Why A PC Diehard Bought A (Used) MacBook Pro (Op Ed)

[MU_Engineer]

I would have at least thought that a writer for a tech website would have at least thought to do something sane like install a Linux distribution on their current Windows laptop if they were fed up with Windows. That would be a very non-story in 2015 but it makes a lot more sense than going way off the deep end and buying a used (e.g. half-cooked/melted) Macintosh.

 

[Chaotica]

Obviously, you, the author, are not a die-hard...& don't really enjoy technology...you just want everything done for you...which probably explains this article...Apple gave you a laptop in exchange for you stamping your name on an article they wrote for you.

 

[Steve Simons]

Ugh. So you admittedly buy an inferior Windows RT tablet and the 'upgrade' to this? The Pro is about as refined as a brick. I have one for work. It's about 3x the weight of my surface pro 2 and not even close to as fast for the same or more price. Though there are elements of the Mac OS I like in an educational setting, it loses out in virtually every category everywhere else. I love it when my coworkers have to plug in after a couple hours of our meetings (I'm a technology coordinator), yet my surface will churn on for another 4-6 hours before I even bother to look at the battery.

And build quality? They're all built by the same factories in China with a different cover on them. That's a fallacy bent toward trying to get you to spend more.

 

[drapacioli]

So yeah, I use both mac and PC and I would never splurge on a mac just because. In my experience neither is more reliable than the other, I've had PCs last for years and Macs last for months, but I've also had Macs last for years and PCs for months. The quality may differ from pc manufacturer but it also differs by apple model. As long as you research and buy the good models for either OS, you're usually good either way.

 

[drapacioli]

Also, for the record if I bought an iPad thinking I'd get real computing out of it and then "upgraded" to a windows laptop, I'd look just as stupid as the author here does to most. It's not even a fair comparison, if you really want a computing experience you need a full OS, not RT/iOS.

 

[canadianvice]

I'm a PC person. Owning a mac is not even on the radar.
That said, I've come to firmly believe that if it's simple, effective computing you want, make the investment.

Your mac will work. It will last.
You don't get that consistently with PC, but Mac has a place.

I'd give it to my parents, I'd give it to my dog, I'd give it to the nice elderly couple down the street because it ultimately needs less work from me, and the simple fact of the matter is with the proliferation of web-based software and the few anchor applications people now have, it's not lacking in that department either.

Ultimately, I just wish there wasn't the issue of the switch, or I'd have thrown my parents on one long ago.

 

[ivyanev]

MacBook is beautiful, well made machine. Is it expensive - yes. Is it over priced - NO. Other brands have their beautiful well made machines but the price is comparable if not more expensive.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

reading this article made me not want to be a part of toms hardware.

Also, those comparing Mac to PC, are way off. PC's are made by many different manufacturers, some are cheap crap and some are well built. Take the Dell laptops we use at work, man they withstand some punishment and generally don't fail. Couldn't say the same for the amount of Acer and HP laptops i have repaired in the past.

 

[royalcrown]

You guys keep missing one important fact...macbooks may not compute any better than the same windows machine, but they are sturdier IMO. No having to replace cheap power jacks when the plastic snaps in side or cheap ass hinges is nice. Would you rather replace a power jack or just plug the magsafe cord back in ? Keyboards tend to be more solid and have less slop than their "PC" laptop counterparts as well.

 

[Reepca]

For typing, browsing, the occasional media playback, and student-level programming, all you really need is a ~$150 potato. Like mine, for example - a Latitude D630. It has 2GB RAM, a 120GB HDD, 900p screen, a core 2 duo, next to no graphics acceleration, and wifi. It's pretty much all you need for everyday stuff, it's dirt cheap, and there isn't much reason to go for anything more expensive that's less than ~$600-$700 aside from possibly a somewhat longer battery life or smoother video playback.

For everyday tasks, the only advantage (disputed) for the macbook would be the OS and battery life. Unless you're into peasantish things like style.

Unless you plan on playing *some* games on a laptop or running heavy-ish loads (content creation, compiling non-trivial programs, etc), I honestly can't see a reason to get a laptop above ~$200-$300. And even then, I would probably go big or go home (since... good luck upgrading a laptop's core components) on a laptop with a discrete mid-range card or one of AMD's stronger APUs.

 

[Solandri]

Macs are for dummies and for people interested in the skin deep.

