Apple MacBook Review: Part 2

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It is interesting to occasionally read about PC vs. MAC, for sure their TV ads won't give the correct information, although a MAC laptop is probably the last thing that people here are interested in.

I've been around since the original Apple 2's and original Mac's came out. I've never been interested in them because I want to tinker with the hardware, I want to write programs in Fortran, C and Pascal, I run autocad, I run our own engineering programs. I just got a new desktop workstation at work and had to reinstall all of my apps- I had a list of over 50 apps and documents that I installed and linked to my desktop. Some of these are specific to Windows and might be covered by things builtinto OS-X, but others are probably not even available for the MAC platform. And I haven't installed my compilers yet.

I spec'd this computer exactly as I wanted, down to the ram sticks and CPU cooler. Couldn't do this with MAC, you take what they give you and you have to like it that way.

I thought about buying a Macbook recently, since at that time I used my laptop for travel mostly, checking email, browsing the internet, downloading photos from my camera. I didn't use it for any serious work so I thought the Mac might be OK. But recently I realized I needed to load autocad, revit and our serious analysis software onto my laptop so I bought a real laptop to handle it.

I was about to buy a new box from Dell outlet for my home use, since that machine is mostly used for internet access and photo editing. It would replace my homebuilt, and I've always built and upgraded my own computers. Eventually I decided I couldn't stoop that low so I'm ordering the parts to build it myself. I just couldn't respect myself in the morning if I ended up with a Dell box.

The good and the bad of the PC has always been the open-ness. You can buy hardware to suit yourself, not what Apple thinks you need. You can buy/write/download programs to do almost anything, a lot of it free. Probably even stuff that the MAC guys don't even begin to understand.

I spent a little time at my local Fry's this past weekend, browsing to see what they had and what some of the hardware looks like in person. I've been in our local Apple store also, and there is an amazing contrast between the people in the Apple store and the people in the Fry's. Most of the people in the Apple store are hard to recognize as being the same species as me, and most of them seem to be interested in music and video, not anything that we would consider a serious use of a computer.

Not saying I won't someday have an iFruit of my own, after all I've got an ipod now, but as long as I can do it I'll probably be building my desktop computers myself.
 
Separate comment here-
I didn't understand the writer's allegation that malware doesn't target the mac because it doesn't pay. Since when to people writing viruses expect their exploits to pay? For sure there are probably some virus writers that will start to take it as an insult and a challenge when MAC continues to say on their TV ads that they don't have to worry about security problems. The longer they flaunt it, the sooner their day will come.
 
One other thing.

Any power user can fix a hijacked computer easily. Spend over a thousand for a new Mac or spend a hour or two fixing a few registry files. Format if need be or restore to an earlier time.

Really, who are you trying to kid?

I am officially going to skip every ad... I mean article about Macs.

Did I say Macs are pretty?
 
[citation][nom]cadder[/nom]Separate comment here-I didn't understand the writer's allegation that malware doesn't target the mac because it doesn't pay. Since when to people writing viruses expect their exploits to pay? For sure there are probably some virus writers that will start to take it as an insult and a challenge when MAC continues to say on their TV ads that they don't have to worry about security problems. The longer they flaunt it, the sooner their day will come.[/citation]
Since Mac users are less tech savvy than PC users, they are an easy target for virus writers, and if really 10% of computers are Mac, since Internet have 1 billion users, it should be 100,000,000 Mac users as bait for virus writers.
So:
-Or is false than 10% of computers are Mac.
-Or is false that there are not enough Macs to interest bad hackers and virus writers.
-Or is false that Apple security naysayers are wrong when they say that Macs are not full of security holes.
 
