Ok, I'm in need of something laptop-ish to replace my current laptop (it's literally been shocking me lately...yeah, cool huh?)

So, I keep hearing all this hype over the new lines of MacBook Pros and whatnot Apple is producing. Alright. That's cool, however, the cynical skeptic I am, I don't like Apple's advertising, and the fact that the only people I can milk any info about Apple products from are the same people who update their Myspace page daily after reading blurbs from their copy of the Hipster's Handbook, I would rather come here, to you, the wonderful hoard of nerds who inhabit these boards and ask you, as I know you'll be able to provide facts. I can't emphasis the word facts enough. I don't care if you think OSX is great and all, I've used it (frankly I find it overhyped, but I don't really care, I adjust to OS's fairly well), and I certainly don't care about comments about how "sexy" apple products are. If I cared about that, I would have settled for an iPod (fnord) instead of the portable music device I currently own. So, it looks like if I hold out for a bit, the MacBook Pro is launching, with the Intel processors and all that flare. Now, I want facts as to how this stacks up to a kick-*** laptop that's running Linux. Frankly, I want you to post good ideas of what to get. Even some bizarre out-of-left-field idea, as long as it's a good replacement. You PC fanboys, you're more than welcome to counter what is said about the Mac. That's great, I want to hear both sides, but I really do want facts from both sides.

I want this machine to perform fairly broad tasks. Word processing, digital art, multimedia, web surfing, communicating, you know, the fairly typical things most of us here do. Unfortunately, I don't have much time for gaming anymore, so while it'd be nice to have that luxury, I really don't mind sacrificing the ability to do it. That said, have at it, Massassi.

http://www.notebookforums.com/

http://www.notebookreview.com/

I would hold fire on the MacBook pro until a couple of versions have come out and any flaws are worked out, and I am now extremely pro mac. That said, if you're happy going for something (relatively) untested I would most certainly reccomend OSX for all those tasks you put forward.

I was in much the same position as you 6 months ago (not much time to game - work to do) and chose the Powerbook 12". I'm not going back to win32 without a serious fight. Quick to come out of sleep, no hassle connecting to any network, fast doing tasks, MS Office is in fact nicer through OSX in my opinion due to the floating taskbar, plenty of free open source stuff to do any task you like, small, light, great battery life, has the motion detector that locks your HDD if you drop it, the new macbooks have a magnetic power cord so that you can't trip over the wire and pull your machine off a desk.

i really should take a breath there.

I personally love the keybaord (it *feels* right) and love the amount of keyboard shortcuts available for most things - and expose is great too.

I reckon that'll have to do - I've got to go do some food shopping now.

I would wait on the Macs, as has been mentioned. No one yet knows what problems they may cause.

There are a lot of fine laptops that would outstretch that MacBook Pro, especially running Linux. What you may want is to wait for one of the new lines of Core Duo notebooks being released by other companies. I personally anxiously await the Asus notebooks' arrivals.

Additionally, if you want to find a really high quality notebook at a great price, look at NewEgg. They have a small selection, but it is top notch. The benefit there, too, is that you can read the user reviews and see what they have to say.

Good luck with your notebook. I purchased a Dell Inspiron 9300, and have been nothing but satisfied with it.

If you want to get rid of your old laptop, let me know

even leo from this week in tech says to hold off on the mac book pro.

Aye, they don't even do a 12" yet: when I was looking for lappys I wanted a really small one so it was nice and portable. My old one that I gave to Izzy is actually really cumbersome and quite heavy. You can still buy a 12" powerbook, but it's obviously going to be slow compared to anything else.

You mentioned working with digital art. If you would be working with Photoshop, I would definately reccomend holding off on a Macbook pro since Adobe is putting off porting the software over to the new hardware until 2007, and until then you would be running it in emulation mode and thatreally isn't reccomended if you really want to get anything done.

Bad Martyn! Bad!

You're starting to sell me...

Everything that's been said here.

Also, we don't know yet if they're going to put hardware locks on the Macbook Pro yet. I would wait until you know for sure that if you don't like OSX you can load up Ubuntu on it with no problems.

One problem has already been discovered. Basically, I wouldn't play movies using front row if you do get one, because you'll get some WEIRD *** errors.

