I am getting a MacBook for christmas and i was wondering if anybody else is getting or has a mac and what model?

heres my addvice
DONT GET ONE
if it brakes spare parts are expensive
and tests have proven that a pc (for the same price) is better
the only good part of it is that there arnt many virusies for macs

there is only 1 known virus for mac OSX

anyways it al depends what you want to use it for. Macs are WAY more stable than a windows PC. they are better for video editing and photoshop stuff. however if you are a gamer, than a mac wouldnt be good for you because there arnt many games for Macs

not realy a pc for the same price can do it faster (photo/video edit)

OK so we have some Windows, or atleast PC lovers here.

Well, don't listen to them, Fierce. I was a PC user for all of my life until last summer, when I used a Mac at my summer job.

By the end of that summer, I had bought an iMac G5 and it was the best computer I had ever used, period! There are no, I repeat no known viruses/trojans for Mac OS X and little to no spyware.

They rarely freeze up and if it does freeze, just quit the problem application and it will be like normal.

You never have to defrag you system because it automatically defrags.

There is hardly any network/internet set up required. I recently bought a PowerBook G4 because I didn't yet trust the new Intel Macs and the first time I started it up, before I was even past the authorization stage, it was already connected and online to my wireless Linksys router with 0 configuration.

It has an outstanding GUI (user interface), especially with use of Expose, which sort of zooms out and shows all of your windows at once and it can be triggered by a movement of the mouse to one of the screens coners if you want.

You rarely ever have to uninstall a program. Most of the time you just drag the application's icon to the trash and that's it! That's because the icons are actually folders that hold most of the data.

You get the best of the best when it comes to preinstalled software. Unlike iTunes for Windoz, which is pretty bad, it's really nice to use. Safari, it's web browser, is in some ways better than firefox. iMovie HD lets you create stuff you might have trouble creating in an expensive program like Adobe Premiere Elements or Pro. I could go over each app, like GarageBand which is one of the best music mixing/creating programs ever, but I'll let you learn about all that.

For people who believe you can buy a Windoz PC that will equal the performance of a Mac, well they'll just keep thinking that until the use Mac OS X for more than a day. They always say they're over priced but if they would look at the specs sheet and also remember that you won't be spending money on spyware blockers and virus scanners, then they'd realize they're really getting an amazing deal.

Oh, and whoever said they're not good for gaming because they don't have many games is a bit off. Most of you may not know that with Boot Camp, you can now boot into Windows and play all of the PC games available just as if you had bought a Toshiba, or any Windoz laptop.

Way to go Fierce. While I personally would go for the more powerful MacBook Pro because it has a true graphics card, whereas the MacBook has GMA 950, it's really good for most everything else you can think of. Just make sure to get more RAM as soon as you can because 512MB just doesn't cut it for Macs; just put in another 512, or better yet 1GB and you'll be fine.

I know, that was a looooong post, but people need to understand that Macs are just as good, if not better than your Dell (a terrible company with terrible products) and if you think Vista is cool, then you really need to wake up because just like Sony copied off Nintendo, Microsoft copied off Apple.

Hope that helped, Fierce.

Sigh of relief is all i can say. Im glad that sombody i somwhat know and trust has told me these things becuase those people at CNet and places like that are just full of shit somtimes. And thank you SO much for the post and it shows how much you care about people on these forums! Also I have done my reasearch and one of my friends has a iMac G5 and it is like a dream it runs so beautifully. i also love Tiger and i think it is way better than windows xp and even vista!

as for darkpinny or whatever the hell his name is i have never had/seen an apple product in real life that was broken physically. i mean apple puts a lot of thought into wht they are creating.

i also read somthing i cant remebrer where that said the reason that macs are so supperior to windows pc's is that the person that is making the software is also making the hardware so they work together perfectly.

yes nate i also know that the macbook pro is a better system, but i just dont have that kinda money right now and with the wii i would never be able to afford it. also compared to my dell the macbook with 1gb ram and 2.0Ghz prossesor then i think that will be plenty of a upgrade

thanks alot

No problem, Fierce. I know quite a bit about Macs at this point and like to inform people that they don't have to buy some crappy dell or gateway computer to get what they want to get done and done right.

If you have any questions or concerns about Macs, private message me, or ask me here. There are a ton of free programs for doing things that Apple won't tell you about, like MacTheRipper, for instance.

Glad I could help and thanks for the compliments; you come up with some really great topics for threads.

Wow Natethegreat, u convinced me I want an apple, good job.

lol

anywho.

should i get the macbook:


or the iMac:


im kinda looking for portablity so that is why i am leaning towards the macbook

oh and im not a pc gamer other than the sims and rollercoaster tycoon which dont need super good graphics

Those are good specs, Fierce.

Yeah, I meant to tell you; I sold my iMac and with that money and work, I bought a PowerBook G4. While the iMac was superb, I wanted portablitity and I wanted to basicly touch a Windoz PC as little as possible.

