bazza_g Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 I've been hanging on for the new macbook's and pro's to be announced as they were in the apple notebook event thismorning - plenty of info here Ok, so there could have been some more exciting stuff but for a first time Mac'er (is that a word?) the new Macbook Pro looks pretty nice - shame about the nice rip-off Britain price we get over here..... Apple Store (U.S.) - MacBook Pro Apple Store (U.K.) - MacBook Pro anyone else going to buy in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muppetboy Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 I've got a Macbook and the move from Windows aint easy pal! I changed over last June I think and still curse Jobsy at times... very cool though! Ipod integration is superb, which was the main reason I moved away from VAIO's. For me the additional expense of the Pro just wasn't worth it, in fact I got mine off the outlet on apple.com, recommended by (I think) DHA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busby Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 I've got a Macbook and the move from Windows aint easy pal! I changed over last June I think and still curse Jobsy at times... very cool though! Ipod integration is superb, which was the main reason I moved away from VAIO's. For me the additional expense of the Pro just wasn't worth it, in fact I got mine off the outlet on apple.com, recommended by (I think) DHA. I am in the same position as MB - moved to a Macbook last August and am still learning how to do certain things! First few weeks are a very steep learning curve but after that it is pretty intuative and I now like using the Mac more than the Windows desktop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muppetboy Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 First few weeks are a very steep learning curve You can say that again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyliss Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 Totally agree with you Muppet re the change over. I started in Feb this year but its worth it !!. No more hanging pc's........ I've got a Macbook and the move from Windows aint easy pal! I changed over last June I think and still curse Jobsy at times... very cool though! Ipod integration is superb, which was the main reason I moved away from VAIO's. For me the additional expense of the Pro just wasn't worth it, in fact I got mine off the outlet on apple.com, recommended by (I think) DHA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 This refresh is completely irrelevant and to me a massive disappointment Removing the f/w port from the Macbook is a big mistake - and a pain in the back side. My MacBook has a 320Gb drive in and I have an external f/w 320 too that I use for my VMW images... They run badly over USB and what's more a 2.5" external drive takes BOTH the UBS ports :mad: I *may* go to a MBP at some point I guess, but in general I was massively disappointed with this refresh. The biggest problem with the Mac OSX by the way, IMHO, is Finder. It's pants compared to Explorer. Everything else is just as good as anything MS does - although you do run into compatibility problems with Office systems such as OCS, Sharepoint etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burble Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 a 2.5" external drive takes BOTH the UBS ports :mad: You can get 2.5" drives that run off a single USB port. I bought an Icybox enclosure for a spare 2.5" SATA drive I had and as I write this post it's happily running off a single USB port. I do agree that removing the firewire port is a pain! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 Not 300GB + you can't. I've got two of them, full of VM images for different clients etc. I'd be knackered without them. Also, the fact is I'd spend half the day copying stuff from the USB to my laptop which with some of them at 30/40Gb would take funking ages. It's possible that I have the wrong laptop I guess, the Pro maybe better suited to my use - but I also like to walk everywhere and I have a big mofo screen at work and at home so why would I want to lug about a 15" laptop as well Dammit they should design a MacBook just for the Mac :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burble Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 Ahh, didn't realise you had 2 drives on the go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chav Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 This refresh is completely irrelevant and to me a massive disappointment Removing the f/w port from the Macbook is a big mistake - and a pain in the back side. My MacBook has a 320Gb drive in and I have an external f/w 320 too that I use for my VMW images... They run badly over USB and what's more a 2.5" external drive takes BOTH the UBS ports :mad: I *may* go to a MBP at some point I guess, but in general I was massively disappointed with this refresh. The biggest problem with the Mac OSX by the way, IMHO, is Finder. It's pants compared to Explorer. Everything else is just as good as anything MS does - although you do run into compatibility problems with Office systems such as OCS, Sharepoint etc. Finder is pants. The leopard ui is pants for power users. i have dozens of addons installed just to make it do stuff you need to do quickly. eg resize windows from