The Battle - Mac vs. PC - A Challenge

[L.E.D]

I want a MBP simply for portable power and the quality of the machine, but for gaming everyone knows that you need a PC,

[Fetzie]

 

Macbook 3

 

$2199.00

Macbook Pro Retina 15"

2880x1800 sRGB IPS Display

2.4Ghz i7 Quad-Core

8GB RAM

256SSD

NVIDIA GT650m

2.02 kg

max 1.8cm in height

Aluminum Unibody

Ability to connect two screens up to 2560x1600

7h battery

 

 

There is no way in hell a 650m can drive a 2880*1800 screen at acceptable frame-rates in games. Heck, an HD 7970 or GTX 780 is going to have trouble driving that resolution.

[JaeDee884]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/27342-apple-osx-vs-the-rest-windows/

Wind I believe this thread is more about the hardware then the software.

also to give an idea on peoples perceptions of Apple feel free to check out my Poll I made (please don't post in there it's been extinct for to long and that'd be necroing)

I'd buy one if they were cheaper. but as their not my Laptop money will go to another company. 

[Lyons]

There is no way in hell a 650m can drive a 2880*1800 screen at acceptable frame-rates in games. Heck, an HD 7970 or GTX 780 is going to have trouble driving that resolution.

 

Good thing Mac's aren't really designed with gaming in mind, I don't know why you'd be making that point. Who ever buys a Macbook and wants to or expects to game on it? These are pointless comparisons.

 

This thread is good because it needs to be demonstrated to PC elitists and fanboys that Macbook ARE priced fairly because of the feature set that comes with them. I've said it in countless threads before; you can harp on about price:performance until you are blue in the face, but products aren't priced or valued by their price:performance offering. It's the hardware around the CPU, GPU, RAM, etc. Got a cheap Acer with an i5 and 4gb RAM that cost $600 or a 780m in your gaming laptop that cost $1200? Guess what - they have a crap screen, a crap trackpad, crap build quality, it's thick, heavy, and has terrible battery life. The same goes for just about any Windows laptop, they are basically incomplete products. There are always compromises made with Windows based laptops, usually very significant ones, and there is a very limited amount of exceptions, and these exceptions are always just as expensive as their Macbook counterparts.

 

If anything, you should all be thankful, because Apple is literally leading the laptop market as a whole at the moment, and in fact has for a very long time. Do you think great laptops like the Lenovo X1 carbon, Samsung ATIV, Razer Blade or Asus Zenbook would exist as they do today if not for Apple? If you ask me, no, definitely not for a long time. Good build quality, high res 16:10 screens, fantastic trackpads and keyboards and great battery life are all the things that Windows based competitors are striving for, and when you consider ALL of these factors, you'll struggle to find a laptop that is truly better value that an rMBP or MBA.

 

The case of desktops and phones are a completely different conversation, and considering Mac desktops (namely the Mac Pro) are marketed to and designed for OSX based content production in a professional environment, the comparison between them and custom built Windows desktop is moot. iMacs? Great value if you ask me, and EASILY the only good AIO solution desktop on the market. And the Mac Mini? also great value for the form factor. You guys need to stop only considering price to performance, it's entirely irrelevant when doing real world comparisons.

[Glenwing]

Some Macs are priced fairly, some are not.  If you cherry pick the ones with the best value or a certain rare feature it will be difficult to find a PC that can match it, sure; but that shouldn't be used as a blanket statement to say that Macs are not overpriced.  Some Macs have better value than others.  But you can't really limit yourself to only picking from the better value ones; Apple doesn't really make redundant products.  Depending on what you are looking for, there may be an Apple solution that satisfies it, and if it is one of the ones that is not good value, too bad

 

When I bought my laptop, I was looking at a few choices, but I will tell you what it came down to:

 

Lenovo Y480: $800

 

i7-3630QM

GT 650M

8GB DDR3 1600

1TB 5400RPM HDD

14" 1366x768 Glossy TN

 

Apple Macbook Pro 15": $1800

 

i7-3615QM

GT 650M

4GB DDR3 1600

1TB 5400RPM HDD

15" 1440x900 Glossy IPS

 

So... I would say the Macbook Pro is better certainly.  But the aluminum case and better screen is not worth $1000 extra, which is more than an entire second Lenovo laptop with better specs otherwise.  Of course, I use a desktop monitor most of the time (PA248Q didn't even put a dent in the $1K I saved lol, with that and a 256GB SSD I will still happily pocket the extra $500) and I knew I would do this either way, so the screen was not an important point for me.  It will differ from person to person, what advantages Macs have and how much those advantages are worth.  For some people the heavy aluminum case might not be an advantage, for others it might.  I don't think it is good to say Apple products are overpriced as a blanket statement, as it will differ from person to person, what they are looking for, and how much each trait of the laptop is worth to them.  I will say in most cases I find Macs to be asking for a lot even considering the advantages they offer, but sometimes I recommend them.

