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General => General discussion => Topic started by: Steve_PD on 25 December 2011, 21:57
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So am slowly swaying round to the idea of a mac...
My laptop is f**ked and Ive been looking at getting a 13" Mac book air or a 13" mac book pro
Both are about the same price so whats the pros and cons of each?
Is it worth paying the extra for the 3 year Apple care?
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Depends on what you want. The MBA is light and lacks the processing power but on the other hand it does have a SSD 1/4 of the size of the MBP.
I would personally go for the MacBook Pro for the same price. Mine is over a year old, taken a few knocks, never slowed down since new, never crashed, and still keeps 4+ hours battery life :afro:
It is worth paying for the Apple Care if your a student £69 and I get 10% off :wink:
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Will you be taking it out and about alot? Then the Air is the choice for you. It is compromised in terms of power and storage so that it is light and portable. If you want to storage you will need an external hard drive to store all your music/video/photos.
If you are not going to be taking the laptop out of the house then the Macbook Pro is the best option. More power and bigger hard drive means you are less likely to need an external hard drive.
If you don't intend to take the computer out of the house at all then the best value for money (I know, it can be argued that apple products aren't value for money) is an imac desktop. More storage and power for less money. Downside is that it is not very portable.
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Also expect to be frustrated at using a totally new operating system for a couple of weeks and constantly looking up "how to..." in google. Keep at it and you'll soon get used to OS X.
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Or can out OSX and Bootcamp Windows7 on it.
Works like a charm and you don't have to figure out how to do everything again, but in a slightly spazzy way.
Walked through the Macbook Pro vs Air edbate with a mate of mine recently. He went for the Pro. And put Windows on it. Loves it.
It's just hardware at the end of the day, but it's very well built hardware.
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Never understand people saying run a mac on windows, if you like windows buy a windows laptop. It takes no time at all to get used to osx & once you do you will wonder why you didn't buy one years ago.
:cool:
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MBP's Steve all the way! Myself and James have one each, total ownership is around 6 years for both now, and no significant problems at all, any minor bugs, have been fixed usually there and then in the Apple shop, Leicester branch is incredible in its service, and attention to detail, only problem we have is we usually end up buying something else on each visit :grin: :grin:
MBA, cant see the point, unless you need lightweight machine, but with more power/usability than an Ipad...
Apple care well worth it, but why not buy it towards the end of the 12 month guarantee, that gets you an extra year! (someone jump in if this is not doable)
And yes, well worth the extra money, which you'll soon forget about, once you start using...
Thom
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Never understand people saying run a mac on windows, if you like windows buy a windows laptop.
I like a chunk of alloy instead of cheap plastic.
Tried OSX, but it's like stepping back into Windows 3.11, so I use a better tool for the job: Windows7
Sorted.
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It is worth paying for the Apple Care if your a student £69 and I get 10% off :wink:
Am not a student so Apple care is £199 for the air and 13 mac book pro or £279 for the 15" pro
It mainly going to be used for photoshop and web browsing and general laptop uses.
Dont need mega big HD as it wont contain loads of files my pc does that with its 6TB of space
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Iv just upgraded my old powerbook to the 13" Macbook Pro with i7 Chip for my Dj and music work
It is a Monster of a laptop...
Air is not powerful enough for what i wanted but id say it will be more than fine for your needs
I have windows 7 on bootcamp on mine just because i like sound forge (PC only) windows works better on the mac than what it does on a PC!!! lol but windows is still pants.. anyone that prefers to use this on a mac is a idiot
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Go for a Pro mate. Apple just revised them a couple months ago with unrated specs, granted only minor but still. They are well built and last. I have Windows 7 on mine for things like VAG COM and Windows Media Centre, but I use OSX for the majority of things.
AppleCare is worth it regardless if you pay full price or not because in the event something does go wrong, you'd be paying a hefty bill.
Any Pro from the new line will do you as the new i processors coupled with the rest of the tech works extremely well.
Also Thom, the AppleCare comes into effect from e date of purchase of the computer. :afro:
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Kirk what Vag com do you have ?? can i grab that off you ??
i only have it on a bab old pc that i want to throw away..
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Shady take it I could partition the hard drive and run windows as well? You got a dodgy copy of W7?
Think I may go for a 13" MBP just got to count up the pennies first
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Yeah, you'd use Boot Camp which is built into OSX. Just need a copy of Windows 7. I have a 'copy'. :grin: Boot Camp will ask you to download drivers specific to your mac which is a step by step process.
Think the 13" is fine really, I just wanted a 15" as I use it a lot for design.
