[GraphicMatt]

Isn't the Mac Air notebook an example of an Apple product simply being flashy for the sake of doing so? Back to school $399 ACER notebooks from BestBuy offer way more functionality and don't require dongle after dongle to attach things like ... oh say a DVD drive or VGA/DVI/HDMI connection... Sure it's really thin, but it has a giant footprint, huge pricetag and even less functionality than your standard netbook PC or budget notebook.

It's the only MAC product I've had any extensive use with (a roommate of mine has one), IMO it's a peice of garbage.

I'm sure their regular line of Macbooks are excellent though.

The Air is definitely a niche product, similar to Sony's Vaio line in a lot of ways. For enthusiasts and people who love the aesthetic only. The current generation MacBook Pros are not much thinner and way more usable for day-to-day tasks.

I wanted a small Mac, so I got a Dell Mini 9 and made it a MacBook Mini. Lots of fun. Check out how well it runs: http://vimeo.com/3630135 (not my video)

 

[Hank]

I wanted a very light laptop (but not a netbook) and was about to get the new MacBook Air, then I found out that I could get a Sony Vaio Z series for about the same price (actually for less, considering that I would have had to buy the external DVD drive with the Air) with specs and features that blew the Air out of the water. (I am, however, going to wait until October to buy it so that I can get it with Windows 7 straight away, and avoid having to install Vista in the mean time)

 

[syn]

Isn't the Mac Air notebook an example of an Apple product simply being flashy for the sake of doing so? Back to school $399 ACER notebooks from BestBuy offer way more functionality and don't require dongle after dongle to attach things like ... oh say a DVD drive or VGA/DVI/HDMI connection... Sure it's really thin, but it has a giant footprint, huge pricetag and even less functionality than your standard netbook PC or budget notebook.

It's the only MAC product I've had any extensive use with (a roommate of mine has one), IMO it's a peice of garbage.

I'm sure their regular line of Macbooks are excellent though.

Yes, the Macbook Air is the perfect example of an Apple product that looks nice but isn't well designed at all. You can get a similar sized Vaio for a comparable price that has far more features and is simply far more practical.

I've still had several Apple fans, however, try to convince me it actually is very well designed, even though it obviously isn't.

Steve Jobs claimed that they couldn't build a $500 computer that wasn't crap. They've managed to build a $1749 computer that has far less functionality and practicality than "crap" $500 notebooks and/or netbooks. Let's be real too - it's really a $200 - $300 computer that's been marked up by around $1400.

 

[syn]

I'm saying it's 100% better to the people who prefer it and you can only buy BMWs from BMW. If OS X looked and behaved like a frumpy install of Windows XP even with its superior engineering under the hood, you're absolutely right that it will have lost much of its appeal.

When I say Macs are well-designed, I'm referring to the whole package. The combination of industrial design sensibility, user interface polish, workflow simplicity, low maintenance operation, hardware/software cohesiveness, and under-the-hood software engineering is what makes the premium worth it to me and others who enjoy and value those things.

There's nothing wrong with a practical Windows machine in the same way there's nothing wrong with a practical Ford. For many people, in fact, they're often the better choices depending on one's preferences and priorities.

But sometimes you want something really nice as opposed to something that just works.

If you are going to get into the "it's better for people that like it" line of thinking, then you can't argue it's better than a PC, or vice versa.

The auto comparisons are ridiculous too because you can easily get a PC that's nicer than a Mac, that's just as stable with whatever programs you'd like. That's going to be even more true with Windows 7 coming out, which is by many accounts as good or possibly better than the Mac OS.

 

[doady]

I just built a new PC. It is very powerful, with Athlon Phenom X4 quad-core CPU, 4GB 1333 mhz RAM, a good ATI video card (don't rmember the actual chip set). It has Windows Vista. It is either very difficult or impossible to install any of my games on it. The install programs just don't work in Windows Vista. Isn't the whole point of Windows is supposed to be the compatability with a wide range of programs? So I gotta wonder what is the point of it now... especially now that PC gaming is dead, or seems to be based on what I am seeing in stores.

 

[AGTO]

Isn't the whole point of Windows is supposed to be the compatability with a wide range of programs?

Yes, and that's why it has a compatibility mode that will emulate older OS's....perhaps you should read the manual.

 

[syn]

I just built a new PC. It is very powerful, with Athlon Phenom X4 quad-core CPU, 4GB 1333 mhz RAM, a good ATI video card (don't rmember the actual chip set). It has Windows Vista. It is either very difficult or impossible to install any of my games on it. The install programs just don't work in Windows Vista. Isn't the whole point of Windows is supposed to be the compatability with a wide range of programs? So I gotta wonder what is the point of it now... especially now that PC gaming is dead, or seems to be based on what I am seeing in stores.

