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Geek Culture / Can anyone give me advice on buying a mac?

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FieldDoc
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Posted: 10th Aug 2003 18:53
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I need to buy a laptop and I have decided to go mac. I think they look gorgeous and I have heard such good things about them that I want to give them a try.

I don't know too much about them but I have been doing some research.

The absolute max I can spend is £1300 (and that really is a push). By my reckoning that would get me a 12" powerbook or a variety of ibooks (including the 14" ibook). If I fall in love with the mac I will end up using it a load (just as I now use Redhat quite a lot). This is what worries me about a 12" notebook....can you work on such a small screen for prolonged periods of time?

I am tempted by the 14" ibook (albeit with some extra RAM) but I don't want to spend a lot of money (and lets face it....for £1300 I could get an awesome windows laptop) only to find out that the G3 is garbage in the near future.

Can anyone offer me any advice?

Thanks,
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 10th Aug 2003 19:20
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Why a Mac? You can't use DB/DBP on it or play PC games. And for that kind of money you can get a really good PC laptop with 14"-15" high res sceen with some realy power for gaming or whatever you wanna do with it. Check dell.com or another manufacturer. The Radeon M9600 is comming soon if you can afford it, really good graphics card for laptops.

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Dazzag
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Posted: 10th Aug 2003 19:26
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I thought the 12" one was £800. At least thats what it says in my T3 mag.

Was quite suprised at that one. Esp. since the 17" is about £2600. Normally smaller means extremely priceyer. My laptop is like a small house compared with the Mac, and anything PClike that is really small (Sony are good at this) seems to be really really really expensive. Never been that bothered as I don't need it too much on the move, but a friend of mine wants to chuck it in her handbag, but not at the cost of several thousand. Pity it's a Mac though. Lovely machine, but lack of software. Unless someone can correct me with how good the PC emulation is these days. If it can run Win XP emulation *almost* as fast as, say, the equivelent Ghz PC, then I would be impressed, and may consider buying it myself. It should do considering, as most of us know, a Mac is normally a lot faster than a PC Mhz for Mhz. I remember a graph a few years ago that compared the two, and, roughly, a 1Ghz PC running NT ran about the same speed as a Mac with half the Mhz.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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indi
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Posted: 10th Aug 2003 19:33
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What do you want to do with it?

Image Edit
Video Edit
Sound Edit
CDrom Authoring
Play some games in opengl

Emulate windows along side it?
Run Os9x or unix based OSX?


the only macs i would invest in are g4 /g5 towers.

the main reason behind it is that they accept pc EIDE drives and video cards so upgrading is still valid without purchasing a apple part.

a 1.6 ghz power pc G5 with a GF fx 5200 makes for a wonderfull editing studio but thats a fairly recent machine.

I would cash in now on the fastest g4 dual head processor tower if i had to play it smart and recoup the payment on tax deductions for business equipment.

If you buy a laptop and have the means I would go for the 17" version but thats just me because I would use it for work related art creation 99% instead of just a games box or email buddy.

why dont you rent both a pc and a mac for a month.

http://www.lunarpixel.com
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indi
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Posted: 10th Aug 2003 19:37
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btw heres my mac lappie purchased years ago now.

If you remember the great white shark adds for a black mac laptop then you will know the one.

hehe its also one of the last macs to have a floppy drive.

http://www.apple-history.com

http://www.apple-history.com/frames/body.php?page=gallery&model=pg3s2



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8truths
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Posted: 10th Aug 2003 19:59
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For what old laptops go, you might as well buy a new one.

We can't stop here! This is bat country!
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Dazzag
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Posted: 10th Aug 2003 20:20
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Never buy a secondhand PC these days. Much too pricey. See freeads in computer shopper selling stuff that's a year old for a higher price than a company advert on the next page for new. Nah.

2nd hand laptops tend to be about £100 cheaper than the cheapest new ones. And they all seem to be about 300-500Mhz compared with 800-1000Mhz for new. Hmmm. And CD/RW? Don't think so.

Hi-Grade seem quite good.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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QuothTheRaven
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Posted: 11th Aug 2003 01:29
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when mac users complain about all programs being written for windows, they aren't kidding!. Expect to be struggling for software, depending on what you need the laptop for.

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spooky
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Posted: 11th Aug 2003 01:34
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Do the sensible thing, get a PC and with the change, buy loads of macs... that's big macs

The programmer formerly known as sonic
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Cash Curtis III
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Posted: 11th Aug 2003 03:18
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lol!
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indi
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Posted: 11th Aug 2003 13:11
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hehe i guess the best thing is this.

If you want to be artistic in the fields of rendered3d still or animated / spfx for movies etc. / video / sound and image / print all day long then a mac is your machine. They are a work horse for these aspects and they do it well.

http://www.lunarpixel.com
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UnderLord
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Posted: 11th Aug 2003 16:45
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REAL GOOD ADVICE! DONT BUY ONE! they are horrible! well atleast i think so even though they are good for only image editing but not good for internet use

http://www.freewebs.com/ingamers
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Shock
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Posted: 11th Aug 2003 16:57
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summed up in one sentence:

if it don't run windoze, it aint worth buying...


sure windoze totally sucks compaired to OS's like redhat, but still as its been said above, most programs are made for windoze.