[Lukiose]

So after reading up on over 8 pages worth of info, this seems to be the trend ---

 

1) Macbooks have terrible hardware in relation to similarly priced counterparts

2) However, Macbooks have an excellent(? Subjective) screen which few laptops have on the market

3) Macbooks have a great battery life(Subjective, due to weaker hardware)

4) Macbooks are a tad lighter than rival laptops. (Subjective as power users won't mind the extra 400g)

5) Macbooks possesses an excellent trackpad and keyboard, great for the non-power user that doesn't use a mouse and TKL with their lappy.

6) Depending on country of origin where consumer laptops & Macbooks are priced differently, people have varying degrees of opinions on the subject.

 

So, at the end of the day, purchasing a Macbook highly depends on whether you feel that paying the premium is worth the screen, trackpad, keyboard and the form factor - this varies from person to person, in the case for me i don't use a laptop without a mouse and a mechanical TKL, hence i do not place enough weight towards the trackpad and keyboard to consider the Macbook a worthy purchase. For others that might not be the case, so is it fair to say that for power users, Macbooks are out of the question. But for casual 'just give me some damn thing to work with' users, the Macbook is a great alternative - provided that they can pay the price?

[AndrewReaganM]

 

vs. the Macbook 3. 

 

Retina display is overrated, GT650M is the only real difference. I can do a similar configuration on the W series (Quadro graphics) for less than the $2200 price tag. 

 

I'm sure there's many more examples that can compete with the Macbooks. 

 

e: 10 hours or so battery life is standard on the T430, that's an upgraded battery. Also, if people are struggling to carry 1.5-2kg, there's something seriously wrong. 

I really am not a big fan of Mac, but the Retina screen is NOT overrated. It's Superb.

 I'm really hoping somebody caught my pun...

[Lil Chillbil]

We have the best workstations thou in the pc world

 

we have high expandability and 32 cores 

 

 

You guys have this thing...

 

 

 

don't quote me saying that "You forget about the silver mac pro that blah blah blah" 

 

 

I am typing this on the 2008 mac pro and i'm just being playful  :P

[mr moose]

 

 

If anything, you should all be thankful, because Apple is literally leading the laptop market as a whole at the moment, and in fact has for a very long time. Do you think great laptops like the Lenovo X1 carbon, Samsung ATIV, Razer Blade or Asus Zenbook would exist as they do today if not for Apple?

yes they would, demand is what leads innovation, not laptop companies. Necessity is the mother of all inventions and if it was not for demand nothing would be innovated.  When you look at the corporate world of computer innovation and marketing, you'd quickly see that apple as a pc company has had little bearing on the direction of laptops. In fact most of the professional grade laptops, laptops that are designed to be the sturdiest and most reliable are HP (in fact they have 20% of the market share).  Check out what the paramedics are using in ambulances, look at major corporations. There is a reason why the department of education fills it's schools with Lenovo products.  Apples market share for laptops is 4.6% hardly the envy of manufacturers. 

 

EDIT: I should add that most of apples wealth as a company stems from profits from the ipod, iphone and iTunes sales. not from pc's or pc innovation.

[Lyons]

yes they would, demand is what leads innovation, not laptop companies. Necessity is the mother of all inventions and if it was not for demand nothing would be innovated.  When you look at the corporate world of computer innovation and marketing, you'd quickly see that apple as a pc company has had little bearing on the direction of laptops. In fact most of the professional grade laptops, laptops that are designed to be the sturdiest and most reliable are HP (in fact they have 20% of the market share).  Check out what the paramedics are using in ambulances, look at major corporations. There is a reason why the department of education fills it's schools with Lenovo products.  Apples market share for laptops is 4.6% hardly the envy of manufacturers. 

 

You conveniently left out the next sentence in your quote - 'not for a long time'. I said it WOULD happen, but it would have been a lot later. THis is undeniable, Apple unquestionably leads the laptop market in terms or quality and innovation. Schools are filled with Lenovo laptops because they are tough and very cheap, that doesn't been they are good. You guys will never be convinced. It's like a bloody religion, it's madness, and so blind.

[mr moose]

You conveniently left out the next sentence in your quote - 'not for a long time'. I said it WOULD happen, but it would have been a lot later. THis is undeniable, Apple unquestionably leads the laptop market in terms or quality and innovation. Schools are filled with Lenovo laptops because they are tough and very cheap, that doesn't been they are good. You guys will never be convinced. It's like a bloody religion, it's madness, and so blind.

