fatcat Posted October 21, 2015 Report Share Posted October 21, 2015 ok, I'm (99% sure) about to jump ship into a Macbook Pro, only ever really used a 'Mackintosh' when they first appeared in 1989 or so, I have a long way to go. My Windows 7 (soon to be 10) is slow, unreliable and, well - crap. We have iphones, Ipads and Apple TV, so why not get everything under one roof, hence the Macbook Pro. SSD on a Windows laptop is quicker, does this apply to Macbooks as well, some have SSD and some don't. Will probably go for a 13.3 and get a middle of the road specification. On fleabay I notice that some come with Windows already loaded, what is the a benefit ? Apparently its an aftermarket mod. Luckily we have a God daughter with a Unidays discount code, so it should soften the blow a little. The Macbook Air looks too thin and abit 'flimsy' so not sure its for us. What is the general opinion on here with usage v specification, mine will mostly be used for big spreadsheets, business accounts, household accounts and photographic storage/manipulation and a few short videos (well hardly any really) and old historical V8 videos. Quite minimal in todays world I would imagine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy_Bangle Posted October 21, 2015 Report Share Posted October 21, 2015 Defo get an SSD model with as much RAM as you can afford. I'd avoid buying a used model with Windows preloaded from fleabay, without knowing which adverts/sellers the windows version will no doubt be 'illegal' and could be full of malware. It's an easy enough task to install windows in OSX Boot Camp or as a vm using Parallels if you want to spend more cash. http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/browse/campaigns/education_pricing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewNiceMrMe Posted October 21, 2015 Report Share Posted October 21, 2015 (edited) The Air is most definitely not flimsy. Far from it. However, the £999 Macbook Pro Retina is superb value for money. MrsMe has just bought one and it absolutely flies. I agree with Andy, avoid fleabay at all costs. Oh, and you should take out the additional AppleCare warranty at £150. I have just had an SSD go bang on a 2 year old Macbook Pro (I replaced it with a Transcend JetDrive SSD because they're actually faster than the SSD that was in my Mac to begin with - but it is 2 years old after all). That said, they're superb machines that I'd recommend to anyone. The middle-of-the-road spec you have mentioned is probably a good choice, but don't underestimate how good that £999 option is. For everything you have described it would do it with little effort. Buy a case for it, an impact protection one. The aluminium bodies scratch (although they're very tough) and there are some lovely cases out there for them. Edited October 21, 2015 by NewNiceMrMe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatcat Posted October 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2015 Good news on what I thought was the flimsy one, off down to the Westfield Apple shop then at lunchtime for a fiddle about with the Air and try to compare against my original choice of the Pro. I should worry really as the thing will probably never leave the house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewNiceMrMe Posted October 21, 2015 Report Share Posted October 21, 2015 Good news on what I thought was the flimsy one, off down to the Westfield Apple shop then at lunchtime for a fiddle about with the Air and try to compare against my original choice of the Pro. I should worry really as the thing will probably never leave the house. The new Air is a stunning machine in both performance and looks. It is ultra-thin but the aluminium case is very strong. The gold model is something else. It looks incredible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatcat Posted October 21, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2015 Cheers all, I do love window shopping (excuse the pun). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riz Posted October 21, 2015 Report Share Posted October 21, 2015 I moved to a MacBook Pro 15" at the end of 2010 and have no regrets, I came from a Sony Vaio bricktop running Windows XP Pro SP3. If you can spend a little more now bumping up the spec it may give you a longer life-span, just in case your needs increase at a later date. For example if you upgraded to a higher megapixel camera this would have a knock on affect on storage/ram and cpu utilization. I am need of a upgrade soon as Lightroom seems to take longer to load up my 24mp RAW files vs 12mp ones etc. You wont regret going all Apple It just works with the entire Apple EcoSystem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daz Posted October 21, 2015 Report Share Posted October 21, 2015 Having had an Air and now a Pro, they are both excellent machines, as has been said go for as much RAM as you can and definitely an