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[Rant]Kids these days are useless!
bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
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BAF
Member #2,981
December 2002
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Quote:

I prefer PC hardware because it's cheaper and it's a computer ;D, and then I can install Linux, kill the Windows partition during the install, and have a great OS on an actual machine.

And what do you think a Mac is? It's still PC hardware these days. You can install Linux/Windows on a mac. Also, Linux is probably lower than OS X and Windows on my great OS list. Glad to see we have another anti-MS zealot on the boards here!

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Sony beats them in every department, including cost. If you catch them during a sale you can get an equivalent apple laptop for ~60% of the cost.

What about an Apple sale? Also, Sony laptops are shit in my opinion. I'm not too impressed with my plastic Gateway either, if I buy another laptop then I'm going back to IBM Thinkpads. They are pricey, but they are built like a tank and loaded with features.

alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
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I got my current laptop free from my uncle, so I'm not complaining. 8-) Anyway, I will go for whatever is cheapest if the physical UI doesn't suck.

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.

ImLeftFooted
Member #3,935
October 2003
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BAF said:

Sony laptops are shit in my opinion

What issues have you had with Sony laptops?

ixilom
Member #7,167
April 2006
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Quote:

What issues have you had with Sony laptops?

it came with a rootkit ;D

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Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Quote:

it came with a rootkit ;D

Windows? ;D

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Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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Quote:

A guy asked me if he should buy one of those mac ultra-thin notebook things so I did a thorough comparison of Sony's line up against Apple.

Sony beats them in every department, including cost. If you catch them during a sale you can get an equivalent apple laptop for ~60% of the cost.

I can't see a single logical reason (short of the sexual appeal) to throw your money at an apple laptop.

Well it does sound like you've done a thorough and reasoned comparison there. After all, you've compared the ridiculously priced cut-down laptop that costs about twice the price of Apple's cheapest offering while offering lower performance and fewer features (especially if you don't consider "thinness" to be a feature) with the entirety of Sony's range. And then you've taken that conclusion and applied it to the entire Apple range.

I would say that I bet that the Apple was still cheaper for people that want to edit videos and author DVDs. But then I remembered that it has neither a firewire port nor an optical drive.

le_y_mistar
Member #8,251
January 2007
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well, there are some older 'kids' here who compile gentoo and grow neckbeards.

-----------------
I'm hell of an awesome guy :)

Arthur Kalliokoski
Second in Command
February 2005
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reeeel ma-chure, d00d

They all watch too much MSNBC... they get ideas.

BAF
Member #2,981
December 2002
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Quote:

compile gentoo

Any modern OS has to be compiled. I highly doubt any of them were written in machine language.

alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
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True. Most come in precompiled form, though.

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.

Hard Rock
Member #1,547
September 2001
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Quote:

Well it does sound like you've done a thorough and reasoned comparison there. After all, you've compared the ridiculously priced cut-down laptop that costs about twice the price of Apple's cheapest offering while offering lower performance and fewer features (especially if you don't consider "thinness" to be a feature) with the entirety of Sony's range. And then you've taken that conclusion and applied it to the entire Apple range.

Well I was able to put together a 13.3 inch dell xps, LED(extra light and pretty) screen, 2 batteries, 3GB of ram, 8400GT, 200GB 7200rpm hd with the free fall detection, windows vista premium, wireless n wifi, bluetooth, a 2.4 or 2.2 ghz cpu (the slowest core 2 duo WITH 4MB cache, not 2 MB cache) all for $1600 FLAT, after taxes and shipping. The 15inch was about the same price ($50 more) but had a 8600GT instead and a 1680x1050 screen. Oh and both had sound cards.

So what mac compares in price to that? Also the XPS series looks pretty damn nice, and is really thin.

[edit] looks like the closest Mac is $400 more before tax, has 1GB less ram,slower hard drive, smaller resolution (you can drop the XPS resolution to save money), no sound cards, oh and you have to buy a copy of Windows).

I think the 15inchs are damn well comparable and I'm comparing a deal I saw 2 months ago to the newest released Mac Book Pro.

