i have no problems with vista...

 

^ I don't either.
What I have now is an HP DV5-Z AMD 2.6 Turion 64 bit.
It came with Home premium, but due to it's lack of the ability to do remote assistance, I had to upgrade to ultimate. I had heard that vista ultimate did a little better job of managing battery life. I always thought this was complete BS, until I upgraded. Now, I can get about an extra 30 minutes off of the high output 6 cell battery that it has.

The only problems I have had with this comp, 1. battery life (It's an AMD, that's to be expected) and 2. The heat output. Under a load, the chip set temps are at 99*C. Just a little too hot for my tastes. The out put exhaust is around 120-140*F, enough to singe the hair off of your leg if you are using it like the name insists. Went to the Mart and bought a cool mat for it, that has twin 18CFM cooling fans on it, and everything is much much better.

Overall, I like this computer. The base model was $580, and by the time I got done adding the extra RAM, the network card, Hard drive upgrade, Bright screen upgrade, and the extra 3 year "what if" warranty, It cost me around $1,200. I figure, I will use this one until parts become hard to find, and then make a warranty claim. HP states that if you are using a model that has been discontinued, and parts are non existent, they will upgrade you to the newest comparable model they offer.

After thought- Another thing I wish this comp had is backlit keys. It would make life a lot easier when I am sitting in the dark chatting on it. I had heard that the DV6 and DV7 models were both offered with this feature.

To the OP, if you still are looking at PC, I would wait until the launch of windows 7 if you can, I ran a beta copy of it, on a junker Insignia D300A and it runs better than it did with XP professional. I just hope that the release date for Windows 7 doesn't get post pone like Vista did.

 

Once again, you have no idea what you're talking about.

One of the main reasons why Windows 7 is faster than Vista, and why Vista had problems to begin with (besides some bugs), is the whole Superfetch thing. Its a great concept, but to get it to work in Vista, it took a lot more memory and processing power that it should. In Windows 7, they pretty much ironed it out and now it works like its supposed to.

If you are a serious PC guru or gamer, you don't custom order PCs. You build them.

Refer to my post here if you think Dell has the best warranty and customer service, which they do not.

I'm sorry to sound so disrespectful dude, but you are talking out of your butt in both threads, and I'm calling you on it.

 

Macs, BTW, are currently the best computers out there.

They preform the best, largely in part because of the nice UNIX based Mac OS X, and are some of the most reliable and durable units out there. The only ones I have known to outdo them in durability are the Panasonic ToughBooks.

Windows does nothing but get bigger and clunkier. Windows 7 is nice, don't get me wrong, but Mac OS X is still superior. The upcoming Mac OS X 10.6, due in September, is nothing but further refinements. They completely rewrote the Mac OS interface, so it looks the same, but takes 6 GB less HD space, and operates (depending on the task) far faster (usually at least 25%). Lets see M$ do that with Windows; not rewrite something because they have to or because it has bugs, but do it just because they know they can make it work even better than it already does.

And only $29 to upgrade to it when it comes out.

From now until January, if you buy a new PC, you can get a free Windows 7 upgrade. Why? Because M$ is trying to keep their current user base. They've been losing thousands upon thousands of people to Macs over the past few years. Mac went from about 8% of the total market, back when XP was around, to over 15% now (haven't checked the latest numbers, but its even higher). In just two or three years. There is a reason for that.

Not planning on a new computer between now and the end of the year, but want Windows 7 for a current system? Pre-orders are $50 for Home Premium version and up from there. After the pre-orders are done, it'll cost you $120 plus to upgrade your OS. Like others have said, it is currently slated for an October release.

Macs still get viruses. However, they are far, far rarer and a lot, lot harder to get. Currently, the only real virus risk for Macs is if you download pirated Mac software (which I am not, repeat, NOT advocating). If you avoid that, you're safe.

Any Mac questions, let me know. I sell them and, on very, very rare occasions, fix them, because they never need it. I also custom build PCs (only for friends) and fix them too, so any questions on those, feel free to PM me.

EDIT: And no, I don't use a Mac as my primary. My wife does, but I use a custom built gaming system as my primary.

 

Going to cut this down to the relevant parts as it's a good sized post. Overall I agree with you but just wanted to correct/mention a few things. The first part about the hardware I couldn't agree more.

Honestly IMO the average user really shouldn't be disabling UAC. It can also be turned off per-application which is a better choice for most. I ran Vista for almost half a year on my desktop, I find OS X's implementation much less intrusive and it pops up a lot less. From a security standpoint both are good things, UAC is just more annoying than I want to deal with in it's default form.

The app availability really isn't bad, the only area you really notice a gaping lack of Mac products is gaming. Other than that I've actually found more polished and useful free apps for my laptop than my desktop which is still running XP Pro. Also as a programmer having a much better terminal shell and multiple programming languages installed right out of the box is nice, most won't care about this though.

