Laptops: Mac and Windows

Hi, all.

Long time no see.

As you know a lot more about computers than I do, perhaps you could help me.

My Toshiba Satellite is making horrible noises (fan) when I displace it (and it stays growling for quite a long). I think I ought to consider a new purchase.

Now I have been browsing the net to know which brands are more reliable (never mind all the rest). I thought Apple were renowned for reliability, and in fact that is what I found. However, PowerBooks seem to have about 1/7 (or so) possibilities of giving me big trouble. See, for a desperation read, http://www.infotoday.com/linkup/lud100104-goldsborough.shtml
and http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/laptops.html

Am I right? What are the chances with, say, Toshiba (I owned 2, both gave me trouble; but then Acer also gave me trouble), Sony or Fujitsu?

 

Hi,

I've always had good luck with Toshiba lappys, although one did have a hard drive ready to fail at end of lease. Currently using a MacBook which has performed faultlessly thus far (3 months so not a great sample). IBM (or whatever they are called now) also have a good rep for quality.

Stuart.

 

Thing is that all the notebooks are using the same hardware now so reliability or lack of comes down to physical design. Apple are known to have some issues with screens because the housings are so thin (the screen can flex and crack). I'm sure ALL notebook manufacturers have their issues (ie I'm not bashing apple).

The approach I took recently when getting my laptop was mainly based on price vs spec. I spent £680 for a Core 2 duo T7200 based machine with 1440x900 screen. Similar spec from apple would have been over £1000 and physically larger (15.4" apple vs 14.1") and with shorter battery life.

 

Whatever you do buy a laptop with a extended warranty. In my experience (and I used to buy them for several major companies so have bought many 100s) the chances of a laptop reaching it’s third birthday without having gone back to meet it’s maker at least once is very slim indeed. It is therefore wise to factor a 3 year warranty into the purchase price. If you are looking at Apple this means stumping up another 200 quid for Apple Care, other manufacturers offer similar products.

Tony.

PS Apple look expensive initially, but hold their value better than PCs so the total cost of ownership can actually work out less.

 

I'd second Isaac's comment. Notebooks are an art regard rigidity, heat dissipation, robustness, etc.

Personally use an IBM but since buying it we have only bought HP NC series. Have proved to be very good: light, decent performance, well built, well integrated, business functional (read not as stylish as some others) and the best for the money in our opinion.

 

I wouldnt go for Apple. I've recently bought a laptop, and looked into it with great depth. I ended up buying an HP Pavillion for £700 from John Lewis, and its a great little machine, 1Gb RAM, DVD writer, 100 Gb hard driver, 15.4" widescreen, webcam, remote, dual core processor, TV tuner, etc etc.

The Mac equivalent at £750 had a much lesser spec. No DVD writer, much smaller hard disc (60 Gb), half the memory, smaller screen, no webcam, no remote, no TV tuner etc.

I recognise that some people like Macs for what they are, and what they represent (i.e. not MS), but the spec can hardly be ignored; it was MUCH worse than the windows based machines.

PS. The HP looks just as good as the Apple's too, if not better.

 

I bought my eldest daughter a HP Pavilion laptop for her birthday last year. Luckily when it went tits up there was still two or threee weeks of warranty remaining. Dealing with 'Barbara from Manila' and their 3rd world customer care centre was a fucking nightmare, i had to do sh!t like e-mail them proof of purchase, etc, as they insisted it was out of warranty until i proved it wasn't . Bastards.

 

Paul I do not know when or where you went, but all the aple line up has a webcam on it.

Before giving advice make sure you have the facts.

One lesson I learnt quickly is John Lewis often has old stock which they are more than happy to sell you at full price.

 

Thank you all. I knew I could rely on you!

I see no one has a sharp opinion (but Paul, but the webcam is there) as to reliability.

If I understood right, all laptops suck. I wonder why! A laptop is an expensive machine, most non desk bound people need one. Is everyone returning his or her portable every 6-16 months? How on earth can one be productive??

I wish there were a kind of Honda of laptops. Not fast, but it never breaks. Please do not follow the car lead!! Let us stick to blasted laptops (pun intended).

It seems that overheating and probably related "blackout" - the computer just faints (and you lose all your work) - are the main problems.

