MacBook Pro Buyers remorse?

[Goodpoop]

Just bought a MacBook Pro 13.3", 2.7GHz i5, 8mb, 128gb, retina display ect.. for $1300.

I have never owned a Mac but have both iPhone and iPad, love both of them. Seems like a good laptop but not sure if its worth the price. I can probably buy a PC with same specs or better for about half. I do have 14 days to return.

Anyone thoughts about Mac vs Pc? The learning curve does suck.

[jsearles22]

I recently bought a Dell touchscreen 4K UHD display 15.6", 12 gb, 2 TB hard drive, i7 processor 3.0 ghz with turbo speed booster for under $800.

So yeah I'd say the MacBook specs are severely lacking. You're paying for the name alone


http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-.../dp/B00U51M6JM

[Goodpoop]

I recently bought a Dell touchscreen 4K UHD display 15.6", 12 gb, 2 TB hard drive, i7 processor 3.0 ghz with turbo speed booster for under $800.

So yeah I'd say the MacBook specs are severely lacking. You're paying for the name alone


http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-.../dp/B00U51M6JM

yeah, the only benefit I see is 10 hour battery and its weight.

[Sanlmar]

Not being a Windows machine has got to be worth $400 alone

[lewfather]

I recently bought a Dell touchscreen 4K UHD display 15.6", 12 gb, 2 TB hard drive, i7 processor 3.0 ghz with turbo speed booster for under $800.

So yeah I'd say the MacBook specs are severely lacking. You're paying for the name alone


http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-.../dp/B00U51M6JM

That's pretty good but it has to have ssd imo

[jsearles22]

I recently bought a Dell touchscreen 4K UHD display 15.6", 12 gb, 2 TB hard drive, i7 processor 3.0 ghz with turbo speed booster for under $800.

So yeah I'd say the MacBook specs are severely lacking. You're paying for the name alone


http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-.../dp/B00U51M6JM

yeah, the only benefit I see is 10 hour battery and its weight.

Other than the better processor, more Ram, more storage, bigger UHD touchscreen at almost 1/2 the price. Other than that I don't see much.......

[Crowe Diddly]

I recently bought a Dell touchscreen 4K UHD display 15.6", 12 gb, 2 TB hard drive, i7 processor 3.0 ghz with turbo speed booster for under $800.

So yeah I'd say the MacBook specs are severely lacking. You're paying for the name alone


http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-.../dp/B00U51M6JM

yeah, the only benefit I see is 10 hour battery and its weight.

likely longer-lasting, no? macbook pro build quality, at least historically (don't use em so can't say about the new ones), is head and shoulders above the average windows laptop. specs are nice, but hardly the only thing worth looking at.

and lew is 100% right on the ssd. the first time i booted up my laptop with an ssd drive, i literally lol'd, and my chromebook ssd boot time is faster than my samsumg tv from turn-on to picture. do you really need a 2 tb hard drive on your laptop now? shit, you can get a 128gb class 10 memory card for $75 on amazon, $22 for 64gb. i don't think the macbook is ssd exactly, but its still flash based, and might even be faster? either way, specs certainly don't tell the whole story.

[jsearles22]

yeah, the only benefit I see is 10 hour battery and its weight.

likely longer-lasting, no? macbook pro build quality, at least historically (don't use em so can't say about the new ones), is head and shoulders above the average windows laptop. specs are nice, but hardly the only thing worth looking at.

and lew is 100% right on the ssd. the first time i booted up my laptop with an ssd drive, i literally lol'd, and my chromebook ssd boot time is faster than my samsumg tv from turn-on to picture. do you really need a 2 tb hard drive on your laptop now? shit, you can get a 128gb class 10 memory card for $75 on amazon, $22 for 64gb. i don't think the macbook is ssd exactly, but its still flash based, and might even be faster? either way, specs certainly don't tell the whole story.

My laptop boots up pretty damn fast. If boot time is all you got, I'll stand by my better spec cheaper model.

