It’s kinda nice and all, but seriously, so expensive. I’m sure the parts are all really high quality, but that I can source pretty much all upgrade options offered for half the price or less — for example, adding a meagre two 512MB sticks costs an obscene $AU499, whilst even the most ridiculous gamer-marketed RAM (you know the stuff, it’s supposedly ‘tuned’ in pairs, etc.) can be had for $135 for two 512MB sticks (OCZ brand) — is rather telling about their horrific markup.
And yeah, I’m sure it’s all great quality and magically never crashes and all the rest of that marketing crap. Good for you guys. I’m gonna wander back over the other side of the room here and install Windows on my equally-powerful system for, oh, about 40% of the cost. And don’t get me started on the absurd cost of your monitors. I can pick up an equivalent Dell 30″ for $600 less than your offering… and if I’m content with a meagre 23″ then I can get a 24″ Dell for $400 less! Even the 20″ screens are $500 apart. Seriously, it’s completely unjustifiable and no-one in their right mind should be prepared to spend that much more for a brand.
Sigh.
I need to open a buy-a-new-computer account and start putting money into it. Well not really… I just need a new harddrive and various software licenses I guess. I think I’d miss Ubuntu too much (maybe)… I don’t even know why, nearly everything I can do here I can do in Windows (haha — does anyone else notice the beautiful inversion of that argument? I actually think I’ve been running Linux for too many years now to have posted about it in any currently-stored online blog entries! Crazy) except anything requiring a terminal. That’s almost definitely my greatest frustration, but no matter. I need software that doesn’t run in Linux and is too intensive to work well in virtualized conditions. Best option for me would be to get a whole separate computer, but then… well, this thing can feel flaky after being on for two weeks. Windows I’d probably get that every two days or so, but at least I’d think to reboot. Here, I just kill processes and at worst logout. Kernel patches are the only thing taking this down, basically.
Moral of the story… something like don’t waste your money on a shiny new Mac.
Yeah… those Intel Macs are a farce… they run less stable than real PCs, and die-hard Mac fans are installing Windows on them…
errr… an Intel CPU system with Windows… PC anyone?
Meanwhile my notebook runs for about a month being assulted with Adobe Production Suite day in, day out, before it needs a restart…
hmmmm, I still really want a MacBookPro, they might be slightly (well heading uptowards $2000-$3000) more expensive than windows (read PC now :S ) laptops but I think the power you gain and the stability makes it worth it… I don´t know about mac desktops, I´m thinking a mac mini might be nice as a sort of windows media center esk (sp?) computer, but I would need my own house and a decent TV before that would become necessary!
So the moral of the story is this… Apple need to reduce prices… I can´t wait until i get to watch the steve jobs key note :P
Hang on… have you tried using a MacBook Pro?
I’ve used them probably 2 – 3 times a week since they were released, and I’ve consistently found that they’re considerably less stable than previous PowerBooks (G4/G5) and they perform slower. As an example, I can render out a 10 minute PAL DV project from FinalCut Pro on my G4 PB 1.33GHz to Windows Media (Flip4Mac) in about realtime (10 mins), whereas it’ll take 15 – 20 mins on a MacBook Pro.
I also notice the performance degredation and stability issues in the general operating system — Keynote takes longer to open projects, and doesn’t run the 3D transition effects fluidly for slides which contain heavy graphics or charts…
MacBooks are a step down in performance and stability — plus they run hotter, and they have an unproven track record.
they are obviously a new technology and as such I am not surprised that they are having a few problems at this early stage, having said that though I believe buying one at the beginning of 2007 (or maybe a month or two in) as I am planning many of the issues that you mentioned will have been resolved with new software updates and a better understanding of the technology.
Unfortunately the heat problem doesnt look to be an easily resolvable one, i hear its partly due to the siye constraints and the new power usage of the new hardware. I will just have to look around at the time when i plan to buy said laptop and decide then!
Next gen of Core Duo chips are apparently going to cut power consumption + heat by 30%. Lucky for you that’ll probably be around/before the time you’re planning to buy one…
prepare to laugh or be shocked people…
guess what my 21st present is? thats right, a macbookpro…yep, me who has been adamantly against mac since i knew they existed…apple made a smart move doing education discounts to major universities — get the students hooked and they cant look back…dont get me wrong, i still love my pcs and everything…but yes…its shiny :)
Ah, but is it BLACK and shiny or just shiny? The black ones are cooler IMO… but then they don’t have that classy whiteboard advantage I suppose. So… either way ;-) It’s cool if it’s free/cheap, but when I poked around even the academic pricing of Apple’s site PCs seem cheaper to me (obviously a different story if it’s given to you :P) And yeah, they’re shiny in a way few PCs will ever be, hehe.
MacBook Pro’s are silver
Ah, excuse me… I’m thinking MacBooks.