Considering buying a MacBook

[Xilon]

Well I'm a uni student so it would be nice to have a laptop around with me, this would be my first laptop so of course I don't know much about laptops apart from the fact that they are slower and more expensive than the desktops :P

the macbook looks really tasty, seems to be a pretty good laptop in terms of hardware, it looks pretty nice (in the Mac-ish way) and it's not too expensive in comparison with other laptops. I don't mind the idea of using MacOSX, in fact I'm looking forward to it (never used MacOSX before) but regardless I want to be able to install Ubuntu/other distro and possibly even Windows on it as well. I've read that you have to hack the Ubuntu install before it will work and even if you do succeed it won't work properly, especially since macs use EFI now...

I'm just wondering if it's worth buying a macbook or getting a different laptop? and if the latter which laptop would you suggest? I'm looking for something close to $1000 AUD, the macbook would cost me $1600 AUD with a student discount or $1470 AUD in HK so it looks like a good price although still expensive (I just baught pretty much a whole PC for $800...)

[curuxz]

Personaly as a student my self if I get another laptop for the kinda money your looking at I would go with a mobile SPARC, esp now dapper supports the SPARC system. They are wayyyyyyyy faster than any of the other laptops out there. Plus you can run Ubuntu its a win win situation :D

EDIT: http://store.sun.com/CMTemplate/CEServlet?process=SunStore&cmdViewProduct_CP&catid=132680

[Xilon]

Looks like the CPU is a lot slower (not sure what the architecture is) and it is 4x as expensive as a macbook :S

[curuxz]

thats because....drum roll....its a SPARC system. CPU speed aint everything ;)

That thing will toast any pc laptop or mac laptop for sure hence the price. I so want one :( its no fun being a poor student

[nickle]

The SPARC is priced at over $3000... hmmm

I guess it depends on what you want your notebook for. Do you really need it for intensive stuff (graphical design or numerical problems) or just for text and multimedia or as a nice accesory?

Well the Apple will fulfill all these needs I guess, It is just a question of the price. An important factor with Laptops though is battery life. Most that I have worked with have a miserable duration if you are doning anything half intensive.
In any case here is a recent review of various multimedia laptops:

http://www.mobilityguru.com/2006/05/09/windows_mce_notebook_roundup/

[shrimphead]

if you're in australia I'd recommend the Asus M5N laptops, they're pretty well specced (check my sig ;)) and they are really cheap too, I had mine imported from Australia for about GBP400 (which according to XE.com is $1002 AUD)

the best thing is the components are so standard everything works on most distros (well except the SD card slot), even suspend to Ram and Disk is working perfectly out of the box with dapper

it's small and lightweight (12" screen), I lug mine around uni everyday and it has never failed me.

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;)

[curuxz]

He makes a really valid point about a power usage, for that reason I always recommend IBM's since they can use their ultra bay for a second bat, a very good feature indeed.

Speaking of University use tho I would not mind a tablet for laying flat on the desk while lectures are going on, I always feel like such a geek with laptop screen sticking out from my desk

[stimpack]

I bought a Macbook about 2 weeks ago, its my first foray into OS X.

I would get the Macbook, but leave it as is, dont bother putting Ubuntu on, OS X is good enough. It is very polished, somethings are very nice and some things are not as good as open source. But it will communicate with your Ubuntu desktop very well so no need to change.

Things I noted:

1. Linux zealots have a point, Mac zealots are idiots. Enjoy the Macbook but pls dont join the 'cult of Apple'

2. Macbook is so very sexy, If I had to choose between my wife and the Macbook, it would be too close to call.

3. Get VLC pronto and ditch quicktime.

4. Apple are just as evil as Microsoft (maybe even more), but the products are better.

5. There is somthing called Fink that acts like apt-get, for getting opensource software. I installed XCode instead, from the OS X cd and compile form source instead, all my fave linux apps are here.

6. Do not get talked into getting a .mac account.

Overall best laptop I ever got, there is no way OS X is making its way to my main comp (that is Ubuntu land) but as a laptop its great and makes a sweet change.

[Xilon]

The course I'm doing is computer science and internet computing so it's mainly development stuff for which most CPU will be sufficient (especially since it's dual core), I've got an amd64 at home so I can see the differences between x64 and dual core ;), other than that it will be simple office use etc for which pretty much anything will do especially under Linux.

