View Full Version : So, new macbooks.
What a thoroughly underwhelming heap of crud that all turned out to be :/
Is there a link to the keynote? I can't see one on the Apple site unless I'm being dense.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/14/live-from-apples-spotlight-turns-to-notebooks-event/
That's the best I can do you with for now.
leowyatt
14-10-2008, 19:56
I thought the new one looks good :/
SidewinderINC
14-10-2008, 19:58
I thought the new one looks good :/
I agree, though the keyboards on those ones are HORRIBLE!
I've got one of the latest ones before they brought in that diabolical keyboard design and I'll not be upgrading till they change the keyboard for the better!
leowyatt
14-10-2008, 20:04
I'm still tempted by one of the older models now especially at the new price. Just can't seem to get on the UK shop to see how much they'd be here :(
EDIT: The original ones here are £719 and over there including the exchange rate come out at £572 :shocked: Including sales tax it's around £600.
I thought the new one looks good :/
Looks lovely.
However, it costs £950 for a 2GHz, 2GB, 160GB Machine, only comes in gloss screen, that new trackpad looks a bit odd, they've created a proprietary connector for extra screens (expensive add ons anyone?)...
It's all just a bit 'meh' for the price.
SidewinderINC
14-10-2008, 20:15
it comes with the adaptors for DVI/VGA
leowyatt
14-10-2008, 20:24
Basically my take on the new macbooks is if you can get one from the states do it, as we're being screwed on price :angry:
And Dell are adopting Display Port as well, so aside from the size of the connector the technology isn't proprietary.
I'll pass though. Glossy screen - no thanks.
SidewinderINC
14-10-2008, 20:33
And Dell are adopting Display Port as well, so aside from the size of the connector the technology isn't proprietary.
I'll pass though. Glossy screen - no thanks.
I love glossy screens, but I'm a saturation whore :p
I agree with what most people are saying here - keyboard looks odd, glossy screen FTL, UK overpriced... Now I have a new battery I'll be keeping my model for a good while yet. Shame I got mine just before the LED screens were introduced as that would really help the old battery life out.
leowyatt
14-10-2008, 20:42
Well the iBook is getting rather long in the tooth now so I'm considering changing but it won't be till the new year so hopefully for Macworld Expo we'll have another update so I can look to purchase something.
Can someone clarify for a Mac n00b, does the revised Macbook mean you can pick up last generation Macbooks for fewer gold coins now?
Well there were fat iPod nanos on the refurb store at a huge discount for a week or so after the new ones were released so it's possible.
I hope so, my brother is after a new laptop and after using my Macbook he's decided he's going to do the sensible thing and go Mac.
As do I. I'll be keeping a close eye out!
LeperousDust
15-10-2008, 15:39
Hmmmm i dunno i don't have a macbook (pro) and i'm actually considering getting one as my next laptop possibly. They look pretty nice to me, i'm willing to give OSX a go, problem is i'll need to dual boot linux on it so i can use some of my uni stuff. I have a horrid feeling that the new cool trackpad isn't going to be very well supported outside OSX! Massive glass multitouch trackpad for the win though, looks fantastic. Screen is a bit crud mind, keyboard i'll get used to, aren't all apple keyboards usually like that anyway?
I haven't really looked at the price yet either, which is probably the main factor i won't bother getting one as i'm not one to pay over the odds... Which is a shame.
it comes with the adaptors for DVI/VGA
Just looked at the spec list and they don't.
DVI adaptor is a £20 extra, VGA is a £20 and Dual Link DVI is a £70 add on.
The remotes are a £15 extra as well now.
MacBook 13" (1280x800) for £950 (£810 with Higher Education discount)
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
2GB DDR3 Memory
160GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
Dell XPS 15" (1280x800) for £810
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
4GB DDR2 Memory
320GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA 8600M GT graphics
Dell XPS 15" (1920x1200) for £970
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz
4GB DDR2 Memory
400GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA 8600M GT graphics
That's a huge sacrifice on specification in order to get MacOSX, A pretty design, maybe slightly better build and a funny trackpad.
