Questions for your computer experts

My old 4year old laptop is not running L4 like I would like.
I am considering up grading to a Mac Book Pro that cost about $1600. My questions
1) Is the quality of Mac book Po that much better quality wise than a PC? 2) Can
I expect the Mac Book Pro to last 4years? 3) Are the listed components made especially
for apple or, or they the same as listed in the better PCs? 4) I love the looks
of the Mac, the aluminum housing and everything about it but, is it overrated when
considering the cost? I would like to have a Mac Book Pro but having trouble
justifying the cost and I am certainly not a penny pincher either. You Mac Book
owners please give me a sales pitch.

thanks for the help

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John Fidel

Hi Sam,

I have a MBP purchased in spring 2008 with no intentions of replacing it soon. Like all hardware there have been a few issues. I suggest you purchase Apple Care with your laptop. However, when my video card was acting up, I simply went to the support website and scheduled the to call me.. yes call me.. A person speaking English (I live in the US) called me, diagnosed the problem and scheduled for me to bring my laptop to the Apple store where I live.. it was fixed that day. A bit different than my experiences with Dell over the years.

I find the quality of the hardware better and more reliable than Dell, which I have owned over the last 10 years. As for the listed components, I don't know the answer to that. You may add some memory to the laptop yourself, but beyond that you will probably have Apple do any repairs. I will never go back. Both my kids have Macs as well.

I have Parallels set up to run the few remaining Windows programs. I suggest you do not skimp on memory (at least 4 Gigs) or the hard drive. I have a 7200rpm and I think it makes a difference.

I hope I answered your questions.

Allen Browne

Apple now uses the same Intel processors in the Mac as are used in the PC. The Mac also has a decent operating system now (based on Unix.) Technically, this makes the Mac a similar speed to a PC, at least as good as Windows at multi-tasking, and arguably more secure.

But you have much less flexibility with a Mac than a PC. You buy what Apple wants you to have, and you are locked into their marketing machine. Regarding software, Logos 4 on Mac is a less mature product, so it probably won't perform as well.

To answer your specific questions:

#1: You are unlikely to get mean-time-between failure data to compare Apples with PC manufacturers, so the quality is subjective. There is no solid data I know of to say that Apple computers are better or worse than other brands in general.

#2: Processor power doubles every 18 months or so. So, if the Mac (or PC) is still running in 4 years, it will be about 1/3rd the speed of the machines available then. Notebook computers in general don't last as well as desktops do, but at today's costs convenience and portability may outweigh that.

#3: Apple uses the same components as other computer manufacturers.

#4: Whether the prettiness is worth the price depends on your eye and your budget. It won't function better, so this is just a matter of whether you are prepared to pay the extra for the aesthetics.

One further factor is that Intel is about to release some more powerful processors (codename "Sandy Bridge") in 3 weeks. It will then take several months before Apple and other manufacturers release these machines at a reasonable price (since there is always a premium to pay if you are an early adopter.) Due to a confluence of several factors (efficiency, GPU, moving memory management on-chip, SATA, power-management, etc.), some techs are saying that a Sandy Bridge machine will be double the speed of a machine you could buy today. You may want to wait a bit and get one of these. Apple will use Sandy Bridge chips -- whether they will be released behind other manufacturers, I cannot say.

Another factor to consider is whether a SSD (solid state drive) would be worth the cost. Logos 4 reputedly runs much quicker on an SSD, though whether it is worth the cost a present is another subjective choice.

Hope that helps inform your decision.

Robert Pavich

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/202757#Comment_202757

This opinion is coming from a Windows users who, if he had money to burn....would buy a Mac....

The one thing that I would think about is that "for the same cash" you get much more Windows machine than a Mac...that's a fact. That's what has kept me from "going to the light side" as Jack C would say...

I have a perfectly good Win laptop that runs L4 just fine, and I cannot justify spending twice as much for the Mac "cool factor".... (in fact, I just priced a Mac yesterday and it was well over 2X the cost of this laptop....ouch.

And as someone said...."at this moment" Mac lags a little in performance....but that's not a forever situation.

If you've got the cash and it suits you....go for it.

Sam West

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/202757#Comment_202757

Thanks Allen for the excellent reply, I really have no problems with the previous PCs that i have had in the past. One more question.. would you recommend a laptop (brand, size, quality)

thanks

Mike Aubrey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/202761#Comment_202761

Hi Sam,

Here's a study of 30,000 laptops done by a warranty company.

http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

Asus, Toshiba, Sony, & Apple are all pretty close.

Mike

Richard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/202766#Comment_202766

I recently switched to Mac after using Dell and HP for about 15 years, and have spent a lot of that time fixing PCs as well. I've seen just as many Dells have problems as HPs, and there doesn't seem to be any difference in quality when you buy a high end Dell or HP as a $500 Best Buy sale laptop. Some last a long time, some don't. I've never heard anyone talk about how much they hated their Mac, but I've heard plenty complain about virus and premature hardware failures on their PCs, regardless of what they paid for it.

There also is really no low-end Mac to speak of. Their low-end PCs are still nicely equipped, though for Logos4, I would def. recommend a 7200RPM HDD or an SSD. I have a 2.4GHz Core i3 MBP with 4GB RAM, and it runs Logos 4 quite well, while also running WinXP in VirtualBox so that I can run Bibleworks (in seamless mode!) at the same time.

