wwwd Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 I'm thinking about getting one of these, but know f*ck all about Apple Macs. I have an iPhone and iPad but that's about it. My question is are the different years/models that different, and what's the cheapest I could pick one up for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidrick Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Why are you thinking about getting one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markbsi Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 A macbook air is similar to a netbook/ultra portable windows based laptop, spec wise they updated the processors and hard drives but they are all about size and looks. the only real difference between the specs is the if it has the solid state drive or not. They are very limited on what they can do due to the nature of the casing, the heat can only be exhausted through the keyboard spacings so cannot be left on with the screen closed eg downloading, and cannot play games, do processor intensive tasks due to the not being able to shift the heat produced. A windows based laptop is half the price and twice the spec. doesn't look as good though. Alos they run on OSX and that means incompatibility with programs and also differnet user interface Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 A macbook air is similar to a netbook/ultra portable windows based laptop, spec wise they updated the processors and hard drives but they are all about size and looks. the only real difference between the specs is the if it has the solid state drive or not. They are very limited on what they can do due to the nature of the casing, the heat can only be exhausted through the keyboard spacings so cannot be left on with the screen closed eg downloading, and cannot play games, do processor intensive tasks due to the not being able to shift the heat produced. A windows based laptop is half the price and twice the spec. doesn't look as good though. Alos they run on OSX and that means incompatibility with programs and also differnet user interface You can't really compare macs & pc's upon specs to be honest.Mac's on OSX run very efficient compared to windows based PC's.They are not limited either but very powerful lightweight power efficient machines, also keeping rather cool due to the nature of the processor, solid state drive & being encased in very cool aluminium.As for "incompatibility", with what? They run all the usual software and if you do indeed feel the need to run windows software thats ok too (any mac owner will tell you if they feel the urge its not difficult to run windows software within OSX itself).About the only thing I will agree there is price, very expensive but you get what you pay for as with anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoo2000 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Mac's on OSX run very efficient compared to windows based PC's.Balls. That is all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ganges Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Mac's on OSX run very efficient compared to windows based PC's.Balls. That is all. well that was to the point i suppose LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 I was tempted by a Mac book air. I went and tried one in a shop recently. I thought it performed like a dog, so I went and bought a 1yr old thinkpad for less than half the price of the mac and the experience with win7 is much better than with the brand new mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 I dont really fancy the cost of the air but have been concidering a macbook just lately.Not interested in abandoning Windows 7 as I love it but the Macbooks are rather neat and convenient for work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markbsi Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 I receently had bought a second hand macbook pro, it had a core 2 duo 2.4 and geforce 9300 graphics card. it was the aluminium model and also had windows 7 dual boot. I also had a 3 year old dell latitude d620 with a 2.0ghz core 2 duo and a 7300 graphics card. Simple test play race driver 3 on both machines. dell played flawlessly for hours, the mac book played fine for the first race then became unplayable due to dropping frame rates. simply put the graphics card was too hot. A macbook air is even more compact and since they use i5/i7 processors but at slower speeds the nature of the processor is the same as the pc version. If 1100 quid is good price to you for something you can buy in pc form for half that in performance wise then fair enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 I receently had bought a second hand macbook pro, it had a core 2 duo 2.4 and geforce 9300 graphics card. it was the aluminium model and also had windows 7 dual boot. I also had a 3 year old dell latitude d620 with a 2.0ghz core 2 duo and a 7300 graphics card. Simple test play race driver 3 on both machines. dell played flawlessly for hours, the mac book played fine for the first race then became unplayable due to dropping frame rates. simply put the graphics card was too hot. A macbook air is even more compact and since they use i5/i7 processors but at slower speeds the nature of the processor is the same as the pc version. If 1100 quid is good price to you for something you can buy in pc form for half that in performance wise then fair enough. I wouldnt be daft enough to buy a macbook for games though? Your also comparing an OS emulating a windows OS to play an arcade game, why on earth would you even want to do such a thing on a mac book? Your comparasons are bizare to say the least. I also never said £1100 was a good price or I wanted one? Im talking about a core2 macbook for work purposes not as a games machine (thats what I use consoles for). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markbsi Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Actually the game was the version for the mac on the mac and pc version on the pc. My point was that a game is resource demanding piece of software and was used on 2 laptops with similar specs. My point is a mac is overpriced for what you get. This alot more obvious now they use intel cpu's and ati/nvidia graphics cards. Also sorry peewee my comment about price was to the OP not you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeeWee Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 No worries I wasn't out to argue with you.The thing is, the mac is quite a specific piece of hardware aimed at professionals and specific types of tasks.The Mac has never been or aimed at gaming. Older Macs will happily run the newer OSX where Windows often needs upgrades to compete.I can probably pick up a 5-7 year old Macbook & happily run the latest OS where with a pc laptom most likely not.This is because of the OS not the machine running it im afraid.Music production, video editing etc are obky part of the target market for Apple, they do it with style & reliability.It has taken Microsoft sometime to become a stable OS capeable of putting your trust in it not to hang or crash right at the point of needing it most.Also don't be fooled into thinking Im a big apple fan as im not, my job is first line IT support mostly to PC's (although my recent trip to Belfast did indeed centre around imacs in a professional music environment).My work Laptops are Acer & Dell not macs but I can see the efficiant benefit in using a neat macbook 10" to use on a daily basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwwd Posted December 7, 2011 Author Share Posted December 7, 2011 Essentially, I'm shallow and want a cool, ultra thin laptop. The best looking ones I've managed to find are the MacBook Air or the Dell Adamo XPS. The cheapest I've found the XPS is for £649, but if I can get a decent spec'd MacBook Air I'd rather go for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidrick Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 This should be in the cosmetics section rather than the PC one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoo2000 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 Essentially, I'm shallow and want a cool, ultra thin laptop. The best looking ones I've managed to find are the MacBook Air or the Dell Adamo XPS. The cheapest I've found the XPS is for £649, but if I can get a decent spec'd MacBook Air I'd rather go for that.http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-compute...y-40094495/#top I thought the Adamo line was axed earlier this year ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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