[asiafish]

rasmasyean said:

Well...for the record...I CAN afford an Apple. The highest model. And even a couple of them. But I still won't "invest" in one. And I know many people like this. Maybe some might get one just for the hell of it, but it then becomes an extra novelty gizmo. Or for "professional photography" hobbies, etc.

And whether anyone "respects" that viewpoint, is irrelevant. Because I know what both offers and choose power and flexibility...and I get to save money to boot as well.

And whether or not anyone respects the following view or not is irrelevant as well:
I think that many Apple fanbois (excluding niche users, etc.) are either ill-informed about the capabilities of their platform or are suffering "post-justification syndrome" for spending a lot of money on an inferior platform that in the back of their mind they know was a worse choice.

You don't have to be an Apple fanboi to buy premium machines. The same argument for Apple hardware exists for Sony as well as Lenovo, HP, Dell and every other OEM's premium models. Trust me, corporations don't pay extra for business class machines just because they are gray, they pay extra because they are better built, thinner, lighter, cooler (temperature), quieter tend to use components and drivers aimed more at stability than maximum framerates.

Yes, you can specify a consumer model with the same components, in some cases even the same motherboard, but the board is only one aspect of a laptop. Battery life, and even more importantly bulk, vary greatly between consumer and business models.

Back in the days of the Inspiron 8000, by the way, the Latitudes were also junky. Dell's business line has gotten much better though over the last few years.

[WinTard]

I don't know about junky as you term it. Funny I always thought Apple was junky thus perhaps why I never got into it. I choose the 8000 because:
* 1600x1200 display nVidia accelerated (very rare back in 2000)
* slide in modular bay HDD
* slide in modular bay FDD
* slide in modular bay DVD burner
* built-in (also slide in/out) DVD burner (total of 2 DVD drives simultaneously in the system)
* built-in 100Mbps Ethernet
* built-in wi-fi
* built-in bluetooth
* 1GB RAM (in 2000 that was state-of-the-art)
* removable HDD tray, in addition to the modular one. (total of 2 HDD simultaneously in the system)
* additional battery compartment for airplane flights & no AC adapter. (total of 2 batteries simultaneously in the system).
* runs Linux as well as Windows with all device drivers found (in Linux)...

At the time, there was nothing else comparable... And that original system is still alive today.

