[Intriguing Alias]

(Original post by Aphotic Cosmos)
I am not usually a Sony fan but I've been mucking about with this one in my place of work (yeah, take a guess where I work . . . ) and it's actually pretty good. A fair bit under budget as well. When you get into high end laptops Sony actually becomes worth looking at, anything under £500 and they're overpriced.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/sony-v...84760-pdt.html

17" screen
i5 dual-core @ 2.5GHz
6GB DDR3 Memory (can up it to 8 if you want)
GT410M GPU (slightly out of date, the 5 series is better, but still great)
Blu-ray drive
4 USB ports (2.0 not 3.0, though)

Thanks, but again at this price I'd much rather pay an extra £100 for a Macbook Pro. It has a bigger screen (though too big, IMO, I may as well get a desktop) and blu-ray, sure - but neither of those things outweight the macbook's pros (excuse the accidental pun).

I'm no apple fanboy, I own a windows PC and a Samsung Galaxy SII (my only apple product is my iPod Classic), just thinking that for getting a laptop maybe a Macbook would be the best idea. I'm having a look at some more specifics for the thinkpads to see whether they seem worth it.

[mikeyd85]

(Original post by Jimbo1234)
At that price, and with external hardware that good, there is absolutely no reason to buy a Mac then as you utilise none of the Macs hardware.

Yeah, but then you can use Logic.

[f1mad]

(Original post by hassi94)
Thanks, but again at this price I'd much rather pay an extra £100 for a Macbook Pro. It has a bigger screen (though too big, IMO, I may as well get a desktop) and blu-ray, sure - but neither of those things outweight the macbook's pros (excuse the accidental pun).

I'm no apple fanboy, I own a windows PC and a Samsung Galaxy SII (my only apple product is my iPod Classic), just thinking that for getting a laptop maybe a Macbook would be the best idea. I'm having a look at some more specifics for the thinkpads to see whether they seem worth it.

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/MSI_G...UK/version.asp

9 quid over, but yea...

[Callmedd]

My Macbook hasnt really slowed down or crashed unlike my previous PCs, the times I have had to wait for my laptop to load up has been frustrating to say the least, I dont think I would buy another PC unless there was a program I need which isnt on Mac. Mac all the way

[MadCatChiken]

I generally use PC I prefer it and I can game on it mainly, though I want to buy a Mac because since using Mac Pros at Uni for programming they run much smoother. I'm going to get a Macbook Pro at some point for my programming and the fact I want to go into iOS development and the IDE is Mac only and there're not really any Objective-C compliers for Windows out there...

[f1mad]

(Original post by MadCatChiken)
I generally use PC I prefer it and I can game on it mainly, though I want to buy a Mac because since using Mac Pros at Uni for programming they run much smoother. I'm going to get a Macbook Pro at some point for my programming and the fact I want to go into iOS development and the IDE is Mac only and there're not really any Objective-C compliers for Windows out there...

For programming in general, Mac's suck compared to Windows. You could install windows via bootcamp, but I'd rather save myself the piss take in doing so.

[Jimbo1234]

(Original post by mikeyd85)
Yeah, but then you can use Logic.

Yet as I have said, the software is redundant due to the crappy hardware. This is only rectified by pumping huge amounts of cash into new hardware. After all that, why not just get some software for a PC as it will perform better for less.

[Torrent]

I plan on buying a MacBook Pro in a few months to help with my video creation; keep things fresh etc
However for playing games,college work and programming, i'd do those on a Windows machine

[Jimbo1234]

(Original post by Torrent)
I plan on buying a MacBook Pro in a few months to help with my video creation; keep things fresh etc
However for playing games,college work and programming, i'd do those on a Windows machine

Why is a MacBook Pro better than a windows computer for that? Video editing will not benefit from the OS architecture

[mikeyd85]

(Original post by Jimbo1234)
Yet as I have said, the software is redundant due to the crappy hardware. This is only rectified by pumping huge amounts of cash into new hardware. After all that, why not just get some software for a PC as it will perform better for less.

Yeah, but in the music biz, you buy that hardware regardless of whether you're using Windows or OSX.

[TurboCretin]

(Original post by karl177)
Nah would rarther build a more powerful pc for half the price. Also dont like the OS it seems clunky and you cant run everything on it and itunes is an abortion.

...Abomination?

[f1mad]

(Original post by Callmedd)
My Macbook hasnt really slowed down or crashed unlike my previous PCs, the times I have had to wait for my laptop to load up has been frustrating to say the least, I dont think I would buy another PC unless there was a program I need which isnt on Mac. Mac all the way

My current windows desktop hasn't slowed down, or crashed once since I bought it (5 months ago).

And?

[Jimbo1234]

(Original post by mikeyd85)
Yeah, but in the music biz, you buy that hardware regardless of whether you're using Windows or OSX.

But my point is that the Apple is far more expensive yet offers nothing more......so why pay more?

[mikeyd85]

(Original post by Jimbo1234)
But my point is that the Apple is far more expensive yet offers nothing more......so why pay more?

In the music industry - to use Logic. It's a Mac only piece of software.

