Thinking of buying MacBook Pro
 

Just looking to purchase a new laptop and have always used windows based OS. We are now thinking of a MacBook Pro, but they are over twig the cost of a windows OS, do you actually get your money's worth? Everything else in the house is apple products, so we do like it.

highflyer40,

Yes, absolutely, as long as you obey the usual rules of buying any computer in terms of Maximum RAM and a picking a reasonable processor.

Most Macbooks come with 8GB RAM these days, so if you can afford more, then great, but otherwise its really just the processor you need to worry about, in which case its the same as in the PC world, if you can afford/stretch to Intel i7, then that should absolutely be your target but otherwise a decent i5 based machine will suffice.

Most Macbooks also come with built-in SSDs these days, you don't need to work hard to avoid spindles, from memory I think they've only got one model with spindles, their entry-level basic one.

If you do a lot of graphics work, then you could consider the higher end models with the beefy GPU. But if you don't know your Photoshop from your Lightroom, or your Premiere from your After Effects, or don't even know what a GPU is, then you'll probably find you don't need to concern yourself too much in that area.

Robust, reliable, well designed computers. OS X is a pleasure to work with.

Plus you can run Windows in a virtual machine without problems, I do it every day.

There might also still be the little known added bonus that you can legally buy an OEM copy of Windows to run on Apple hardware. I say might, because you'll need to check the license terms for current versions of Windows (8 or 10) , its been a little while since I looked. Normally Windows OEM has to be bundled with hardware by the manufacturer at the time of purchase. But as I said, please check current license conditions.

Make sure you get the AppleCare warranty, it does help. Plus I think they even cover accidental damage these days !

In terms of costs comparisons, two things :
(1) You should really be doing an ROI comparison ... a decent MacBook Pro will absolutely be able to last you somewhere between three and five years.
(2) Make sure you are comparing properly..... the Windows OS department is full of very nasty crap that looks cheap on the price tag, but that's because it is cheap inside ! (stuff like celeron processors, nasty slow hard drives and whatnot). I'm NOT saying the cheapest possible entry-level Apple MacBook is perfect, but its light years away from the cheap entry-level end of the PC market !

P.S. highflyer40 ... beware the stupid resident Apple bashers who lurk in the PPRuNe forums. Take what they say with a pinch of salt if they decide to contribute their "valuable" opinion to your question.

We basically only use a laptop for Microsoft office (which you can get for Apple products ( just not iPads) just very tired of getting a computer and then within 6 months it is so slow!!

highflyer40,

Its Microsoft's fault, not Apple's, but I will say that the current version of Office for Mac is not the best. Its lagging behind the Windows version a bit (well, it is called Office for Mac 2011 afterall ). I believe Microsoft (finally) have a new version coming out very soon !

So if you need all the bells and whisles, until the new version comes out, you'll need to be prepared to use a virtual machine with Windows and the windows version of office.

But my last Macbook survived about 4 years of heavy usage (including multiple drops off tables). Current one is about 2 and a bit years old and still going strong. But I know other people who are well into the 5th year.

Thanks Mixture

Thinking of buying MacBook Pro
 

Once you go Mac you'll never look back. I have a top end MacBook Air that is still going strong after 3.5 years. I'm currently looking at an iMac for a replacement (iPads take care of all the portable stuff we do).
Unless Apple completely screw things up I will never buy another windows based product as long as I live.
Others will disagree but in my opinion Apple wins hands down. You will not regret it.
BV

Echo above with one caveat.

Wife has Macbook, I an iMac both from 2009. Both going strong. We've got Office for Mac on both, but it isn't really that good. We use Apple's free Pages programme which, although not a clone of office, it does everything we need. Apple also provides free spreadsheet and presentation software. All of which can write files in MS format.

On memory the rule of thumb for any PC is to get as much as you can or afford. But Apple's extra memory is expensive and not good value for money. But adding memory to most Macs is a doddle. I've upgraded both our machines to maximum using chips from thes guys : Other World Computing (OWC) - Performance Upgrades For Your Mac. (Satisfied customer speaking, no other relationship with company) Their website has videos showing how to install the chips, so you can decide in advance if it's something you want to do.

MS Word etc, is available for the iPad, but it's a subscription product.

don't take any notice of the Apple fanboy. Courtesy of my employer I have one that is about as high end as you can get. Obviously something with 8 CPUs 16G memory and 500G SSD can't be described as a heap of junk but value for money it is not.

Nor is it robust. I dropped mine from the grand height of one inch on the corner and because the screen is integrated with the lid it has invalidated the warranty. Plus if you don't fold the power cord in the Mac special way you will soon be subject to the Apple rip off for a new one.

The OS is the most irritating patronising thing you will ever come across. You would be far better with a regular Windows or Linux on the same spec of machine for half the price.

Don't feed the troll...

Caveat: You might want to do a bit of research on upgrading RAM on Apples laptops. With older laptops it was possible to add RAM from third party sources.

Today's Apple laptops have RAM soldered in. I just had a quick look at their site and unless I have missed something I believe that if you want more RAM than offered as standard you must specify that when you order what you want.