I'd hold off...personally, I say go Dell. Unless you really REALLY want a Mac, then go iBook (basically powerbooks at this point in time, only with a different design/smaller).

For a more varied option on the Apple laptops both Mac books and Mac Book Pro's wait until April and August if you can.
The Mac book pro is a very nice piece of kit, and extremely quick it all depends on what you want to do on it Software wise, most of the Apps that are currently out there are still for the PPC chip and not for the Intel, but saying that running the PPC software on the Intel, I really couldn;t tell that much of difference, but waiting for a Intel version of the more high end apps, such as CS2 and Office, Maya, Macromedia etc etc could be worth getting. The other 'cool' thing about the MacBook Pro is that it didnt seem to get as hot as the PPC versions, my Powerbook 17" does get rather warm after 2 hours of constant use doing Graphics and things. The new ATI graphics card is amazing, playing Doom 3 on there was just truly amazing.

I agree that waiting for maybe a second revision is a good idea, but I said that about my Mac Mini and the next 'upgrade' version wasn't that much better, these have been in testing for at least three month, plus the time since its announcement until its release.

The backlit keyboard now is a complete must, I couldnt live without it,and being able to run a 30" Cinema screen too :droooool:

What the hell is everyone's problem with Apple's advertising? It's marketing, that's the whole point of it. You're supposed to try and get as many people to buy your product as possible.

1) They steal from other people's work (they stole from some Postal Service music video. I think Such Great Heights.)
2) They rag horribly on the competition because:
A) Steve Jobs is insane
B) Steve Jobs is a pompous *******
C) Steve Jobs probably got beat as a child
3) When you're horribly behind in the market, it's not really a good idea to say "Hey, we're better than you!" to someone who controls the market.

So what is the alternative then? Make an ad campaign that reads as follows, "Hey Pc's are better than us, by the way we have a pretty cool laptop but it's ok if you don't buy it, we understand."

Just don't mention the fact at all. Kind of common sense.

But he said no argument, so I stop here.

BTW, I've used both Windows and OS X. I had a PowerBook G4 until recently, but I sold it knowing that their resale value would drop once the MacBooks came out. I got a IBM in it's stead.

I agree completely. Wait until they get some kinks worked out. They are AMAZING machines though. And if you still want Windows, they'll be able to run Vista (they both use EFI, so they theoretically should be able to do it without much problem). Apple already said although they won't support, nothing is gonna stop a user from doing it. The real advantage in my opinion about the MacBook is that it will provide the user with the most choices. Run OS X, Vista, or Linux. It's a great gaming machine, and extremely powerful.

Regarding the marketing, yeah...umm...I don't see what the problem is. Even if Steve Jobs is insane, and that PC has the control of market, how else will they advertise. You are supposed to present an apparent advantage over competing products, and if you don't compare your product to competing products, then you aren't really providing an apparent advantage over them. Even though they are pretty much 99% wrong in what they are saying ("dull little tasks"), it's doing it's job effectively. That's just my opinion, no argument needed.

I'd also agree with Yoshi with getting a Dell. If you really are planning to get a MacBook, or just planning to get a more powerful laptop / desktop in the future, Dell is a perfect purchase as kind of a stand-in.

Aparrently not, as people have constantly ragged on them for doing it. If it was doing it's job effectively, people would be praising how Apples are so much better than PC's in every way (non-fanboys would, I should say)

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]1) They steal from other people's work (they stole from some Postal Service music video. I think Such Great Heights.)
2) They rag horribly on the competition because:
A) Steve Jobs is insane
B) Steve Jobs is a pompous *******
C) Steve Jobs probably got beat as a child
3) When you're horribly behind in the market, it's not really a good idea to say "Hey, we're better than you!" to someone who controls the market.[/QUOTE]

You will find that Apple didnt 'steal' the Postal Service music video, the same people who produced both for them and Apple Intel Ad , so not Apples fault.
2a) Steve Jobs is insane, yeah compared to the Pope, you seen Steve Balmers 'Developers, Developers, Developers ' speech, thats insane.
http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/mirrors.html

b) and c) you have to be joking.
3) Ahhh a Windows fanatic speaking, check the record, its stuck.