SidewinderINC
15-10-2008, 20:50
Just looked at the spec list and they don't.
DVI adaptor is a £20 extra, VGA is a £20 and Dual Link DVI is a £70 add on.
The remotes are a £15 extra as well now.
Wow, they really are shafting people on the new ones!
Free remote with mine, DVI connection in built, and converter to VGA comes with.
Same with my Mac Mini. The accessories all came in the box.
Love apple fan boys, always wanting more, its a laptop, what more do you need.
SidewinderINC
15-10-2008, 21:49
Love apple fan boys, always wanting more, its a laptop, what more do you need.
:confused:
Err, nice to drop by with the insult but where are we "always wanting more"?
Seems we've only commented that you used to get those included, and you have to pay extra for them.
Stop being angry.
LeperousDust
15-10-2008, 22:06
always wanting more, its a laptop, what more do you need. You do realise how incredibly short sighted and dense that sounds right? ;D
And I'm most certainly not what you'd call an Apple fanboy. I just have an open mind when it comes to hardware - shiny things are good things.
So what is the big fuss over this Keynote, just youtube the apple iphone keynote, the crowd was cheering everything Jobs said.
LeperousDust
16-10-2008, 01:30
So what is the big fuss over this Keynote, just youtube the apple iphone keynote, the crowd was cheering everything Jobs said.
I agree with you here, the keynote speeches are akin to presidential speeches of yesteryear most of the time! The last iPhone keynote or whatever was pretty laughable, and yes 'they' lap up everything he tells them.
But that doesn't stop this being a beautiful and pretty dam powerful laptop, quite a bit better than most stuff on the market at present (all things considered) until you really look at the price. At which point you end up paying the apple tax. I'm personally not an "apple fan" you can ask Feek (and others) since i kept going on at him.
I've never been fascinated with OSX, but this laptop looks great on paper (apart from the mirror-like screen) and i'd probably be willing to give it a go if it wasn't coming at such an extreme.
I'm in the market for a new portable powerful laptop, and there actually isn't much on the market right now. I'm after powerful C2D, 12/13" Wireless N, Nvidia 9400 as minimum (rather 9600 and definitely NOT an 8xxx! after my hassle) backlit keyboard, webcam etc... The Dell E4300 comes close but the integrated intel graphics are putting me off, if they released the same with the nvidia 9400 i'd get one right away. So as you can see at present all things point towards this wonderful little macbook.
But to be fair i'll just wait for another cheaper OEM to release a laptop with similar spec :D :p
MacBook 13" (1280x800) for £950 (£810 with Higher Education discount)
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz
2GB DDR3 Memory
160GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
Dell XPS 15" (1280x800) for £810
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
4GB DDR2 Memory
320GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA 8600M GT graphics
Dell XPS 15" (1920x1200) for £970
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz
4GB DDR2 Memory
400GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA 8600M GT graphics
That's a huge sacrifice on specification in order to get MacOSX, A pretty design, maybe slightly better build and a funny trackpad.
That makes for very interesting reading... I think Apple have shot themselves in the foot with the new Macbooks - they were on the verge of being overpriced before, but £810 for the base unit WITH the student discount is madness IMO.
I am not a sales and marketing forecaster, but personally I think we'll see them revise this spec again, or drop their prices significantly, in Q1 2009 to compensate for sales falling off. This isn't a small increase after all, ~25% on ticket price for their most popular laptop for what is essentially "..a pretty design, [a glossy screen], maybe slightly better build and a funny trackpad" like you say..
The lack of a matte screen option and firewire just makes me love my 12" powerbook even more. I can't fault it really, its the best computer I've ever owned.
SidewinderINC
18-10-2008, 14:13
Text message I just received from Divine
Oh. My. God. New macbooks are sexual as ****. Touchpad is Awesome. 800 for base spec and a free ipod nano. I really shouldn't go into that shop..."
