The lappy I'm using right now is a fairly solid and stable IBM ThinkPad a20 (P3, 700mhz with 512Mb ram) but it's showing its years. Part of the 'case' surrounding the keyboard has cracked, the system just feels sluggish (Compared to my wife's lappy, anyway) and there's a minor short in the ribbon cable going to the screen that makes me have to open and close the lappy to get the picture back . . . .

So, I'm looking at a new lappy, but am at a crossroads . . .

I'm seriously SERIOUSLY drooling over the new 13 inch Macbooks.

Really, I'm not kidding! I'm one of the biggest windows pimps I know, but I just keep looking at the features that come in Mac OS out of the box and drool . . . And I look at how well Windows XP runs on OSX in virtualization (With the proper resources, to be fair) and drool.

And with my own upgrades vs what Apple wants to get you up to 2 gigs of ram and 100 gigs of storage, I can cut about $400 off the total cost. . . .

Now, I do keep hearing about the bad stuff happening with the Macbooks (Everything from staining on the plastic where you rest your hands to batteries burning) and am going to keep an eye on all the bad news to temper my drooling over the good.

So, what do you think? Have you heard anything that should seal the deal, or do you have any horror stories to send me running to the shop where we ordered my wife's custom lappy from?

D

To be honest ............... I thought you lost it a LONG time ago

As for buying Apple products, when they relize that people shouldnt pay for the " APPLE " name on the product , I might even consider using one , but I dont think thier name alone justifies the prices they charge, no matter how good thier product is.

just my .02

I don't see what makes Macs so wonderful. They're pretty much just PCs with OS X on them.

And Mac owners always have to tell each other how wonderful having a Mac is. I used to drool over Macs, but not after I realized how pointless they are. If you buy a Mac, you are simply buying an overpriced PC with the Apple logo on it.

Did I mention Apple has terrible quality control on its laptops?

I hope these videos get you thinking straight!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...68317794&q=mac
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...69110939&q=mac

you know you could instead be a lot cooler and load up mac osx onto a a windows computer. Be a lot cheaper and youve have better quality control.

Link

Took your advice, eascarface, and installed OSx86 before coming in to work. Will check it out a little bit tonight when I get home.

For me, it's not the hardware that impresses me so much, but what I keep hearing about the OS itself that's got me all kinds of curious, but I want to really get to know it under a fully stable environment . . . And that usually means having to find an actual mac to mess around with. But, we'll see how my pc handles having OSX on it.

D

Gonna have to go with HTRN on this one. I've been wanting to try out a mac myself. I really can't bring myself to spending that kind of money for a name. I'm sure they are great. You pay for the advertisement and the flashyness of them.

I'm gonna OSX on the windows machine here in a few minutes. Would be cool to try it out more indepth.

Yeah if I wanted to take the Mac plunge I'd get some slightly older hardware for cheap. I'd say wait for Vista to come around then grab a laptop.

Quote: Originally Posted by drougnor Took your advice, eascarface, and installed OSx86 before coming in to work. Will check it out a little bit tonight when I get home. For me, it's not the hardware that impresses me so much, but what I keep hearing about the OS itself that's got me all kinds of curious, but I want to really get to know it under a fully stable environment . . . And that usually means having to find an actual mac to mess around with. But, we'll see how my pc handles having OSX on it. D

So whare do I get the OS? to run on my intel setup?

I think the lappy route I'll end up taking is to buy a lappy from the same company we got my wife's custom through (www.avadirect.com) and install OSx86 on that to be my 'Mac' box. I've got one configured for the AMD Equivilant as one of their MacBook pro's for $1400 and change vs the $2000+ Apple wants. That premium pricing is killer on the wallet.

Hemi: All I can say is dig through the http://osx86project.org/ site and see what they can tell ya, man. Certain things that we don't discuss here, and all that.

D