Did you switch from PC to Mac or vice versa?

[Mystic]

Yes, get past the nice exterior and the interior parts of a Mac are pretty much the same as a Windows computer. And my experience was that Macs often actually trail Windows computers in technology. For example, the Macs I had often had pretty slow CD/DVD burners, and as far as I know you can still forget about support for Blu-Ray on Macs.

Sometimes the cute exterior designs have even caused problems. I remember some Macs (I think laptops) that were overheating really bad. Where was the testing? And remember when the range of, I think an iPhone, was reduced when the owner held it in his/her hand?

Yes, Macs have nice exterior designs. But sometimes there are real problems with those designs.

In addition, a Windows computer can be upgraded more easily. Try to upgrade a Mac beyond a few simple things and you immediately run into warranty issues.

I like Mac OS X. In some ways it is better than Windows. But a Windows computer is just much cheaper. I personally like a custom built Windows computer so that I can get what I want and upgrade when I feel like it. Some of the components on my current computer have been in three different cases. The case I have right now is a good quality case and I will merely upgrade whatever components need to be upgraded.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
For $1000 Macbook white model, you don't even get and Intel WLAN NIC.


Actually the Broadcom NIC is better quality than the Intel WLAN NIC.

More about quality: Apple do prioritize on silence and low heat, and the HD I got from my mac tends to run slower than the same HD I install off the shelf. It seems like they asked the OEM to provide drives with a slower seek profile and reorder read/write sequence to prioritize silence rather than performance.

That's one of the reason they layout the PCB in a non industrial standard way so that it cools better with less air circulation, but you cannot upgrade it as easily for the same reason.

Example: I tried to add a PATA drive to my Mac Pro, but can't, because the drives are mounted on a rail that directly clip onto the motherboard. I also tried mounting a 2.5" SSD in the drive and guess what, no dice, because it is 3.5" rail only. They also assume that every one will only attach 3.5" drive from the bottom instead of the side, and my SSD doesn't have a 2.5-3.5" adapter that has bottom mount holes.

So I end up having to "hang" a 2.5" with one screw and rely on the SATA connector from the motherboard to clip it onto the 3.5" rail, praying that it won't fall down.

Mac is designed to be bought and use till it retire. If you like to tinker or upgrade hardware, it is not for you.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
For $1000 Macbook white model, you don't even get and Intel WLAN NIC.


Actually the Broadcom NIC is better quality than the Intel WLAN NIC.


In my experiences dealing with Cisco WLANs, the Intel has been more problem free than the Broadcom products. For home use, I can't tell a difference as they seem about the same on the consumer-grade, non high-end portion of the spectrum.

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
Yes, get past the nice exterior and the interior parts of a Mac are pretty much the same as a Windows computer. And my experience was that Macs often actually trail Windows computers in technology. For example, the Macs I had often had pretty slow CD/DVD burners, and as far as I know you can still forget about support for Blu-Ray on Macs.

Sometimes the cute exterior designs have even caused problems. I remember some Macs (I think laptops) that were overheating really bad. Where was the testing? And remember when the range of, I think an iPhone, was reduced when the owner held it in his/her hand?

The overheating was a serious issue during some particular model years (IIRC 2007ish). The issue was shoddy assembly and design of the heat pipe and other thermal dissipation components. The only fix was to void your warranty and reassemble the machine using a better thermal paste and less of it since during assembly it appeared as if a kindergartener had been let loose with a tube of thermal grease on the insides of the machines and a thicker thermal pad that made better contact with the GPU. I fixed a couple of those for friends and I've never seen such a complicated mess to take apart a laptop.

But the problem persists and is related to how Apple handles thermal management.

http://blog.ziggytek.com/2010/01/06/why-your-macbook-macbook-pro-is-overheating/

The solution is installing a program called smcFanControl which can override Apples default thermal profiles for fan speed and temp. Its pretty sad that to control for design deficiencies you have to install such a program.

The Mac fanboys retort on the various Mac forums are "well if it isn't shutting down due to thermal overload, no big deal" even if its getting hot enough to toast some bread.

I've never had any of my Windows based notebooks shut down from thermal overload, but a quick search reveals it to be a common problem on Macs.

I've encoded video using Ulead Video Studio on several different latops. The CPU was pegged at 100% and the fans were running wide open (sounded like a plane ready for takeoff) and have never run into an thermal overload and shutdown even under these scenarios and the CPU, GPU, and HDD temps all stayed within less than 3/4 of the max thermal design load.

The only time I've ever had to use a fan speed control program was when the fan was dying on my old Inspiron 6000. I was waiting for a replacement so I used a utility to crank up the fan speed to max (which was nowhere near what the real max should have been since the fan was near death) and another to throttle the CPU down to as low as it would go (600Mhz instead of 1.6GHz).

That machine circa 2005 is still alive and kicking (typing this on it right now). Its had a new fan and new (and faster) HDD after the original died.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
For $1000 Macbook white model, you don't even get and Intel WLAN NIC.


