Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

It honestly hadn't occurred to me to look at anything other than a Mac. I have to love the object, it's a curse.

Everyone loves the @Object... Sexy little bitch...

@velocio is always talking about the Lenovo thinkpads, they might be a viable alternative, though not quite as sexy looking..

ThinkPads are worth looking at.

Specifically the 3rd gen X1 Carbon as a Mac Air alternative:
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-carbon/

And the 4th gen X250 (launching next month) as a Mac Book Pro alternative:
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x250/

Yes, they're black... but well thought-out black. The design comes from Richard Sapper who is as important in industrial design as Ive is (more so perhaps, Sapper's reach has gone way beyond technology), and is based on the Japanese Bento box... hence the black, the red accents representing the lacquer.

The machines themselves are incredible, and unlike Apple you can buy next-day on-site warranties... no taking stuff to a Genius, they come to you and fix things on the spot.

I'm about to ditch my Retina MBP for the X250.

• you get a red nipple in the middle of the the keyboard
  

And they're still featuring a vga port! Very retro

ThinkPads are worth looking at

As much as I like Sapper, those things are not nice.
They're actually brute, to my eyes. They look like 2005, not 2015.

The only alternative to apple for me, design-wise, would be ASUS' "zenbooks".

But seriously - if you're one of these "have to love the object" people, then it's basically apple, as the others are to dumb to do this right, unfortunately.

The problem with "alternatives" is that by the time you option them up there's little to no price difference, or they are are indeed more expensive.

I'm not sure what issues eybrows is having but I've not had a single issue with my late 2013 MBP Retina - Battery/performance/screen - all amazing and a proper generational step up from my previous MBP. OK, fair enough - that one had a major motherboard failure after 5 Years but I'd say they are actually pretty durable machines.

I just sold my 2007/8 MBP to a mate for pennies, that still runs great too... Camera and SuperDrive both conked out but still a nice little machine for what he's gonna use it for...

I was gutted mine got nicked last year (07/8 MacBook Pro). I was still going solid, even without an SSD.

The problem with alternatives for me is that I won't know my way around it, or if I want to understand something I'll have to ask someone very specific. It means learning a whole way of doing things and I'm not in any way interested in getting into computing for its own ends. I just want a simple, powerful, robust machine for producing work and realising ideas on. The appeal of Apple for me is the elegant coherence of the entire package, inside and out.

I have a thinkpad (which I actually bought off Velocio). It's powerful and has a great screen but it isn't pretty, it looks like a business machine. Fortunately I don't really care about that. One big bonus though is it has a docking station which is very convenient for my use.

I'm not in any way interested in getting into computing for its own ends. I just want a simple, powerful, robust machine for producing work and realising ideas on. The appeal of Apple for me is the elegant coherence of the entire package, inside and out.

..sounds like you should (as has already been suggested) buy the fastest macbook you can afford, incl. maximum RAM, and you'll be quite happy for a couple of years.

The appeal of a computer for me, is that I want to be productive so I can get off the computer as soon as possible.

This is where Apple fails, for me.

I simply am not as productive using an Apple computer than I am using a Linux machine. Nowhere near.

My current experiment is Apple hardware with Linux virtual machines... I get 90% Apple and then the last bit is where I am productive. But the nagging thought I've had, is why I'm spending 90% of my time in that last 10% that isn't Apple. It seems pointless to me, yes the Apple hardware is awesome but I end up having to fight against Apple to be able to have simple things like a tiling window manager (one keystroke, put my two windows side by side).

I'm going back to Thinkpad because of the software, not because of the hardware. I realise I am happy compromising the physical product a little but I'm not happy compromising the software environment.

To me, Apple = simplicity. But what that really means is that they've simplified the interfaces to such a degree that to perform any non-simplistic task actually takes far more effort.

Apple software is the Esperanto of computing... far fewer words, much simpler for everyone... but it takes a contortion to express any complex thought effectively.

I should actually add, in my office there is a guy who installed Windows on his MacBook Pro. He reckons it's the best Windows machine he's ever had.

I'm not holy about hardware and software, whatever works is fine by me. I've been using this Mac, but I personally prefer my hardware to work with my software and I work in Linux.

This.

So for people like you it is annoying some times, as it's patronising in a way.

For the majority of people using computers it's awesome though.

Too much information...

:-d

He reckons it's the best Windows machine he's ever had.

I felt the same with my Macintosh, it work great mainly because the hardware is old already.

I only need to "express complex thoughts effectively" through the content of my work. I can make the work with a small selection of simple, long-established applications. I only need simple interfaces to make lines, shapes, colours and words. I'm not a computer guy, that's not my trade. I do however need the hardware to be able to handle lots of hefty files such as heavy vector drawings, big high-res documents, renderings blah blah blah.

This conversation always comes up with regard to Macs. IT-inclined people seem to imagine that civilians don't understand the limitations of Macs. I do. I just wanted to know if anyone had any advice about whether go right to the top of the range or skimp a bit, specifically with regard to the Nvidia GeForce GT 750m discrete graphics card. I think I'll do as a few have suggested and go all-out in the hope that it will stay relevant for longer.

With the new Retina Macbook pro's* you can't upgrade it yourself, as everythings glued in at factory stage, so adding in extra ram, upgrading HDD isn't possible anymore, so you've got to pay the apple premium at purchase and go have it souped up for much dinero, whereas previously you could skimp on ram and HDD and then upgrade later if you needed to..

*Apple may produce a retina macbook pro which you can still upgrade but I haven't seen it..

It's the smartest thing to do... Highest spec machine you can afford...

I managed to claim the VAT back on this baby, it was just over £2k when I bought it... Touch wood, it'll be good for another two or three years...

The whole non-upgradeable thing is a massive shame, that's why I wanna keep my MBP as long as possible... I'm hoping Apple will climb down and go back to their old ways, not gonna hold my breath tho'...

With the new Retina Macbook pro's* you can't upgrade it yourself.

That's a bit annoying, but then again, the price jump to 16GB is not unreasonable, and a lots of laptop maxed out at 16GB nowadays.

Srsly, Get the £1999 MBP 15" with the 2.5GHz - the speed increase with the 2.8GHz will be minimal but if you can claim/expense this then why not.

Don't bother with the £400 1TB flash storage option - portable drives/cloud storage are far too convenient and cheap for this to be relevant.

3 year applecare - yes.

Hope that helps.