Macs have certain advantages over most PCs. Especially if you're an artist, photographer, or videographer. Apple pre-calibrates the Macbook Pros for 100% sRGB color gamut. There are only 3 PC laptops I know of which do that, and they're priced the same as the MBPs.

The other group I think the MBPs work well for are programmers with a Unix/Linux background. OS X is just a GUI running on top of FreeBSD. So these people will feel right at home using a MBP as a development platform.

For people outside these groups, I think you're wasting money on features you don't need if you buy a MBP. But that doesn't diminish the advantages for people who need it.

So yeah, I use both mac and PC and I would never splurge on a mac just because. In my experience neither is more reliable than the other, I've had PCs last for years and Macs last for months, but I've also had Macs last for years and PCs for months. The quality may differ from pc manufacturer but it also differs by apple model. As long as you research and buy the good models for either OS, you're usually good either way.

Couple things most people don't realize. First, Apple doesn't make the Macbooks. For that matter, HP doesn't make HP laptops, Dell doesn't make Dell laptops, Sony doesn't make Sony laptops, etc. The vast majority of laptops are made by ODMs - original design manufacturers. They're like OEMs except they also design the laptop, not just manufacture it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laptop_brands_and_manufacturers#Original_design_manufacturers_.28ODMs.29

The Macbooks are made by Quanta. It turns out Quanta also makes most of HP's laptops. Which gives me no end of amusement when I hear someone praising the Macbooks while dissing HPs.

You guys keep missing one important fact...macbooks may not compute any better than the same windows machine, but they are sturdier IMO. No having to replace cheap power jacks when the plastic snaps in side or cheap ass hinges is nice. Would you rather replace a power jack or just plug the magsafe cord back in ? Keyboards tend to be more solid and have less slop than their "PC" laptop counterparts as well.

Second, most of the reports of Macbook reliability and durability are subjective - usually self selected polls. There are objective reliability ratings avaiable - repair rates from insurers and repair shops. If you look at those stats, the Macbooks are top tier, but hardly the best. They usually end up in the top 4, when from the price differential you'd expect them to be a solid #1.
http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf
http://www.rescuecom.com/pressreleases.aspx

(And please don't try to claim Macs aren't overpriced. One look at Apple's profit margin will tell you they're charging a lot more for their products relative to the cost of the parts they put into it. Apple's profit margin is typically 20%-25%. For comparison, Dell's margin is around 5%. That extra 15%-20% is how much extra you're paying buying an Apple product.)

As for the original article, I'm curious how good a 2011 PC laptop you could've bought for $600.

 

[Antennor]

First doing public relations work for Nvidia with their lies about gtx 970 and now you are writing advertisements for Apple and dressing them up as articles for educated technophiles. I am so disgusted with tomshardware. I've seen enough. I'll look for my hardware reviews elsewhere. Good bye.

 

[byza]

I agree that MBP's are over priced for their specs but try finding a laptop that is 2kg or less, 14-15', backlit keys and most importantly, a good trackpad. Bonus if you can find a program like BetterTouchTool. And i'm in the market for a new laptop so i'm seriously open to suggestions.

At the moment I run a 15' macbook and built a PC desktop for gaming. I bought a MSI GS60 2QE in Dec which is about the same price as the latest MBP 15' but sent it back because the trackpad was rubbish and had horrible screen bleed. Now i'm looking at getting the new Razer blade when it's released in Aus, but if that turns out to be lacking, I really can't find any other laptops that meet my requirements.

 

[Antennor]

First doing public relations work for Nvidia with their lies about gtx 970 and now you are writing advertisements for Apple and dressing them up as articles for educated technophiles. I am so disgusted with tomshardware. I've seen enough. I'll look for my hardware reviews elsewhere. Good bye.

 

[Pherule]

I once used an Apple laptop. For 2 minutes. I copied a plaintext (*.txt) file from the mac onto my flash drive, then I copied it to a Windows laptop. Guess what? The format was screwed up.

I'm sorry, but if Apple can't even get something as simple as a txt file right, I'm not interested.