The Asus M5N sounds nice but it seems to be slower than a macbook and for that kind of money I want top of the line ;) my new PC was only $800 so you can see that I think laptop are REALLY expensive for what you get. It's only a centrino processor and not a dual core which is what mainly tempts me into getting a macbook (gonna test parallels if I can)

A friend has an iBook and he's going to buy a macbook soon so of course he's a bit of an apple fan (he also has an iMac, iPod etc etc :P). I know that MacOS is very similar to Linux since the whole core is pretty much the same except that Apple isn't free and opensource which is a bummer. I probably won't mind using MacOSX as it seems REALLY nice although maybe a bit too simple for me.

The price is still a bit high and the incompatability with Ubuntu doesn't sound too great :( My dad would also like to use this laptop if I buy it and he is somehow really against Linux and MacOS (probably due to misconseptions that these OSs are somehow primitive or inferior to windows... he was shocked to find out that MacOS actually has Word and Photoshop :P), so I might be "forced" to install Windows on it... I assume that there won't be any problems with that?

And btw why is ubuntu so hard to install?

[imagine]

IBM doesn't build or sell notebooks anymore since last year, so if you want to buy a new notebook this is not an option.
They sold their whole business to the Chinese company Lenovo, which just recently signed a 1,2 billions pact with Micros~1 and dropped the Linux support completely. So I would think twice before I buy a notebook from them. [1]

The MacBook isn't the best choice when you want to run Linux either. [2] But if you want to run MacOS X you have to buy a notebook from Apple of course.
The MacBook also has a glossy, mirroring display (the MacBook Pro has a normal one) and I don't know if you like that.


[1] http://www.crn.com/sections/infrastructure/infrastructure.jhtml?articleId=188701277
[2] http://desrt.mcmaster.ca/macbook.xhtml

[Xilon]

I don't really want to run MacOSX... I don't need it, but if I do get a macbook or something and MacOS will be on it then of course I will play with it ;) Seems like a good OS to use, a lot of people say that it's bad though so I would like to find out for myself.

I'm not sure how the glossy screen will affect me, apparently the technology is at the stage that it's not distracting and apparently it makes the screen brighter and more saturated... not sure, I probably won't go for the Macbook Pro since it's like 3x the cost :P

[fuscia]

i'm waiting for my system76 laptop to arrive. it's coming with dapper installed. http://www.system76.com

[LMP900]

I bought a Macbook about 2 weeks ago, its my first foray into OS X.

I would get the Macbook, but leave it as is, dont bother putting Ubuntu on, OS X is good enough. It is very polished, somethings are very nice and some things are not as good as open source. But it will communicate with your Ubuntu desktop very well so no need to change.

Things I noted:

1. Linux zealots have a point, Mac zealots are idiots. Enjoy the Macbook but pls dont join the 'cult of Apple'

2. Macbook is so very sexy, If I had to choose between my wife and the Macbook, it would be too close to call.

3. Get VLC pronto and ditch quicktime.

4. Apple are just as evil as Microsoft (maybe even more), but the products are better.

5. There is somthing called Fink that acts like apt-get, for getting opensource software. I installed XCode instead, from the OS X cd and compile form source instead, all my fave linux apps are here.

6. Do not get talked into getting a .mac account.

Overall best laptop I ever got, there is no way OS X is making its way to my main comp (that is Ubuntu land) but as a laptop its great and makes a sweet change.

Excellent points. To add to this, if you keep this as an OS X-only machine (which I recommend you do), then make sure you get at least 1 GB RAM. Apple charges quite a bit more for RAM but its well worth it. Also, make sure you take advantage of the educational discount.

[Xilon]

Oh I definitely will if I buy it here (although it's cheaper in Hong Kong), but the price is still $1722 (with 1gb ram) which is a LOT... meh... I guess I'll just have to work it off for 2 years, lol

[digitalintrigue]

Don't buy Apple RAM, third party RAM is much cheaper. It is so easy to install in a MacBook, it's crazy to do anything else. You can also put in a bigger/faster hard drive very easily.

Don't forget you can run Ubuntu as well as OS X or even XP at the same time using Parallels. Try that on another brand of laptop.