 

No, it seems you think that apple have somehow effected the speed of innovation in technology, it hasn't, they are for all intents and purposes irrelevant to innovation. Apple have produced nothing that the other major companies didn't already invest r+d time to. For example HP did not bring out the retina because it's customers don't want to pay for it. Apple did and that's why it's customer base is only 4.6% of the market. 

I don't call that being a leader, I call that being a minor alternative for a marginalised market base. 

[Hazy125]

This thread turned into a flame war on like the third comment. I am a hardcore mac hater, I legitimately hate them all. I got an upon once and blue it up with a crazy homemade explosive.

However apple computers are extremely competitive compared to windows and Linux counterparts. If a mac hater can't admit that they're not very bright. Mac computers are beautifully made and beautiful in general. My main complaint with them is the software, I don't like the OS. But the screen and quality of the machine is amazing. They have a tendency not to be as powerful as counterparts but the quality and convenience make up for the lack of raw power, also, some mac computers are much more powerful than counterparts.

I cannot get past several things on mac computers, I can use the OS well and efficiently, but it's just not for me. I would prefer a CLI OS than the mac OS. I also don't like the lack of upgradability on the desktops, but on a laptop you can upgrade them as much as you can any other.

All that said, mac computers are very good machines and without some significant research I honestly can't find comparable computers to beat this Mac/Windows challenge. But I'm sure they do exist.

I can't get my head around iPhones and ipods though

[Glenwing]

No, it seems you think that apple have somehow effected the speed of innovation in technology, it hasn't, they are for all intents and purposes irrelevant to innovation. Apple have produced nothing that the other major companies didn't already invest r+d time to. For example HP did not bring out the retina because it's customers don't want to pay for it. Apple did and that's why it's customer base is only 4.6% of the market. 

I don't call that being a leader, I call that being a minor alternative for a marginalised market base. 

 

I highly doubt phones would be where they are today without Apple.

[Lyons]

No, it seems you think that apple have somehow effected the speed of innovation in technology, it hasn't, they are for all intents and purposes irrelevant to innovation. Apple have produced nothing that the other major companies didn't already invest r+d time to. For example HP did not bring out the retina because it's customers don't want to pay for it. Apple did and that's why it's customer base is only 4.6% of the market. 

I don't call that being a leader, I call that being a minor alternative for a marginalised market base. 

 

Sigh.... not technological innovation. Do you think I am stupid? Everybody knows that Apple does not invent anything. They do however implement things first, and have essentially set modern build standards, of which no PC manufacturer can step up and match. The same goes for trackpads and battery life. Why are PC manufacturers so shit at making trackpads? If you know anything about the history of consumer level computers you wouldn't think that Apple's market share is the result of their pricing.

 

 

This thread turned into a flame war on like the third comment. I am a hardcore mac hater, I legitimately hate them all. I got an upon once and blue it up with a crazy homemade explosive.

However apple computers are extremely competitive compared to windows and Linux counterparts. If a mac hater can't admit that they're not very bright. Mac computers are beautifully made and beautiful in general. My main complaint with them is the software, I don't like the OS. But the screen and quality of the machine is amazing. They have a tendency not to be as powerful as counterparts but the quality and convenience make up for the lack of raw power, also, some mac computers are much more powerful than counterparts.

I cannot get past several things on mac computers, I can use the OS well and efficiently, but it's just not for me. I would prefer a CLI OS than the mac OS. I also don't like the lack of upgradability on the desktops, but on a laptop you can upgrade them as much as you can any other.

All that said, mac computers are very good machines and without some significant research I honestly can't find comparable computers to beat this Mac/Windows challenge. But I'm sure they do exist.

I can't get my head around iPhones and ipods though

 

You mistook the word 'blew' with a colour, so I doubt that you have the ability to make an effective explosive.

[Lukiose]

I highly doubt phones would be where they are today without Apple.

Can't argue with that! Without the iPhone smartphones probably wouldn't be how they are now.. but lets keep this on topic :P

Might want to send some chill messages to a few members.. for some reason they can't seem to pass off their own judgement upon others in a polite manner, not calling out anyone for the sake of posterity

[Nort]

Just going to say, if you want a light, thin laptop, buy a Mac. If you want something that gives good performance for the money, buy a PC. 

[Hazy125]

You mistook the word 'blew' with a colour, so I doubt that you have the ability to make an effective explosive.

Everyone makes mistakes, mine was cause by rapid typing and phonological variations

[mr moose]

I highly doubt phones would be where they are today without Apple.

Of course they would, android was first coded in 2003, HTC was making smartphones with win mobile before the iphone, Palm and HP had smartphones on the market in 2001 and 2004 respectively.  The only thing apple did was take what already existed and make it a fashionable. 

