Apple Ones you go mac, you never go back.

This should come out as a kind of review on the switch to mac. I posted in GD because its my opinion.

First of all, who am I?
20 year old belgian student (graphical and digital media, commercial management)


Computer history (background information on myself)
Ok, I had just typed a long history here. But it was getting too long. So I'll try get the essence here, in less words.

Started off with computers at about 10 years old. At 12-13 got into contact with Internet, on a microsoft operating system. Alot of pc hardware passed and also alot of different windows versions. At 14 I changed highschool to study Industrial Science, there I learned a bit of autoCAD and Office. At 16 I changed to another highschool, to study Graphical Sience, there I learned photoshop, illustrator, qxp, office and some indesign (on a mac).

Then went to college, to study graphical and digital media. There some more illustrator, office and html. Then to the second year (this year) and I choose 'commercial management' as expertise. Bought new pc hardware at the start of this schoolyear. I got to learn preps on a iMac G4 17". Since preps and the teacher are bouth equally boring I started playing around with OS X. I fell in love with the "feel" when u work with them. I can't explain it.

Computer hardware, specs
Previous machine:
Duron 1Ghz, 512mb ram, geforce 2, 120gb hd, cd writer, 17" tft

Current desktop machine:
AMD64 3500+, 2x 512mb corsair ram, sapphire radeon 9800pro 128mb, 200gb sata, 120gb ata, plextor +/- DVD burner, 17" tft & 17" crt, matrix orbital lcd, logitech peripherals

Current laptop:
Apple 12" Superdrive Powerbook
(1,5Ghz G4, 768mb ram, Geforce FX 5200 64mb, +/- DVD burner, 80GB HD 5400rpm, airport extreme & bluetooth)

Why?
Why 12"? Its tiny.
Thats exacty why. I already have a pretty recent and powerfull desktop machine. A 'portable' should be just that. And when I'm at home I have a little switch box to change input for my 17" tft, so I can expand my screen.
Why a powerbook? iBooks are cheaper, more pretty and better built.
At the time I bought mine, It was financially more interesting to buy a powerbook. And offcours several other little advantages did it in the end.

The switch story
If you plan on switching please check if the software you need is available for mac. There is the option of virtual pc, but I wouldn't go their if there are other options left.

I had doubts about switching, but really, if you are an experience computer user, you will get the hang of this mac thing within a 'fortnight'. Everything is located similar to windows, just better.

Slow. Yes, I'm not to proud to say it. Starting up a applicatin takes a long time. Much too long to my standards. But ounce your application is running and stays active, it runs very smoothly and powerfull. You won't hear me say that its equally powerfull as my desktop. But its fast enough for my needs.

Alot of people have tried to give pc users an idea on how "fast" they are. Guess what, I'm going to try aswell. First of all, what programs do I use? Adobe acrobat, photoshop, illustrator, indesign. Office Word, Excell, Powerpoint, Entourage (mailclient). I Cal, DVD, Tunes, Photo. Vim.

Lets take a Photoshop, Illustrator and Word.
Word: When I type, and thats pretty fast, it sometimes gets a little behind on my typing. But it depends on how many different applications are active at that moment. But it does come behind. Other then that, its fast.
Illustrator: Works pretty smoothly, I do have to wait a second or two longer then on my desktop when I do some intensive filters/effects. And I have to wait for a splitsecond more often two.
Photoshop: Same thing, wait longer and more often.
It runs everything and it runs them fine. Just slower.

My powerbook isn't Fast, its Powerfull!


Installing applications? Piece of cake! Really, realy easy.

Stable. Really stable. I don't have it that long. So I can't say from my own experience. But you can let them on for months. Just close the lid and they go to sleep. Open it up the other day, give it a few seconds and bam, your back in business. I haven't shut mine down yet.. Now I think about it.. where do I do that?


My conclusion.
I think this was the best laptop I could buy. Other 12" models are more expensive. It has a long battery live. Its powerfull. It runs everything I need. Its small, its even tiny. Its light.