Ive been reading Tomshardware intermittenly for about 8 years now and Ive noticed a steady decline in quality.Im a hardcore pc gamer and build myself a ~£2k ($3k) system every couple of years. I was initially recommended this site by a friend, as a great source of information on pc hardware and it was really useful for putting together one of my first gaming systems. I recently bought a new computer and found that Tomshardware just wasnt as useful as it had been in identifying the best hardware for my system. It was sad, but I just used other online sources to get the information I needed (Hardware comparisons and recommendations).How about you focus on those kind of articles instead? If I wanted to read about crapple I would go elsewhere. Apple Macs are like a Fisher Price "My first computer" for the gullible novice user, who gets sucked in by the marketing spin of 'style over substance'. Articles about them have no place on a pc hardware website.Incidentally I cant believe the stats that Mac users are better educated. Yeah, maybe college degrees on "history of art". I use a pc, and I studied a proper degree at University.
Click to expand...

QFT again.

[citation][nom]Tindytim[/nom]So how many FPS does it get in Crysis?
Oh wait.[/citation]

It's like you guys are typing my thoughts for me.
 
You wrote 2 huge articles about your mac but I still don't understand why it's better than a similar windows machine. Is it faster? Does it have more features? Is it more secure? Does it support more/better software? Is it cheaper? You haven't told me anything. You didn't test anything or differentiate the two in any way.

All I've taken away from your article is that it doesn't really matter what operating system I get. I guess I'll stick with the less expensive one.
 
[citation][nom]erloas[/nom] Maybe its just me, but it sounds like Apple is sending the writers here a lot of gear (or stocks), because no one else (other then the dedicated Mac sites) seem nearly as interested in every little thing Apple does as Toms sites seem to do now. We can't go a week without some article about Apple, which is unusual since things don't change that much. It seems like we get more Apple news here then we get from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel combined. We get more useful information and benchmarks from those companies, but when was the last time we heard much about what is up-coming?[/citation]

One can only speculate as to what incentive Tom's has these days, but the change in focus for the site was not gradual. It was immediately upon acquisition by Bestofmedia in 2007. In a span of less than 2 years Tom's has lost a decades legacy as a serious hardware site. If Tom's wants to do opinion pieces on Apple, fine, create a casual computing section, but to call this a review is insulting to long time readers. I no longer come to Tom's for unbiased, expert analysis. However, Bestofmedia, I guess I'm still hooked non-the-less, if only to see how far you will take the exploitation of this brand.


 
So, if Tom's is parading around pro-Mac propaganda as journalism, and Intel and Macintosh are blatant business partners, does this lend credibility to the obvious rigging of the PhenomII vs Core i7 OC article? My grandma can get a better OC out of PhII, and she doesn't even know how to use a computer.
 
I actually tried the macbook just a couple months ago. I utterly detested it. OSX usability sucks -- they do so much stupid stuff just to be "different" it's ridiculous. Their hard headedness actually makes the OS more difficult to use. I returned it, taking a $200 hit restocking fee, but I'm glad to be done with it.

Oh, and yeah, the body is solid aluminum. But it's painted silver. Woopty doo. That would be like buying a Delorian only to paint it silver. Pretty dumb.
 
[citation][nom]gjelly[/nom]I can't believe how ignorant people are on this site. Everyone bitches about Mac fanboys....but aren't you just Windows fanboys? What's the difference?[/citation]
I don't like most Republicans, that doesn't make me a Democrat. Being Anti-Apple doesn't mean you're Pro-Microsoft. There are more than 2 choices.

[citation][nom]gjelly[/nom]People can have preferences in their computer choice. It's okay everyone, take a deep breath. I don't know what's wrong with writing a review pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of a Mac. Yes I said WEAKNESSES. He did not only point out strengths but also pointed on things that it could improve upon and where he liked Windows better. But as soon as one good thing is said about a Mac everyone gets butthurt over it.[/citation]

People here aren't "butthurt" because the article praises a Mac, but because this is a Hardware site. When was the last time we saw a Tom's article about another pre-build computer? Much less a 2 parter?

People here are Tech Enthusiasts, which is about as far away from a Mac user as you can get. People here build computers, they don't buy them. Why should they give a shit about any pre-built computer, much less a Mac?

