Looking to buy a laptop. Any reason to buy a rotten Apple?

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Please advise, Windows newbie. All my previous computers were Mac's, not only to be compatible with the recording studio I worked at but because they were better computers. The last one I bought was around 8 years ago when Apple was still a computer maker. Afaic they are now a telephone maker and a music thief, err distributer. That is where they make there profits. Speaking of there phones, I read that half the phones they sell come back with broken screens. With any other product this would be a defect and a recall would be ordered. With rotten Apple it's a feature... for them. I diverge. I will use it as multimedia machine ( a 4K monitor and multichannel surround) where Macs used to shine, Internet stuff, LTspice, and for testing audio gear. (will I need to buy an external sound card?) So is there any reason to buy one?

Can anybody who has switched to PC from a Mac warn me of pitfalls or surprises? Thanks in advance.
 
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I have both, and love the Mac Powerbook. However, I use my Dell Windows 10 machine much, much more for audio simply because of software. It's much easier to find the software I want for testing and even good playback on Windoze. Some, of course, are cross-platform OSX, Win, Linux, but many are not.

With a reasonably priced Dell or similar, you can do so many things and have money left over for software and hardware. Of course most good USB soundcards will do Windows or OSX, so that's not a real hurtle.
 
A PC is asking for trouble. I haven't switched my Dell 17" laptop on since I purchased my iMac. Totally different world.
Free upgrades to newer OSX and most software is free from the App Store.
I don't know why I put up with the everlasting messages; "Do not switch off, Windows is updating". Updating what? More rubbish to slow the drive down no doubt.
Disconnect your PC and spend hours resurrecting your OS. Disconnect a Mac, it starts up as you left off and no complaints. Automatic backup with Time Machine, no defrag required on a RAW system and you don't have to click the on tab to switch it off!
 
I switched to Windows for about 4 years. Yeah, it was easier to find software, but in the end I couldn't take it and switched back.

The UI was awful. (I was a UI designer, so that might bother me more than others.) I also couldn't stand all the hacks such as libcurl, MKS toolkit, etc. to try and get unix-descended stuff to (sometimes) work.

But my wife (who was also a unix user back in the day) hates Apple and sticks to Windows, so YMMV....
 
Wine and Winebottler can also go a long way towards running windoze stuff on a mac. That is how I use the win version of LTSpice on my mac, for example (mac version is kinda crippled). And it's free. Most of the windoze stuff (utilities, the like) is $.

I've been struggling along with Mac LTSpice. Is Win LTSpice + Wine better? (I do use Wine for PSUD2, so I already have it installed.)
 
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Do yourself a favor and look at the Lenovo Thinkpads. Best laptops out there though they do have their own faults like build quality in the keyboard isn't what it used to be when the Thinkpad range was owned by IBM, there is a tiny bit of flex and the delete key is now a Function key thats about it. Still all in all if I were to buy a new laptop I would go with a Thinkpad, a large one.

The best laptop ever made would have to be the IBM Thinkpad X61. A laptop that you can speed type on, not even kidding.
 
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frugal-phile™
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Does it allow .net programs ?
What about redist for c++ programs ?

A Mac running Bootcamp & Windows is a native Windows machine. It will run everything.

With the Windows virtualizes — Parallels, VMWare Fusion, SUN VirtualBox — you are still running Windows natively but being in a “box” some performance may be sacrificed. WINE (or supported variant Crossover Mac) don’t use WIndows at all so aps have to be well behaved.

I detest Windows, it has a kludgy UI and makes getting work hard to do. Windows has more apt, but quantity does not trump quality, but there are niches where there are no Mac app, so i have Boot Camp (XP is god awful) to run the few PC aps i can’t live without (S+L Woofer Tester2) and i keep an old G5 Tower to run some ancient OS9 aps for which i have yet to find any replacements.

Macs tend to have much longer shelf life than windows boxes, are generaly better built, have highest customer satisfaction, free OS upgrades that reach back to much older machines. Mac sales as a portion of the market keep growing — IBM found a significant cost savings for employees switching over to Mac (much of that reduced support costs),

The bit about iPhone screend is FUD, iPhones still enjoy highest customer satisfaction.

If you buy a Mac you can run almost any OS you need — with a virtualizer, all at the same time, so the only compromise is paying for a higher quality piece of hardware.

dave
 
A Mac running Bootcamp & Windows is a native Windows machine. It will run everything.

dave

I write and sell software and have had problems with mac users running my software. Got sick of refunding so stopped saying it would run on a mac.

While I have been writing software for pc's since about 1985 I have never found it viable to write for the mac. There just isn't the vast user base like Windows PC's.
 
With BootCamp it is a native Window’s machine, nothing about it to differentiate it from an HP or a Dell… If your software doesn’t run it is a Windows problem not a Mac problem.

dave

I have sold around 3000 copies on Windows machines and not had a problem that wasn't the user unable to follow simple instructions.

I can only take what mac customers say that it wont run on their machines.
 
A Mac with BootCamp is a Windows machine, given what you say none of them would have had issues to complain about.

I could see issues with the early versions of the virtualizers and certainly with the WINE-like apt.

dave

.net and the c++ redist's are a part of Windows not Windows programs.
So WINE would have to be able to update itself to include the .net framework.

It was bad enough trying to get .net software to run on Windows machines never mind something that emulated it.

I always included the correct version of .net installer with my software to ensure user had correct version.
 
because it's rotten. haha You don't notice the rotten smell in the walled garden.
Depends on your budget and software.
Most non-tech people are very happy with the switch over. Be prepared to open the wallet 3 to 4 times as wide every time you need parts, service or new "apps" software.
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
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Be prepared to open the wallet 3 to 4 times as wide every time you need parts, service or new "apps" software.

For the Mac? You missed the part where IBM found Macs considearbly less expensive than PCs when you include everything. And that finding over a considerable and well tracked sample. We will see if Wal-Mart finds the same as they switch over.

dave
 
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