[Crowe Diddly]

likely longer-lasting, no? macbook pro build quality, at least historically (don't use em so can't say about the new ones), is head and shoulders above the average windows laptop. specs are nice, but hardly the only thing worth looking at.

and lew is 100% right on the ssd. the first time i booted up my laptop with an ssd drive, i literally lol'd, and my chromebook ssd boot time is faster than my samsumg tv from turn-on to picture. do you really need a 2 tb hard drive on your laptop now? shit, you can get a 128gb class 10 memory card for $75 on amazon, $22 for 64gb. i don't think the macbook is ssd exactly, but its still flash based, and might even be faster? either way, specs certainly don't tell the whole story.

My laptop boots up pretty damn fast. If boot time is all you got, I'll stand by my better spec cheaper model.

you skipped my first paragraph I guess, so i'll rephrase: the macbook will likely last longer and perform at its top level for a longer amount of time then the windows equivalent.

[sonatine]

If youre not taking advantage of the strengths inherent to OSX UI, youre not going to get a lot of bang for your buck. Plus 8gb memory isnt going to help matters.

[jsearles22]

My laptop boots up pretty damn fast. If boot time is all you got, I'll stand by my better spec cheaper model.

you skipped my first paragraph I guess, so i'll rephrase: the macbook will likely last longer and perform at its top level for a longer amount of time then the windows equivalent.

Long enough to justify paying 63% more while initially starting off with substantially lower specs though? I didnt buy my laptop hoping it would last 10 years anyways. 5 years would be a steal

[Crowe Diddly]

you skipped my first paragraph I guess, so i'll rephrase: the macbook will likely last longer and perform at its top level for a longer amount of time then the windows equivalent.

Long enough to justify paying 63% more while initially starting off with substantially lower specs though? I didnt buy my laptop hoping it would last 10 years anyways. 5 years would be a steal

you keep talking about the specs as if you are maxing the thing out for stuff. Are you? If you're a gamer, shit's important, no doubt, but your specs ain't gonna do anything for average user compared to the macbook.

i ain't taking the mac side, I'm just saying there are in fact tangible differences that aren't measured in gb and mhz. Personally, I would never buy a laptop again without using the touchpad first.

[MumblesBadly]

An advantage of using a decently powered Mac is that you can also use it to run Windows software. There are a number of ways to this, the cheapest being using OS X's built in Bootcamp. Or you can opt for software that allows greater flexibility, meaning being able to seemlessly run Windows software, such as with Parallels Desktop.

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

For example, back in the middle/later 2000s, I used my Macbook Pro to do music and video editing in the OS X environment, and sophisticated statistical analysis using PC SAS in the Windows XP environment using my Windows license for my PC that had previously died. And a few years later, I worked with a database programmer who used his own Mac for contract work, and for some clients he needed the OS X environment, but for others Windows.

Of course, you will need to have a license for the Windows operating system to additionall install on your Mac, and Windows virus and firewall software to help keep the Windows environment from being remotely nuked. But if you have a need for both OS environments, IMO, you can't beat a Mac.

But -- and this is big one for some folks -- if you like using your personal computer for games, and the games you like are Windows based, the virtual Windows drive environment using software like Parallels likely won't match the performance of a dedicated Windows gaming machine for those games.

[jsearles22]

Long enough to justify paying 63% more while initially starting off with substantially lower specs though? I didnt buy my laptop hoping it would last 10 years anyways. 5 years would be a steal

you keep talking about the specs as if you are maxing the thing out for stuff. Are you? If you're a gamer, shit's important, no doubt, but your specs ain't gonna do anything for average user compared to the macbook.

i ain't taking the mac side, I'm just saying there are in fact tangible differences that aren't measured in gb and mhz. Personally, I would never buy a laptop again without using the touchpad first.

You would concede that for the average user, just surfing the internet and doing minor work stuff either of these computers is more than fully capable? So why would a person pay the higher price then?

[Crowe Diddly]

you keep talking about the specs as if you are maxing the thing out for stuff. Are you? If you're a gamer, shit's important, no doubt, but your specs ain't gonna do anything for average user compared to the macbook.

i ain't taking the mac side, I'm just saying there are in fact tangible differences that aren't measured in gb and mhz. Personally, I would never buy a laptop again without using the touchpad first.