Funny how prejudice makes all of us see things? As for the price, I still think Apple isn't worth it. Thus junky IMHO. But I admit, they do have nice hardware. Albeit, way overpriced.

~~~~~~~~~~
"We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk,"
~ Steven Jobs said last year in 2008 during a conference call with Wall Street analysts...

What he really meant, is the profit margin is too thin for Apple...

PS: Junky is relative. I think all BMW's are junky except for the M3. That is the only BMW I would get. But don't think a Toyota Corolla XRS is junky... ;)

[yankeeDDL]

That's freaky. I also have an Inspiron 8000 (I have the 900U model), and mine is also still alive and kicking (I'm not going to mention the OS that I use :). Mine doesn't have built-in bluetooth though. I didn't even know it existed back then.
Anyway, I liked your MacBook Pro 15" vs Dell XPS. A whopping $750 difference.

I went on dell.com and played with the options as well, I noticed that as you go to the "top of the line" spec (e.g.: with the core 2 Duo 2.5GHz) the price skyrockets.
I think the real problem with Apple is that because they have only "top of the line" hadware, their oprions loose competitiveness by te ime they make it on the web. I mean, in 2 months the core 2 duo 2.5GHz will be way cheaper than it is today (the core i7 family is populating, and AMD seems to finally have some decent mobile versions of the Phenom II) and the pricess will be updated "daily" on Dell's website but the MacBook Pro wll stay at that price till the next version will come out. It's well known that top-of the line CPU (or GPU) are not cost effective. You pay a large premium for a relatively small benefit.

[WinTard]

Oh my bad, I went to physically look at the Dell Inspiron 8000, and actually, it says Dell Latitude C840 on the POST screen splash...

Here's the service manual: http://support.dell....en/sm/index.htm



And bluetooth was implemented via a USB dongle...

It was nine years ago. ;)

PS: I find it extremely convenient to be able to procure parts and free-open-service-manuals from Dell... Nice touch!

[mikedgolf40505]

Win I agree with you. I am not sure why they make business models. I still have a Dell Latitude work laptop, the old Dell Inspiron 5150 I had a few years ago had more features than the Latitude. I also order all of my laptops with 7200 rpm hard drives. Makes them much perkier. I have been thinking about changing out the 320G 7200rpm hard drive in my personal MacBook Pro with a 500G 7200RPM; but I am a little scared replacing the hard drive on a Mac. I am not sure if it is as easy as it is in Windows. I have been thinking and there are several here that post, like asia, that do not fall under the fan boy category. I know that I obviously do not. I think some people just seem to want to justify to the world the reasons they spent a lot more money on a Mac. Myself, I do not feel the need. My choices are my choices, and I made them for myself. Win if you can find out anything about swapping hard drives on a uni-body MacBook Pro like mine or the previous body style like my wife's let me know.

[asiafish]

mikedgolf40505 said:

Win I agree with you. I am not sure why they make business models. I still have a Dell Latitude work laptop, the old Dell Inspiron 5150 I had a few years ago had more features than the Latitude. I also order all of my laptops with 7200 rpm hard drives. Makes them much perkier. I have been thinking about changing out the 320G 7200rpm hard drive in my personal MacBook Pro with a 500G 7200RPM; but I am a little scared replacing the hard drive on a Mac. I am not sure if it is as easy as it is in Windows. I have been thinking and there are several here that post, like asia, that do not fall under the fan boy category. I know that I obviously do not. I think some people just seem to want to justify to the world the reasons they spent a lot more money on a Mac. Myself, I do not feel the need. My choices are my choices, and I made them for myself. Win if you can find out anything about swapping hard drives on a uni-body MacBook Pro like mine or the previous body style like my wife's let me know.

The hard drive on all Macs is upgradable, but reaching it can be difficult. On the old models, its a serious job that you should pay a Mac tech an hour's labor to do.

The Unibody, however, is even easier than a ThinkPad (1 screw). The hard drive sits next to the battery, so if you can change the battery, you can change the hard drive.

I put a 500 GB 7200 RPM drive in my Unibody MacBook Pro the day I bought it and it was by far the easiest laptop drive install ever. I would recommend you find two applications to make your upgrade even easier, and that you get an external housing for your 320 GB drive.

Using SuperDuper you can make a fully bootable clone of your Mac partition. It is similar to applications like Norton Ghost or Acronis TrueImage, but no reboot is required. WinClone will do the same for your Windows Boot Camp partition.

First, with the 320GB drive still installed, get a program called WinClone and make an image of your Boot Camp partition (if you have one).

Do the Mac partition next, cloning your Mac partition to the entire 500GB drive with SuperDuper.

Now swap the drives and boot from your new 500 GB drive. OS X will be exactly where you left it on the old drive, with all of your settings and apps working perfectly (no activation silliness with OS X). Run the Boot Camp utility to set the size of your Windows Boot Camp partition (I grew both of my partitions with the upgraded drive) and then restore your image using WinClone again.

Congratulations, you now have a 500 GB MacBook Pro with fully functioning OS X and Windows partitions, no reactivation and you can wipe your 320 GB drive clean and use it as a Time Machine backup drive.

[WinTard]

Hey thanks asiafish for the good info!

Hello mikedgolf40505! Personally, in addition to the info given by our great member asiafish, I would look at some pictorials such as:
Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 2,380,000 for how to upgrade macbook hdd. (0.22 seconds)

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[asiafish]

You can definitely do even the older MacBook Pro yourself, its just a big job with MANY screws. It depends entirely on your comfort level. It is much harder than most non-Apple laptops. All iBooks, titanium and aluminum PowerBooks and pre-unibody MacBook Pro computers were among the most difficult to disassemble. Hard drives aren't too bad, while optical drives are a serious challenge.