While desktop Macs are good, if you're a gamer, it's really a better move to build your own AMD PC with something like Ubuntu Linux as your primary OS and Windoz as your 2nd for gaming; don't go with Alienware or Sony because they're waaay over priced. That said, I'm guessing the new Intel iMacs are really powerful compared to my G5 and your MacBook may even give my PowerBook G4 a run for it's money because these new Intel Macs are quite speedy.

By the way, if you didn't know, Apple will be announcing/showing off their next OS, Mac OS X Leapord this August and will probably introduce the replacement for their PowerMac G5 replacement. Aswell, they will probably come out with iWork '07, which is supposed to improve on the two programs, Pages and Keynote, and also include Charts, a replacement for Excel.

So, definitly wait til Xmas to make your purchase. Oh, good choice with the DVI to VGA cable; that should allow you to connect it to a larger monitor if you have on and either mirror what's on your laptops screen or even better share it, so you can use both screens and have different things going on on both.

The only thing you might want to reconsider is the Apple Wireless Keyboard/Mouse combo. The Keyboard part is great, although you'll need some rechargeable batteries, but the mouse is a single button, heavy thing.

Now if you've used that mouse and like it, then by all means get it, but I would say just buy the Wireless keyboard and get this Logitech two-button bluetooth mouse, which I have a love.

Glad I could...bring you over to the light side of computers, ssbb_lover. Ask any questions you have because I can probably answer them.

wrong. about 2 months ago, it was confirmed that a virus has been made for the mac. just like i said in my last post lol. anyways i love macs and love PCs. now that macs are being built with intel CPUs, it makes them even better (but AMD would be best lol). the only thing i see wrong with macs are the price. i built my PC and it only cost $500 (excluding the screen, HDD, CD/DVD drives) and it runs photoshop, adobe after effects, 3DS Max, and all games on full or close to full graphics settings like a charm. never once have i needed to reboot from a freeze or anything like that. the only thing i dont like about windows is the virus's because that means i need a virus blocker and that is just an app to take up resorces for my games lol. if i could afford a mac, id buy one but right now i dont really need one since my PC does just about the same stuff

I'll concede and somewhat agree with you about price, mainly with their desktop systems. I personally will probably never buy a desktop Mac, although the Mac Pro, their upcoming power-desktop is probably going to be amazing, because you can build your own AMD rig for really cheap now and with some hacking, you can run Mac OS X on it, although it is very difficult and time consuming and that's not what the Mac is supposed to be about.

On the other hand, I do believe they make THE BEST laptops available. Go to apple's site and gaze at the MacBook Pro and it's features and find me an equivalent that's as slim and can boot all three major OSs, Mac-Windoz-Linux with ease. It comes at a bit of a high price but once you got it, it will last you 4-5 years longer than your Windoz notebook.

As for that virus, I'd like to hear the story because I go to Macworld.com all the time and they always tell when some virus, that never turns out to be a true virus, is floating around. The last one I heard of was sort of a trojan that got onto about 50, yes only 50 Macs, through iChat and only screwed with a couple apps. That trojan required you to accept a large file from a friend, type in your password a couple of times, and then actually open the file, to have it do anything and to remove it, all you had to do was a search, delete the trojan-file and at worst, reinstall the apps affected.

I personally never got this trojan. Also, the Mac has a built in Firewall that includes stealth-mode among other features and if these people who got the trojan had been intelligent users and didn't just accept a file without question, then it wouldn't have gotten any press.

The only reason so many people use Windows is because Micro$oft basicly created a monopoly and scared everyone into thinking they wouldn't be able to use simple apps like Word, Excel (a program they copied off of Mac).

Macs can do pretty much everything a Windoz PC can in a more streamlined way, without the hassel/fear of virus problems. Windoz has all the games because of DirectX9 and that's it; that's all it has on the Mac, in my opinion.

I say if people don't have the money for a Mac (it's an investment by the way), then atleast run some form of Linux. It's free, works on almost every system and is pretty reliable, although networking can be a b$%#@. Check out the vids here of what Linux can do.

Now take some of what they offer and put in non-config network system and you've basicly got the Mac OS, minus some bells and whistels and ease of use.

That's my 2 cents, or maybe $2 worth.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12537279/wid/11915829

thats the link to the story about the virus. doesnt really do much but still. macs are becoming more and more popular which means more and more assholes will start making virus's for it. also one of the reasons people say windows isnt reliable at all is because they dont maintain it. like you said, with a mac, all the maintanice is done automaticly but it isnt that way with PC. i do maitanace weekly on my PC and have auto virus scans every other day and auto derag every other week. my PC has been on for 5 weeks now with out any slowdown or freezes. damn now i really want a mac. damn you

Yeha i decided to get the macbook and i am waiting until christmas to get it becasue i am getting it as a gift w00t!