Which X4 did you get doady? I'm considering the 965 - 955, but for the work I do the i7 would be a better (if more expensive) choice.

 

[doady]

Yes, and that's why it has a compatibility mode that will emulate older OS's....perhaps you should read the manual.

The compatibility mode doesn't work. It prevents certain errors, but not all of them. I still can't install certain programs. Windows XP has compatibility mode as well, and I had to use it sometimes, so I know all about it already, you don't need to tell me. I only had to use it for running programs, I never had problems with installations before. XP just seems more reliable than Vista, and XP was a much more radical update than Vista is. I have only used Vista for the past week, but I am already disappointed.

Which X4 did you get doady? I'm considering the 965 - 955, but for the work I do the i7 would be a better (if more expensive) choice.

I got the 945. I am not a very demanding user though (until recently I was using a computer with an original Athlon 1.4 GHz).

 

[wonderboy416]

I got the 945. I am not a very demanding user though (until recently I was using a computer with an original Athlon 1.4 GHz).

That 1.4GHz Athlon would still probably suit 90% of the home computer users just fine My parents are still running my old 1.2GHz Thunderbird, it seems like forever ago when I bought that thing new... and amazingly with just a gig of ram it runs XP amazingly well and allows my mom to do anything she wants (which is mostly yahoo games, burning music, watching videos online, email and word).

It must be great for the power users to know that lots of people are subsidizing their hardware by purchasing newer machines that they don't actually need helping out with the economies of scale. Of course those on the bleeding age are still paying a hefty ransom for their goods. Of course that's all on the PC side of things, Macs sure can be pretty to look at tho...

 

[afransen]

^ When I see consumer grade machines with 4 GB of RAM, I think to myself that there is no way they would ever use all of it in normal use. I have 2 GB, and I have never used it all--never mind needed virtual memory. And then I have friends that get machines with 8 gigs and I shake my head...

 

[AGTO]

And then I have friends that get machines with 8 gigs and I shake my head...

...and they use a 32 bit OS which can't address more then 4GB anyway.

 

[doady]

That 1.4GHz Athlon would still probably suit 90% of the home computer users just fine My parents are still running my old 1.2GHz Thunderbird, it seems like forever ago when I bought that thing new... and amazingly with just a gig of ram it runs XP amazingly well and allows my mom to do anything she wants (which is mostly yahoo games, burning music, watching videos online, email and word)

I probably would still be using that old computer if the hard drive hadn't died on me. 8 years is just too old anyways. The only problems I had with it were running Simcity 4 (it is just too way slow) and editing photos in 16-bit colour in Photoshop.

I have this other old computer with a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz, which is supposed to be faster, but it has become reeeeally slow. Sometimes it takes over 5 minutes just to load Firefox, it is crazy. I have no idea why; I scanned for viruses, spyware, defragged, everything I could think of. I am at a loss here, I have to reformat or use Windows Restore.

And so, I got this new computer, for advanced photo editing and the occasional game (I am planning to get Mass Effect and Dragon Age).

 

[GenerationW]

With the popularity of computers, why is it Apple vs PC instead of Apple vs PC vs XYZ? Or is that a function of the overwhelming success of PCs?

 

[afransen]

These days, even Macs are PCs that are just running on a different OS. There is no real hardware difference, and the OSes will run more or less just fine on any machine (except Mac OS might have issues supporting some hardware it hasn't developed drivers for).

This really boils down to Apple (with their substantially marked up hardware) and Mac OS vs everyone else and Windows.

 

[syn]

That 1.4GHz Athlon would still probably suit 90% of the home computer users just fine My parents are still running my old 1.2GHz Thunderbird, it seems like forever ago when I bought that thing new... and amazingly with just a gig of ram it runs XP amazingly well and allows my mom to do anything she wants (which is mostly yahoo games, burning music, watching videos online, email and word).

It must be great for the power users to know that lots of people are subsidizing their hardware by purchasing newer machines that they don't actually need helping out with the economies of scale. Of course those on the bleeding age are still paying a hefty ransom for their goods. Of course that's all on the PC side of things, Macs sure can be pretty to look at tho...

You're absolutely right. I have a 2.4 GHz Athlon (single core) with 3 GB or RAM, and I routinely have a number of resource heavy programs on at the same time (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Firefox etc.). Even so, my system still functions pretty well after 5 years. I couldn't imagine a basic user needing more.

I want to upgrade since it has slowed down with newer versions of some software (and overall, some tasks take a bit of time which wouldn't be the case with a newer system) and I'm usually pro-active when it comes to upgrading. Otherwise, if I was a basic user this would still be an excellent system.