Actually the Broadcom NIC is better quality than the Intel WLAN NIC.


In my experiences dealing with Cisco WLANs, the Intel has been more problem free than the Broadcom products. For home use, I can't tell a difference as they seem about the same on the consumer-grade, non high-end portion of the spectrum.


My experience mirrors this. The Intel WiFi cards are the most problem-free cards on the market.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: buickman50401

I've never had any of my Windows based notebooks shut down from thermal overload, but a quick search reveals it to be a common problem on Macs.


Actually it is a common problem on windows as well. Nvidia has some chipset problem that causes Dell to extend warranty and install similar cooling program that keeps the fan on longer. So it is an industrial wide component problem and not a Mac only problem.

 

[greenaccord02]

For my part, I'd rather have Broadcom chips in my NICs any day. Much better performance and compatibility in my experience.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: buickman50401

I've never had any of my Windows based notebooks shut down from thermal overload, but a quick search reveals it to be a common problem on Macs.


Actually it is a common problem on windows as well. Nvidia has some chipset problem that causes Dell to extend warranty and install similar cooling program that keeps the fan on longer. So it is an industrial wide component problem and not a Mac only problem.


This was a defective chipset issue (the NVidia one) not a fault of the thermal solution supplied by DELL. Running the fan higher to keep it cooler staved off failure for a longer period of time, but there have been plenty of them failing even after the BIOS update that ramps up the fan speed has been applied.

I did a motherboard in one of those systems last year.

In contrast, the Apple issue is not the fault of the chipset (Intel on any of the newer ones) but rather that of the thermal solution (software/hardware) provided by Apple.

I still think the MacBook Pro's look awesome however.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: greenaccord02
For my part, I'd rather have Broadcom chips in my NICs any day. Much better performance and compatibility in my experience.


What is the scope of your experience? Just curious. I've always had fantastic luck with the Intel cards. Decent luck with the broadcom ones. Atheros on the other hand......

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Overk1ll is correct, it's an nVidia issue.

It affected HP/Compaq, Dell & Apple laptops:
http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/pdfs/NVF_NOT.pdf

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Atheros on the other hand......


...doesn't even support WPA2 in my experience...

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: brianl703
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Atheros on the other hand......


...doesn't even support WPA2 in my experience...


They do if you get the most recent drivers from the Czech site, but even then they are hardly dependable.

 

[brianl703]

The drivers I found, which were supposedly the most recent ones, broke it so bad it wouldn't connect to any WPA site.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: brianl703
The drivers I found, which were supposedly the most recent ones, broke it so bad it wouldn't connect to any WPA site.


http://www.atheros.cz/

There's the Czech site.

 

[asiancivicmaniac]

I just got a refurb 13" Macbook Pro (2010 model) a few months back after using Windows since I was 10 in 98 and here are my opinions.

At first I really liked it, but I think the novelty has worn off and now it's just like any other computer. Two of my fanboy friends (one is a CS major) and online reviews keep tooting about how stable and fast Macs (OSX) are. For me this has been the most frustrating computer experience I've had to date (besides my cousin's cheapo Dell desktop). The Flash plug-in keeps crashing on it no matter which browser I use (although Chrome has given me the best usability so far. The browser doesn't crash with the plug-in like Safari and FF). If i have several programs running it runs slow just like a regular (as opposed to gamer) Windows machine would. And if it gets unhappy, it just completely freaks out and shows a black window in several languages telling me to turn it off with the power button. At least in Windows I can kill the programs in task manager. I am fairly proficient with technology compared to the masses (not the computer people here). I've formatted the hard drive and reinstalled OSX and still the same results. Now I just close programs more often even though I'll just open them up later. Current up time is 4 days 11hrs 36 min.

Design wise, I think Apple is hard to beat. It's like a stylish accessory. The only other laptop that caught my eye with it's design when I was looking was a Samsung with an aluminum body, but it's too easily mistaken as a MBP knock-off. I normally don't like uber plain looking stuff, but when it comes to computers, there are many that just look tacky.

Hardware wise, it is dated. A 2.4 ghz C2D in 2010? (not to mention they left it this way until 2011) A 1280x800 resolution screen?

The speakers suck! They don't belong on a $1k laptop. The ones on my sister's 4 year old crummy HP sound better. The pretty glass over the screen is a pain in brightly lit environments. I'm constantly trying to find an angle that doesn't glare.

Now that I'm done dissing it, I'll talk about the stuff that I do like. The metal casing makes it feel solid, although the internals are like any other computer. The battery lasts almost 7 hours under normal use with non-cpu intensive programs running. I often see people on campus search for power outlets. I have yet have to do that if I go to school with a fully charged battery. I fell asleep while typing this up and something kept it from sleeping, and that was 8 hours ago and it's still running. Not many other Windows based laptops can do that, and it has a chip in the battery so it doesn't overcharge the battery.