[citation][nom]gjelly[/nom]As soon as someone writes something good about a Mac you think it's an ad campaign? Isn't that the point of a review site, to say positive and negative things about the products? So is every single product that has been reviewed on this site that is Windows based and has had positive feedback an advertisement?[/citation]
Reviewing Apple products is hypocritical for a Hardware website that normally reviews Processors, Video Cards, and RAM, that you'll never be able to put into that Mac.

Apple users can't upgrade their systems beyond the grossly over priced products Apple will sell them, so why would they be interested in reading a site geared towards system builders?

[citation][nom]gjelly[/nom]You could also go to a million other sites that praise Windows PC's, what's your point? Why are you reading it here? Because as you pointed out to yourself this is Toms HARDWARE, which does not mean Tom's PC Hardware.[/citation]

You do know that Macs are Personal Computers? In fact, the label of PC is hugely ironic, as there are thousands of times more desktop computers running Windows in bussiness than any other OS. Not to mention I run Ubuntu Linux on my Personal Computer.

And 'PC' hardware is the only hardware that matters. Most Mac users don't even use their computers to the full capacity anyway beyond running the graphical effects of the GUI.

[citation][nom]gjelly[/nom]Like I said before, quit being ignorant.@ pretty much everyone that said "Apple products are for people who are too dumb to use a PC"So you're making yourself look bad. People wouldn't need to switch to Mac's if they could figure out how to use PC's by your logic.[/citation]

I'm guessing you fall into the "To dumb to use a PC" group? And it's not a matter of intelligence, it's a matter of knowledge. I know how to use my computer, and it's not like it's difficult to use Windows. The problem is ignorant people install bunches of virus ridden crap onto their computer, then wonder why it doesn't work properly.

[citation][nom]gjelly[/nom]This article was not like "my stuff rocks, yours is crap and you're just too much of an idiot to know it" in any way. If you had more reading comprehension you would get your biased head out of your ass and see that this article said a lot of things that were wrong with Mac's and why PC's are better. It was simply providing a review like any other. Can there be nothing good about it? Is that what you're trying to say? Prove me wrong please.[/citation]

It doesn't belong here. It's not only an article about a Pre-Built system, on a site geared toward system builders, but that system can't even be upgraded with anything else reviewed on this site.

If you like Macs, that's great for you. But this isn't the site for this. I'd much rather here about emerging CPU technologies, or the GT300, not about how some guy just jumped on Apple's multi-million dollar c**k

[citation][nom]gjelly[/nom]All in all the people who are posting the extremelly biased angry posts are the people that have never used a Mac in their life. Try one out for an extended period of time and I gauruntee you'll have some positives about it.[/citation]

Lol, I had to use a Mac for 7 months for all of my school work. I ended up installing Ubuntu on it.
 
[citation][nom]Tindytim[/nom] I had to use a Mac for 7 months for all of my school work. I ended up installing Ubuntu on it.[/citation]

good way to stick it up to the man.. :)
 
There's a lot of misinformation in both the article and peoples comments. Probably the biggest error in the article is saying that OS X is fully GPU optimized, which is completely false. In the next release 10.6 they are adding a feature called openCL which is similar to nVidia's CUDA that will use the GPU for the OS and other application tasks. Also two button support has (finally) been in OS X for years, although the bundled mice do suck badly. On the laptops its a two finger tap for right click, which has been around since multi-touch started being supported in the Macbook lines.

I like macs and PC's (I have a macbook and a homebuild PC) but did think that this article was terrible. Leave out the personal stuff and just give us the hardware specs/benchmarks, especially the gaming ones. Let the reader have his own opinions
 
Well i dont see any bad about article, is just an opinion as far i see, tomshardware become more other direction and that is ok, is just an opinion about a person is not a final foot and that is the best, besides as far i know is not just about game, is about hardware is good to know good things about other system other kind of hardware, not focus on the same, TH i been see spot that u can talk about build pc, new features that bring and other stuff now there is a spot for ppl like mac as other stuff, i dont use mac, but is ok to hear other opinion, about directx compare to opengl haha teh problem is microsoft make it closed just for their operative system that's the reason they use opengl if they can use directx on their system i think they will but that never happen, about the % of ppl use mac have more knowlodge about tech hahahaha, that is funny i dont bother about that honesty coz i know what i know if i m bother for some comment like be true or not, if u upset about that is coz is some way is true, if u know that is not true on ur case as knowldge about tech u will be laught coz u know that is not true. Besides u will know taht if u have xp depend of some place when u get about buy a system u must search and besides when u knowlodge u will see and have an opinion to what system to buy it. cheer every1.
 
