Mac first impressions

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FoxhoundOp

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 26, 2003
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This wall of text is just me talking about how cool I found Macs to be after finally using one. If you're not interested don't read past this point - If you're here to flame, don't bother. If you're here to start a Mac vs. PC debate, don't bother I'm not interested and neither is anyone else on this forum.

So I took a trip up to Microcenter to play around for a bit (me in Microcenter is like letting a kid loose in a toy store) and I decided to play around with the Macs. I sat down with an Imac 24" and played around with it for a while. I was impressed by how "pretty" the operating system is and the image quality of the Imac itself was amazing. I assume they use some type of VA/IPS panel because there was absolutely no color shift no matter what direction I went in.

I played around with a Unibody MBP also. I was REALLY impressed with how solid it felt and the image quality of the screen. I thought the Photo Booth program was really cool and I like how you can export the photos right to iPhoto and play around with them. I was also really impressed with the size of the trackpad. I didn't get a chance to play around with multi-touch too much (i spun a photo around a few times for the lulz but that's about as far as that went)...

Anyway I could type out a wall of text but what I'm getting at is Macs are pretty fuckin cool. If I could afford it I probably would've walked out of there with a Macbook Pro. While I love Windows, especially Windows 7, I have to say that OS X felt really... seemless for lack of a better word and I had no trouble getting around it even knowing absolutely nothing about the computers. I really didn't want to like them but I did and now I want one. Goddamnit. :(
 
I've got a 12" PowerBook G5 that's really nice and sexy, got it to learn about OSX, runs Leopard completely fine, is really small, and great build quality. Got it for about 150 quid on ebay ($250 ish, probably cheaper in USA as things usually are :p)

Other option is a hackintosh .... or just stumping up for a real new shiny mac :)
 
SBB said:
I've got a 12" PowerBook G5 that's really nice and sexy, got it to learn about OSX, runs Leopard completely fine, is really small, and great build quality. Got it for about 150 quid on ebay ($250 ish, probably cheaper in USA as things usually are :p)

Other option is a hackintosh .... or just stumping up for a real new shiny mac :)
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You have a 12" Powerbook G4. Apple never produced G5 based mobiles due to heat and power consumption issues.
 
They are cool. You use one for a day and it's great. A week and your in love. A month and you're settled in and it's great. 6 months later the honeymoon is over. It's great but there are annoyances and you realize it's not any better than windows. Just different. Pros and cons on both sides.
The macbooks and macbook pros are built nice. No doubt. I was in the market for a cheap laptop recently and wanted to get a macbook but couldn't justify the price. For what I needed a cheap $399 laptop fit the bill.
 
Archer75 said:
They are cool. You use one for a day and it's great. A week and your in love. A month and you're settled in and it's great. 6 months later the honeymoon is over. It's great but there are annoyances and you realize it's not any better than windows. Just different. Pros and cons on both sides.
The macbooks and macbook pros are built nice. No doubt. I was in the market for a cheap laptop recently and wanted to get a macbook but couldn't justify the price. For what I needed a cheap $399 laptop fit the bill.
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I've had my MacBook for over a year now and my "honeymoon" is still not over. I honestly have zero annoyances or issues. Knock on wood, I've never had any problems. It does everything I want it to without any complications. I use it for school work [word, excel, powerpoint], web browsing, photo editing, and connected to my 42" plasma for Hulu Streaming. I absolutely love the OS. I love the speed of it powering ON/OFF. I love the ease of use. If I could complain, I'd say that I wished I would have waited for the Unibody MacBook as I really want backlit keys. For my needs, it doesn't get any better than my MacBook. Now when it comes to a desktop, I opted to build my own PC. The Mac Mini was under powered for me, the iMac was not upgradeable, and the Mac Pro was out of my price range. I am very pleased with my PC, but I miss the OS of my MacBook...It all about what you need and what you can afford to fulfill those needs the best. Everyone will have something different to say...
 
I love my Macbook, but I am also very fond of my windows/linux pc's as well. I will say that I pretty much keep the gaming and encoding to the pc gaming rig, and use the laptop for just about everything else.

Bad time for me to be posting though. Kinda peeved that the connections inside my magsafe connector broke, and now have to buy a new adapter. Grabbed a cheap one off ebay to hold me over, and see if they work just as well, which should be in next week. Don't want to have to dump $80 for an adapter at the Apple Store/BB/Microcenter, but will if I have to. Just kinda frustrated that I could just spend a bit more than the adapter costs retail and just grab a netbook.

Still love my Macbook to death though. Just disappointed in the build quality of some of the accessories, that's all.
 