It has a good set of software included. Although, I think iPhoto is a little basic to be of much use for editing pictures. Haven't really gotten a chance to try garage band yet, but it looks the most fun.

When it doesn't crash on me, I have little complaints about it. Wakes up from sleep pretty quickly. The lighted keyboard is awesome. My mom commented on how pretty it is, lol. And it didn't come loaded with bloatware like most Windows pcs. If I'm paying money for something, I shouldn't have to spend time removing advertisement that shouldn't be there in the first place. The magsafe power plug is also a good idea.

The touch pad is amazing. It works flawlessly and I don't know how I can go back to some of the poorly designed ones.It scrolls smoothly, the multi-touch is useful, and the it has a large area for being on a smaller laptop. I will say it again, this thing looks pretty.

If I had to choose again, I think I might have went with the Asus I was looking at after using a Mac for some time.

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: asiancivicmaniac
For me this has been the most frustrating computer experience I've had to date (besides my cousin's cheapo Dell desktop). The Flash plug-in keeps crashing on it no matter which browser I use (although Chrome has given me the best usability so far. The browser doesn't crash with the plug-in like Safari and FF). If i have several programs running it runs slow just like a regular (as opposed to gamer) Windows machine would. And if it gets unhappy, it just completely freaks out and shows a black window in several languages telling me to turn it off with the power button. At least in Windows I can kill the programs in task manager. I am fairly proficient with technology compared to the masses (not the computer people here). I've formatted the hard drive and reinstalled OSX and still the same results. Now I just close programs more often even though I'll just open them up later. Current up time is 4 days 11hrs 36 min.

What I've highlighted in bold is what a kernel panic in OS X - kind of like the Windows BSOD except less useful since it doesn't give you any kind of error code as to what may have happened. At least in Windows it'll throw up a string of characters you can look up later to try to track down the problem. Of course last BSOD I experienced was back in the XP pre-service pack 1, 2, or 3 days.

It could be a hardware issue (got any warranty left on it?)

As for the sluggishness you've mentioned. Its something that I've run into many of times on the Macs I'm forced to use (educational environment). They simply don't seem to be nearly as good at multitasking as Windows. Gotta love that darling little swirling beachball.

 

[asiancivicmaniac]

Originally Posted By: buickman50401
Originally Posted By: asiancivicmaniac
For me this has been the most frustrating computer experience I've had to date (besides my cousin's cheapo Dell desktop). The Flash plug-in keeps crashing on it no matter which browser I use (although Chrome has given me the best usability so far. The browser doesn't crash with the plug-in like Safari and FF). If i have several programs running it runs slow just like a regular (as opposed to gamer) Windows machine would. And if it gets unhappy, it just completely freaks out and shows a black window in several languages telling me to turn it off with the power button. At least in Windows I can kill the programs in task manager. I am fairly proficient with technology compared to the masses (not the computer people here). I've formatted the hard drive and reinstalled OSX and still the same results. Now I just close programs more often even though I'll just open them up later. Current up time is 4 days 11hrs 36 min.

What I've highlighted in bold is what a kernel panic in OS X - kind of like the Windows BSOD except less useful since it doesn't give you any kind of error code as to what may have happened. At least in Windows it'll throw up a string of characters you can look up later to try to track down the problem. Of course last BSOD I experienced was back in the XP pre-service pack 1, 2, or 3 days.

It could be a hardware issue (got any warranty left on it?)

As for the sluggishness you've mentioned. Its something that I've run into many of times on the Macs I'm forced to use (educational environment). They simply don't seem to be nearly as good at multitasking as Windows. Gotta love that darling little swirling beachball.


Since you seem like a computer expert and mentioned it being hardware, I called customer support and will be bringing it to an Apple Store tomorrow. One thing I noticed is how quickly the tech figured out what was wrong just by me telling him that I get the black screen with the languages, and I've reformatted the hd. Less than five minutes. My sister has called into HP support (LOL, right) several times and she's often gotten angry by the time she was finished. And my sister isn't a mean person.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted By: asiancivicmaniac
The Flash plug-in keeps crashing on it no matter which browser I use (although Chrome has given me the best usability so far. The browser doesn't crash with the plug-in like Safari and FF).


I am pretty sure that Google's Chrome (as opposed to Chromium) does *not use your Flash plug-in*. It comes bundled with it's own.

 

[asiancivicmaniac]

Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: asiancivicmaniac
The Flash plug-in keeps crashing on it no matter which browser I use (although Chrome has given me the best usability so far. The browser doesn't crash with the plug-in like Safari and FF).


I am pretty sure that Google's Chrome (as opposed to Chromium) does *not use your Flash plug-in*. It comes bundled with it's own.


Which ever plug-in it uses, it still crashes. It just handles it better and doesn't close the browser with it. And Chrome seems quicker than either Safari or FF.

 

[greenaccord02]

Just install windows or linux on it. That way you get stylish, solid (if somewhat slow) hardware with better software.