Comparing apples to apples (pun intended), it seems that a similarly equipped Dell is about $400 cheaper and HP comes in about $300 more than my MacBook Pro. Comparing prices is difficult, but it seems that Apple is really not that much more expensive on comparable hardware.

John Fidel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/202773#Comment_202773

Hi Richard,

You makes a good point.. comparable hardware. The difference is that PC have lower end models that are absent from the MBP line.

Allen Browne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/202761#Comment_202761

Not sure I have enough direct experience to recommend a specific brand. Primarily, it's about reliability. Years ago, Toshiba had the edge, and lost it but may be okay again now. Dell is good value for money, though I've had some failures.

For what I do, I need lots of screen space, so what I actually use is a 17" laptop as the primary screen, with a 22" widescreen as the 2nd monitor. Logos 4 on the laptop, and MS Word on the 2nd monitor. The unusal thing is that the 2nd monitor is rotated to portrait orientation, so it should about 1.5 pages of whatever lesson I'm preparing at a time. Once you start to work like that, you can't do without. Here's an old screenshot from years ago (actually a desktop):
http://allenbrowne.com/temp/monitor.jpg

George Somsel

My old 4year old laptop is not running L4 like I would like. I am considering up grading to a Mac Book Pro that cost about $1600. My questions 1) Is the quality of Mac book Po that much better quality wise than a PC? 2) Can I expect the Mac Book Pro to last 4years? 3) Are the listed components made especially for apple or, or they the same as listed in the better PCs? 4) I love the looks of the Mac, the aluminum housing and everything about it but, is it overrated when considering the cost? I would like to have a Mac Book Pro but having trouble justifying the cost and I am certainly not a penny pincher either. You Mac Book owners please give me a sales pitch.

thanks for the help

I'm not an expert, and I don't play one on TV so value my opinion as you see fit. In buying a computer quality is certainly something to consider. I have had a number of Windows computers with which I have been perfectly satisfied. My only problems have been a power supply in my now decrepit Gateway which I replaced myself with one I bought at the computer store for about $30 and which was rated higher in output than the original and a DVD player in my laptop which I still need to get replaced. That said, you need to consider the difference in philosophy between Apple and PC manufacturers. It may have changed, but originally the idea behind the PC was that it used off-the-shelf parts to assemble it. Apple was more proprietary -- you couldn't replace a part with a non-Apple part. As I said, that may have changed. If it hasn't changed, however, then you need to consider whether you want to be able to open up the hood and fiddle with it yourself or if you want to be tied to the company store. As with Logos, MAC software tends to lag behind. When Logos first released a MAC version in L3 it was at a premium while the Windows version was still free (Resourses were identical and thus the same price). MACies like to mention freedom from viruses. That isn't completely true. There have been viruses which affect MACs though, due to the fact that the MAC base is smaller than the Windows base, they are much more rare. Why should they spend their time developing a program to crash a MAC when they can get much more bang for their buck by attacking the PC market ?

BTW: I had a very bad experience with Apple many years ago and swore I would never again lay hands on one. I have thus far kept that vow. To me going to a MAC is "going to the dark side."

Jason

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/202866#Comment_202866

In my experience, Macs have a slightly longer life than Windows laptops. I had a 2002 iBook keep on chugging along until 2009, and even then I was still able to sell it for 15% of what I bought it for. I also have a 2005 PowerBook G4 that is still running just fine today. Both of those were pre-Intel.

I've managed and maintained lots and lots of Mac laptops (as well as Windows machines) over the years as part of my job, and yes, they have their fair share of crashes and hardware failures. No computer is immune to that. However, if I were choosing to purchase a laptop today, I would buy a Mac - even with the price premium. I would consider looking for refurbished or clearance deals, as they can get the cost down a few hundred bucks. For me, they've still proved to be more reliable, more user-friendly, sturdier, and a lot more fun to use. Less susceptible to spyware and software bloat (but yes, this still happens too). An overall smoother experience. Just my personal opinion.

I've been using Logos 4 on my Mac since the beta period (as well as 1.2.2), and I've found it very usable, especially in its current state. Hope that helps!

fgh

I'm certainly no computer expert, and I've never owned a PC, but I can tell you this: after 19 years on Mac I've never had a hardware problem, never taken a computer to service, and never had a virus. And from what I can tell, I'm the rule rather than the exception. I know of lots of people who still occasionally use their 15-20 year old Macs for some game that doesn't exist anymore. My Performa from the mid-90ies certainly still runs fine; it just doesn't quite meet the requirements for today's programs... [;)]

I just bought my 5th in September, so the first 4 lasted pretty exactly 19 years. And those were all cheaper models. Furthermore, if I hadn't needed a newer one to run Logos, I could have installed some more RAM and run my old Mini a year or two more. In other words, the decision about when to replace isn't likely to be based on quality, but rather on how long you are willing to put up with the performance of an older computer.

Like I said, I have no personal experience, but the general consensus among those who have switched seem to be that Macs last longer, cost less in antivirus and service, and have higher second hand value, and therefore end up being cheaper in the long run. Especially if you also put a price on all the hours PC users seem to spend on fixing things that don't work.

The only thing that constantly annoys me with Apple, is that they always put in too little RAM. But then, as I said, I tend to buy the cheaper ones.

(Disclaimer: I have never owned a laptop, just desktops.)