Will Apple ever make a "normal" Mac? (1 Viewer)

[Michael_K_Sr]

The RAM and hard drive are definitely upgradeable now. I believe the processor uses a regular Intel socket so processor upgrades are a future possibility. I believe the video card is soldered onto the motherboard though.

 

[Paul_Sjordal]

Since your interest in gaming seems slight, you may find the gaming choices for a regular Macintosh to be more than adequate. Many of the more popular games get ported to the Mac within a year or two of release.

 

[McPaul]

Into gaming? buy a Playstation.

seriously. with hardware today, why would anyone want to game on a computer?

I love my macs, but I game on my XBOX.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

The CPU's are soldered in place on the notebooks unfortunately so no upgrading there :frowning:

 

[DaveF]

Gaming on the PC is different than on a console. I enjoy both, and after a few years with the GamCube, I'm ready to go back to PC gaming for a while. I miss my keyboard and mouse for FPS games.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

Anyone try one of these?
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/6918/P...eyboard-Mouse/

 

[Paul_Sjordal]

That is useless to me until someone ports Fallout and Civilization to a console.

 

[Eric_L]

MAC sucks!

 

[MarkHastings]

That guy is the quintessential example of "Blaming your own stupidity on the computer instead of your own feeble/incomprehensible mind"

 

[DaveF]

Saw that video a while back. Amusing, but not enlightening My experience over the years has been that Macs are no more, but no less stable, than the PC. Macs will crash about as well as anything thing else.

Fortunately, OSX and WinXP are both very stable, especially compared to their predecessors.

I'm stymied right now by determining the actual cost of Mac ownership. Can I upgrade my wife's MS Office, meant for a G5 Mac, to the current Office for an Intel Mac? Do I need a special version of WinXP to dual-boot or can I use my current copy? Is the iMac worth the ~40% premium over "equivalent" PC?

Mac's are tasty, except I'm a cheapskate.

 

[Carlo_M]

That video was made about 2 years ago (yes, before YouTube got big) and I sent it around to a bunch of my Mac friends to make fun of them (who made fun of Windows, which I used at home, work, basically everywhere).

18 months later, and I'm a Macbook Pro owner. I can honestly say that I've had none of his experiences (the very rare times I've had to force quit and application, OSX did so quite gracefully and didn't require a reboot). I haven't had any of the problems he states in that video, except the windows resize to what "mac thinks is the best size" - which can be annoying since I was used to the maximize button on XP, but to be honest, Mac is pretty good at judging the right window size, you just have to let the webpage load completely before clicking it so it knows what size the page needs.

I actually feel like I should go back and apologize to my old coworkers (I moved offices recently). It's a really funny video...but really inaccurate. Or it could have been accurate 2 years ago but not anymore, I don't know. I've only used Tiger, and am eagerly awaiting Leopard.

After years of Windows and building my own PCs, I am not sure I'm ever going back. I still use it for work, but at home I never fire up my PC nowadays.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

That copy of office will run fine on a new Intel Mac. You can use your current copy of XP, you just have to download Boot Camp (for free) from Apple or purchase Parallels (which allows you to switch OS without rebooting).

One thing to consider when video editing: iMovie HD has a silly name and is exceptionally powerful. And it's free with the machine.

If you have a nearby Apple store, they run free workshops on iMovie / iLife. You can come in and see just how easy and powerful and well-integrated the programs are. Imagine using hundreds of musical loops in Garageband to quickly and easily score your movie, perfectly synchronized.

As a fellow cheapskate, I'll tell you that the best bang-for-buck in the iMac line is the second from the bottom, the one that doubles the RAM and adds a DVD burner.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Although the mac can be stable, I've had problems with a Logitech mouse that caused frequent crashes. I removed the custom drivers (which removed some functionality I never used), and since then (a couple of days ago) it's back to it's old stable self.

 

[MarkHastings]

Agreed, I can't really recall when my OSX or WinXP have really crashed...and I do graphics, video, multimedia, and 3D, so I really give these boxes a "what for".

 

[DaveF]

I've played some with iMovie 2004 and iMovieHD 2006. I'm learning it's a very nice package, alonside iDVD, for hobbyist movie making.

The 20" iMac is appealing. I just don't know if OSX is worth (to me) the $600 premium it commands. Argh.

 

[JeremyErwin]

A modern operating system can be compared to an medieval castle, with outer defenses, inner defenses, and possible a keep. The outer defenses (called "user space") have a nice thick wall separating them from the inner defenses (called "kernel space"). Just as the denizens of the outer ward communicated with the inner ward through a well guarded gatehouse, ordinary programs communicate with the kernel in strictly defined ways. They don't just take memory for themselves-- a malloc() call is required. The damage a buggy program can wreck is limited in scope.

However, certain programs do need direct access to memory and hardware. Such programs, if programmed incorrectly, may directly access memory that the operating system needs for some other purpose, and crash the operating system.

Malfunctioning hardware can also bring a system to its knees. Although it is possible to design hardware that can detect and isolate faults, it's quite expensive.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

How about the software package -- is that worth the $600? What would the equivalent integrated package cost for the PC?

HD editing with music composing integration and music library integration and photo library integration; DVD mastering integrated with your editing software.

And before you knock it, trying to sync up music is way harder than recording/looping/tweaking it with the video playing in real time along with you as you work on the score. Same with recording narration.

And if I'm not mistaken, the DVD mastering software even handles anamorphic from your 16:9 videos.

 

[DaveF]

that's a good question, for which I have no answer yet. I have no idea what's available / required on the PC for basic DVD creation and its cost.

I'm uncertain if I need to buy a new copy of Office to use (my wife has her OSX copy already); I currently have Office for the PC.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

Office for Mac includes three installs. The current version is Office 2004.

 

[Mike Heenan]

I am thinking about buying a 17" macbook pro refurbished (to save some bucks), for video editing purposes (final cut pro). I currently have a G4 tower which is fine, but would like to get a laptop for it's portability and for wifi etc. This would be great so I could go edit in a coffeeshop or some place, and surf on the net to take a break, etc. My question is, I've been pricing PC laptops, and it seems that the most expensive PC laptop is about equal to the cost of a refurbished macbook pro or slightly less ($1300-$2000 I'm finding out). Not counting software (I can edit easily on adobe premiere as well for a PC but prefer final cut) issues, what would be my better bet? Does anyonle know how much less power a Duo Core 2 laptop puts out, vs a G4 2.0ghz dual processor tower?