<p>austinj,</p>
<p>I've never had problems with Word, other than the dumb paperclip needing to be executed brutally.</p>
<p>Who said that I'm a big MS fan anyway? Way to ASSume stuff.</p>
<p>I'm glad to see others out there that don't like dell :) dell's are lemons, they usually have some sort of major issue associated with them.</p>
<p>Macs are just evil, so backwards from PC's and transfering files from MACs to PC's usually has some odd random problems.</p>
<p>I own a toshiba laptop. They are definatly great computers for the cost. I got this one for only $500 and it works great. No complaints with toshiba at all.</p>
<p>Just compare features & decide what you want & what you need. Then get whatever non-dell, non-mac laptop is best for the price.</p>
<p>Okay guys, lemme give you an important lesson.</p>
<p>Mac is not an acronym. It is an abbreviation of "Macintosh," a type of apple. Therefore, do not capitalize all the letters unless you want to look like you're talking about either a media access control address or the Japanese cosmetics company.</p>
<p>And how are Macs backwards from PCs?</p>
<p>Balmes Pavlov,
my first comp: MS Office screwed it up [I really didn't know how that was possible...] >.<
second comp: stopped booting...
third comp [which i'm currently using]: another software problem but I was able to save it with those restore CDs and I've been using it ever since [~1 yr].</p>
<p>Some more comments:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The three year warranty: My old iBook is 5 and a half years old and I still use it. Yes, it's an OS 9 machine, but I still use it for late night Photoshop sessions and my OS 9 apps.</p></li>
<li><p>The only worthy app out of MS Office for Mac is Excel because there isn't an equivalent in iWork yet. AppleWorks has a spreadsheet, but it's got "Claris Resolve knockoff" written all over it--just like the word processor is based on MacWrite Pro, the drawing is MacDraw Pro/ClarisDraw (same app) based, the paint program is MacPaint 2.0 on steroids, and the database is a very watered down version of FileMaker Pro from yesteryear. AppleWorks 6 was released in 2001 and has changed little since. The aforementioned programs were released between 1987 and 1994. I only use it for drawing because MacDraw II isn't OS X native.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>iWork apps (Keynote and Pages) are far superior to PowerPoint and Word. Keynote screams elegance with every presentation. Pages is so sophisticated--taking the power of Word and mixing it with an interface that almost rivals MacWrite Pro yet more luxurious.</p>
<ol>
<li>Old computers still get use. Not as much so on the PC side where they're deemed obsolste when they come out. Macs from the 1990s are still in use now and then in a world where most people throw PCs of that vintage out.</li>
</ol>
<p>FYI: The Mac SE from 1987 can be equipped with Ethernet!</p>
<p>MacTech,</p>
<p>Just because some weirdos use their vintage computers doesn't mean that most people do. The average use lifespan of computers (Macs as well) is less than 3 years. Especially for those of us who need systems to be on the bleeding edge.</p>
<p>Yeah, most people seem to shove a perfectly good computer out the door in two years. All they seem to care about are games, I guess. </p>
<p>Still, you can get work done on an old Mac. In 2002, I did serious desktop publishing on a 1992 vintage Macintosh LC.</p>
<p>And as for games--the Surgeon General has found that excessive amounts of computer or video games can be hazardous to your social life...</p>
<p>About Macs and viruses/hacking: any hacker worth his/her salt should be able to hack into a Mac to some degree. It's effectively some flavor of BSD with a bunch of annoying shiny GUI things.</p>
<p>That said, I've only been hacked once on a PC. Lesson learned? Don't set the firewall to automatically allow incoming traffic through an IRC client.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And as for games--the Surgeon General has found that excessive amounts of computer or video games can be hazardous to your social life...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My, aren't we just full of "wisdom." :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I love sarcasm over the internet. It is so often overlooked.</p>
<p>"That said, I've only been hacked once on a PC. Lesson learned? Don't set the firewall to automatically allow incoming traffic through an IRC client."</p>
<p>That doesn't sound like hacking, that sounds more like your a script kiddie. In other words you don't know **** about hacking</p>
<p>"That said, I've only been hacked once on a PC."</p>
<p>I think he was the hackee, not the hacker</p>
<p>IBM, Toshiba, or Apple.</p>
<p>Just remember, Acers are GARBAGE. My sister's HP desktop isn't too bad for a $500ish one, so I'm assuming that reflects on the quality of HP. I heard lots of good things about Apple. But from experience (and hearsay), I can tell you Dells and Acers are ABSOLUTE CRAP.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Especially for those of us who need systems to be on the bleeding edge.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, for those of us who don't have the patience to work with an older system. My computer's about 2.5 years old, and it's, well, let's say it's WAY past its prime. I need to wait a long time to load Yahoo! and it like crashes when I run 4 IE's at once. 4 IE's don't take up that much memory. And the quality of the onboard wireless receptor? is simply unacceptable. I just waited 4 minutes for CC to load, and my laptop's ~40 feet away from a 802.11G router (and facing it). </p>
<p>I have absolutely no patience, so I'm going to have to get a laptop that's insanely fast (well, not that fast, but one that'll perform consistently for 3.5+ years.). This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I DESPISE computers that don't work, more than the PATRIOT Act, more than IRS, more than the policies of our government (and note that I'm a liberal.)</p>
<p>One of my best friends got an Acer, it broke a month after he got it, and it took him another month for him to get it back from the factory!</p>
<p>Also, never take your comp to Best Buy to get it fixed. They'll screw it up further, won't solve the orignial problem, and charge you a ton! Someone thought she had her computer damaged by Best Buy, and the tech there didn't set the software up. What they really wanted was for her to take it back to the store so they could get more $$$! I fixed it for her in ten seconds for nothing!</p>
<p>Don't forget Tangent from the list of crappy PCs. They're a company that specializes in educational people (not sure if anyone has ever heard of them) but the motherboards and monitors go really quickly.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wait a second I don't know much about Mac but I'm pretty damn sure it's based on Unix not Linux. Heck it's been stated here a couple of times already.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's what I meant :/ My friend kept bugging me about linux all day so it was stuck in my head.</p>
<p>Oh and austinj.... One of the things which threw me off about the Mac the <em>most</em> was the word processor. I absolutely hated it, nothing made sense.</p>
<p>nothing made sense, or nothing made sense when compared to a pc? i wouldnt know, i have word for mac :P</p>
<p>So anyone have a MacBook Pro that they'd care to review here?</p>
<p>Dell has shoddy computers and poor customer service. However, they also give you most bang for your buck (never buy without a coupon, though). Take a look at the E1705/i9400. Duo core, 7800 go, 1 GB for about $1100.</p>
<p>Also, there is a huge reporting bias. Many people complain about Dell but that's because so many people own Dell computers. It has gained a huge market percentage by cutting costs using outsourcing.</p>
<p>oliver, </p>
<p>Here are some MacBook Pro reviews:</p>
<p><a href="http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbookpro.ars%5B/url%5D">http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbookpro.ars</a>
<a href="http://www.macworld.com/2006/02/reviews/mbpromain/index.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.macworld.com/2006/02/reviews/mbpromain/index.php</a>
<a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1933484,00.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1933484,00.asp</a></p>