Bitten by the Mac bug!

[Will]

My parents have used apples for the past year or so, and I've started to use them completely customising my profile and doing all the configs/installations I want to make it do what I want to do.

So far so good. There are still a few little things I need to investigate first before I'm convinced - but I have to say I'm loving it. I'm not going to lose the PC as it's useful to have it (and for gaming) - however I may have to lose a laptop (HP Nc6320 top spec so probably at least £500s worth of laptop) to justify the expenditure.

I'd be looking at the 2.5GHz macbook pro - I'm currently using the 17" MBP 2.33GHz and it's a great piece of kit.

Once I'm sure of the software/compatibility side of things and if I know I can shift the laptop then I'll be pretty convinced.

[LeperousDust]

Get out!

[Will]

Hey it's my thread - YOU get out I'm not going 100% cold turkey, I'll be keeping the desktop It's still not definite, I'm just toying with the idea and the idea is enjoying being toyed with...

[Haly]

I know the feeling
I was originally planning to get a Macbook until I had to buy a laptop faster than planned so didn't have the funds for a Mac.
Determined to at some point though

[Will]

The more I use them the more I like 'em. Plus they just look cool Once I'm sure of some of the compatibility issues I'll be putting up the laptop for sale either on ebay or somewhere (here even if people are interested) and take it from there. I'll see how I fair first - I'm going to give it more of a thorough tonking first.

[Dr. Z]

Macbooks are getting better I think. My main gripe with them is the relative expense! You get an attractive, high spec laptop for approximately 1.5-2x the market rate for an equivalent non-mac. I personally couldn't justify that when the only "benefit" is OSX. Not slating OSX (although its not my cup of tea) but it does seem like a lot of money to strangle what you would normally do on a computer. Certain apps run far faster on a Mac, most notably media editing type apps which is why so many design people use them for their work but for everything else I found them to be frustrating.

I suppose the wealth of software for Macs nowadays might help you adjust faster than in years gone by etc and certainly tools like VMWare Fusion will help you when you just absolutely must run a Windows-Based application (or even dual-boot) but then once you are going down that road for more and more things, why not just get an equivalent spec laptop, pocket the difference and run Windows (or Linux, or even OSX!)

Unless of course the real reason you want one is to join in the big "I have an Apple product" circlejerk developing around the world?

[Will]

I don't "do" fashion, or follow stereotypes or masses, I've just been using them more and more and have grown the prefer their usability over windows which i'm now getting bored of having used windows/dos for over 15 years.

Once of my machines is already running Linux, and well, it's a bore trying to get it to do things sometimes. I just fancy a change, I'll be using parallels, or crossover, or even boot camp. If you can install osx on a core duo laptop then sure I'll give that a go first. It's just the more i use a Mac the more I hate windows, and I'm not enough of a geek to use linux really.

[Feek]

Sitting on the fence here, doesn't a Linux box work just as well, Will?

[Will]

Not really - I have to spend hours working out how the hell to do something simple such as play a DVD (this was a while ago), if I want to sync my phone it doesn't work, if I want to connect the wireless AND the cable (which I do sometimes) it goes bonkers, I can't trouble shoot linux - I have issues with slow wireless traffic (streaming video from my NAS box) on my windows partition it works fine, so I know it must be a driver problem - and I have no idea how to fix it - and I can't be bothered.

I mean don't get me wrong, Linux is great considering it's free - but it's just SO complicated, I just want things to "work". I'm bored of Vista, it drives me nuts and it's just not brilliant IMO. I've been using a mac for about 2 months now and it's REALLY growing on me - I'm not a geek anymore, I don't want to spend hours playing with software to make the computer boot 2s faster, I don't want to recompile a kernel or whatever just to get some benefit, I don't really understand how it all works, and I don't want to understand how it works anymore, I just don't care. I just want it to work.

Look at it this way, Damon Hill, fantastic racing driver, knows what the car's telling him, knows how to make it do what it needs to do, exploits it and gets amazing results. He doesn't need to knwo about the combustion engine, or changing compression ratios, or if it's running lean/rich, he doesn't need to have the understanding of all the electronics and mechanics of the car to achieve the best out of it, he just needs to use the bloody thing - the engineers do all the geeky stuff - he just puts their efforts into practice.

I'm bored of doing hardcore computing, I don't want to spend hours tweaking things, vista/windows is just getting on my tits now, linux is cool because it's free but it's just too complicated for a mere simpleton like me.

I'm not going to get rid of my pc anyway, this is my laptop we're talking about - which I use A LOT. I just fancy an upgrade, and I've been using the mac for a bit and I've grown to REALLY like it. I've given MS a fair go over 15 years of use, but you know what? It's taken me 2 months to fall for a mac - I think it's pretty evident how my mindscape has changed.

[divine]

Originally Posted by Will

Look at it this way, Damon Hill, fantastic racing driver, knows what the car's telling him, knows how to make it do what it needs to do, exploits it and gets amazing results. He doesn't need to knwo about the combustion engine, or changing compression ratios, or if it's running lean/rich, he doesn't need to have the understanding of all the electronics and mechanics of the car to achieve the best out of it, he just needs to use the bloody thing - the engineers do all the geeky stuff - he just puts their efforts into practice.

Perhaps not the best example, seeing as what makes a good driver great, is his knowledge of how his car works, what needs tweaking to get it to its best etc.