Having bought a Pro laptop out of the gate, only to find it was too big to be practical on-the-go.. a year later still using, and prefer OSX over Windows. My recent impression with Win 7 felt kind of "cheap". I guess I am not only settling in, but sticking with Mac. True, Windows has like 700 applications for any certain task, you only need to use one.

To keep this away from a Windows to OSX debate.. I will simply end with 1 year later... I am still using and prefer the Mac over a PC anyday. :)
 
My first computers were Macs back in the early 1990s. I had an SE/20, a couple of PowerMacs and a PowerBook 1400c. Loved them all but once I started working in the IT industry, in 1996, I had to move to Windows (the horror, the horror...). No doubt that Windows has drastically improved, especially since XP. I like Vista and am very interested in Win 7. My current PC does everything I want and is a great gaming machine.

However...

I always missed my Macs. When Apple adopted Intel processors I was thrilled and immediately bought a black MacBook. After a few months, I decided to get a MacBook Pro. Absolutely loved it. Once the unibody MBPs were available, I eBayed my MBP and got a new one. This is easily the best built, best performing laptop I've ever owned. I use it for work and on the road. In fact, my agency offered me a new Thinkpad T61p, but it wasn't nearly as nice as my MBP.
 
OP, just do what many other [H]ard|OCPers have done. Windows on your desktop, and a Macbook as your laptop. Both OSes have their problems and flaws, but both have things that make them great. I love my MacBook, OSX is a great mobile OS. It is quick to boot and shutdown, great on battery life, and I don't have to really worry when I plug it into random WiFi networks with more viruses and worms than a $2 whore. However at home, my i7 machine running Windows Vista/7 is my first choice. As a desktop OS on a fast machine, IMHO Windows is by far the best choice.

Once you are fluent in both OSes, you'll sit down at any machine and it won't really matter if it is a Mac or PC. Then you'll fully realize just how fucking stupid the whole Mac/PC debate is, because it really, really doesn't matter that much.
 
The jury is still out for me. I've used a Macbook for the better part of the last 6 months. It's fun to play around with, but it's not really much different than Windows when you get down to it.

As the guy above me said, the quick startup/shutdown and battery life for a laptop are the best parts for me. Windows is noticably worse on battery life using the same hardware in bootcamp. Linux is even worse than Windows. If only Apple would make something for the subnotebook crowd like the old PBG4 12". That was my favorite size computer, but it sucked for playing internet video and didn't work with Netflix period (a must for a laptop on the road for me).
 
I think the thing that really sells me on Macintosh is that my iMac doesn't produce as much heat as my main Windows Machine. Now granted that machine was built to play games and do work on, I feel though that I can get the same done on my iMac without roasting myself in my room since it gets so hot. The design of the unit speaks loads. Will it play the same games at the same settings as my main box, no but it works very nicely as secondary machine. I'll probably end up using it over the summer as my main machine.
 
soulman901 said:
I think the thing that really sells me on Macintosh is that my iMac doesn't produce as much heat as my main Windows Machine. Now granted that machine was built to play games and do work on, I feel though that I can get the same done on my iMac without roasting myself in my room since it gets so hot. The design of the unit speaks loads. Will it play the same games at the same settings as my main box, no but it works very nicely as secondary machine. I'll probably end up using it over the summer as my main machine.
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I tried doing that with my uMB, and it just wasn't fast enough in Windows doing the things I normally do. I just went and got another cheap desktop with a quad core again. DVD ripping was painfully slow on the uMB.
 
i was at frys today, i saw an imac 24in, pretty. both the computer design and the image quality of the screen are beautiful. the thing about macs to me is you cant "build" one. and you cant upgrade the processor (i think). personally i dont play that many games, and the reason to have the most expensive video card is, games. what i mostly do is collect graphic files (pics), and the internet. and i heard that you can install windows on a mac, that's interesting.
i also saw a 30in version, too BIG for me. didnt like it.
 
I got my macbook pro for two reasons really. First was because of the ability to run osx and windows. I have had several mac notebooks over the years and really enjoyed using osx along with some of the great features that are built into the laptops. The only drawback I ever faced was the inability to play windows games. Second, and the most important to me, was build quality. It seems like all the notebook manufacturers are on a search to find the cheapest plastic possible. Even Sony has resorted to this except for their extremely expensive lines of notebooks.
 
i've only had my mac for a few weeks, but I bought it because I needed a portable laptop with great battery life and I wanted something with an led screen.