Can't say I know too much about the differences in CS on OSX and Windows running a similar spec to be able to comment.

As a home desktop OS...errr...ummmm... a nice chiclet keyboard? Gotta admit, their trackpads are brilliant...but I don't think that would sell me one!

[El Torres]

I know nothing about music software but a friend of mine uses Fruity Loops and can make some top notch music, I think Cubase is the best of the best in terms of music creation software so I wouldn't shell out on a Mac just to get Logic.

I wouldn't shell out on a Mac at all, I don't see any benefit to buying one.

[ohirome]

(Original post by Jimbo1234)
But my point is that the Apple is far more expensive yet offers nothing more......so why pay more?

Er, it offers far more depending on what you need it for. Is it worth it for an average every day computer? Nah, unless you can afford to splash out that little bit extra for the reliability and overall product quality. Im a graphics student and use them everyday in the studio and classes, so having one is a necessity. Couple that with the fact that macs are the industry standard and you have a good reason to have one.

[rjm101]

I dont buy macs because of their brand. I dont buy it for their looks I buy them for their great usability and reliability. I simply want a computer that has an OS that I can depend on and requires little to no maintenance.

I've seen people treat their macs like absolute crap and yet I am amazed that the things is still running. My brother has a custom built PC tower that probably cost just as much as my macbook pro. I cant count how many times hes had problems with it.

Personally I choose macs mostly because of the OS and in a way I know that because the hardware has been tested on the os I know that it is likely to be tried and tested and thus be less problematic. I've had mine since 2008 and have never had the OS crash on me. Ofcourse because I work on photoshop, illustrator etc all the time its just a plus that mac's were origionally built for designers.

The pc gaming argument really isnt applicable anymore because you can run windows on bootcamp. If you want to upgrade hardware then it becomes more of a laptop vs pc tower argument then doesnt it?

At the moment Windows 7 on my bootcamp partition refuses to start up but its ok because I have OSX which I can depend on.

[Intriguing Alias]

(Original post by f1mad)
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/MSI_G...UK/version.asp

9 quid over, but yea...

Thanks for the link, I'm thinking of waiting it out for some more kepler powered laptops to come out. This MSI seems nice spec-wise but again MSI, I hear, use low quality parts to provide the value they do which results in multitudes of problems. Now I have no problem with software problems or even simple hardware problems but I've read lots of bad reviews on overheating, keyboard's being shabby etc. For this particular notebook; reviews here certainly don't fill me with confidence.

[Jimbo1234]

(Original post by ohirome)
Er, it offers far more depending on what you need it for. Is it worth it for an average every day computer? Nah, unless you can afford to splash out that little bit extra for the reliability and overall product quality. Im a graphics student and use them everyday in the studio and classes, so having one is a necessity. Couple that with the fact that macs are the industry standard and you have a good reason to have one.

But they only offer software due to the industry being slow and not bothering to change to PC. The reason they used mac's was due to the high end performance and solid OS. Nowadays, PCs dominate on performance, price, and are just as reliable (you have to be doing something really stupid to crash windows 7 eg. pouring water onto the mobo).

(Original post by rjm101)
I dont buy macs because of their brand. I dont buy it for their looks I buy them for their great usability and reliability. I simply want a computer that has an OS that I can depend on and requires little to no maintenance.

I've seen people treat their macs like absolute crap and yet I am amazed that the things is still running. My brother has a custom built PC tower that probably cost just as much as my macbook pro. I cant count how many times hes had problems with it.

Personally I choose macs mostly because of the OS and in a way I know that because the hardware has been tested on the os I know that it is likely to be tried and tested and thus be less problematic. I've had mine since 2008 and have never had the OS crash on me. Ofcourse because I work on photoshop, illustrator etc all the time its just a plus that mac's were origionally built for designers.

The pc gaming argument really isnt applicable anymore because you can run windows on bootcamp. If you want to upgrade hardware then it becomes more of a laptop vs pc tower argument then doesnt it?

At the moment Windows 7 on my bootcamp partition refuses to start up but its ok because I have OSX which I can depend on.

See above. Your brother must be doing something stupid to crash his PC as my custom built PC has been perfect.
And the gaming argument is perfectly applicable as it comes down to the poor Apple drivers resulting in low performance. Why pay more for something that will perform worse?

[El Torres]

(Original post by ohirome)
Er, it offers far more depending on what you need it for. Is it worth it for an average every day computer? Nah, unless you can afford to splash out that little bit extra for the reliability and overall product quality.

(Original post by rjm101)
I dont buy macs because of their brand. I dont buy it for their looks I buy them for their great usability and reliability. I simply want a computer that has an OS that I can depend on and requires little to no maintenance.

I've seen people treat their macs like absolute crap and yet I am amazed that the things is still running. My brother has a custom built PC tower that probably cost just as much as my macbook pro. I cant count how many times hes had problems with it.

What's so reliable about a Mac compared to a Windows PC? It's all down to how someone uses it. For a Windows PC you simply get an anti-virus, (the free one provided by Microsoft themselves is brilliant). Set it to run every week. That's about it really. All the system utilities can be set to run on their own so I don't see how it would be a hassle or anything else.