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anyone that prefers to use this on a mac is a idiot
Ah, the old irony just creeping out from a veteran Mac user.
It's just another PC. Mac 'proper' really died when they switched to Intel.
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anyone that prefers to use this on a mac is a idiot
Ah, the old irony just creeping out from a veteran Mac user.
It's just another PC. Mac 'proper' really died when they switched to Intel.
You still talk some proper pants, A lot of us Mac user actually like osx because it's better than windows for being user friendly & perfect for what we want plus half the stuff windows 7 does now was copied from osx & a lot of of it osx has been doing for years.
why spend a lot of money on a Mac to run a crappy operating system called windows.
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why buy either, linux FTW lol :laugh:
but i do have Windows 7 to play BF3 and no other reason lol.
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I have had a 15inch Macbook Pro i7 for about 10months now. Cant fault it.
Never crashed or slowed down since the day i got it.
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Would it be worth waiting until Q2 next year when updates are expected?
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Would it be worth waiting until Q2 next year when updates are expected?
If you want to wait then yes. There is supposed to be a redesign for the Pro along with beefed up specs with the next gen of i processors and hopefully a option to have the OS and apps installed on a small SSD then a separate HDD for files etc..
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Also read there is alot of spec updates coming next year so may wait a little
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i have a 13 inch macbook pro with the i5 (early 2011 model)
- it's fine for mucking about on the net and handles photoshop/lightroom ok
- touchpad is epic
- no chance of playing newest 3d games
- it's proper solid though!
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If you want to use my student discount let me know.
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Comet are selling the new i5 with 750gb hardrive for 999.99 pretty good like i have the previous 1 and love it
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The 13" is to small , but still a grete laptop id get the 15" MBP i7 its well worth the extra cash very fast . Ive had mine for 4months now and nothing faze's it amazing screen and graphics on the 15 you get twin speakers !!
Dont put windows on it ffs , if you windows one get one but there crap slow and lag anti virus bullsh!t.
MY mate has an imac with windows on it and it crashed :rolleyes:
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My niece wants a mac when she starts her graphic design course. Her dad has argued that all the software is available on pc and that it would be more cost effective to get a pc laptop. Her dad is a proper computer programmer/system analyst. I showed him the different things that osx can do natively compared to wfat you had to do in windows with lots of different programmes. An example was how easy it is to mount an ISO image in osx as it comes with its own disk utility. The only way I could find to do this in windows was to install a programme that you need to download off the Internet.
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Also iPhoto doesn't seem to have a windows equivalent at the moment. I wanted to send loads of pictures by email taken from my dslr. However in windows I couldn't find an easy way of making multiple jpg files smaller so that they are emailable
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For some to tips here is a great link
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-quick-easy-mac-automator-hacks-digital-photos/
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13" Macbook pro should be here wednesday. . . . :lipsrsealed:
Any tips for a mac noob
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Good stuff, they're awesome. There's a few good sites with hints and tips but you'll pick it up fairly quick. First apps to get are caffeine, VLC player, Stuffit Expander and InsomiaX. All are available for free from the app store.
Nick
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the websites I found useful when I changed over were:
www.tuaw.com
www.osxdaily.com
both have tips and tricks and Mac 101 sections which helped me alot.
Also google questions that you have as there are many people that have been in the same situation.
Have fun.
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Magic Prefrences is also handy if you want to customise your gestures.
http://magicprefs.com/
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anyone that prefers to use this on a mac is a idiot
Ah, the old irony just creeping out from a veteran Mac user.
It's just another PC. Mac 'proper' really died when they switched to Intel.
You still talk some proper pants, A lot of us Mac user actually like osx because it's better than windows for being user friendly & perfect for what we want plus half the stuff windows 7 does now was copied from osx & a lot of of it osx has been doing for years.
why spend a lot of money on a Mac to run a crappy operating system called windows.
because quite a few good programs dont have a mac equivalent and the bootcamp offers that option :wink:
And Steve, you wont regret it at all...as my new Vaio that i got cheap is already running slow...and making me wish i had waited till i had another £600 for the Mac i wanted :lipsrsealed:
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good choice Steve, was only in the apple shop last week looking to ugrade to the 15" pro from my 13" macbook, awesome bit of kit.
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13" Macbook pro should be here wednesday. . . . :lipsrsealed:
Any tips for a mac noob
Use Bootcamp, stick Windows 7 on :wink:
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13" Macbook pro should be here wednesday. . . . :lipsrsealed:
Any tips for a mac noob
Use Bootcamp, stick Windows 7 on :wink:
Isn't that what I said? :rolleyes: :kiss:
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He did ask again, tbf :grin:
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Cheers, cant wait to be totally confused when it comes..