So far, I have no complaints. I absolutely love it and I wish I would have bought one sooner. Its a great mid-range machine 2.66ghz core 2 duo, 4gb ram, 9600gt, 500gb drive, wireless n, led screen, the built-in speakers are by far the best i've ever personally seen on a laptop (i'm sure there are better). Really I could go on and on, for what I use it for (office/vmware) it is fucking amazing.

oh and another thing, one of the biggest selling points for me was the battery life. i'm getting 7~8 hrs of battery life and due to the nature of my job, i am at a different customer site every few hours and half the time I have no access to an outlet.


now my main pc however I love even more :)
 
I like Roliath have only had my Mac for a few weeks (7 to be exact) so far I love it. My main reasons for getting it are:

- Superior build quality
- Amazing battery life ( I get around 6 hours on a single charge with wifi on a few tabs open in safari, iTunes and a Word doc or two open, with skype calls of course going on in the background).
- Beautiful screen ( I have yet to see a notebook that rivals the screen quality of that of the uMBP ).
- Value, for the build quality and performance, there really isn't anything I can think of that is much better than the MacBook Pros.

Added bonuses with getting a Mac:

- OS X it really is a nice OS very streamlined
- It can run Windows flawlessly ( I knew this going in but the ability to have a legit copy of OS X and Windows on the same machine is amazing ).
- Uber sexy
- One of the BEST keyboards I have ever used.

However even with all of this I STILL love my desktop and Windows, because there are just somethings that Windows can do better and the same is true for OS X. So really its a win-win with a MacBook

That will be the last time I ever sound like an Apple executive again I PROMISE.
 
After using OSX for ~6 months, my main gripe is that window management isn't that great when you have many windows opened. If I'm missing something, please tell me.
 
spaces works great to help with that, especially if you have a 13" or 15"
 
K1tty said:
spaces works great to help with that, especially if you have a 13" or 15"
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Agreed, but I know where he is coming from if you need, because some times 16 spaces might not be enough, and really there is no way around this issue in OS X the only thing I would say is that start getting used to using spaces and expose, those are really 2 helpful features that more often then not the average mac user forgets about, and really can help you out A LOT.
 
between spaces and expose, window management is great on osx. It's one of the reasons I bought a 13MBP. I haul lots of books and need a powerful, yet small, notebook, and couldn't imagine running all th windows I do on an OS without spaces and expose.
 
osxsatisfactionchart1qk.jpg


:D
 
You forgot Day 11 - 120% satisfaction

"WTF, you use windoze? I can't stand M$ products. Apple is soooo much better. I just bought Sims 2 at Apple store, it was only $45! Now I can be 1337!"

I kid I kid. Apple laptop+windows gaming desktop=FTW
 
ryken said:
between spaces and expose, window management is great on osx. It's one of the reasons I bought a 13MBP. I haul lots of books and need a powerful, yet small, notebook, and couldn't imagine running all th windows I do on an OS without spaces and expose.
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I not a big fan of expose. Its great when you only have a couple of windows (I actually prefer at times), but once you get upwards of 10 windows expose breaks down fast. I'm not sure if there is some systematic way the windows are arranged in expose, but it seems pretty random to me (and they sometimes change arrangements when I have done nothing). One a positive note, the dock expose sounds like something in the right direction for my window management needs.

Right now in win7 the windows key + # key is by far the best. Its like having alt+tab but divided based on applications. It too breaks down when you have more than ~8 windows per application and/or 6 active applications.

I guess I prefer using a keyboard short cuts to switch between windows, which win7 has done very well. Right now I just find the mac way too mouse dependent for heavy usage.

I still don't have a good handle for spaces; however I wish there is an option like most linux distro's where the virtual desktop windows are previewed.
 
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gwu168 said:
One a positive note, the dock expose sounds like something in the right direction for my window management needs.
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Dock Expose was created to solve the window clutter problem. 10.6 also adds some order to the way Expose places windows.

I guess I prefer using a keyboard short cuts to switch between windows, which win7 has done very well. Right now I just find the mac way too mouse dependent for heavy usage.
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System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts. Go wild.
 
I wish there is an option like most linux distro's where the virtual desktop windows are previewed
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Just put the spaces shortcut on your dock and then click it. It will show you all your spaces at once, and let you move stuff around. Unless you are talking about something else...

I set up my spaces to be program specific. 1 is firefox. 2 is email and ical. 3 is itunes. 4 is onenote and word. 5 is finder. 6 is iphoto and skype. With only 1-3 things per space, expose works great as I rarely get above 5 windows in a space, while running upwards of 8-10 programs at any given time.
 
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