[Stormy Eyes]

Don't buy Apple RAM, third party RAM is much cheaper. It is so easy to install in a MacBook, it's crazy to do anything else. You can also put in a bigger/faster hard drive very easily.

Get your RAM from Crucial; their prices are reasonable and I've yet to get a bad stick from them. I bought a MacBook, got it yesterday, and have no regrets.

[hajk]

Excellent points. To add to this, if you keep this as an OS X-only machine (which I recommend you do), then make sure you get at least 1 GB RAM. Apple charges quite a bit more for RAM but its well worth it. Also, make sure you take advantage of the educational discount.

OK, you guys convinced me -- just ordered a MacBook with 1 GB RAM to replace my trusty old ThinkPad that finally gave the ghost.

[mips]

OK, you guys convinced me -- just ordered a MacBook with 1 GB RAM to replace my trusty old ThinkPad that finally gave the ghost.

What happened to your thinkpad ?

[hajk]

What happened to your thinkpad ?

ThinkPad A22e 800MHz Celeron -- the 15GB HD developed more and more I/O errors the past few months. When installing Dapper, I reformatted the disk with JFS -- that worked for a few months. Sometimes reseating the drive would help, but now it won't boot anymore, and trying to partition/reformat from a liveCD fails also on account of an unending stream of I/O errors. New drive is quoted by IBM (Lenovo) at more than Eur 400 (USD 500); a "refurbished" drive would cost less, but it still feels like throwing good money after bad. So, time for a new experience. :-D

[mips]

Those 2.5" drives are really cheap if you want to do the job yourself. Just get a 7200rpm Hitachi Travelstar, they are the best and can be had for under AUS$170 for a 60GB or cheaper for the slower models.

Oh, it's really easy to swap the drive out if you do it yourself.

[hajk]

Those 2.5" drives are really cheap if you want to do the job yourself. Just get a 7200rpm Hitachi Travelstar, they are the best and can be had for under AUS$170 for a 60GB or cheaper for the slower models.

Oh, it's really easy to swap the drive out if you do it yourself.

Sure, but I was also looking for a "reason" to try something new, you understand.:cool: But, I may just look around for one of those Travelstars and not throw the old thing away... thanks for the suggestion.:D

[blitzd]

The MacBook also has a glossy, mirroring display (the MacBook Pro has a normal one) and I don't know if you like that.

I absolutely hate those glossy screens, very hard on my eyes.

I had a MacBook Pro to play with for a few weeks and it was pretty sweet, I love how the application packages work with Mac OS X - just drag and drop. They're pretty pricey though, especially if you don't plan to use OS X. You can get a generic laptop with similar specs for a lot cheaper.

[Donza]

I absolutely hate those glossy screens, very hard on my eyes.

I had a MacBook Pro to play with for a few weeks and it was pretty sweet, I love how the application packages work with Mac OS X - just drag and drop. They're pretty pricey though, especially if you don't plan to use OS X. You can get a generic laptop with similar specs for a lot cheaper.

I love MacBook's glossy screen. I think glare effect is not that big with MacBooks that it's with some other notebooks. OS X was also nice surprise. Sure there were some things that I did not like at first but after a while I realized that OS X has pretty seamless and logical UI. If you come from Windows world it might be a big culture shock but people who have been using Ubuntu and especially Gnome don't necessary feel so much out of place.

I kinda miss Ubuntu. I had been using it now for two-three years on and off. Now I have Dapper running on my home server, which I like to play with from time to time to satisfy configuration and tweaking urge, which you really wont be doing so much with OS X. I would say that with OS X you are not really working with OS itself as much as you do with Ubuntu. You are writing blogs, mixing music, listening iTunes, managing photos and so on. OS X sets you in position to be creative with this kind of stuff and provides you very stable and simple OS for that. So if you get kicks from configuring your system and playing with OS itself rather than the tools it provides OS X might not be your cup of tea.

[Kernel Sanders]

1) How many USB ports does a MacBook have?

2) Every time I get a new system I hate the OEM setup. So I grab my own (legit) Windows XP Pro SP2 CD, (NEVER will I use the restore cd's that come with computers..... *shudders*) and reformat the whole thing and set it up how I like it.

Can you do that on a Mac?