Quite different to his other posts in this thread :p
LOL! They are very very nice and the touch pad works far far better than I expected, you can also pretty much just use it as an old style buttoned one if you want... The build is good though I'm not convinced the whole alu machining was needed on the plain MacBook. I'll type more when I'm back on a PC not my iPod :p
Copy and Paste from another forum, so apologies if it seems a bit of a repeat of the previous post.
While I was in town today, I made a stop off at the Apple store to have a looksee.
My word they are nice. The touchpad is very very good. I don't get on with touchpads as a rule, they're often too small, have odd 'sections' etc. but this was sublime, the movement seemed much smoother than anything i've used before and the 'no button' thing has been implemented really well. If you want, you can effectively use it as if it did have buttons, just press down on the pad at the bottom and move with the rest, or, actually press and drag with just one finger for example. It was very intuitive, i was highly impressed with it.
As for the build, that too seems excellent, the laptop is very light but very sturdy feeling. However, i'm not entirely convinced that it was something that the MacBook line needed. MBP by all means but I think it just adds needless expense to the base model MacBooks. It does undoubtedly feel a lot more 'expensive' than any other laptop i've used though, it oozes quality.
The screen seemed ok under the shop lighting, not sure how it would fair outside still but that's not something i'd be able to test unless I buy one.
Which I am, currently, incredibly tempted to do. £810 with HE discount, plus an iPod Nano which I could then flog for £60 or so, bringing the price down further and seemingly £60 back on an £80 printer, which could be handy as I need a new printer anyway.
Argh. That shop does evil things to me.
leowyatt
18-10-2008, 19:39
Hahah do we need to quote your first post then?? :p just to humiliate you??? ;D
This is what tears me.
They're brilliant. But I can't get away from the fact I can get a laptop that will piss all over it from a great height performance wise for less money. That and the fact the old replaced models were faster and cheaper.
Kinda like buying a small engined BMW 7 series over an M3. The 7 would be far more luxurious but there is no getting away from the fact the M3 is cheaper and outperforms it massively. It's a case of which I want.
Though, this entire thing is stupid because I didn't even want a laptop. I don't need one.
I'll need to see the new ones in person.
TBH i think they look horrid. I love my MBP and i have a trackpad that has the macbook air trackpad on it, so i get a lot of gestures. Dunno if the new pad will be much better.
Missus wont let me go to the Apple store though :(
Streeteh
18-10-2008, 20:00
This is what tears me.
They're brilliant. But I can't get away from the fact I can get a laptop that will piss all over it from a great height performance wise for less money. That and the fact the old replaced models were faster and cheaper.
Kinda like buying a small engined BMW 7 series over an M3. The 7 would be far more luxurious but there is no getting away from the fact the M3 is cheaper and outperforms it massively. It's a case of which I want.
When it comes to macs you are paying for more than the hardware tbh, the operating system is one of its best selling points and loads of people love the apple 'look'.
However these days you can install OSX on most core2duo/quad systems with very little effort, the extra premium you pay for an apple computer/laptop is beginning to become a little difficult to justify in my eyes. However saying that i've recently helped three of my friends choose a laptop/desktop two of those wanted macs so clearly the appeal is still very strong.
I just found it rather astounding that the PC i spec'd (and will be building soon) for the third guy is going to cost £400 for the base unit, yet utterly blows away the £1400 iMac one of the girls has opted for in terms of performance. On the same budget that would have left him with £1000 to buy a monitor (or HDTV?), speakers etc etc which is a rather comfortable sum to play with.
Not slagging off Macs in any way btw, i think now though that people are beginning to learn how to install OSX on PCs Mac may have to adjust their pricing in the future due to many (including myself) viewing OSX as the big selling point of a Mac and partly being responsible for the premium you pay.
Totally off topic, sorry, i also want to stress i have nothing against Macs.
leowyatt
18-10-2008, 20:12
One of our own installed and use OSX on non-mac hardware and he became thoroughly frustrated with having to mess around with stuff when an update came along. I have to agree with what you said about the OS though for me it is excellent and rounds off the system perfectly.