Plastic MacBooks and all unibody models, on the other hand, are among the easist laptops of any brand for hard drive access and replacement. Plastic MacBooks were tough for optical drives (same as the older designs above), but the unibody models are all extremely easy to service. Even the logic board can be removed easily.

[WinTard]

The nice thing on all the Dell laptops, is that one single screw, and pull out the internal HDD tray. The tray cost about $8 from Dell, so for my purposes, whenever I want to do a lobotomy onto the laptop to reconfigure it to whatever, I simply pull out the HDD (Here's my backup), then load whatever for experimental purposes. Also I don't mind if the patient gets 'infected' or trashed because a simple reboot and reload will bring the patient back to whatever configuration one desires... I usually get a $40 HDD 7200rpm 100GB. That's good enough to test anything. But 500GB are the same physical size. So to me, multiple configurations are more important than raw data storage, as that function belongs on the SAN/NAS elsewhere.

I actually don't bother with the screw, so replacing or swapping any Dell laptop HDD is a matter of 30 seconds or less...

I also like the idea of external drive(s). I use and recommend:

>http://www.costco.co...=mybook&Mo=1&cmre=1en--TopLeftNav--Topsearch&lang=en-US&Nr=PCatalogName:BC&Sp=S&N=5000043&whse=BC&Dx=modematchallpartial&Ntk=TextSearch&Dr=PCatalogName:BC&Ne=4000000&D=mybook&Ntt=mybook&No=1&Ntx=modematchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1

>

>

For the RAID mirrorring built-in capability. Thus statistically protecting the data on each drive. It is unlikely (but possible) that both drives will fail at exactly the same time... Okay you only get 1GB of mirrorred drive out of a 2GB unit, but the price is well worth it, and the peace of mind is priceless! I have two such units so far (for home), and simply add as required. Oh they are portable anywhere and usable everywhere too!

As for NAS, I use an HP Media Vault m2010. Results 1 - 10 of about 10,500 for HP media vault mv2010. (0.22 seconds)

Nice dedicated linux box, with an all aluminum removable HDD tray. It will also serve on the network, two extra USB drives...
http://tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:O2UpTa2mfxnBlM:http://ak.buy.com/db[u]assets/large[/u]images/519/204035519.jpg http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:zUuzoqm[u]aI2-2M:http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/feature[/u]stories/2006/images/06hidef-1.jpg http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:FIpij5gKxi8pIM:http://reviews.cnet.com/sc/32104818-2-440-back-4.gif

http://images.google...F-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Cheap, effective, reliable, and fun! Plug it on a UPS, in the basement, and forget about it! Since it's linux, no worries either...

[TechieXP]

I was reading on wikipedia yesterday...and I was reading the details on several operting systems just to take a trip down memory lane. And I especially was taken by some details I didn't know about OS/2. After reading a bit...there was a paragraph either there or in the wiki about IBM, about the point where Microsoft and IBM broke off. One of the things it mentioned is that MSFT want to use an architecture that was low in cost and would allow them to maximize the abilities of OS/2 and the up and coming Windows operating system. While IBM want to use the close end version of the same hardware which would have made users of the hardware totally dependant os IBM. Anyone remember a technology called 'microchannel'? It was IBM version of PCI except the connector pins were much closer and also thinner which prevented standard PCI cards from fitting. Which force you to upgrade cards using IBM proprietory standard which was way more expensive.

To me its teh same with Apple. The ore harder they make it for you the more dependant you have to be on them. In fact it force you to buy the extended warranty because if you don't, Apple will probbaly charge you $100 just to swap out that hard disk. Yes more screws make it sturdy and quiet and blah blah...but once I buy it, I want to be able to service it. Its almost like how care are now. Yes they have gotten better...but most cars can't be self served because it require hooking up to a computer to find out whats wrong with it. It force you to always have to depend on someone else.

Don't you miss the good old days where when somethig broke the ease to fix or upgrade was cheaper? Advanced technology gone array!

One of the biggest benefits to Windows based PC where teh cost pays off. If it breaks and I don't have a warranty I can simply replece it. My rule of thumb is...if I have to pay $2000 for it...IT BETTER NOT EVER BREAK....for any reason...even if I drop it.

[WinTard]

The nice thing is you can drop and break your Dell, and it's covered! (If you purchase the Complete Care). Well worth it IMHO. And face it, it is less expensive to start with than the competition. What are you going to spend the rest of the budget on? ;)

BETTER WARRANTY! Peace of mind: PRICELESS!

Better: Complete, everything, no exceptions all parts & labour...
Better: Three years of coverage is better than one is it?
Better: Because one can afford it, due to the competitive prices to start with.
Better: Next business day on-site business or home location anywhere in the world.
Better: Convenience & Peace of Mind.

What's your peace of mind worth? Are you worth it?

[mikedgolf40505]

Hey folks thanks for the info! Also thanks for the civil tone in these posts. Now I just got to get the go ahead from the boss (wife) to order one from Tiger Direct.

[mikedgolf40505]

You know you are right. That was one of the most disappointing lack of features in my Apple Care Protection plan for my MacBook Pros. With my HP I bought there best plan and that included accidental damage coverage. Apple does not offer that. You would think when you spend almost $3000 on a laptop and another $300 on the Apple Care that it would include that.

[TechieXP]

Since they are skinned in aluminum they aren't suppose to break....perfect things don't break. Only cheap defective things do...;-)
If I owned a Mac...and I dropped it by mistake and I took it too teh store and I found out Apple Care didn't cover that? On my way out the door I'd through it right through the frikkin store window and break them. And then I'd dare them to try to make me pay for it. I'll tell them I did when I bought this worthless piece of crap. And then I'll scream at all the customers telling them all how for $300 the only thing you are protected against is mfr defects.

Again just because you pay more for something surely doesn't mean it better. It just means you pay more when it breaks - quote from Sir WinTard.