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Showing reviews 6-10 of 221
 From PC to Mac - It took 20 years. April 23, 2009
M. Russo (Marlborough, MA USA)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I thought I would start like others who shared their experiences here; Converting to a Mac after two decades of PC usage was something I would never have intended to do, right now, right here and without abandon, but I did. I had to actually, while at a conference my 15 month old Sony Viao dies, completely dead. Yup, it's the mother board, $500 to fix, and wait a second. Out of warantee? Completely. This has been one of the slowest notebooks I have ever owned and after this experience, I would never buy another Sony anyway so I looked around the conference and 1/2 the people in the room were using MacBooks. Besides, the battery life is less than 2 hours. Wait a second, Apple only has 8% market penetration. Ha! Not so in my world, it's more like 50%. So, like contemplating going to France, I thought about a Mac. What wild and spicy experiences wait for me inside that shiny silver slab of aluminum? Getting curious?
On a borrowed Aspire One net book (wow, what a piece of garbage) I started searching for my software apps on Mac. Everything I needed was there, including my trading platform; Think or Swim, even my Pulse LiveScribe was now supported with a native Mac app.
So which one to buy? Prices seem a little steep here. Thinking thoughts like: "Proprietary hardware and software = gauging customers" and "Why buy this when a Dell for a grand is as powerful and I don't have to relearn how to think" but in the end I made a decision.
I chose the MacBook 13" with the 2.4 ghz processor. I bought it from Apple's refurb link on the web site. I was was sent there by the dude in the Apple store. He told me it's identical to new and comes with the same warantee. He was right; feels new, acts new, can't tell the difference.
Then I surfed Other World Computing's web site and spent about a hundred more and bought 4 gig of ram and a 7200 hd. So now my machine is ready for what normally would be considered heavy usage. While I waited for my upgrades to arrive, I started using the computer. It's fast, no doubt, but it's smoother than I expected. Everything flows seamlessly, a lot of care has been taken to make things easier than expected.
While I have a 4 gig Windows desktop (actually 32 bit Windows only lets you access 3.25 gig) I know how that gets bogged down when I have all my apps and windows open so I thought 4 gig would be essential. I read that all Macs can natively access 6 gig of ram, an excellent fact to tuck away for those days of photoshop and lightroom while on airplanes. I went for a bigger hard drive (320 gig) but at a higher speed; 7200 rpm. After all, it's an extra hundred. If you priced that on the Apple site you would need to sell relatives to get those upgrades. So for $1299 and an extra hundred, I have a macbook that rivals my desktop.
But wait a minute, I don't have all those upgrades installed right away, I still use the machine in it's humbled state; paltry 2 gig ram and pokey 5400 rpm drive. I can read email, thinking I will bide my time until the UPS driver crosses the Mississippi and make it out my way, and like Woah! This sucker is fast. And it's running everything at once. Apps just pop open.
I start to check out GarageBand and promptly make an appointment at the Apple store for one of their free classes, I take my 14 year old daughter. It's love at 1st site. She's a singer, formally trained and up and coming. (I know, I am Dad.) And I am watching this training class - totally blown away - watching her eyes sparkle and I realize this would accelerate her move to a professional recording environment, allow her to make demo's, learn how to mix and sequence music, while using their lessons to improve piano and guitar. And this software is free with the computer. I realized that I had to get her one. Yeah, it's another grand, but this is not a toy or a gizmo (uh, well... maybe it is fun and cool) but more of a tool for advancing her abilities and skills.
Now, I start to dig around some more into the "free stuff" that comes with a Mac. There's a photo editing program (iPhoto), a movie maker (iMovie), a continuous backup system (Time Machine), mail client, contact tracker and other "features" to make life easier.
It's now 4 hours on one charge, the battery life is at least double that of my sony. * I am hooked * Now, I have this laptop that flies through space and I have this 3 monitor setup on my desk with a PC (lead anchor) as it's engine. Its all too depressing. Why is Apple about to take most of my money, why, why? I'll tell you why, because this is what using a computer is about.
So now that I am done raving about this new experience, I should sober you up a little and let you know some of the cold hard facts that might help you decide which mac is good for you.
First; the 13" MacBook with 2.4 ghz processor is nice but the 2.0 processor is probably fine for most things for most people. If you are graphics intensive, the Pro is a better fit. It's $500 more so you gotta need it to spend that money.
Missing: Why doesn't a mac book have a built-in card reader? Photographers will miss this. What about a real video-out jack? Apple seems bent of getting an extra $30 to connect an external monitor.
Deficient: The screen can't go black. While it's not that important and may not be noticed by most, photographers and videographers will notice. Seems like a real problem that can only be solved by getting the pro version.
Uncomfortable: The sharp edges on the Aluminum frame are tough on my hands while leaning my palms on it to use the touch pad.
Awkward: Showing up at meetings where everyone else is still using pc's.
Onward: Enjoying computing like I did 20 years ago. What do you think, should I ditch my Treo/Verizon and go to an iPhone on AT&T, where the service is said to be lacking?
 If you're getting a laptop, get this April 16, 2009
johnthecompnerd
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
in the Jr. High school, they had a couple of these macs. I worked with the IT dept/their website so I got one of them. all I can say was that this mac was my best computer experience - ever. Well, a MacBook pro I guess would be better, but anyways...
