsible decision and that it can meet all of your needs well, and it's overall pleasing for you, then get it. If I wasn't so comfortable with PCs and the way they look and work, I would definitely get a Mac. Either way, it's not a "bad" decision.

I was taking a half-dive in buying this thing. I had like two hours of Mac use in my life and 90 of those minutes were on OS 8.

Most of the durability thing was a leap of faith.

But I've been pleasantly surprised.

As for price...could that be because of the aluminum heat sinks? I'm just wondering because apparently these plastic ones have them. I cannot directly confirm or deny this, however.

Plastic heatsinks? They would just melt...

Aluminum, durr. Plastic heatsinks would be fudgeing useless.

i prefer the iMac (which i already have)

it has a beautiful screen, and i feel that, warranty or not, any laptop just needs too much maintenance

But that's a desktop pc, and he wants a laptop.

As much as a spent skimming over. I am not surprised onto the hate and the debate of this thread. As I will be admirably be unbiased here, but will give somewhat an biased opinion.

The only thing wrong with Macbooks, and the Mac line in general, is that it is very overpriced. As much as you can see, you can get the same performance from a $1,200 or an $800 laptop, but I don't see laptop's as gaming machines. That's what it garners down to with people, the performance. It doesn't matter if you're technologically inept, or adept. It goes down on usability for either parties. Mac OS has that down so far for usability, and performance wise. They let the end-user decide for themselves on how they want something to work. They have everything in a nice space to click on and use, and with no hassles. Also, the end-user who wants to game on his MacBook Pro, they let him or her use bootcamp, and still allows him to use the games in a native-emulation zone with zero to none lag.

Although, if you just want a laptop to just game for, or want it for usability. You may also go with an Windows 7 based laptop, with somewhat a high-end. Costing you around -$1,000 from a MBP purchase. The only disadvantage is running Windows, and the fact of the bulky case and comparsion to the MBP. (If you want you can compare a designer purse to a common etc..) On to the Linux side of things. Why linux? Is the end user going to be happy with it, yes, no, maybe so?

Mainly, it boils down to aesthetics.

I don't really want to start up the debate in this topic again, and I'll probably regret this post...

But I don't really understand some of your points in the post. First you say that Macbooks offer the same performance as cheaper machines, but then you say they perform better. You say people are mainly focussed on the performance, then you say all they want is usability. A bit of a contradiction there

Also, there's no reason at all why a Windows or Linux laptop should be ugly or 'bulky'. Yes, there are some real eyesores of cases, but thankfully they are getting rarer and most of the major manufacturers like Dell, HP, etc. have cases that look very stylish available with even their budget options. I don't get what the big deal is about looks either, even though this isn't the case I'd rather have an ugly laptop for hundreds of pounds less than a stylish one.

And why Linux? Many reasons: customisation, ideology, open source, security, to name just a few. It isn't for everyone because some people need software that only runs on Windows and won't run under Wine (emulator), some people have hardware with no Linux drivers available for it, etc. But that's no reason to completely write it off as an OS. It's a very capable one, sadly negatively stereotyped by many.

Pros: OS X

Cons: High Cost, bad performance to price ratio.

There are plenty of computers on Newegg that are cost effective and good.

I still find it positively hilarious that there are only two legitimate arguments presented against Macs in this thread, and they're cost and performance, neither of which is really all that good. Hate to burst your bubbles but OS X doesn't actually need 500GB of RAM to run like Windows.

Snow leopard needs the same amount of memory as windows 7 does.

GASP

I used to have a Mac Mini HTPC (512 MB), and it sure performed better than my 512MB XP home theater box.

Because RAM determines complete computer speeds.

Fine:

Mini:
1.66 GHz Core Duo

Vaio:
Dual 2.60 GHz Pentium 4


Sure, Core Duo owns Pentium, but still.

So what is a mac doing with four year old technology in it?

A mac that was made about 3-4 years ago, that's what .

And I could ask you the same about Pentiums, but meh.

Leopard here is running like a rocket on 2GB. I can't get XP to run smoothly on 1GB ffs. How would 7 run well on 1GB as claimed?

I mean, Vista could barely run on 2GB.

If that made any sense...

"Leopard is running like a roket on 2gb"

"XP sucks with 1gb"



I'm running 7 amazingly well with 2gb. Vista runs great with 2gb.

My brother uses 7 with 1gb and it works fine. Barely chugs at all (only time it does is with music playing, youtube open, and probably RSHD on).

I can confirm that 7 runs very well with 2GB of RAM. I haven't personally tried it with 1GB, but I've heard it works well on netbooks.

And @D-Jizzy: fyi cost is an INCREDIBLY important factor to most people, I don't understand how you can just dismiss it.

You seriously think XP is slow with 1Gb RAM?
For me it runs as smooth as an icy skiing hill. (You get the point..)
Its about the apps you yourslef as user run.
I had Norton IS before, which was a real resource hog, now when its gone i have better performance, but still it did good performance with Norton too.
Me i only use to run MSN and avast! all the time, both not slowing me down.
Also i dont have any gfx card, which makes more preassure on CPU, but its okay when i have a 3.20Ghz single core.
I had 512Mb RAM before, i ran Halo 2 smoothly on that.

I have an old PC with 512mb ram and I can run 7 on it. I mean, that computer has nothing on it yet so its not really running that many processes, but still.