I am a Mac fan as most of people here know ;) but for me I'm happier to pay slightly more for the mac which will work with no fuss and if I have a problem I can get it sorted easily.
I've never heard a mac owner say 'i had to leave my machine on defragging over night' or 'oh it's been 6 months and the machine was running like a dog so i done a clean install' or 'i done a spyware scan and it came up with 4000 :eek: (seen more than that in home users PC brought into work)
My gf's machine runs spot on and it hasn't been reinstalled for about 12 months. Mines i got in Jan feb and still as quick as the day i bought it. Whereas my windows laptop i ended up reinstalling every so often just to speed it up.
/Waits on APoL
The trouble with Windows in that sense J, is that so many people use it, MS inevitably leave someone out when they make a decision. You mention defragging for example.
In Vista they tried to remedy that by having it constantly slowly defragging in the background, which I suspect is basically what MacOSX does but the first thing any Windows user who knows a little bit about computers does is moan and turn it straight back off.
I honestly think a lot more of the premium is peoples willingness to pay for the looks and the image though, rather than any specific benefits MacOSX provides. I'd guess if you asked most 'new' Apple customers why they went for Macs, that MacOS itself wouldn't be the largest factor.
SidewinderINC
18-10-2008, 21:50
I honestly think a lot more of the premium is peoples willingness to pay for the looks and the image though, rather than any specific benefits MacOSX provides. I'd guess if you asked most 'new' Apple customers why they went for Macs, that MacOS itself wouldn't be the largest factor.
It was my largest factor when I bought mine.
Yes the Dell has a higher spec, and for cheaper but as JUMPURS has said above, and I've said before :p
I've had this mac for nearly 18 months now, and I've not done a single thing to it in the way of "housekeeping" and it still runs as smoothly as the day I got it. I've installed plenty of trial software, plenty of plugins/addons and still it works perfectly.
My windows desktop (when it's working) is of a higher spec than the mac, but runs a butt load slower because I never get round to "tidying" it up and doing some housekeeping on it.
Streeteh
18-10-2008, 21:53
In Vista they tried to remedy that by having it constantly slowly defragging in the background
Interesting that you mentioned that as it's the perfect example in many ways of why Windows has to wrestle with many issues in terms of being a more open format operating system. I remember the above feature actually killing quite a few peoples older PCs when they upgraded to Vista as the constant harddrive activity caused by it pushed less reliable/worn out drives to finally give up the ghost.
One of the many pitfalls of creating software for a huge number of hardware configurations i guess. Another reason why Macs are becoming so popular.
As an aside, i've been contemplating installing Windows again on this PC, on a different partition, to compare how fast a new install would be vs my 3 year old one at the moment.
Main problem being I can't find my XP disc and I have no idea which of the plethora available downloads are any good.
It was my largest factor when I bought mine.
Yes the Dell has a higher spec, and for cheaper but as JUMPURS has said above, and I've said before :p
I've had this mac for nearly 18 months now, and I've not done a single thing to it in the way of "housekeeping" and it still runs as smoothly as the day I got it. I've installed plenty of trial software, plenty of plugins/addons and still it works perfectly.
My windows desktop (when it's working) is of a higher spec than the mac, but runs a butt load slower because I never get round to "tidying" it up and doing some housekeeping on it.
Yeap, one of the reasons i was so happy to get the missus back onto a mac. TBH there is nothing she can feck up on it. And even if she does, if she reboots it fixes it. I have had to do no maintenance on it because she has fannied about and clicked something or blah blah blah.
SidewinderINC
18-10-2008, 22:00
^ That too, they're idiot proof :D
Can you even burn DVD's and ISO's and watch DVD's out the box with Vista?
I know xp you can't
One of the many pitfalls of creating software for a huge number of hardware configurations i guess. Another reason why Macs are becoming so popular.