It's stuck-up and pretentious. Instead of saying, "This is what our system can do and its specs," they say, "Everyone else is ****. They can go to Hell."

Admittedly, the "what's a pentium doing in a Mac?" line was humorous, and I liked it. But these latest ads are crap.

I have a Dell Latitude | D600 through my school's laptop program. I'll be getting a new one this summer, but it's been fine so far. Until last night when my hard drive died on me, guess I'll be going to Campus IT and getting a new HD. I'm currently using a Knoppix Live CD to type this (so glad I burned that).

I gotta say I don't know too many people in engineering who's laptops haven't crapped out yet. I'm not sure if this is indicative of problems with Dells in general.

Heeeeee! I'm an engineer!

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]But he said no argument, so I stop here.[/QUOTE]
Thank you. Actually you're all doing quite well with the whole "no arguing" thing. Good job guys.

Alright, so I'm getting a whole lot of what I wanted to hear from this thread, so thank you all. It's definately giving me plenty of things to consider, which is exactly why I came here.

Also, for those of you who don't understand why people might not like Apple's advertising. Take a few psych courses or read a few advertising books, aggressive advertising that bashes competition doesn't work. It's the same line of psychology that shows that if you just meet someone, don't start down-talking someone else or else they subconsciously associated the negatives you mention to you yourself.

Oh, and Lee, I'm affraid this taser-with-a-screen has a date with some 7.62's...

Pics?

Don't take a psych course, take an Econ course! All that Apple's commercials are doing is giving the consumer the appearance of benefits of owning a MacBook.

Every commercial is in someway saying that they are better than someone else, so that's not really a valid argument. That's the whole point of advertising. Take farming for instance. They are price takers (they are given prices by the gov't). Their product is all the same, therefore, you HARDLY ever see farmers advertise. The product is the same, along with the price.

Not to mention that most of us here are smart enough to know that Intel's haven't been doing "dull little tasks". But to the average joe-does-not-know-crap about computers, what Apple is doing is getting them interested. "WOAH! I HAD NO CLUE THAT INTELS WERE BEING UNDERUSED IN PCs!!" Yes, they are stupid. However, they don't know that.

I guess that's my point. SMART PEOPLE KNOW THEY ARE WRONG. BUT STUPID PEOPLE DON'T! Therefore, Apple's advertising works, even though it might be totally unfounded. And I really see no reason not to get a laptop (even though it kicks ***), because their advertising sucks. I hate Mazda "zoom-zoom-zoom" commercials, but would that prevent me from getting a Mazda? Hell no, unless it was a Miata (posers).

OK I swear to god last post regarding the advertising. Anyways, are you now leaning toward a certain laptop manufacturer? Please tell!

Heh, funny enough, I'm waiting for AMD's dual core turion second quarter to make my final decission. However, I still thank you all for providing input. There's a lot less B.S. to wade through here than most review sites and whatnot.

Oh, and mscbuck, you have a few points, but I encourage you to just look for psych articles on aggressive advertising, it's fairly interesting to say the least.

And Lee, as soon as the deed is done, of course there will be pictures. This laptop and I have had a long understanding that we hate each other, and I'm going to have the final word in this relationship...

The college I want to go to requires you to have a mac laptop. There is a laptop purchase program and I want them to have macbooks by the time I get there. I don't know why but I do.

Recording artist here using an iMac. I ****ing love OSX compared to Windows, and I never really had any complaints about XP. Exposé and all of the keyboard shortcuts make everything awesome.

I'd still wait a while before getting a MacBook, however.

I think you're not getting why he said the stuff about psychology--I'm sure most advertising majors have to take quite a few classes on psychology to know how to get into the heads of the customers.

I want a Mac Book Pro, but I'll probably hold off a bit. I have a dell running XP right now and have never had any problems with it... unless you count the HDD dying in the first 3 months and then Dell swapping it out with a smaller one. Original HDD was 80GB when they fixed it the guy brought me a 50GB and I didn't realize it until about a month later and then I couldnt be bothered to whine about it.

Ya, my desktop is 4 years old.

I'd wait and get a PC. I have no problems with macs, but when I was using my GF's iBook I just didn't like the feel of the OS. I'd give OS X a try before you go spend that kind of money...

i just saw this link over on Digg.com and thought it might be useful to you too
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