 

[garry bash]

I too am a PC guy that bought a Mac Book Pro because I liked the form factor and hardware which were similarly priced to PC ultrabooks when I bought it. Specifically, good battery life, scarcity of wireless AC and Intel IRIS on PCs back then were enough to convince me. Although I love the solid feeling and physical design of the laptop (except for the lack of my beloved "delete" key), I don't feel that OSX is particularly good or bad. It's certainly a cut above Windows if you enjoy the standard set of Linux tools you'd use for web development you'd otherwise have to install separately. In terms of stability, it was the worst OS I have ever worked with. For a solid year, I experienced daily crashes which I reported diligently until Apple finally patched it. Frankly, I am not in love nor do I particularly hate OSX. Most often than not, I run a Windows VM to do C# development. My next purchase decision will be based on the same criteria which means I can land on a PC laptop or an Apple-made device, who knows...

 

[rezaraquib]

I can identify with the author, since I have done the same. I have run both mac and pc side by side for quite some time. I just find mac requiring less maintenance an generally out of the way. Only when I need demanding hardware that my mac can not handle I fire up my big bad pc, My experience has been that for productivity the simplicity of mac i just better for most folks. Specially the less technically inclined.

P.S. I bought my 79 year old father macbook air, because he was looking at mine with appreciation. He picked up using it in 2 days. Took him months to start using a pc comfortably about 12 years ago.

 

[microwerx1981]

It's interesting to read an article, then to read the comments that people post, and then to read the article again. It's ironic when people complain about the objectiveness of the author, but come across much less objective than the author!

My experience with a MacBook a few years ago was good. I've been using PCs for 20 years now. PCs are good. Windows is an excellent operating system and the amount of flexibility and variety of software for that platform is really something. For that point, I've been using Linux for at least 15 years and seen the progress it has made. It too is very good. You get a staggering amount of software free of charge with a substantial amount of capability. For some people, it's stupid to consider anything else, but for others it just isn't quite the same experience as using commercial software.

To simply bash the MacBook as too expensive and stupid is simply juvenile. I found that for a computer, the bare basics (both software and hardware) that come with it are done very well. I felt that I could just sit down and work. I never felt like I had to tweak this setting and that setting just to be productive. That's what I think that Apple has really tried to focus on with their product. And I found that when I needed to do a little bit more, I could just type Apple + Space, type 'term' and use a UNIX shell when I craved just the console experience.

And to the gentleman who claimed that Apple screwed up plaintext files, you need to understand that ever since the introduction of Unicode, text files are no longer just ASCII/Code Page 437 anymore. Use a better text editor.

 

[dwdesign]

I used a PC for years until I needed to upgrade from XP and buy a new machine to replace my 6 year old HP.
I was not impressed with Win 8 and decided to go Mac and I could not be happier.
I am now running Win 10 in Parallels along with Yosemite and it is the best of both worlds.

 

[Lnn]

Is this a joke? You know there are laptop pc's, right?

 

[Djibrille]

I too think Mac PC's, tablets and smartphones are overpriced for what they offer. However, I would like for the other manufacturers to sell a reasonably priced laptop with a decent screen (preferably IPS) because that is about the only thing that macs have that I would like. And for them to not force me into an Windows 8 OS (I hate it) since I really like Ubuntu on my laptop(it's perfect since laptops aren't really suited for serious gaming and that's the only thing that Linux arguably does worse than Windows).
Why do laptop manufacturers insist on putting those bad TN screens (with horrible view angles) on their products (besides the not so much higher prices) when IPS is so much better in that situation? If it can fit the price bracket of the tablets (where IPS is much more common) why doesn't it for laptops?
<just venting my frustration>

 

[Spiffster]

Haters be hatin. Someone bought a Mac, and they like it!? Oh the horror! Funny thing is nobody is forcing anyone to buy a mac, so if you dont like the premise of the article, move on. Why so much time on your hands anyway, waiting for windows to update?

 

[knowom]

$600's for a used Macbook hell you can buy brand new laptops for $300-$400's with windows and Chrome-books/Android Laptops are even cheaper than that. Seems crazy to me and you completely forget to mention Linux which for all intents and purposes is very secure and functional for every day usage there are many free open source programs to nearly any of the major popular programs such as photo shop or office plus Linux is above and beyond better for server related stuff.

 

[rwinches]

Oh so we should forget about the class action suit vs Apple re MBP 2011 video failure?

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/10/28/apple-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-2011-macbook-pro-graphics-failures

Now we know why it was 'only' $600.

 

[Guest]

Though this article does not give actual reasons as to why the writer purchased a Macbook Pro, its comment section quite amply showcases the personalities that frequent this site, which was perhaps the writer's intention?