PC = Personal Computer
MAC = Personal Computer

They both kick ass.

You use Mac? Great.
You use Windows XP/Vista/Seven? Great.
You use Linux(too many to list)? Great.
You use Win95? Upgrade time 😛

Does it matter what you use? not really, as long as it does what you want.

now the bad. Your "Myths" are mostly made up.

I have NEVER herd that macs are for tech savvy people. I have infact herd the opposite many times.

One minute you talk about how the price difference is not big and then about how "well educated", "smarter" and "richer" people are likely to own a Mac. Sorry to say IF I wanted a Mac I would just buy one. I have thought about it for a low power(wattage) machine for music and DVD's.

In the end I just do not have room for any more computers at this time. I have...

one XP MCE machine for tv recording(A64 3200+, 1gig of DDR, 120GB + dual 500GB[one is out for now as it is in win7 testing] drives and a wintv pvr 250), file server as well as other various tasks. It works well and was free since its made of old parts. The only pain is the 75 watt power use, but it could be worse.

An older single core laptop(XP home)(A64 3000+, 512megs of ram and a 60gig drive...ouch). It gets the job done and for the amount I use it, I see no reason to replace it.

My girlfriends computer(XP Pro)(E6600, 4gigs of ddr2, 2 x 120 gig hard drives in (r)aid 0) and a Geforce 8800GTX. Its just my old gaming system and that is what it is still used for.

My current system (Vista-64 and Win7-64)(Q6600 @ 3.0, dual 250's in (r)aid0, 8gigs of ddr2 and a HD4870)

Then there are piles of old computers I have to play with.

Do I feel the need to add a Mac to it? Not yet, maybe some day, more computers = more fun 😛

The article has some good points, but also some clear bias.
 
i want to write an article too
about how superior my laptop is compared to a mac
if you really compare visio acually makes the best laptop if you can afford an arm and a leg
 
AGAIN!!!!!

OMG!!! you bought a MAC just because you failed to take 20-30 minutes and use vista's backup system to an external drive????
had you been using spy bot along with AVG you would have never had this problem......

i back up to an external once a week...i have restored it promptly after backup just for giggles and to make sure it actually works....it is EXCELLENT!

dude you could have been back up in about 20 minutes had you BACKED UP ALL YOUR DATA like a REAL I.T. guy would!

i could a added a 52" LCD Phillips HDTV to my front room for what you spent.

did you not report that APPLE recommends that you have multiple virus software installed on your mac in another article recently?

I mean COME ON! why didn't you just write a story on how you wanted one so badly and broke down and got one!!! at least that would have been more truthful.

heck I'm going to get one....just because i am fully familiar with Linux and windows...why not ad mac OS under my belt!!!!

doesn't adobe photo shop run on a mac by emulating windows .dll's

hehehehe
 
[citation][nom]pereira5375[/nom]I believe this is an advertisement. Whether the author knows that or not is debatable, but certainly the big whigs at Tom's HARDWARE know it.Apple seems to have a very good stealth advertising campaign. To expand their market they have developed a very good stealth campaign..[/citation]

Advertisement? What's that big red thing on the right hand side of my browser on the site? IT'S A DELL ADVERTISEMENT! Ahhhh, there's Dell advertisements everywhere!

It's not the decline in content at Toms Hardware, it's the decline in the age of the readers and posters on this forum.