You would concede that for the average user, just surfing the internet and doing minor work stuff either of these computers is more than fully capable? So why would a person pay the higher price then?

first, for what an average user does, a $400 laptop is more than capable, nevermind $800 and $1300.

A person would pay more because it's likely built better and will last a lot longer, a point I've tried to make twice now. I saw you say that didn't concern you, but we're not talking about you here. You made your choice, others make different choices for different reasons.

Also, some laptops feel a lot better when you use them. Better keyboards, less heat, lighter, all sorts of comfort and style reasons that aren't measured with your specs. Like, if your laptop has a shit trackpad, it ain't a bargain at any price. I'm not saying it is, but plenty of expensive laptops have shitty ones, and all the specs in the world won't make them any better.

[Dan Druff]

SSD is important. This new computer (the one I bought November 2015) has two drives -- one 250 GB SSD, one 1 TB regular. That's pretty much the winning setup nowadays, at least until big SSD drives get cheaper.

I was a Dell customer for many years, dating back to the early 2000s. However, I have given up on them. Their customer support is absolutely horrendous. GL if anything ever goes wrong. Also, they aren't even the great deal they once were.

I am not a Mac fan. I think they are overpriced and overhyped, but some people swear by them.

There is something to be said for having a reliable computer, though. It is realllllllllly painful and time consuming to swap computers. There's so much you need to move over manually (like go through everything you ever installed/downloaded and every place on the hard drive that you would have stored documents), and it's just a really unpleasant process. That's why I usually get 5-6 years out of each computer. Well, that and I'm good about keeping it clean from malware.

[jsearles22]

You would concede that for the average user, just surfing the internet and doing minor work stuff either of these computers is more than fully capable? So why would a person pay the higher price then?

first, for what an average user does, a $400 laptop is more than capable, nevermind $800 and $1300.

A person would pay more because it's likely built better and will last a lot longer, a point I've tried to make twice now. I saw you say that didn't concern you, but we're not talking about you here. You made your choice, others make different choices for different reasons.

Also, some laptops feel a lot better when you use them. Better keyboards, less heat, lighter, all sorts of comfort and style reasons that aren't measured with your specs. Like, if your laptop has a shit trackpad, it ain't a bargain at any price. I'm not saying it is, but plenty of expensive laptops have shitty ones, and all the specs in the world won't make them any better.

OP was bemoaning his expensive purchase. I chimed in and stated there are definitely better, or at least comparable, options that are cheaper. You and I have now gone back and forth agreeing there are better, or at least comparable, options that are cheaper

[Crowe Diddly]

OP was bemoaning his expensive purchase. I chimed in and stated there are definitely better, or at least comparable, options that are cheaper. You and I have now gone back and forth agreeing there are better, or at least comparable, options that are cheaper

my main point was that the exclusive focus on specs was misguided.

[jsearles22]

OP was bemoaning his expensive purchase. I chimed in and stated there are definitely better, or at least comparable, options that are cheaper. You and I have now gone back and forth agreeing there are better, or at least comparable, options that are cheaper

my main point was that the exclusive focus on specs was misguided.

I didnt want to come in the thread and simply say there are better or comparable options that are cheaper. That would have been pretty hollow. So I provided backup to my point. Not sure what.......... sigh.....

[Crowe Diddly]

Not sure what.......... sigh.....

no idea what your issue is here. Guy asks if his laptop is worth the price. You went with "probably no" because you can get better specs a lot cheaper, and that he's paying for the apple name alone. I tried to point out that there are other things that people value, such as usability, long life, reliable performance, whatnot, shit that specs don't measure. You kept replying to me with questions, or challenging my posts, so I answered them. Finally you summed up what you thought our convo was about, and I ended with what I intended my main point to be, because you I felt you were misrepresenting the point I was trying to make.

Is the $1300 laptop better for goodpoop than, say, your $800 version? Only he can answer that. You answered the question from one perspective, I answered with another. I wasn't attacking you, I was trying to honestly show why he might value the 1300 macbook over a less expensive windows machine. Goodpoop already knew he could get better/similar specs for way less, and he still went with the macbook, at least initially. There are many reason for people to do so, and I tried to make some of them clear.