Time Machine works with ANY drive, most OS X technology works with most peripherals. Those who say is a dummed down branch of BSD, please, point out an example of interoperability or compatibility issues.
The screen size, is irrelevant, the Laptop hunters commercial, they are looking for a 17" inch screen. And they end up with a cheap HP laptop with a 17" screen that has the same resolution of the 13.3" Macbook.
I am an electrical engineer. I need the computatonal power and a unix based os. I am sorry to tell you the macbook pro works for me. Why?, well. I don't have the time to be hunting for drivers for linux I did that at some point when I was a student, it was fun, but the linux experience is not a consistent one. The different software components don't work seamlessly at least not for me, it is the frankenstein of the OSs, is it useful and a great teaching tool, but is not your everyday OS, GTK is sloooow as hell, and there are tons of GUIs based on GTK (GNOME anyone?). Linux is a niche operating system, it fulfills other needs tho.
When the macbook or mbp was just launched some said the macbook pro was a very expensive machine. I went to www.dell.com right away and the price of the newly launched mbp vs a comparable dell pretty much a tie. I agree after a couple of months the magnitude of the "apple tax" really grows, but replacing the hardware of a machine like the mbp to keep the value is difficult. And lowering the price of the machine would make it vary hard to justify the kind of investment required to have this type of engineering and build.
These are some of the things I have come to appreciate:
-The mic, is often forgoten, but works amazingly well, you can have face to face skype call without headset.
-The free fall sensor has been a life saver for a while now.
-Backlit keyboard.
-Ambient light sensors.
-Great screen.
-aluminum body.
-battery life in the 6+ league with wifi and mid brightness, mid load..
-Glass screen(not easy to scratch, great for a screen freak like me).
-1" thin, and 5.5 pounds for the 17 incher.
And some things I hate:
-Windows drivers for bootcamp.
-New trackpad.
-5400 RPM base option!?
For those who say, MAC OS X is for dumb people, you are fooling yourself, there is absolutely nothing dumb in making something easy for others. It is the smart way to do things. To enable people to do the same things with less effort. that is one of the highest goals of good engineering and good design. I believe the design philosofy behind OS X is to make those things that people use 99% percent of the time very simple and accesible, the great thing is that the 1% left, is still available if you know where to look.
I do agree is PC hardware, but if you think that a person doesn't see that, well, may be they don't care, its not like they hide the specifications of their computers. People wants a hassle free computer experience, they don't want to meddle with the machine's guts, they don't feel the passion in hardware like most of us do, Apple offers them that, and if they as consumers don't demand their money's value, they would waste their money anyway from any vendor, not just apple, please don't use mindless consuming drones in examples, or John and Jane doe, it is a waste of time and beside the point. You must pick whatever suits your needs best.
MAC OS X, is not the most secure OS in the world, granted, but for the time being it is much more less likely to get infected in OS X, that in windows, you have to admit it is a fact and people pays for that. You must understand there is value in people's time, people pays for not hacing to spend/invest time in things they don't like to do and sees as a waste of their efforts. Uninstalling preloaded software, installing antivirus software, battling windows cancel or allow windows, spending fifteen minutes for vista to boot (I have seen this a lot). Having to carry an extra battery (or two, most vista laptops hardly break the 2 hour mark). And of course I know most of those things could be solved by anyone like you, but please understand, some people pay for not having to!. Others pay for the little details, others as I said before, are mindless consumers, but you can't fight those.
Oh, one last thing, for those that compare LAPTOPS to custom built DESKTOPs, you people are retards.
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