I have to read arguments like "Macs are more expensive and there's no reason to buy them, if you do you're a dumbass." Why do most professionals in Audio and Video use them? To look cool and trendy? Maybe there's something you don't know. From the majority of posts, Mac hardware is supposed to be beneath Tom's Hardware? It's supposed to be a Windows biased hardware site?? Are you mad? Who are YOU? Show yourselves!
 
WOW!!! Surprising comments! I found the article to be very well written and astute. I'm actually shocked at the negatism of the comments; such as: "OS X and Apple products are for people who are too dumb to use a PC". I had no idea that the millions of Apple customers were all so stupid. Including me. I'm a dentist, father, husband, rock climber, and computer junky...I own 20 different computers, most of them used in my business. I have both Macs and Windows machines...one of which I built for gaming. I like my Windows boxes, but I LOVE my Macs! The PC's constantly annoy me, the Macs are a constant joy. Problems with the PC's outweigh the Macs 10 to 1. And when I have a problem, the time and effort involved to solve it is 10 to 1 less with the Macs. A few years back I networked a bunch of Macs together, knew nothing about networking. Figured it out in very little time. Two years later I try and accomplish the same thing with 5 new Dell PC's; good luck with that! I finally had to give up and hire an IT guy. Which I've had to do a few times since...never have had to with my Macs! I actually enjoy trying to figure stuff like this out, but after a number of hours trying I just have to give up because I have more important things to do! I guess this just makes me "dumb". A good analogy would be someone who buys two VCR's; turn one on, the clock is set, the controls make sense, you put in a tape and play it. The next one you have to study the manual for hours before that first tape plays. Are you "dumb", or does the first VCR have a superior design? I have a really hard time believing that those writing these trash comments on the Mac have actually used one of the latest models. The difference in elegance and joy are night and day. But hey, that's just my opinion...
 
I'd like to point out my personal gripes with the article, or at least
it appearing on tomshardware. It has nothing to do with the fact that it is a mac as if this article was written about any type of laptop or pc I would have issue with it.

While there is subjectiveness, speculation and personal opinion in most of their articles it is always focused for the end or in little spurts and never given more than at most a page. The editor draws a conclusion based on gathered hard facts but gives us enough data so that we can draw our own conclusions and make inferences and such not related to the article. Such as is it worth the price to upgrade my component that wasn't even mentioned in said article. Point being we obtain useful information that assists us in our hobby of computer hardware, which is supppose to be the focus of the site. The key here is reporting on objective factors that will provide us with relevant and objective data not opinions.

They have a full two articles and there is pretty much little in the way of concrete facts, outside specs and such, which I think we all could find on our own, and in my opinion there is a severe lack of useful information. A fair article would be benchmarking and timing a programs start up or ability to complete a task, games, encoding etc or if you want to judge how well layed out the OS is you can see how many clicks it takes to get common tasks done and use comparable hardware in such tasks so we can see the advantages and disadvantages of the OS and mac specific choice of components used. Do an objective analysis and give us useful information instead of one mans opinion and regurgitation of useless information and opinions. It feels more responsive is great and all but time it, give us hard numbers and prove to us it is in fact quicker and do it so we can informatively decide if it is a worthwhile upgrade or investment for ourselves. Give us numbers and data so that we can learn about the product in a way that I am assuming would be meaningful to the "upper echelon" that you claim, and rightfully so, is your audience. Provide us with more data than what can be found on the manufactures website. I don't think that is too much to ask from this site.