Plus £1300 would buy you a VERY nice laptop.
I'd recommend you to go for an IBM Thinkpad or Toshiba Sattellite.

Sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken.
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8truths
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 03:05
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Macs would be great machines if there were any software for them. There isn't, except for the large base of design software. If you plan to do any design work -- 2d, 3d, etc -- get to know your Macs. If not, leave them be,

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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lcfcfan
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 03:22
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I like macs they are very nice, i have an old one my self and they are good for video editing, 3D, web surfing and office work but you will be stuck for games and stuff, if you do decide to go with a windows laptop do not get a P4 they overheat all the time go for a centrino they are lower spec but they easily out perform high end P4 machines, i have a Toshiba Sattelite and it is a good fast machine but when they overheat they slow down a lot.

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indi
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 05:32
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work opportunities open up for you if you know them well enough.

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Megaman Zero
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 05:54
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Like they say, there are a lot of great games for the mac, Warcraft 3... uh... uhhh... The puzzle game with the apple logo, thats a great game, I beat it but its still fun. When you goto a computer store, & look at the selection they have, its very confusing, macs are so much easier, because there are only like 6 games, & you know which ones are great, because you played them all on the PC 5 or 6 years ago.

My best advice is, either go with a PC, or go with a linux based OS for game dev, due to its ability to export to game system formats.

Zero (Formerly Shadow Guyver)
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the_winch
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 09:29
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Quote: "if you do decide to go with a windows laptop do not get a P4 they overheat all the time go for a centrino they are lower spec but they easily out perform high end P4 machines, i have a Toshiba Sattelite and it is a good fast machine but when they overheat they slow down a lot."


One think I have noticed is that the cooling on mobiles cab be horrendious. I have seen one with the gpu fan about 1/2mm away from the bottom of the keyboad completly enclosed by metal on 3 sides and the free side was where the air was susposed to be blown out.

If you are actually going to use it as a laptop it might be worth making sure it has a mobile p4 which suposedly use less power and generate less heat. Processor cooling should not be an issue if the laptop is a decent design.
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8truths
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 09:50
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In the US, Best Buy is supposed to begin pushing a much-enhanced Mac section, including a number of desktops and laptops, plus software. Maybe that'll give the Apple a boost.

I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you; you can come over to my house and ---- my sister!
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Dave J
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 10:16
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Quote: "Can anyone give me advice on buying a mac?"

Don't.

"Computers are useless they can only give you answers."
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actarus
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 18:17
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Don't as well.

If I've seen it all before,why's this bus taking me back again? @_@
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Shock
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Posted: 12th Aug 2003 22:54
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also, for the pc based laptop you are now going to buy

i agree on the choice of processors above. Don't go for P4, they have giant heat probs, however Celerons are OK. The best in my opinion is a P3, they only get warm while most others will get too hot to put on your knee after a while.

Also, IBM Thinkpads are the best quality, with the most thought-out design. They are a tad more expensive, but the battery generally lasts longer then their counterpart's and the cooling system is designed very well, theyre also pretty light. The downside is (although i would disagree), most people say they look ugly in design, i think they look "average".

Toshiba Satallites are good for the money. They are cheaper than Thinkpads, whilest getting the same hardware. The problem is that the cooling systems are no-where near as good as a thinkpad's and the battery's don't last as long.

Theyre the two types of laptop i'd recommend, depending on what you are looking for. Since you have £1300, i'd recommend the IBM thinkpad

Sticking feathers up your butt doesn't make you a chicken.
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the_winch
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 01:02
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My p4m laptop has no heat problems what so ever. The ram on the other hand appently reaches over 60C and will easerly burn you legs and the grafics card gets hot. The processor is usually the coolest running componant even the hd gets hotter.
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Dazzag
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 01:21
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I just bought a laptop cooler from simply computers. Looks basically like a mouse mat that you put under the laptop (in bed right now). Contains some "phase changing material" or something like that. But basically I haven't noticed it use the fan once in several days, and stays cool. Hell, I left it on for 6 hours plugged into the mains on the bed running a VB program to dir the disk while previewing the 3D pipe screensaver. And that was on a really hot day too. Damn thing was still cool. Nice, very impressed.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Dazzag
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 01:25
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Oh yeah, and it actually came with a piece of paper with some story out of a newspaper about a foreign scientist who... and I am not kidding.... burned his penis from his laptop..... erm.... and he invented this cooler thing... erm.... wasn't sure what the company was trying to say...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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lcfcfan
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 07:44
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Well Dazzag i am not suprised if i have my laptop on my lap i burns me.

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Johnny Darkafterlife
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Posted: 13th Aug 2003 11:52
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Well you go down to Macdonalds and you say, "I wanna big mac" It actually qute easy.
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