SSD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted October 24, 2015 Report Share Posted October 24, 2015 As a staunch windows users I have a Pro and it is a stunning piece of hardware. As A_B says you can run win via Parallels. Even I can find less and less need to do this now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted October 24, 2015 Report Share Posted October 24, 2015 The missus was bought an Air by me for Xmas last year and it is a lovely bit of kit. Far from flimsy. Each time I look at it I want a new MBP but I can't really justify it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted October 24, 2015 Report Share Posted October 24, 2015 I actually ordered 2 for work to set up department teaching files on. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bells0 Posted October 26, 2015 Report Share Posted October 26, 2015 Personally love my Surface Pro3 and would love a play with the new Surface Book and Pro 4, but have no gadget £'s!! Having been an Apple user for years [phones, desktop, mbpro, ipads] - i've totally lost interest in them. Don't get me wrong, good products. Better marketing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted October 26, 2015 Report Share Posted October 26, 2015 Can't stand my SP3, think it's an utter piece of tripe compromised in so many different ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewNiceMrMe Posted October 26, 2015 Report Share Posted October 26, 2015 Personally love my Surface Pro3 and would love a play with the new Surface Book and Pro 4, but have no gadget £'s!! Having been an Apple user for years [phones, desktop, mbpro, ipads] - i've totally lost interest in them. Don't get me wrong, good products. Better marketing. I am really surprised that you'd prefer a Surface Pro to a Macbook Pro. I don't even see them as being in the same league, and god knows I've tried everything and keep doing so. I would jump ship at the drop of a hat if something is better, but I still struggle to view the SP's as being anything other than inferior in almost every respect. I like my Lumia 930 as a back up phone, it is very good indeed, but again I could never swap it for my iPhone 6. As for my iPad Air - truly magnificent piece of engineering and the Air 2 that MrsMe has is even better. I'd be genuinely interested to hear in what way you've lost interest and think the marketing is better than Apple products. I say that as someone who has recently had to buy a new SSD for a Macbook Pro Retina too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted October 26, 2015 Report Share Posted October 26, 2015 I get most of my kit for free, whether Dell, Lenovo etc. And yet here I am using all Apple gear that I have to pay for myself. The idea that this is just because of marketing is a bit funny (if not ever so slightly condescending and insulting ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bells0 Posted October 26, 2015 Report Share Posted October 26, 2015 (edited) Didn't mean to insult Mac, your livelyhood after all. Just tire of them making out everything is revolutionary, when it clearly isn't. And consumers gobble it up. I did say they were good products! I had an SSD Macbook Pro, and sold it for the SP3. Don't miss it one bit. Having a latptop that seems just as quick, and be used as a tablet and a digital easel is genius. Everybody has an opinon, and mine is based on casual use - not for business like you chaps. Mac - be insterested to know what you think of the Surface Book when you get your hands on one. Don't seem to be advertised on the UK site yet. Watching the MS keynote, they seemed to be trying to out Apple Apple with their performance oneupmanships!! Edited October 26, 2015 by bells0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted October 26, 2015 Report Share Posted October 26, 2015 Oh I was being a bit tongue in cheek with the insulting bit. Agree on the 'revolutionary' bit, it's a bit tedious. Saying that Microsoft does exactly the same thing - even with the Surfacer Book launch. Comparing it to a different and older model in the Macbook world for example is a bit disingenuous. Skylake units will be out in the MBP soon, and then the performance gap won't exist. Also, banging on about PCIe SSD - wow, MBP's have had those for yonks. I've zero interest in the SP4, but will no doubt end up with one. Now, the Book thing I was curious about. It looked nice...but here's the thing, more and more details are leaking out and it's not looking so cool. Limited battery life when in tablet mode for example. Have a read of this for example. I'll keep an open mind about them until I get my hands on them. I'm not anti-windows either by the way - my Macbook for example *only* runs Win 10, I don't bother with OSX on it. My iMac and rMBP pretty much have Win10 running all the time too, albeit virtualised. I've just never found another hardware laptop that even comes close in terms of usage experience. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 (edited) I feel I can relate to this significantly. Now having Apple products in my possession has my view changed? Yes - not entirely but significantly. I did a lot of homework for a laptop and funnily enough even if I just wanted to run Windows as Mac says above the MBP was the best option - albeit somewhat pricey. It is superb. Not immaculate as it does still pause when I have no idea why but it is glorious to use and windows is very zippy in it. The iPad air. I'm undecided. Technically great, but I don't like the form factor and it is a little slow for my tastes - but user experience is fantastic. It is overpriced. Ipod touch? Fantastic. So in summary - yes they are expensive but I do feel you get some value for the premium as they products and user experience are very very good Edited October 27, 2015 by Waylander Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewNiceMrMe Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 Not immaculate as it does still pause when I have no idea why I've had 3 x MBP's and never had that happen to me. It sounds to me as though you have a process running that is interfering with OSX or that there is something software orientated going a little haywire. On the iPad Air, I'm very surprised you find it slow! I have never once thought that. If I use MrsMe's Air 2 then yes it might seem 'slower' - because it is. But slow? No, I've never thought that. When you say the 'form factor', what is it that you don't like about it? I ask all of this, as I did of bells0, because I am genuinely interested and tend to find that most feelings around what is good, what is bad, what is fast and what is slow are down to personal use variances. My issues with Apple still exist though. I object to being told I need to pay to replace an SSD on a 2 year old machine costing £2,200. I also don't like the fact I had the logic board replaced under warranty - it shouldn't fail on a premium product. But they've got me in a corner. I say that because it doesn't matter what I look at, I still can't find a product that is as good, as reliable (ironically) and has the interface to dream of. It does everything, seamlessly. I hate them for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 The mbp issues are all safari related - it sometimes takes a while to load up a page then when I refresh it its there. Air - too big (for me the mini is the ideal tablet size) and for "slow" it is about as responsive as my much much cheaper windows Asus tablet was. I expect it to be slightly snappier. I have played with my sister's new mini4 and that os what I would expect from a premium tablet. Its not "slow", it's just not "fast" (see plex thread for the analogy). For the price I would expect better is all I mean. I would be less critical of the responsiveness from (say) a Galaxy Mini or something not as expensive although it is streets ahead of my earlier android tablet. I prefer using the hudl to the Air I confess. Will try to get work to get me a mini3 perhaps (no chance) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewNiceMrMe Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 I never use Safari. Use FF or Chrome. Interesting on the responsiveness too. I'm sat here with my Air streaming to Apple TV, by my side, as I work on my MBP.I've just paused the show (Blindspot), looked at a message, gone back to the show and then looked at a saved FTP connection I have on it. Instantaneous. You sure you don't just kill things? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 My guess is you have some ad-blocker or the like installed. Safari has a root element to it so can pause the whole damm system when it gets its knickers wrapped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 No, nothing. I was thinking about it (ad blockers) but it's a vanilla safari. It has also screwed itself up with ichain or whatever it's called meaning I can't use it for a work site which requires rsa log in anymore so that was my moment to ditch it for Firefox. I really really want to like chrome but I'm too used to bookmarks as a sidebar to take to it right now. As to the iPad Air. Not sure I can any more to that - it's a subjective expectations thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 (edited) Safari has a root element to it so can pause the whole damm system when it gets its knickers wrapped.Ahah. That would explain why the machine felt a littl sluggish until safari woke up again Edited October 27, 2015 by Waylander Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewNiceMrMe Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 I really really want to like chrome but I'm too used to bookmarks as a sidebar to take to it right now. Problem solved. Tidy Sidebar. It is a Chrome add-in. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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