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Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Hmm... ok, let me compare that to what my requirements for a laptop are.

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13.3 inch

Huge.
I know, I know, the current generation of Mac laptops is large too.

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8400GT, 200GB 7200rpm hd with the free fall detection, windows vista premium, wireless n wifi, bluetooth, a 2.4 or 2.2 ghz cpu (the slowest core 2 duo WITH 4MB cache, not 2 MB cache)

How much battery life do you get out of that? What is the weight of the machine?
I personally couldn't give a rat's droppings about the speed of the machine as long as it's fast enough. If I want a fast computer for serious work, I'll get myself a desktop system.

Quote:

The 15inch was about the same price ($50 more) but had a 8600GT instead and a 1680x1050 screen.

15" is way to big to be carrying around.

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So what mac compares in price to that?

It depends on what you want from a laptop. If what you want from a laptop is the fastest CPU you can get, the largest amount of RAM, the best power-hungry video card and the largest and fastest harddrive, then the answer is none.

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looks like the closest Mac [...] no sound cards

The cheapest Mac laptop you can get has an audio connector and a headphone connector. What'd you think those are for? Decoration? Of course it has a buildin soundcard, has had for at least the past three years and probably longer.

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oh and you have to buy a copy of Windows

::)
If you want Windows, stick to you goddamn PC laptop. I don't understand people buying an Apple computer only to run Windows on it. I don't really understand people installing Mac OS on their vanilla PC hardware either, but then again they at least have the excuse that their vanilla PC hardware + OS X is probably cheaper than an Apple computer + OS X.
(No, that's not a contradiction with me saying that my iBook was the best deal for what I wanted back when I got it).

Hard Rock
Member #1,547
September 2001
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Quote:

The cheapest Mac laptop you can get has an audio connector and a headphone connector. What'd you think those are for? Decoration? Of course it has a buildin soundcard, has had for at least the past three years and probably longer.

Sorry let me clarify, by sound card, I mean it had a sound blaster Audigy. Basically it supported accelerated audio. Obviously shitty integrated audio is a given ::)

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How much battery life do you get out of that? What is the weight of the machine?
I personally couldn't give a rat's droppings about the speed of the machine as long as it's fast enough. If I want a fast computer for serious work, I'll get myself a desktop system.

Less then 4 pounds if you drop the video card. (For the record that's a full pound LESS then the macbook. Cheaper too). It even lowers the price. Battery life about 3:30 for internet use. Since a 9 cell battery is also included in that price, that will add an extra 5-6 hours. It even comes with a finger print reader and lots of other stuff.

So the dell is lighter, almost the same size (thinner in the front, a little bit fatter near the battery and has about 1 cm more depth. It's less wide though :)) a little bit less battery life, but you don't have to pay some ridiculous fee to get a new one since you'll have two.

Also it looks really really sweet.

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Hard Rock
[ Stars Dev Company ][ Twitter ][Global Warming: ARA My TINS 07 Entry][Pong Ultra Website][GifAllegS Ver 1.07]
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alethiophile
Member #9,349
December 2007
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Again: f*** mac hardware, just get a vanilla PC and install Linux. ;D

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
C++: An octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.
I am the Lightning-Struck Penguin of Doom.

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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Quote:

Again: f*** mac hardware, just get a vanilla PC and install Linux.

I assume you accept that exactly one solution is not suitable for everyone? If so, then I take it that your argument is that Linux is the best solution for a majority of users. If so, then I don't necessarily have an argument. I don't even really have an opinion and I consider that argument to be completely peripheral to the part of the discussion I've taken part in. I'm just commenting on it because it happens to be the post above.

Linux certainly seems to be a smart choice for basic (as in 'the tasks used by 95% of people in an office') Office functionality tasks and web browsing. And probably the best choice for programmers that like to be able to poke their nose into as much as possible.

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So what mac compares in price to that? ...
[edit] looks like the closest Mac is $400 more before tax

You think that the Mac laptop that is closest in price to $1,600 is one that costs $2,000? Given that the cheapest Mac laptop is $1,099 and they can be configured to most prices in the range between that and some silly price, I would have to suggest that you may wish to revise your basic numeracy skills.