I did get a student discount on mine but I really didn't pay much more for my MacBook Pro than a comparable Dell/HP/Toshiba when I bought it, the 3 year AppleCare warranty is actually cheaper than most of the other companies charge for their 3 year. My main reasons at the time of purchase were the specs I wanted in a lighter, thinner package with (new and hard to find at the time) the LED backlit screen which makes a large difference in battery life. The original plan was to run Windows on it but I've found OS X to be a very good operating system and for what I use my laptop for it's perfect. Now you'll never see me buying a Mac desktop but I can say I'm a fan of this laptop.

As for $500 laptops while you can certainly get some decent ones under $1000 I haven't seen a $500 laptop yet I would touch with a 10 foot pole, it's worth a little more to get a decent one.

Unless you're buying the $500 laptop mentioned above don't even think about buying one without the warranty. It's absolutely worth it, laptos get banged around a lot and take a lot of abuse. Not to mention it's easy to break one thing and need a whole new motherboard.

Look around, they run a lot of promotions/discount deals. I certainly wouldn't say the price is ridiculous, like I said above I got mine at a comparable price. They do use pretty much the same hardware, though I find Apple is generally a little better at fitting it into a smaller package and the build quality of the case and the laptop itself on mine is fantastic. There are a few nice features like auto-adjusting backlight on the screen based on how bright the room is and an led backlit keyboard that turns on automatically but these aren't deal breakers. I will go so far as to say they flat out have the best touch pad I've ever used on a laptop though, the multi-touch pads are great once you're used to them.

Software is more limited, though generally cheaper unless you want something like Final Cut Pro. I rarely pay for software anyway (shh... ) so it doesn't make a difference to me. Support can be harder to find, there are many more Windows users than Mac users and the Mac stores are rather spaced out so it is something to think about.

I'll go even further and say by this point the average Pentium 4 system is really only useful as a doorstop. Keep in mind while you're at Best Buy etc..., the Windows machines will actually be faster if you have someone who knows what they're doing go through it for you once you get it home. They load them down with so much crap you don't need that just wastes resources.

Thanks, lol.

$750 is not a price you will get a MacBook Pro for (not even close). If Derrick says these are nice systems I believe him, and it sounds like these may be your best bet unless you're honestly interested in Mac OS X. If you are go to the stores and play with both, in that general price range you'd be looking at a regular MacBook which, while they're not my favorite are still a decent unit. You will still pay more than $750 for a MacBook, I go for pretty high-end hardware which is where the price difference is smaller. In the end it's important to go with one you like, just stay away from emachines and the junk brands.

 

I ran Vista for a good while and went back to XP Pro, you are dead wrong. Performance is the reason I went back and yes I know all about the speed tweaks, etc... XP is still a good solid OS, look around, how many business are running Vista and how many are running XP?

You paid way too much for that system if you bought it new from Dell. Dell's proprietary designs and hardware are also just lovely when you want to upgrade. I have an XPS 700 and it will be my first and last box brand PC. The only reason I have it is I got it at the Pawn shop practically new for half of what it would have cost me to build myself. Previously I built my own desktops and my next will be the same.

 

I won't disagree with you on the XP being a decent OS.

However, I would like to add that the primary reason I've noticed businesses run XP isn't necessarily because its a good solid OS, but because their outdated printers, price scanners, etc. etc. work with it, where as Vista would require they buy lots of new hardware.

Thank you.

 

Prebuilt systems can indeed be used by hardcore gamers, because I'm one of them and my current system is an XPS. However, I built it myself and spec'd it out how I wanted it. Trying to build the same system and get all the same parts/warranty was going to cost me more then I paid for the system. However, in most cases, building your own is cheaper and usually comparable if not better performance.

The only reason the Mac OS is better on security is because maybe 2 out 10 people own one. If the market was more 50/50, that would change. Not to mention, you forget to mention that the software market is almost *******ly ALL in house at Apple. There are very limited numbers of 3rd party software makers that make software for Macs AND PC's....most of which is imaging/photoshop/movie software. For example, with a PC, you can find a million programs to edit music or cut videos. With an Apple Mac, maybe 1,000-2,000. If that ever changes, you'll see more issues with Macs. As the number of people using them increases, it will happen..count on it.

Macs dont require alot of maintenance, but then again, they're built on hardware and software managed almost exclusively in-house. Compared to Microsoft and the PC world, your comparing a baby to a full blown adult. It's not a knock on Apple, it's just a bad comparison to use to slam MS or the PC market.

And since I'm a gamer, I can't even do that at all on a Mac. I think a handful of games will run on it. Since I dont forsee a Mac ever being able to support my gaming desires, I simply wont have a use for one. They're nice to travel with though, great for multimedia purposes.

Lastly, I find it hysterical that MS is getting sued left and right for having a built in media player, internet browser, and even now they're complaining about the lack of a browser option in Windows 7. YET, Mac OS's have had all of that in them since Mac OS 8, and I don't see anyone suing them over it..


