Tell me about mac laptops

[Omizzle]

Im thinking about buying one for school. How are they? can they play cs? hows the batery life? customer support? fill me in. any firsthand expeirence(sp)? etc etc

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

For most people, it's a price issue. I really like them, but whenever I think of them, I see what else I can get in Windows for the same price. Besides that, I love them. This new mini mac is pretty cool too.

How much are you willing to spend?

 

[Tostada]

There's a notebook forum for questions like this. You'll get get much more informed responses there.

 

[Dennis Travis]

Besides the Notebook forum which is a great idea, also read Anands review in the Mac section on the main page for a hands on review on a 15" Powerbook. Interesting reading.

 

[halfadder]

I bought my 15" PowerBook G4 about 14 months ago, back then the educational/student price for the loaded PowerBook gave about the same bang-for-the-buck as a PC notebook, if not better. Since then, PC notebooks have gotten cheaper and you can now find one with comparable specs (DVD burner, Mobility Radeon 9700, etc) for $500 less than what Apple charges.

I love my PowerBook. It's 1.1 inch thick and it's rock solid, it feels like it was machined out of a single chunk of billet aluminum. The keyboard has a really nice backlight that automatically outlines the keys and lights up the letters/numbers when in a darkened room. I like how the ports are on the sides of the notebook rather than on the back, and as a result, Apple was able to make a really big heavy duty hinge for the lid. My only complaint is that the 10/100/1000BaseT jack and the power jack are on opposite sides of the PowerBook.

Mac OS X is... different. In a good and interesting way, that is. I still like Windows XP, but I like Mac OS X now too. There are many commerical applications avilable for it, including several games. There are lots of freeware/shareware programs too, I'll list some URLs below that might help you out. Some of the best Mac OS X programs I have found are Mac-only and do things the "Mac way", rather than try to emulate a Windows environment. Again, it's a different world.

Apple's bundled applications (the iMovie editor, the iDVD authoring burning app, Garage Band, and others) have a unique feel to them. They're designed differently from how most Windows applications are, but they are still fun and efficient to use. There's also a feeling of elegance to these programs that's hard to explain. My PowerBook also came preinstalled with a few other third party programs and utilities including the Mac version of QuickBooks accounting software. I also bought a few other Apple applications, one being Keynote, Apple's presentation program. It's sort of like PowerPoint but has a stronger emphasis on good looking 1024x768 slides with lots of subtle details. I was also able to order the "Express" version of Final Cut for $99 with my PowerBook. It has a million features I will never use, but it's much more flexible than iMovie.

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac is an interesting beast. It works as it should, but it has a weird mix of Mac-feel and Windows-feel. Which isn't necessasarily a bad thing for a switch hitter like me. A word processor I like much more than Mac Word is Nisus Writer Express which is totally native to Mac OS X.

Some handy sites:
http://mac.softpedia.com
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/
http://macupdate.com
http://apple.com/games
http://macgamefiles.com
http://www.macsoftgames.com/na...MacSoft-Game-Page.html
http://www.aspyr.com/games.php/mac/complete/
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/all.html
http://www.freeverse.com/mac/
http://www.feralinteractive.com/
http://www.pangeasoft.net/enigmo/info.html
http://www.pangeasoft.net/bug2/info.html
http://www.pangeasoft.net/nano2/info.html

 

[hopejr]

I bought a 12" iBook G4 about 6 months ago, and love it - best purchase I've ever made. It didn't even break the bank (only AU$1520 with edu discount). I don't think you can play CS on them though (I haven't tried).
I like macs now (I used to hate them), and now I'm considering replacing my PC desktop with one.

 

[thraxes]

If you are a CS addict or any sort of gamer, a Mac as a single computer is not for you... period.

If it is a second computer in addition to a WinXP gaming rig, then yes deffinately try a mac.

It's as simple as that

<-- iBook on the go, Athlon XP for the show