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...oh and you have to buy a copy of Windows).

You make a powerful argument. All the people that posted to this thread claiming that Macs were the cheapest way to run Microsoft Windows look pretty foolish now.

ImLeftFooted
Member #3,935
October 2003
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Thomas said:

Well it does sound like you've done a thorough and reasoned comparison there. After all, you've compared the ridiculously priced cut-down laptop that costs about twice the price of Apple's cheapest offering while offering lower performance and fewer features (especially if you don't consider "thinness" to be a feature) with the entirety of Sony's range. And then you've taken that conclusion and applied it to the entire Apple range.

I looked at 3 different apple laptops, each with a few different flavors (ie. the expensive version and the cheaper version). Unless these 3 were Apple's big over priced line-up, I'd say my comparison was fair.

Thomas Harte
Member #33
April 2000
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Quote:

I looked at 3 different apple laptops, each with a few different flavors (ie. the expensive version and the cheaper version). Unless these 3 were Apple's big over priced line-up, I'd say my comparison was fair.

Clearly I found your original post ambiguous, and misunderstood it. Naturally, I apologise.

I still disagree with your statement that "Sony beats [Apple] in every department, including cost" as even if we trust your survey without any evidence (and I can't think why we wouldn't) then I can't imagine you are comparing on anything except cost. And even then I think you're using a false metric.

By comparing hardware components to hardware components you seem to be saying "let's compare what's the same and easy to compare, ignore what's different or hard to compare." Then you conclude that because your numbers suggest that the bits that are the same and easy to compare can be had for less money, there isn't "a single logical reason (short of the sexual appeal) to throw your money at an apple laptop."

Ignore what I'm otherwise arguing, and ignore what you're otherwise arguing, and just answer these questions:

  • in the real world, is there any advantage to being able to use a computer more competently, more happily or more quickly?

  • is there any evidence that at least some people prefer or are more competent, happier or faster with the workflow on a Mac than a PC?

I maintain that that's at least one logical reason, and so enough to disprove your comment.

In my opinion this whole debate gets muddied by the idiot OS-fanatics of the internet who have no idea of practical reality and are more interested in pushing their opinions loudly than critically assessing them. Which makes it too easy to lose track of what people are actually saying.

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Please forgive my sarcasm.

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Sorry let me clarify, by sound card, I mean it had a sound blaster Audigy. Basically it supported accelerated audio. Obviously shitty integrated audio is a given

Ah yes, the thing I really cared about when I got my laptop was the quality of its soundcard...

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Battery life about 3:30 for internet use. Since a 9 cell battery is also included in that price, that will add an extra 5-6 hours.

Oh, so as long as you bring your (charged) spare battery, you'll get decent battery life. Great.

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It even comes with a finger print reader

Yes, many was the time I thought to myself, "this is a nice laptop, but what it misses is a piece of hardware I have absolutely no use for".

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and lots of other stuff.

Oh good. More junk I care nothing about.

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f*** mac hardware, just get a vanilla PC and install Linux. ;D

Yes, because Linux works really well with laptop wireless cards and never gives problems when you try to connect a beamer to it. I don't know, it may work flawlessly these days, but it most definately didn't two years ago.

Seriously. What part of "when I wanted a laptop the Apple iBook was the cheapest laptop I could get that met my needs" is so hard to get?
I use my laptop for work and when I'm travelling. As such, I need to be able to use it to read and send e-mail, to read (PDF) and write (LaTeX) papers, give presentations (PDF) and preferably run some models or data analysis on it (FORTRAN, Perl, some C and all designed to run in a UNIX environment), although any serious work in that area goes to my workstation or a computer cluster. It doesn't need to run games, it doesn't need a particularly good graphics card and I couldn't care less about its soundcard. I wanted something small, reasonably light, not overly expensive and with a decent battery life, preferably running a UNIX system without hassle. Anything cheaper was bigger and heavier and had worse battery life, anything smaller and lighter was at least twice as expensive (and had worse battery life).