I believe that the only models that you can add other than Apple RAM are the 27" iMac and the Mac Pro.

I second the suggestion to max the RAM to your budget limits.
FWIW I have a 2007 MBP 15" that still works well and can run Yosemite, not the fastest but it still works well.

OK, thanks for the update.

Many mountains were made out of molehills on the topic of soldering RAM, but it is a sensible reliability decision, and it also allows Apple to design their products to tighter tolerances, allowing for a thinner, lighter design.

As I said above, most except the very basic Apple Mac Book Pros now come with 8GB of RAM by default. Which is normally more than enough for your average Joe.

But as I always say, if you can afford more RAM, you should buy it, so if you can afford to bump up to 16GB then its a cheap way to afford yourself extra peace of mind.

If there is any prospect of you ever wanting to do more intensive stuff, such as running Windows in a virtual machine, then of course, bumping up to 16GB is no longer an option, but a must !

Yep, I had to retire my no-name Windows laptop after 11 years because the little switch which turned off the screen when I closed the lid packed up. I mean, for goodness sake! Get a grip on yourselves you Windows Laptop makers! :}

16gb of RAM with an SSD? What are you doing on that thing??

Admittedly I do push my laptops harder than most... :)

Various virtual machines running simultaneously
Various pieces of Adobe software
All sorts really....

But occasionally, Firefox just feels like being a memory hog and going back to its old ways of using up 2 or 3GB of RAM for no perceptible reason at all. :ugh:


But yes, it did occur to me when writing my previous post, that for the average Joe, perhaps SSD based swap space would not be the end of the world. But I've never tried it so I can't condone it, hence my (perhaps) "old school" suggestion of just boosting RAM.

On the subject of soldered RAM, there is also this quote from an ASIC design engineer (my highlighting of the last paragraph) :

(Those words from this website MPG - Apple MacBook Pro Retina Quad-Core (June 2012) - 2012 MBP Retina ? Memory Bandwidth)

I was in exactly the same dilemma.

Yes the MBPro is overpriced, but it is better than its mainstream competitor by a country mile.

I was so tired of the "boffin" Windoze formula I sought some clean air and found it in the MBPro. So far it's been a great experience (though I had done Mac in the past), I am just fortunate to be in a position at the moment to enjoy luxury over cost, and what a breath of fresh air it has been.

Of course if I were a tight @rse I would probably have stuck with Windoze as it's backwards compatibly with all my previous baggage, but I really wanted a change for the sake of it and MBPro delivered just that. It still has the very real potential to be used in "boffin" anger but I really couldn't give a rats. I do Unix/Linux in my sleep so with the power of VMWare/Fusion I still have all that "boffin" power at my fingertips anyway.

Yes it's pricier, but if you tire of Windoze like me, it's well worth it.

Soldered RAM:

I have noticed that more & more small-form factor Windows tablets / laptops and hybrid tablet / laptop devices are shipping with soldered RAM. It is by no means an Apple phenomenon.

This is (I'm told by HP) to allow thinner and more compact devices - which is what the market is telling the manufacturers that is required. Although I'm sure that there are other reasons as well!

SD

I can see the benefits of soldered RAM!

I lent my laptop to a friend to do some testing on software he's developing. He brought it back (very worried) after half an hour saying it wouldn't boot up. The POST beep codes (3143) showed "RAM problem". Reseating the RAM fixed it.

Over the last four years I've bought three Macs and, in various combinations and renewals, I've also bought the Apple Care Protection Plan and One to One. With the two laptops, I've taken advantage of these two programmes from Johannesburg to San Diego via Munich, even England, and many stops in between. I've never paid Apple a penny for repairs or training and if you want training then you should see the tutorial set up in San Francisco.
Macs have their detractors but they have no equal in terms of international back up, training and location convenience.

Eek, with what apple charge for upgrading 8GB of RAM, I could almost buy a small country.

Highflyer, if you want to avoid both fanboi camps then you may wish to consider an alternative to both apple and microsoft. apple has a "walled garden" as far as hardware and software goes and microsoft are pushing their software to a "walled garden". They both want to lock you into their products and trap you there forever. Changing to the mac OS from windows will be a big jump but then going to MS OS X (windows 10 ) will be almost as big. Both companies are aggressively forcing people to the Cloud as is Google's Chromebook (something I would avoid like the Black Death)

Buy the hardware you think will suffice for the next 3 to 5 years and install a Linux variety. Will be a bit of a pain to get used to but it may be worth it in the long run.

FWIW, I service both apple and microsoft systems form Servers to laptops and dislike them both equally. :)

Biggles78 is your prime example of someone jumping on the apple bashing bandwagon who has absolutely no clue about what they are talking about.

8gb to 16gb upgrade costs around 160eur, not exactly expensive.

As for anyone who talks about apple being a "walled garden". That's more absolute trash. Anybody can write software for apple, you can use plain old c/c++ if you don't want to use apple Developer tools. Nor do you need any approval from Apple.