Jay I will be :lipsrsealed:
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there seems to be so many mac users on here these days, if you have any questions just post the question up here and I'm sure someone will be able to answer.
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Its here :cool:
Bit of a mistake transferring 100gb of music though. taking aaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss :lipsrsealed:
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Its here :cool:
Bit of a mistake transferring 100gb of music though. taking aaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss :lipsrsealed:
It is if you did it wirelessly :grin:
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No wired, gave up cant be arsed waiting for ages...
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Thinkpad.
That is all.
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Steve? 100gb music. Is that it? seriously need to get that broadened. And if you want something fast drive wise go solid state if you got dough. Don't know if the new USB 3 was incorporated with MacBook?
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Wasn't paying £800 for the 512 gb apple upgrade.
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No usb3 on macs yet. They gave thunderbolt instead. 100gb will take ages. I find it's easier to move over smaller chunks at a time
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Thats what am going to do eventually
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Steve? 100gb music. Is that it? seriously need to get that broadened. And if you want something fast drive wise go solid state if you got dough. Don't know if the new USB 3 was incorporated with MacBook?
Only good SSD's are worth it (read expensive), we've done some testing and my bosses SSD is about the same read/write as my normal hard drive, only marginally better and not worth the £100's extra for a crap SSD :grin: They also have a higher failure rate than normal drives :smiley:
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Loving the track pad :cool:
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Managed to transfer 600mb of documents etc but god knows where they are :undecided:
Anything bigger and it keeps loosing the connection even though the mac is connected straight to the pc using a ethernet cable :huh: :angry:
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I always back everything up so just pull off my backups when I get a new machine. Soooo much easier.
Nick
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Have you shaken all the loose bits out of the network cable? :huh: I suggest trying that first.
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What loose bits? Cable has been in my pc/router for ages so I know it works fine :undecided:
I always back everything up so just pull off my backups when I get a new machine. Soooo much easier.
Nick
So do I on windows..A bit hard when trying to transfer some files to the mac when its all on my pc and hard drives. Cant even format on of my externals without loosing 700gb of data...
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Install Tuxera NTFS and then your external drives are write/read. Sure there are other options out there now. Still gotta be easier than the faff you are having :lipsrsealed:
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Thank you!!! Works a treat and now transferring the files :cool: And now no need to transfer HD films I download
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The credit belongs to Jay who told me about it 3yrs ago :smiley: but glad to help
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Transfered most my stuff now :cool:
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Any body connect their MBP's to a 1080p TV?
I connect mine using a apple thunderbolt to hdmi. Everything connects fine and shows the resolution to be 1080p. TV changes to 1080p pictures is great...then it stretches vertically quite a bit :huh:
Overscan is turned off on the tv and can't see a option for it on the mac :undecided: TV works fine with my pc so I know its not the TV.
Internet isn't proving helpful :lipsrsealed:
Here's a video so show what I mean.
Start resolution is 720p (been stretched) I switched it to 1080p which is shows fine for about 5 seconds then it stretches, you'll see the display box stretch vertically.
(http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb74/kryptik_2010/mac/th_DSCN0032.jpg) (http://s205.photobucket.com/albums/bb74/kryptik_2010/mac/?action=view¤t=DSCN0032.mp4)
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I connect mine through the mini display port so same thing really. Tried the display settings?
Nick
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display settings on the mac?
All I get is the resolution choice and colour :undecided:
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Yeah that's the one. You tried clicking 'Detect Displays'?
Nick
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Nothing happens :undecided:
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What about chosing the res and not picking 1080p?
Nick
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every resolution jumps vertically, change the refresh rate does nothing and anything smaller than 1080 looks sh!t.
Its as if its trying to display in a 4:3 resolution :undecided:
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Hum, I would suspect the Telly settings then. Try having a search on Mac Rumors as well. Not sure if the Thunderbolt port makes any difference.
Nick
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Definietly to do with the telly settings. My friend had a similar where his mac mini would stretch and he couldn't see the finder bar at the top (with the apple logo). I had to change to the telly setting to something like game mode or something similar
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was the tv. For some reason it was zooming in but wouldn't do it when the pc was plugged in.
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what tv model is it? maybe if we know that we might be able to obtain the PDF manual and help you out.
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Got it sorted now. But thanks for the help :afro:
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what was it? It would be great to know for future reference.