But, you need ram. And loads of it. I got 768mb and thats really the minimum. Os X is very graphical and takes alot of your ram.

I think this is about it..

I hope this was helpfull or/and interesting. My apologies if its poorly written or has alot of spelling mistakes. I'm not at all a writer and English is not my native language.

If any mac-fans here know some good websites with cool free gadgets for mac. Then post here.

L

 

I agree that macs are cool, but i reckon you hav way 2 much time to write all that up

 

Welcome to Appledom!

Ounce? I know it's small and light, but it's not that light...

 

i got a mac but it just sits there, think its running mac OS 9.something. Its an old iMac with the cd tray not the slot one, think it only runs at about 300Mhz.

 

OSX doesnt need that much RAM!! My flatmate happily runs OSX on a G3 with 64mb RAM. Its slow at times, but fast at others.

I agree apples are cool though, and now there coming down in price, it may be time for a swapsey

 

i love the look of the powerbooks, ive always wanted to try like a trial period of using os x to see how i got on with it. My gran has an imac but i think thats a pretty old version of the OS on it.

good review btw.

 

oops



Thanks for all the kind replys.

 

correcting bad spelling......



WITH MORE BAD SPELLING!!!

w00tage...

I'm dangerously considering a 12" PB... especially with being able to run VPC on them.. so I can use my ibmcompat apps on it... just feel somehow... wrong..

 

I'd be careful of VPC if I were you. I was considering purchasing it when I got my 12" PB, but I read some reviews on it and no one has anything good to say about it. Main complaint is that it runs extremely sloooooow.

 

I wouldn't say 768 was the minimum for OSX, otherwise all macs would come with this amount of ram.

I ran my powerbook with 256MB for a good month or two before I upgraded to 768MB. I only added more RAM because I was running an IDE rather was a complete memory eater and it was slowing the whole thing down. It's nice to have the extra memory but it certainly isn't a requirement for your basic user.

 

Run that by me again. I've tried various ways of punctuating but none make any sense.

 

How come Mac users are constantly bashing windows and praising Apple when windows never do the same unless drawn into a flame war (at least in my experience)?

 

I've been a windows user for all my life. The reason I switched has alot of reasons. I didn't really fully 'switch' I still have my PC (very recent hardware aswell).

But because I wanted a laptop I went apple. The hardware is just very very good.

The windows/apple debate is never going to end. And yeah alot of people bash on windows. I've got win xp on my pc and I'm pretty satisfied with that. But.. I don't know.. the os x has just that.. special feeling..

You should just try it out.

Good luck

Oh and on the ram, I find that I need the 768 for alot of my applications, and its really worth the extra money. 256 is enough to run it.. offcours.. but I've seen al of my friends who have a mac, upgrading their ram after a ltitle while.. so I did it immediatly.. don't regret it either.

L

 

That would be 266Mhz. More than likely it's a Rev A, the first iMac. I have one as well, it runs my OS9 applications as a clone of my work computer (though that is a G4). Also have an eMac running OSX, they both share the same keyboard. No booting into OS9 for me, just click on my USB port switch.

 

hah, my friends all make fun of me for using a mac, even though they never have really used one before. they're always asking me to fix their dells too, i wonder if they'll ever notice that i don't have to spend time fixing my powerbook.

 

Would you recommend the ibook 12"?

I'd probably just use it for Office, various programming, some java IDEs.

And should I upgrade to 512Mb?

Or wait till tiger gets released?

 

Actually it’s been my experience as well, but the reverse .

Mostly though its been in dealings with corporate IT managers, who are religiously Windows based and don't understand (and rather don't care) the Macs and refuse to support them. I think Macs being included in thier world and them loosing “control” threatened them. The end result of their knee jerking hostile attitude, they lost a considerable user base as all the VP's and SVP's got themselves a sexy Mac powerbook, and a separate automations IT department was put in place just for the Mac users (so their fears were self fulfilled prophecies).

Personally, I'd rather not be that closed-minded. Though I'm a Mac fan, I also use other OS's rather a lot. Each can have its advantage and disadvantage, but in many case it really doesn't matter.