Advantages of Macbook pro?

[alkemyst]

at .87 inches and 4.66 lbs its not what i would call thin and light, and i will be needing to fly with it/bring it to numerous meetings outside the office.

also i have serious reservations about the quality of any hp laptop due to past experiences. id rather have a well designed, well built one that's presentable to clients and partners.

price isn't an issue as my company will be paying for it.

my concern with windows 7 on mbp is that, from what i understand, win 8 is much faster for boot and more power efficient?

My company pays for my mac. It doesn't pay for my software add-ons.

Win 8 is supposedly better. I only use the Windows side for Visio really and sometimes native IE stuff so not worth me paying for it. My company doesn't supply Windows 8 yet so I am holding off. I run it on my home computers though.

If you are a frequent traveler, the Macbook Air is probably a better choice.

 

[HeXen]

I purchased a mac pro recently. Trackpad and gestures feels flawless, lightweight, very thin, magnetic power connector and even the PSU brick looks nice, it also has good cooling. Everyone will have different opinions because they each have differing wants, needs or bias. Though most would say they don't care about the little things like aesthetics, trackpad or even packaging, they never say no or complain when it's provided. It's all about the entire user experience, from the moment you disconnect the power cord to the moment you put it back up, not just the screen or what CPU it has.
The problem with most OEM makers is all they do is just toss a bunch of various models and devices at a wall each year and wait to see which sticks and then hope to fix all it's problems the next year. Then all those OEM use an OS from a company that doesn't know who they want to be and obviously have no real direction. Hopefully a new leader soon will fix that.

Nothing bad to say about the mac other than Aluminum feels cold when you first put it on your lap in your underwear.

 

[vbuggy]

Off the top of my head, I believe the MBPr has a SIGNIFICANTLY better battery life under OS X than the Yoga 2 Pro, the build quality isn't quite as good (hinges issues, trackpad isn't as good), and the MBPr screen comes with unmatched color calibration out of the factory.

Battery: Looping videos, definitely superior. General productivity on a usefully outfitted system, superior to a very slightly lesser degree than the battery size differences would lead you to expect.

Screen: OK sure, they're decently calibrated - not that there aren't still noticeable differences when you do calibrate them.

Trackpad: It isn't as good - I hear this all the time on everything, and OK sure, in terms of multi-finger gestures some pads on the Windows machines are decidedly inferior. But maybe you forgot about the giant 13-inch trackpad that's right in front of your face that is actually even more usable.

Build quality - well, for the price, functionality and weight difference it's a fair tradeoff IMO. Hinge issues - haven't heard of any. The lowest 'walk into a shop' price you can get a 4500U, 8Gb, 256Gb Y2P is $1200. Comparable rMBP is $300 more.

I mean, listen, the Yoga 2 Pro is still a fairly attractive piece of tech but there's obviously a big market of people who still want Macs either for OS X, the ecosystem, or because it's pretty.

It's just one of the possibilities - I don't think anyone's hung up on the Y2P specifically. It's not my main walking-around machine for example.

And that aside, I didn't dispute those Mac points in my original reply, and I don't think anyone with any sense can. The problem is that the Mac fans are starting with the exact spec of the Apples as the only yardstick. You guys don't for example consider superior or different elements of the competing notebooks - features which don't have an exact analog on Apple hardware are ignored as irrelevant or inferior, or are subject to different yardsticks of comparison. e.g. Carbon+ Glass Fiber = inferior because it's not aluminium. A power plug on a slightly gimballed mount which doesn't fall off every freakin' time you move the unit is inferior because it's not Magsafe. Touch doesn't matter, all the while fondling your iPads. Touch targets are too hard to hit in W8 Desktop so worthless, while ignoring the fact that there are just as harder-to-hit targets when turning the iPad to productivity use - which don't appear to give anyone any ragequit moments. If you set the features on the Apple thing as the immutable superior thing (like I said, Creationists), of course it's going to win every single time.

 

[Commodus]

Trackpad: It isn't as good - I hear this all the time on everything, and OK sure, in terms of multi-finger gestures some pads on the Windows machines are decidedly inferior. But maybe you forgot about the giant 13-inch trackpad that's right in front of your face that is actually even more usable.

...