all sides. quick directory access. quick taskbar of running windows (not just apps) etc etc. I can see the attraction for dummy users though. although I also thought the menu system would fool users for a while as it obviously shows menus for selected app so changes all the time, unlike windows which shows up all next to the app you're using - which saves mouse movement too. especially at high resolutions (3840 etc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted October 14, 2008 Report Share Posted October 14, 2008 (edited) Hi Chav I'm surprised you say the i/f is poor for power users? I thought that when I first got it - but I don't now. I mean I consider myself a power user and I rarely use the mouse now, much the same as when working in Windows. For what it's worth I'm not a bit 'Apple Rocks', Windows Sucks tech. I think they both have strengths and weaknesses. I mean a well set up Vista or XP machine is just as solid as any OSX unit I've played with. You'd expect more robustness though wouldn't you if you're only developing for a limited number of h/w platforms. Personally with all the VM stuff I run I find OSX is better than Windows for running multiple environments. I guess I'm not your typical user though. I mean my main reason for switching was after getting massively frustrated working on some big Office based design docs. I.e. word docs with embedded & linked Excel, Visio etc. in them. Eventually working them on a powerfull windows laptop just became untenable, and even some on my desktop. My Macbook handles them pretty well all things considered - certainly better than my old Dell and IBM units anyway. So I guess in that respect it does 'just work'. I was pleasently surprised to find how well it ran all my VM stuff though (I tend to PtoV a lot of stuff for documentation etc.) so well. I guess the fact that it's based on a unix core shows through there. But then again I find the Finder poor compared to Windows :confused: I'm really not that bothered which interface I use now really - for example I'm in Bootcamp at the minute having done some audio/video work earlier that needed it - I haven't bothered switching back to OSX. As a side note one of the boring and completely annoying things about a lot of Mac forums & magazines is the constant slating of Windows. Windoze, M$ etc. It's just ridiculous and puts a bad slant on the whole Apple community IMHO. Edited October 14, 2008 by Mac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chav Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 Hiya, tend to have quite a few apps running. The most annoying thing by far is the lack of colour customisation of the window frames. Sounds stupid, but its hard to see which window is active-especially if you have dozens of the things - eg editing apps, compilers, edit windows. As for the window resize thing - well i'll be bolloxed naked if anyone can show me a mac user resize multiple windows quicker than on a winxp/vista machine. Bizarre why they dont just make it a sodding option. Windows may be ancient tech polished, but it works well. The windoze thing is very boring. Use many environments and they all have pros/cons. Dont use multi environments on 1 machine here. just have lots of machines and some kvms attached to multimonitors etc. As you've probably read, I use SSDs for most things now. A big office doc is similar to a large development project - gets far too slow using standard hard disks. Leopard is definitely a bit nippier per cpu MHz than the equivalent xp/vista machine. However, modern hardware so fast its irrelevant. Macs in general completely overpriced though as are upgrades. Can spec up a pc that walks over anything apple (including 8 cores) for a couple of grand. If people want to get into apple at home on the cheap, the mac mini is completely underrated. Very useable machines for general purpose stuff, which is all most people do. Crap for games due to integrated graphics, but they'll update a 1920x1200 display very smoothly and surfing, office tasks, ipod etc all perfectly fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bells0 Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 Disappointing, especially the price. Will be keeping my year old 'plastic' macbook a while longer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_hargreaves Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 This is a scandal, the main thing Apple needed to do to attract more customers was to bring the price down. They've changed the design a bit, put a slower CPU in and then given it a very very average mobile GPU and then hiked the price by 130 quid over the 2.4ghz White plastic model. And they've also increased the price of the base white 2.1ghz model from £699 to £719. Crazy price to pay for a nice looking case and OS X when a better specced PC laptop is around £300-£400 cheaper. Which when paired with a 64bit version of Vista, gives just as much eye candy and speed as OS X. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ritey Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 If you look at launch prices of current pro's from the previous model now they've not left room for the 17", so expect a price drop when that's ready Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jez Posted October 15, 2008 Report Share Posted October 15, 2008 Slightly off topic but I saw this classic picture taken at a US university showing how popular macs are on campus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachel Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 The only major "+" of the new hardware that I could see was that in the Pro, you get TWO, yes 2 GPUs... One for battery optimised use, the other a full on power chomping real one for graphics intensive stuff. The loss of Firewire 400 on BOTH MacBook and MacBookPro is a big step backwards, esp, as FW3200 has just been ratified, as has IEEE 1394c which is FW over your Ethernet RJ-45!!! I hope Apple bring out a dongle to do FW400 into the FW800 port, or better yet - a rabbit out of the hat to do FW over Ethernet. It's a good way to upset a lot of folks who have large investments* in FW drives (as they just embarrass USB 2.0 ones w.r.t. sustained throughput and speed). I for one will not be rushing out to "update" either of my current main machines... I have 6 FW drives, 3x FW400, 3x FW400/800 - to me that is a large investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chav Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 It's a good way to upset a lot of folks who have large investments* in FW drives (as they just embarrass USB 2.0 ones w.r.t. sustained throughput and speed). I for one will not be rushing out to "update" either of my current main machines... I have 6 FW drives, 3x FW400, 3x FW400/800 - to me that is a large investment. Firewire is much faster than USB on older macs because apple cocked up their USB implementations. PCs much quicker at USB(hardware/software) and the new intel macs fix this to a degree. On a fast computer, firewire not much quicker. The handshaking of USB becomes irrelevant on a new pc compared to direct bandwidth/mem access of FW unless its under max load during the file transfer, so i think lots of internet published stats are out of date and basically tosh. Modern USB2.0 caddy, sata drive and fast pc - 50mb/sec+ sustained no problemo. Think FW has become a bit of a HD/DVD. If performance is really critical (100mb/sec+), its ESATA all the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_hargreaves Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 They did that with the iPod connectivity aswell Rachel which I just couldn't understand. My first iPod could be connected and synced through a firewire but now they don't support it for some stupid reason. So uploading 4000 songs onto my iPhone takes about 9 years. That Uni picture is crazy. However the price of Mac's (Not including the student discount they'll get) in America and the fact most have a small Apple Store on campus make them a better buying solution from a price and customer support point of view. The new 13inch Macbook in America works out at about £730. But yet we get charged the lovely sum of £950. Over here most Uni's automatically operate in Windows to prevent any incompatibility with the software and anti virus they provide. And because a complete overhaul of all the servers to Mac servers would be completely unethical and then to try and convince students to spend £950 on a Macbook over a £400 PC just isn't going to happen. I'll invest in the new Macbook the next time i'm over in the US. Just so long as they've fixed the continuing problems I had with my white model with hard drives constantly going pop on me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Firewire is much faster than USB on older macs because apple cocked up their USB implementations. PCs much quicker at USB(hardware/software) and the new intel macs fix this to a degree. On a fast computer, firewire not much quicker. The handshaking of USB becomes irrelevant on a new pc compared to direct bandwidth/mem access of FW unless its under max load during the file transfer, so i think lots of internet published stats are out of date and basically tosh. Modern USB2.0 caddy, sata drive and fast pc - 50mb/sec+ sustained no problemo. Think FW has become a bit of a HD/DVD. If performance is really critical (100mb/sec+), its ESATA all the way. I agree on paper - but in reality that's not really the case. Like I say, I run a lot of VMWare stuff and it just doesn't cut it over USB drives. Both on Windows & Mac. I.e. the images run great on an ext firewire but when I use them on my home Windows PC, which doesn't have a fw port so it's USB connected, the performance is a lot poorer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted October 16, 2008 Report Share Posted October 16, 2008 Slightly off topic but I saw this classic picture taken at a US university showing how popular macs are on campus When i was at uni you got a good deal of discount off Mac's.. and i think that is still true, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachel Posted October 20, 2008 Report Share Posted October 20, 2008 I agree on paper - but in reality that's not really the case. Like I say, I run a lot of VMWare stuff and it just doesn't cut it over USB drives. Both on Windows & Mac. I.e. the images run great on an ext firewire but when I use them on my home Windows PC, which doesn't have a fw port so it's USB connected, the performance is a lot poorer. That' been my experience too. FW rocks - even my high end SLR dumps photos faster over FW than USB (and that is to a PC or a Mac)... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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