The author brings up some pretty ridiculous claims and points as well as information that is severly lacking or just useless. The biggest offender of this, as well as reason, is what the author said about it the number of security flaws not affecting the overall security of the system. You run windows xp with no service packs or updates and I'll run the most updated version for a month and we'll see how confident you feel in that assumption. By your logic there is no point in ever updating our OS as there are always known exploits regardless of how up to date Our OS is and one exploit is as good a hundred. I am blown away at the ignorance of that claim. If there is a known exploit on system A's browser that affects active X and there are three on system B's browser that affect flash, active X and java than with system A as long as I don't go onto a site with this the active x script I'm fine. But with system B I am at risk from in all likely hood considerally more websites which increases my likely hood of being attacked is what some people might call "less secure." Also, to be totally secrue in system A I only have to turn off active x where as system B I need to turn off flash, active x and java and thus restricting my browsing experience considerably in comparrison. What does telling us about the average tech saviness of a pc user have to do with us? You already claimed we aren't the average user so why bog us down with unsubstatiated claims that don't even apply to us. You claim to have been running a PC since 1985 or 23 years without a serious malware problem yet you get one, just one, and you completely ditch the platform because of it? We don't know your habits on your computer and you could desperately trying to get your hands on every bit of granny porn on the internet and deserved what you got as someone who is such a vetern of the platform should know better. Regardless, it seems odd that you would switch to Mac after an incredible amount of success with Pc's and admitedlty pay more because as you put it you were "to poor" for a Mac. The only conclusion I've come up with so far that makes sense is there is an agenda here of some sort as if you were so happy with PC's and too poor to afford the Mac it doesn't make sense that you would switch and the context in which you explained your decision it really seems suspicoius of said agenda. You buy something you can't afford even though there is a product you've been happy with for 23 years that considerably more cost effective? Makes perfect sense.

You insult people who do not have a higher degree by insinuating they are generally less smart. That is a pretty shameful claim to make. How smart someone is has nothing to do with a college degree. Though on average a person with a college degree in general may or may not be smarter, your using it as a metric in which to measure how smart someone may be is unfounded and frankly insulting. Being a college student in a major university I feel that their are some profoundly unsmart people here. That assumption you made was just rude. Than after four paragraphs you finally say something "smart" by saying the whole myth thing is unimportant. Than why devote four whole paragraphs to it? Why tell us about pwn2own if in one sentence your just going to say it is not important? You compare it to a dell to infer the apple tax but in five minutes I was able to go to best buys website and find this asus X83Vm-X1 which has a better cpu, more ram, a 9600 gpu for $1050 and while I'm not going to spend my time looking for the exact specs (I'm not getting paid here) I assume that if this much higher speced asus goes for that price you can find a lower speced laptop for less. Do you have some kind of aversion to research? You justify the apple tax by comparing it to a hacked kernel that you said you couldn't get working so you tried to emulate it? I'm unsure on that part as I assume it was emulating a hacked kernel but not a lot of info was given. This makes it seem like the hackintosh is an inaccurate comparison to me though again you don't give enough details, or I'm not knowledgable enough on the subject of hackintosh's, to figure it out.

I literally could go on but I have spent enough time writing this as is. For the past few months my main reason to visit this site has been the forums and it looks like that is only going to be more so the case in the future. Thank god for the other tech sites out there as this one is moving away from the enthusiast and towards the ignorant. This was an horrible article in it's own right but when paired with what this site has traditionally been it moves to horrendous and unacceptable. That and the author manages to insult people in the process. Though I do not wish the author jobless I hope he finds employment elsewhere and somewhere that I will not read or run into his work again.
 
Next time before rambling for 7 pages or so about how Macintosh and OS X are amazing, how about posting some technical specs or analysis of OS architecture. And instead of droning on how amazingly productive it was for you, consider the functionality of other users. For example, in the industrial world I can see UNIX or Windows being much better productivity choice with software like UGS NX, CATIA, MATLAB...etc being developed. Sure you can bootcamp up into a virtual environment, thus...defeating the purpose of productivity.
 
Oh, I forgot to mention, I read Tom's Hardware almost every day and love it! Sorry you guys are getting trashed for writing an article that I at least appreciated! You do have Mac users as readers! Keep up the great work!
 
Excellent review. Highly informative. And so credible that it just about convinced me to go to an Apple store and actually try a Mac. If I am going to have my own opinion about Apple and its Macs I guess it should be based on first hand experience -- as in, having tried a Mac, at least once, before I say something positive or negative. Who knows, after reading this article I might end up switching away from Windows (after all this many years as a diligent XP user) and maybe I'll find a Mac gives me more for my buck than a cheaper Dell.
 
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