And that aside, I didn't dispute those Mac points in my original reply, and I don't think anyone with any sense can. The problem is that the Mac fans are starting with the exact spec of the Apples as the only yardstick. You guys don't for example consider superior or different elements of the competing notebooks - features which don't have an exact analog on Apple hardware are ignored as irrelevant or inferior, or are subject to different yardsticks of comparison. e.g. Carbon+ Glass Fiber = inferior because it's not aluminium. A power plug on a slightly gimballed mount which doesn't fall off every freakin' time you move the unit is inferior because it's not Magsafe. Touch doesn't matter, all the while fondling your iPads. Touch targets are too hard to hit in W8 Desktop so worthless, while ignoring the fact that there are just as harder-to-hit targets when turning the iPad to productivity use - which don't appear to give anyone any ragequit moments. If you set the features on the Apple thing as the immutable superior thing (like I said, Creationists), of course it's going to win every single time.

I haven't been making many of these claims, myself. To me, good construction is good construction.

With that said: you're oversimplifying the touch argument. It works best on tablets and smartphones because you both hold the device in a more comfortable position and interact primarily through touch. It can be handy on a PC, but it's wrong to imply that touch is equally useful on all devices. If I'm spending a lot of my time writing and making precision image edits, I won't want to poke the screen much.

Also, can we please drop the creationist analogies? It's needlessly antagonistic, and you're painting all Apple fans (no matter how sensible) with the same broad brush.

 

[Connoisseur]

If you set the features on the Apple thing as the immutable superior thing (like I said, Creationists), of course it's going to win every single time.

I think you wrongly assume everyone who owns an apple does it simply for the brand name/looks. Now, understand that "because it looks pretty" is a perfectly valid argument for wanting to buy something and maybe pay a premium for it. If people didn't have this mentality, we wouldn't have any brand named anything (cars, clothes, accessories) that tailored to a lot of styles.

With that said, I still think that a large portion of the Apple buying audience buys it because of the ecosystem and usability. Windows 8 is certainly aping a lot of these features nowadays but apple had iCloud, iMessage, syncing down seamlessly across all of it's devices before MS. Also, the hardware devices (like iPads, Airport, Mac Pro, iPhones) are much easier to sync with each other than equivalent MS devices (at least from the Windows 7). They don't require separate software installs or a high degree of technical knowledge.

 

[beginner99]

Does the Macbook pro occupy a unique niche market with thunderbolt/retina display or do Windows based laptops also have thunderbolt and similarly good displays and are generally cheaper?

The main advantage is that they are more integrated also with the software (mainly the OS). Hence you get better battery life compared to windows. However windows is catching up...

I would never buy an apple. It's a waste of money.

 

[Commodus]

I would never buy an apple. It's a waste of money.*

* = Proof needed.

Also, the only absolute rule in life is that you never deal in absolutes... because there's a good chance that you'll contradict yourself down the line. I was an all-Windows user more than a decade ago, and didn't think I could switch; now, I primarily use Macs. Your wants and needs are going to change... and, for that matter, so will computers.

 

[HeXen]

The main advantage is that they are more integrated also with the software (mainly the OS). Hence you get better battery life compared to windows. However windows is catching up...

I would never buy an apple. It's a waste of money.

Not really, at least you get an OS on a laptop/desktop that doesn't have a tablet UI with a personality disorder and includes productivity suite for free.
Meanwhile Windows "upgrades" by taking away things like DVD playback then has the nerve to charge you because they tweaked it to boot up and file copy faster.

Windows is catching up? They can't even catch customers or a CEO for that matter

 

[xantub]

The thing is you're doing it the wrong way. You don't set an Apple computer and compare the price to a Windows equivalent. The price is equivalent that way (if not a tad better for Apple since they buy bulk those specific parts). But instead, check a Windows computer that fills your needs, and see what it would cost you to get an Apple computer/laptop with those specs. Chances are you'll have to buy a bigger much more expensive model, or a smaller model that doesn't fill your needs.
But hey, if your company pays for your laptop, knock yourself out and get the MBP. For the rest of us not-so-lucky people, we prefer spending $500 less for exactly what we need instead of what Apple decides that we need.

 

[Throckmorton]

Until Samsung, Lenovo, Asus, and Sony surpassed them last year.. Apple had a pretty nice lead simply by buying up all the supply of higher resolution panels.

That said, Macbook are premium grade notebooks at a extremely premium price. Unless you want to act snooty at Starbucks, there's not much advantage to them that you won't find in other premium notebooks.

Nobody else sells premium laptops aside from a few workstation replacement models. Sony and Samsung's "upscale" laptops are garbage.

 

[Throckmorton]

BTW I'd bet money it's easier to find Windows drivers for a Macbook than it is for a PC laptop.