When you think about it, it's amazing Windows works at all, considering it basically has to be compatible with everything from an AMD K6 or Pentium MMX etc. all the way to a Triple core Phenom or Quad core Core 2, combined with any combination of all the graphics chips released since the TNT2 etc.
I suspect, had Apple had to spend as much time working on compatibility and stability on such a range like MS, MacOS wouldn't be half the OS it is now, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Advantage is, they have a better OS in terms of features and use but they'll forever have a limited market because any one who wants it needs a Mac, or PC with near identical specs.
Can you even burn DVD's and ISO's and watch DVD's out the box with Vista?
I know xp you can't
You can burn DVDs and watch them I think, not sure about using ISO images though.
I've had this mac for nearly 18 months now, and I've not done a single thing to it in the way of "housekeeping" and it still runs as smoothly as the day I got it. I've installed plenty of trial software, plenty of plugins/addons and still it works perfectly.
Same goes for my Ubuntu workstation. About the only time it breaks is when I do 'dodgy' upgrades (it's recommended to install fresh rather than upgrade, though upgrading is possible.) I can chuck software on and off it to my hearts content, all sorts of weird ass crack, and never ever does it run any slower than it did on the day I first installed the OS.
Seriously, the advantage of OSX is purely that it is based on an old, reliable, mature, and ultimately stable operating system (BSD). POSIX standards based operating systems (Linux, Solaris, BSD, UNIX, AIX and all their associated derivatives) are rock solid. It's one of the oldest operating systems around, has had plenty of time to get it's act in gear, and has been under constant development. It's the reason why its the operating system of choice for a large sector of businesses that are running real-time critical services.
And yes, all of the above operate happily on almost any computer architecture you could be bothered to name, and many more than Windows can, and do a better job of it :)
However, 95% of them are totally inaccessible to anyone who isn't fairly confident with computers, which immediately renders them useless in a home usage environment.
LeperousDust
18-10-2008, 23:47
However, 95% of them are totally inaccessible to anyone who isn't fairly confident with computers, which immediately renders them useless in a home usage environment.
Yeah, essentially though on Apples part they took a bloody great base of an OS and brought it to the masses. By doing this though they inherantly limited themselves to very specific hardware, which i'm still not totally convinced it has to be as restricted as it is tbh... Although it makes it easier to keep prices artificially high, saying that windows has never been "cheap" ;D:p
Windows is the cheapest OS in the world ;)
However, 95% of them are totally inaccessible to anyone who isn't fairly confident with computers, which immediately renders them useless in a home usage environment.
Definitely, fully agree. I was just pointing out OSX's huge advantage over windows :)
The fragmentation issue is a fair one - Fact is that Linux, Mac OS X do fragment, but they take an awful lot longer than Windows to get to the point where it hurts. The reason is simple - MS made a boo boo in the design of the original NTFS which made it almost guaranteed that it would fragment badly.
Anyway, I had a look in the Apple Reseller in the Meadows (Chelmsford) today to see if they had anything new, but wasn't clued up enough to tell. I'd guess not.
I wonder how badly that new touchpad suffers from errant palms. The fact it's bigger means it's more likely to get rested on.
However, 95% of them are totally inaccessible to anyone who isn't fairly confident with computers, which immediately renders them useless in a home usage environment.
Which is a good thing surely as it discourages morons from using them- if only MS hadn't brought computer usage to the unwashed masses ;)
j/k in case anyone feels the urge to feed my troll.
Back OT I think they look great BUT no firewire? Seems like a mistake as Firewire booting/ Target Disk Mode were one of the main selling points for Macs. I sincerely hope Steve Jobs plans to reintroduce that functionality to USB devices through an upcoming EFI update....but I doubt it.
SidewinderINC
20-10-2008, 23:43
I wonder how badly that new touchpad suffers from errant palms. The fact it's bigger means it's more likely to get rested on.
It's only slightly bigger than the current touchpad + mouse button.
you're not likely to rest your palm on it in a hurry.
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