I really don't care for specifications: I only want something that runs smoothly and that doesn't make me loose about a day in each week. My only wishes are a legible screen, some memory and a fast disc drive. And, of course, a reliable OS. A Honda, you see.

Is this sounding Apple or am I wrong?

 

This HP NC3220 is the model we are about to buy (Manufacturer model RH383ET#ABU), though hoping to get a better price than Insight's.

Core 2 Duo is the way to go. Leave the Pentium debacle behind.

Edited to add: Laptopsdirect.co.uk have it cheaper

 

It’s a little more complex than that – by the time you factor in the bloat of Windows and the fact you need to allocate system resources to run anti-virus / spyware software etc that is simply not needed under a secure OS such as OS X or Linux the tiny hardware advantage of a bargain bucket PC is utterly irrelevant.

Tony.

 

Yeah, that sounds a little appleish to me.

 

HP's business machines are good, I have had one for a while now with no problems.

 

I have a 867 MHz/1 Gb Ram Apple Powerbook laptop and when doing simple stuff like Word/Excell doc's and web surfing it doesn't feel any slower than my XP Pro desktop with an AMD 2.5 GHz chip and 1 Gb ram. My Daughters 14 month old HP Pavilion laptop is painfully slow in comparison to the two of them. My Powerbook had a new battery fitted just before i bought it and it just seems to last forever once fully charged. I've always finished what i wanted to do on it long before any low power nags come up on the screen.

 

I'm told the Apple (ASUS built) Mac Book Pro machines (ie. Intel architecture) are the best performing Intel based machines available.

 

I dont agree. There are plenty of people that suggest that OSX still really benefits from 1Gb of memory. I have no issues whatsoever with XP with 512 Mb or better, which is not that far removed from what OSX needs.

And even if this was irrelevant which I doubt (btw why do Mac owners insist their OS is perfect? It isnt), one cannot ignore the fact the PC laptops still have more RAM, more hard drive space, bigger screens and DVD writers and STILL cost less.

As for so called Apple reliability i am pretty sure i read not long ago about some apple laptops having issues with overheating and crashing. Hardly "Honda" like reliability.

 

Maybe so, but at what cost? Usually twice the price.

Look, i know everyone (except me) on here has loads of money. I know everyone on here loves Apple's. However, PC machines have a much bigger market share. Why? Because simply, they are better value, better spec, and just as easy to use. And not everyone has £2k to drop on an Apple laptop that has a similar spec to a PC laptop costing £1k.

BTW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_evangelist

 

First off you really need to compare OS X 10.4 against Vista as just about everyone accepts it knocks XP into a cocked hat, even Microsoft, which is why they have assimilated so many of it’s features. I’d love to see how Vista works in 512Mb! I’ve only got 512Mb in my Mini, and yes I’d like 1Gb, but to be honest it only really becomes irritating if I’m doing something large and serious in Photoshop or whatever.

Agreed, it isn’t. It is however much, much better than XP.

Tony.

 

To be honest, i get tired of mac owners ramming their choice of machines down our throats.

I work with PC's every day. Not Macs. As such, I want a PC, not a Mac. I know how to use a computer. I am not a numpty who needs eye candy or silly animations to see whats going on (i am not accusing anyone here of being a numpty, before they start).

There does seem to be some truth in the observation that many Mac owners are "zealots". You dont see many PC owners going on about how great their operating system is.

In Windows defence though, its not as bad as you lot make out. It gets the job done, in a fast and effective manner. I wouldnt mind betting many of the tasks done in Windows can be performed faster than that of OSX.

Incidentally, this site - http://www.xvsxp.com/ - compares the two operating systems, and the last time i looked, OSX scored a narrow victory. Hardly knocking XP into a cocked hat as you put it. Only those who value eye candy above all else would make such a statement.

And FWIW, if OSX were in XP's shoe's (in terms of popularity) and vice versa, then i think you'd find it would be OSX running 3 or 4 programs defending it from spyware

 

The only Apple product I own is an iPod. I'd rather buy the ASUS machine for a lot less than the ASUS built Mac Book Pro and in fact would rather get an HP NC notbook than an ASUS (at least for the time being). I was just contradicting your comment that Apple notebooks perform badly compared to PC notebooks.