When I say there are decent systems out there at $500-750, I mean for what he has described as his needs. I looked at a Dell Inspiron that had 3gb ram, 320gb hdd, wireless, bluetooth, dvd burner, and a 2 yr warranty for $650. Windows Vista OS.

 

I did mention there were no options for gamers. OS X does have a very good inherent security model though, being built on UNIX. I will also say, when you have to program anything involving system calls, you start wondering what the hell Microsoft was smoking when they made that compared to how easy your life is in UNIX/Linux. However, most of the market is on Windows, and where the customers are, the programmers that want a salary must develop.

 

You can get the same parts/warranty custom built with same performance for less than you can order it from any manufacturer. For gaming systems, that is. Most of the major PC parts, CPU, motherboard, hard drive, for examples, come with 3 year or sometimes 5 year warranties. Resellers like Newegg offer service plans to cover the 1 year warranty items, nine times out of ten.

You are partially correct. More viruses will pop up for Macs as they become more common. However, I disagree with your comments about "the only reason the Mac OS is better on security is because ... 2 out of 10 people own one". Mac OS is based on UNIX, one of the most sound and secure codes known. It will always be harder to write a virus for a Mac than it is a PC, unless M$ changes their code completely like Apple did with the first Mac OS X (from Mac OS 9).

You are right in that a lot of software/hardware is in house, and is partially responsible for their reliability. But you are forgetting a lot of points.

Hard drive fragmentation, for example. Mac OS X manages the HD space much better, and defrags anything new immediately after it is installed. That is why you don't need to defragment Macs.

Memory management on a Mac (RAM) is also much better. 2 GB of RAM on a Mac is roughly equivalent to 4 GB on a PC, 4 GB on a Mac roughly equivalent to 8 GB on a PC, and so on.

Very true. Very few game manufacturers make games for Mac and PC, only the largest usually (some major titles from EA games, for example). Which is a shame, since Macs do handle the graphics much better. But it comes down to economics... make the game for 80% of the market, or 20%?

No offense, but I am going to completely disagree with you here.

What a lot of those lawsuits are is the fact you can't remove the browser, not the fact that it comes with it. You can't remove IE from Windows, its a permanent built in part (unless you live in Europe or have the European edition of Windows). On a Mac, it comes with Safari, and iTunes. However, you can delete them if you want, completely get rid of them. There are other players for the Mac, there are other browsers.

Windows Media Player used to only encode in WMA (which stinks, BTW), and to encode into a MP3 or something else you had to pay a fee to download an add-on. Apple's iTunes has their preferred format, AAC (also known as M4A or MP4), which is high quality and an actual standard (not M$ proprietary crap), but you can change it to MP3 or other formats if you want, no add-ons necessary.

If you compare apples to apples, pardon the pun, you get a better deal with the Mac.

A compareable PC laptop with the graphics power/CPU of the basic 15" MacBook Pro, for example, will cost you around $1000. The 15" MacBook is about $1700.

Add Adobe Photoshop Elements, very roughly the equivalent of iPhoto, thats $100. (iPhoto is more for organization and doing things with photos rather than photo manipulation, but you get my point.)
Add Adobe Premiere Elements, roughly the equivalent of iMovie, thats $100.
Add back up software roughly equivalent to Apple's Time Machine program that comes on all the Macs, thats about $40 or a little more.
Add instrument software roughly equivalent to Apple's GarageBand, you're looking at roughly $100-$200. For this argument, lets just say $100.
Add a basic webpage making program similar to iWeb, which comes on the Mac, you're looking at roughly $100 (ball parking it).
Add antivirus software, which the Mac does not need, you're looking at $40-$60, depending on your pick. Lets just say $40 for this example.

Thats $100 + $100 + $40 + $100 + $100 + 40. Thats $480 in additional software that you have to install yourself, or pay someone to install it, and made by six different manufacturers that will require a few different updater programs to keep them updated, and they won't be as stable as the Mac's software because they are "out of house". With a few exceptions, most programs on the Mac use Mac OS's built in updater software to keep themselves up to date.

Lets not mention the fact that you have to pay a yearly fee for your antivirus software (or buy a new box every year). Mac OS maybe has one or two patches, bug fixes, or whatever a month. Windows averages, recently I've noticed, about a dozen a month or more, with far more restarting the computer.

The Dell may do everything you want it to, I'm not saying you need all that extra stuff the Apple comes with. I sell both PCs and Macs at my job. You just can't do a direct comparison between Mac and PC, they are two different animals.

If you want a video or photo editing power house with lots of battery life and reliability/durability, look hard at the Mac.

If you want a gaming laptop, look at a high end PC.

If you want a budget, economical computer that'll last you a long time, look at the little Mac laptop(s) and middle-of-the-road PC laptops.

If you want a low budget computer that'll last three to four years (average), get a PC laptop.