Laptop Advice

[Bobinovich]

Yeah, but what price does a low end Mac laptop start at? I genuinely don't have a clue - wouldn't even know where to start...

[matelot79]

Yeah, but what price does a low end Mac laptop start at? I genuinely don't have a clue - wouldn't even know where to start...

About £800, the one I was looking at came in around £1500 but can go a bit higher (the thought hasn't gone out of my head yet). You could build a kick ass PC for that.

[Bobinovich]

Yeah, I did think upwards of £700, and one of the original requests of this thread was "Oh, I dont want to spend to much on one either" which I reckon effectively rules out a Mac.

[blueivy]

Not the cheapest but have you thought of getting a Mac?

Possibly not everyones first choice but excellent built quality and an OS that knocks the stuffing out of anything that comes out of Redmond.

Very compatible with iTunes, you get more out of your iPod (oh yes you do, look at the iPod spec) and great for editing photos.

You also are not always in the position of having to upgrade to get the latest Microsoft OS to run on your laptop. Can you see a five year old PC running Vista without major upgrades?

A 5 year old computer won't run OSX either ... the race to increase the hardware specs each time a new OS is released happens on both sides. It's just been going on a lot longer on the Microsoft side because of the popularity of PC's over Mac's. That's just technology evolution for you.

[j4bberw0ck]

I have to admit to a serious case of lust for the new Mac Air notebook. I mean, at £1500 it's outrageously priced for what it is but oh, it's nice looking.

I think in practice I'd be thinking of £500-worth of common or garden notebook running XP, and £1000 to put towards a loooong trip round Europe

[blueivy]

I have to admit to a serious case of lust for the new Mac Air notebook. I mean, at £1500 it's outrageously priced for what it is but oh, it's nice looking.

I think in practice I'd be thinking of £500-worth of common or garden notebook running XP, and £1000 to put towards a loooong trip round Europe

The new MacBook Air confuses me slightly as to who it's actually aimed at. Ultra-portable notebooks are priced considerably more than a normal day-to-day laptop because obviously they are lighter, thinner and more portable. However this is usually the (enterprise) business market that goes for these for their travelling staff.

It's common knowledge that Apple have no interest in the enterprise market in the same way Microsoft does. Few enterprises have therefore taken an interest in Mac in the workplace (although that seems to be changing), Few small businesses will buy into it and I'd imagine even less home customers (with the exception of those Apple fans and those with money to burn).

So who is this laptop actually aimed at?

Apple are not stupid, so is this just to increase their brand or are they trying to make serious money in this?!?! I'm missing something.

[Yoda the flump]

A 5 year old computer won't run OSX either ... the race to increase the hardware specs each time a new OS is released happens on both sides. It's just been going on a lot longer on the Microsoft side because of the popularity of PC's over Mac's. That's just technology evolution for you.

Certainly will run OSX, as it has been released since March 2001, but would struggle to run Leopard, but the requirements to run Leopard are nowhere near as those for Vista.

As to the Mac Book Air, it certainly looks nice, has some groundbreaking features (such as a solid state HHD, transfer of DVDs, etc), but I do struggle to see where Apple are going with it. I certainly would not buy one at the moment.

[blueivy]

Certainly will run OSX, as it has been released since March 2001, but would struggle to run Leopard, but the requirements to run Leopard are nowhere near as those for Vista.

But that's what I thought we were comparing - the latest Mac OS with the latest Windows OS. Leopard is OSX Leopard just as Vista is Windows Vista.

The fact that Leopard doesn't need as much oomph to run is because of the underlying (Linux) architecture rather than Apple not wanting to push the envelope. Apple has a bigger interest in getting you to upgrade to new hardware than Microsoft does as it provides the OS and the hardware - Microsoft only provides the OS. Even though OSX will run on a PC now, I'll bet the majority of people running it do so on Mac's.

I have a PC here that is 5 years old (I think) that will run Vista Business just fine. Like your comparison with Leopard, it struggles, but it does it and I did use it for a while when Vista was initially released (then went back to XP again with a month or so).

[j4bberw0ck]

Apple are not stupid, so is this just to increase their brand or are they trying to make serious money in this?!?! I'm missing something.

There surely can't be a differential in the production price which matches the differential in the purchase price between the Air and a serious-but-sexy notebook pc. The screens on Apple pcs are wonderful for clarity and sharpness, but not that much better, and now Apple have gone for Intel architecture I'd guess, if I had to, that they've benefited from component price reductions.

I suspect they see sales coming from the marketing / PR / advertising / creative areas when incomes are high and the need to have the coolest gizmo is the strongest. And anyway, at £1500 a pop (cheapest price I've seen is £1150) there must be plenty of room for margin even on a smallish production run.

[matelot79]

I have to admit to a serious case of lust for the new Mac Air notebook. I mean, at £1500 it's outrageously priced for what it is but oh, it's nice looking.

I think in practice I'd be thinking of £500-worth of common or garden notebook running XP, and £1000 to put towards a loooong trip round Europe

Looks very good, put another £2000 and travel the world instead.

[blueivy]

Looks very good, put another £2000 and travel the world instead.

... and pick up a MacBook Air in a small out of the way country for next to nothing :-)

[s.mack]

i have a samsung 1 nd she cost 500 from tescos