Pros:
-Amazing battery life, I usually got like 4 hours somehow
-Really powerful, every app was very snappy, even if I had a ton of apps open
-It's an apple (woot)
-The screen looks REALLY good. I had the glossy one, and it was like HD happiness every time I watched a movie
-Keyboard feels really good
-Mouse has great feedback, but not annoyingly sensitive (like when you're typing and bump it, it doesn't send the mouse flying opening Photoshop when you're trying to work on a something else and not in the mood to force quit photoshop before i got the activation screen of adobe death (I had a 30 day trial and forgot to delete it)
-webcam / skype happiness
-Mac OS X is really really really easy to understand. I was a Windows junkie before I used a mac and i learned how to use a mac in seriously a day or 2, it's really intuitive.
Cons-
the underside can get kind of hot if you're doing processor-intensive activities, but that's true with basically all laptops unless you have a cooling mat/fan under it
The screen isn't great for outdoors, but neither is any other glossy screen.
It might be a good idea to get a spare power adapter, because although the magsafe power adapters are really genius, what tends to happen is the wire inside the sleeve gets untwisted, so you you get like twisting bumps on the wire... if that makes sense. This isn't a real big deal but it could lead to a kink/break of the wire if you're not smart. Plus, this didn't happen to me, but some reviews say on the Apple site that the wire can fry through a power surge?
When you are done playing around with Windows, come to Mac! March 9, 2009
H. Crosland (Maryland)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the 2nd Mac that I have had after my Powerbook G4.
I had the B model and got this one because of the Nvidia Card and I am soooo satisfied!
If one thing I have learned about these machines is that they hold up very well to wear and tear.
There isn't too much more that I can say that everyone else has said already except that for what you spend you get top notch quality.
A lot of people are afraid to go Mac because they are so used to WIndows but take it from a long time Windows user, after a few montsh playing with these Macs, you will wonder what took you so long to come here!
Best of all you very rarely ever have to worry about any issues with these machines. My wife has had a G5 for the past 4 years with no problems, while I have been through at least 3 Windows machines and AV programs so it was just inevitable that I would make the move. If you are that afraid of Mac, you can always get a Macbook and install boot camp whcih will allow you to use Windows but best believe you may ditch it before long!
Let Bill Gates go!
Am I A PC Or A Mac? March 5, 2009
Steven Stewart (steveo.stewart@hotmail.co.uk)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Well up to the point at which I bought my first Mac, I was definitely a PC but now I know what I've been missing. Apple have been on the rise over the past few years thanks to their wonderful invention of the iPod. There's no doubting that the mass media attention surrounding Apple thanks to the iPod has lead to an increase in sales of the Mac. Honestly, that's the reason I decided to get a Mac when my last Windows laptop broke and I've not looked back.
Aesthetically, the Macs are just gorgeous to look at both on the outside and in the operating system software. That is Apples biggest selling point, make it simple and make it pretty. Pretty it is, but at first simple it is not. Having been a user of Windows software since I've been able to use a computer, getting used to the Max operating system created a learning curve which I couldn't be bothered with at the time. It really is so easy that I felt like a pro using it within about half an hour.
Thanks to the 2GB Ram of my laptop the transission between programs is almost flawless and because I generally don't do that much on my computers anyway, just word processing and the likes, I have noticed almost no lag in the running of the programs. The laptop itself is light, sturdy and just very durable as it has been knocked about a bit.
Battery life is around 4 hours on low power mode which is very, very impressive as I generally need to use this to do work outside the home without the absence of an electrical output. Because the AC adaptor of my model connects magnetically, I have to say that it's a very very cool feature but worry about how long it will last before the magnet decides not to attach itself to my laptop.
It does come in a few different colours, (Black, Silver, White) and silver would get the recommendation from me as it just seems fitting and better looking overall. The processor works perfectly and as mentioned before there is pretty much no lag in switching between programs. Virus possibilities are almost non-existent as it's very rare that virus's are made to attack Mac software so there's no need for virus detection software.
There is little to no need to update your Mac software as it's top of the range when you buy it and genuinely ahead of the market. The load and shut down times are almost half of any Windows PC making that even more appealing as if you need to get to your work quickly, you can. It doesn't generate any large amount of heat from the processor so you can place the laptop in sleep mode and leave it overnight without the worry of overheating.
If you want to look cool in Starbucks then you should buy one of these, and if you want to do your work with little difficulty, then you should buy it. Hell, just buy the damn thing.
Super hardware, software is not on par February 20, 2009
audiobookfan (Mount Prospect,IL)
The industrial design is superior, conveying a feeling of sexiness and high quality. The charger is so cute, feels more like a toy than a banal tool. It is fast, but windows machine with similar configurations are also fast, I have a ThinkPad T61 with 2.2GHZ CPU, I do not feel the speed difference. But the T61 is much heavier.
Others already said enough about the good stuffs so I only list things I do not like:
1. The LCD does not flip all the way, when sitting on the floor, it is difficult to get a good viewing angel.
2. Mac OS chooses to put the menu bar on top of the screen instead of the windows. When using dual displays, it is very annoying because the menu bar is only on one screen, so I have to move the cursor to the screen with menu bar to select menu items, it is a pain.
3. the dock can be very cluttered when multiple windows are opened, unlike Windows, it does not group same type windows.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 221
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