Cheers :)

John :)

[Carrots171]

...Lenovo, which just recently signed a 1,2 billions pact with Micros~1 and dropped the Linux support completely. So I would think twice before I buy a notebook from them.
That's changed. Lenovo Backtracks On No-Linux Statement (http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=188701694) (CRN).

[mips]

Sure, but I was also looking for a "reason" to try something new, you understand.:cool: But, I may just look around for one of those Travelstars and not throw the old thing away... thanks for the suggestion.:D

Sure, I understand your 'reason' ;)

Might consider another IBM/Lenovo as well.

[RAV TUX]

When looking at a MacBook consider only the hardware and compare the total cost and hardware to other computers. Always go into it with the thought that you will eventually upgrade your OS to Ubuntu or another Linux OS. Only then if you can justify buying the MacBook purely for it's hardware and a bit of sexiness then make your purchase.

[Derek Djons]

In my opinion Apple's Macbook is a cool machine. Not only because it looks tasty (by coincidence my Mac Mini is called also the same) but because it's also functional.

$1099 dollar
Believe me! For that money you aren't getting a machine with the following key features:

- Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz.
- 512MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRam.
- Build in iSight.
- Front Row (entertainment software) with remote.
- 13 inch with a high resolution.
- Mac OS X
- The ability to install Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows and Linux (in even a triple boot or fast user switching by Parallels software).

- Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz
A lot of people might say, that's slow. But it isn't. If you take a look at the Macbook Pro's you'll see they run on an Intel Core Duo 2.16. Those Core Duo's are faster than G4's and Pentium Mobile's. No, they are not faster as a Pentium IV indeed! But do you want to have reasonable fast portable with a batt. life of 3.5 to 4.5 hours. Or a hotrod with continous fan blowing and a batt. life of 1 to 2 hours. Enough said!

- 512MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRam
While a lot of memory can be handy also the speed can count. Now there isn't much difference between DDR1 and DDR2 but the slight of speed you'll have is a profit.

- Build in iSight
Wether you are going to use it or not. It's there. As a student you could be finding yourself in a situation where you'll have to record a movie with audio or have to do a presentation. With the iSight build in you can use other applications to beam your own face on a white wall. The possibilities and uses fore the webcam are funny and sometimes really functional.

- Front Row (entertainment software) with remote
We all like to relax. The Macbook offers you fullscreen entertainment. With a simple remote consisting out of six buttons you can navigate through your music, movies, photo's and DVD's and control them from distance. If your done, Front-Row will dissapear into nothing and Mac OS X is there to continue your work.

- Mac OS X
While Ubuntu maybe is your Main OS at home you might need a commercial OS at school. Why? Because sometimes you have to use software such as the Adobe suite or get through security protocols for internet. In case of such an scenario you'll be owning a machine which can handle Windows, Linux and Mac OS X nativly on it's hardware. No emulation nothing! Plain raw stuff.

- The ability to install Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows and Linux (in even a triple boot or fast user switching by Parallels software)
Now isn't that a machine full of possiblities and knowledge!

So this is what I have to say about a Macbook. While others found a portable for $699 dollar and others for $900 dollar in my opinion they don't tip in quality and functionality as the Macbook. If you are going to use Mac OS X by the way... you'll find it very similar in use as Ubuntu Linux. :)

[somuchfortheafter]

i just purhcased a macbook pro for college next year specs are
intel core duo 2.1ghz processor
2gb ddr2
120gb 5400rpm
dvd / cd burner
front row
osx
ilife 06
iwork 06
256mb something ati graphics card.
15.4" glossy screen

it runs OS X, Windows XP Pro, and Dapper all extremely well and fast, also xcode is friggin awesome. This laptop also blows my toshiba tecra out of the water. I love the keyboardand it seems to be holding up at around 4 hours of battery life. All this for $2,600 USD.

[RAV TUX]

i just purhcased a macbook pro for college next year specs are
intel core duo 2.1ghz processor
2gb ddr2
120gb 5400rpm
dvd / cd burner
front row
osx
ilife 06
iwork 06
256mb something ati graphics card.
15.4" glossy screen

it runs OS X, Windows XP Pro, and Dapper all extremely well and fast, also xcode is friggin awesome. This laptop also blows my toshiba tecra out of the water. I love the keyboardand it seems to be holding up at around 4 hours of battery life. All this for $2,600 USD.

The short battery life of 4 hours is a deal kill for me.