If my requirements for the system had been different (say, I had wanted a laptop as a replacement for my desktop machine), I very probably would not have gotten a Mac. But I didn't want a replacement for my desktop machine.

Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
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Sounds like you need an Eee PC. ;)

I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my Dell Inspiron E1405 last night (over top of the wasted 10GB "recovery partition," and it worked with all my hardware out of the box. It's the first version that has proper support for the Broadcom wireless chipset. Even version 7.04 didn't work with it.

I haven't tested out the power management features yet, but overall it is very impressive. I've always been a harsh critic of Linux distributions putting unrealistic ideals ahead of consumers, but Ubuntu knows when to compromise. The package management is slick; it proactively asks you to install proprietary drivers; and it doesn't install dozens of similar software packages.

Missing programs aside (e.g., there is no good GPS driving software to compare with Microsoft Street & Trips), I think it's finally to the point where I could find it nicer to use than Windows and OS X. It's a shame its support for multiple monitors is horrible; using it on my workstation is useless.

But the compiz window manager is awesome. Hands down the best interface I've ever used. It's everything that I like about Windows and OS X put into one.

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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Quote:

Sounds like you need an Eee PC. ;)

Maybe. It looks interesting, but based on the reviews I just read the battery life isn't so great (3.5 hours). It's probably also a bit too small to write comfortably on, and in terms of storage space it's also not that great. Still, I'll keep an eye on it for when I need a new laptop.

ReyBrujo
Moderator
January 2001
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Quote:

Don't they teach kids anything these days?!?! And even if they don't teach things like that, how hard is it to figure out for yourself how to put a bike chain back on?

If it is not in MySpace or Facebook, they don't learn it. Times change, I loved to spend hours fixing the tail of my barrilete until it got the perfect balance to fly over 100 meters away from me (and around 25 or 30 meters above ground). Electricity lines were filled with kite remains! Nowadays, children and teens prefer playing with a PS2. My nephew at 4 has never seen a kite, but is good playing Mortal Kombat 3.

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But the compiz window manager is awesome. Hands down the best interface I've ever used. It's everything that I like about Windows and OS X put into one.

What the heck! My computer can barely play them. I blame the MX 4000 w/64MB, but if a notebook can run it...

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BAF
Member #2,981
December 2002
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Quote:

it proactively asks you to install proprietary drivers;

Really? I was messing with kubuntu in a VM, and it was bitching at me because I had the nerve to install proprietary drivers [vmware guest tools]. It was talking about it being a security risk, not supported, this and that. Had to click a few buttons to make it STFU.

ImLeftFooted
Member #3,935
October 2003
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Quote:

    </li>
    Sure.

    Quote:

      </li>
      Your grammar is ambiguous to my eyes, however...
      Some people prefer the workflow on a Mac.
      Some people are more competent on a Mac.
      Some people are happier on a Mac.
      Some people are faster on a Mac.

      All of these issues are irrelevant to a proper comparison. I will give one example of the irrelevance before moving on.

      Example said:

      My grandmother prefers to write letters, she is more competent at writing letters, she is happier writing letters and she writes them faster. She will never use email.

      I wont discuss the irrelevance of your issues any more.

      *** I wrote a long break down of comparisons of Apple and Sony. I decided the conversation would get boring so I erased it (except this last part, cause its so true...) ***

      Additionally, Sony laptops are awesome (I mean, their keyboards don't break. Apple people could appreciate that).

      Matthew Leverton
      Supreme Loser
      January 1999
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      Quote:

      It was talking about it being a security risk, not supported, this and that. Had to click a few buttons to make it STFU.

      It doesn't install them by default, but it pops up a dialog saying that here's a list of drivers (Intel video driver, and Broadcom wireless) that are necessary to install for full usage of your computer but that Ubuntu cannot provide support for them. A total of one dialog, which is far fewer than the amount it takes if you were to install a fresh copy of Windows on a Dell laptop!

      On Windows, if you don't have the original driver CD, you have to go to Dell's website, wade through a huge list of potential drivers, and install them one at a time, each with their own wizard.

      On Ubuntu, you press OK on one dialog and you've got them.



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