 

 

Sigh.... not technological innovation. Do you think I am stupid? Everybody knows that Apple does not invent anything. They do however implement things first, and have essentially set modern build standards, of which no PC manufacturer can step up and match. The same goes for trackpads and battery life. Why are PC manufacturers so shit at making trackpads? If you know anything about the history of consumer level computers you wouldn't think that Apple's market share is the result of their pricing.

 

 

  

Even bigger sigh...   I don't think your stupid, I just don't think you considered all the facts when you said

If anything, you should all be thankful, because Apple is literally leading the laptop market as a whole at the moment, and in fact has for a very long time. Do you think great laptops like the Lenovo X1 carbon, Samsung ATIV, Razer Blade or Asus Zenbook would exist as they do today if not for Apple?

 

 

Apple make what they make, I hear no one arguing that a solid aluminium case is not good, but that does not mean they are the life giving saviours of the tech world.  If apple did not exist we would still have the same tech today.    They are not industry leaders and their sales figures reflect that.

[Lyons]

Of course they would, android was first coded in 2003, HTC was making smartphones with win mobile before the iphone, Palm and HP had smartphones on the market in 2001 and 2004 respectively.  The only thing apple did was take what already existed and make it a fashionable. 

 

 

  

Even bigger sigh...   I don't think your stupid, I just don't think you considered all the facts when you said

 

Apple make what they make, I hear no one arguing that a solid aluminium case is not good, but that does not mean they are the life giving saviours of the tech world.  If apple did not exist we would still have the same tech today.    They are not industry leaders and their sales figures reflect that.

 

You usually make well written and informed posts, but the few in this thread - sorry. Some of the refutations in this thread are insufferable.

[GaZinggEr]

i bought a DentBook Pro 2-3 years ago, i wanted something sleek, i could not find any "PC" laptops that were aluminum and sleek, but if i were to buy one today, it would be that GS70 or a razerblade, or some kind of ultrabook

 

Edit: I dropped it on my friend's driveway, and now it has a huge dent in the side of it, so i call it a DentBook Pro, its specs are in my signature, and it is a "modern" model that you can still take apart.

[MrSuperb]

I'm a bit confused as to what Windspeed was trying to get at with this, because (as he points out himself) he is comparing devices with Quadros and Firepros to devices with a Geforce. :huh:

 

No, it is not really. Quadros and Geforces pretty much only differ in different drivers available to different card. Apple makes those drivers themselves, optimized for there system. Just because Quadro cards are generelly more expensive, doesn't make them perform better, especially not in a Mac enivronment.

[MrSuperb]

With build quality, Macs are pretty good but I wouldn't buy one. I don't like their OS and I don't like how I can't open them up and add in additional storage by myself without voiding the warranty.

 

You could do that with all but the latest Macbooks (without voiding the warranty). And this has more or less something to do with their small form factor.

[MrSuperb]

Some Macs are priced fairly, some are not.  If you cherry pick the ones with the best value or a certain rare feature it will be difficult to find a PC that can match it, sure; but that shouldn't be used as a blanket statement to say that Macs are not overpriced.  Some Macs have better value than others.  

 

I already said that befor, but here again. The Macbook Pro Non-Retina is pretty much EOL and I am pretty sure it will dissapear with the next big Macbook Pro update.

[MrSuperb]

There is no way in hell a 650m can drive a 2880*1800 screen at acceptable frame-rates in games. Heck, an HD 7970 or GTX 780 is going to have trouble driving that resolution.

 

Did it ever occur to you, that no Macbook was ever desigend with gaming in Mind?

[MrSuperb]

So after reading up on over 8 pages worth of info, this seems to be the trend ---

 

1) Macbooks have terrible hardware in relation to similarly priced counterparts

2) However, Macbooks have an excellent(? Subjective) screen which few laptops have on the market

3) Macbooks have a great battery life(Subjective, due to weaker hardware)

4) Macbooks are a tad lighter than rival laptops. (Subjective as power users won't mind the extra 400g)

5) Macbooks possesses an excellent trackpad and keyboard, great for the non-power user that doesn't use a mouse and TKL with their lappy.

6) Depending on country of origin where consumer laptops & Macbooks are priced differently, people have varying degrees of opinions on the subject.

 

1) They don't. Not if you compare them to notebooks that could be seen as somewaht comparable.

2) That is not really subjective as it has been measured and proven by various sites (most of them have a general focus on laptops/PCs, not macs)

3) Also not true. They have better battery life with equal hardware. A big part on this is though, that OS X has a far superior power management.

4) Power users? Are you even serious? Are all those who consider a Laptop not a simple replacement for a desktop pc, but a worktool who carry around their laptops with them al day not Power-users?

5) Again, why would a 'power user' not use the Trackpad? By 'power user' you obviously mean 'Gamers', right?

6) the only true thing you said.