Peregrinari is my hero of the day.

Peregrinari wrote:I don't want to join in feeding the PC trolls but I just can't help but wonder, do the PCphiles really believe everything they say? I mean, I still own 5 PCs and I love my Mac and Apple products. They are my daily drivers. My PCs are for photoshop and video editing because I can build desktop machines and then upgrade them so cheaply. That said, The price of these machines is well worth what they are. Extremely high quality products with up to date hardware (if you buy the new stuff) that will last a very long time and actually maintain their resale values. An equivalent Ultrabook (Not just specs guys, one built as well as a mac) is exactly the same price (Not the cheap plastic ultrabooks the really really nice ones (and really nice machines is what Macs are)). The idea is the initial outlay of cash is higher than a cheap PC laptop. Then, every two to four years you sell it and buy another. If you do the selling part (Because used PC laptops are worthless while Mac laptops retain their value) you end up buying your next mac for 400-500 dollars. Thats cheaper by far than what you can get on the PC (equivalent hardware and build quality)for 500 dollars. Yes, you have to lay out the initial money but I like to think of that 1000 dollars as an investment in the next 10 years of Macs. That's a hundred bucks a year (plus the 500 every two to four years)to own an extremely high quality machine That if you ever decided to stop upgrading the hardware will still run for 10 years. I have never had a laptop last that long from anyone else. I just did this to get my latest mac. I sold my 15" Macbook Pro i5 with a bunch of accessories for $1200. I then went and bought an Ivybridge i7 Macbook for $1500 dollars. Hey, did I just upgrade for $300 dollars? Uhhhh, yes. You do the math. Seems a small effort and investment for something so usable and of high quality.

How does this ship? The $5 is how fast? Thanks.

Why do people try to compare their $1500 macbook to a $350 laptop? If you buy a $1500 pc it will be just as good. I guarantee you if Apple had a $350 laptop it would be crap also!

It's a 2010 model that Apple couldn't sell on their refurb site. Leftover stock that wasn't moving. Do yourself a favor and spend a bit more for a 2011 or 2012 model.

souplogic wrote:That is NOT WUXGA - which is a huge point for me, but specs and looks are very nice for sure - as to the track pad, would have to research. But thanks, that does look like a good PC for sure.

Also, I would be swapping hdd and ram if I bought this with ssd and bigger ram (these are good for 2x the official maximum). Of course that adds more to the price, and of course people who buy macs are generally over-paying. I just want to make the point that we are just a little crazy for it, not fully insane.

I did miss that spec, I saw 1920 and assumed 1920X1080, before looking at it closer after you mentioned it. It looks like windows laptops dropped that resolution a few years ago, probably because the sales couldn't justify the cost of the panel. I could see for your purposes 1920x1200 might be useful, but for most people on a 17" screen they won't notice a difference from 1920x1080. As far as comparing the other specs, you talked about need to upgrade the other components- but you don't mention needing to upgrade them on the Macbook? Because the Macbook doesn't come with an SSD or 16gb of RAM either. At least if you have the windows laptop you can hook up an external drive at USB 3.0 speeds if you add an SSD. You don't have that option - what you have is firewire. That is the most frustrating thing about doing video editing on the IMAC, is USB 2 and firewire are my only options for connecting up external HD- Why does Apple force me to need to upgrade the size of my internal hard drive, vs adding an external peripheral that is not bus limited in terms of speed and response?

It seems that the picture on the woot homepage is of a 15" macbook, not the 17". when you click through it shows the 17" and the other pictures are of the 17", just not the main display pic (hopefully that makes sense)

Peregrinari wrote:I don't want to join in feeding the PC trolls but I just can't help but wonder, do the PCphiles really believe everything they say? I mean, I still own 5 PCs and I love my Mac and Apple products. They are my daily drivers. My PCs are for photoshop and video editing because I can build desktop machines and then upgrade them so cheaply. That said, The price of these machines is well worth what they are. Extremely high quality products with up to date hardware (if you buy the new stuff) that will last a very long time and actually maintain their resale values. An equivalent Ultrabook (Not just specs guys, one built as well as a mac) is exactly the same price (Not the cheap plastic ultrabooks the really really nice ones (and really nice machines is what Macs are)). The idea is the initial outlay of cash is higher than a cheap PC laptop. Then, every two to four years you sell it and buy another. If you do the selling part (Because used PC laptops are worthless while Mac laptops retain their value) you end up buying your next mac for 400-500 dollars. Thats cheaper by far than what you can get on the PC (equivalent hardware and build quality)for 500 dollars. Yes, you have to lay out the initial money but I like to think of that 1000 dollars as an investment in the next 10 years of Macs. That's a hundred bucks a year (plus the 500 every two to four years)to own an extremely high quality machine That if you ever decided to stop upgrading the hardware will still run for 10 years. I have never had a laptop last that long from anyone else. I just did this to get my latest mac. I sold my 15" Macbook Pro i5 with a bunch of accessories for $1200. I then went and bought an Ivybridge i7 Macbook for $1500 dollars. Hey, did I just upgrade for $300 dollars? Uhhhh, yes. You do the math. Seems a small effort and investment for something so usable and of high quality.

You keep your technology for 10 years? How is your flip phone doing?



My flip phone was awesome, made it through the washer and dryer once, and still worked after I let it dry out for 3 days. Despite it being such a great device- I still manage to move on every 2 years to newer and better technology.

GenMischief wrote:Am I the only person who thinks pretty much ALL mac products are ridiculously over priced?

No, of course you're not the only one. But what would you consider overpriced? Mac products will cost you more up front, but generally they are very well-built and will last for years. In the long run, you will probably end up paying less for a Mac.

But of course, if you're the type of guy who wants a new laptop every year, a Mac may not be the way to go. However, Apple does have a buy-back program, if your old Mac has any value left in it, they will buy it back from you. I've never used the program, and I suspect you will only be getting pennies on the dollar; but it's another thing to consider.

I switched to Macs about 10 years ago for two primary reasons: the incessant attacks on Windows machines and the fact that Windows would bog down every 6 months or so and need to be re-installed. I haven't had either of those problems on my Macs.

As far as size is concerned, if you intend to carry your laptop around with you, then 17" is probably going to seem too big for you. But if your laptop rarely leaves your desk, the large display is a big bonus.

jpstrings wrote:Not eligible for OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date Program

I bought the 17" on the last go round and up graded for $20. No big deal.

ThunderThighs wrote:While often faster, we suggest allowing 5 business days (not counting today) for order processing and getting it out the door.

I upgraded shipping to 2 day for $15 and got it on Saturday morning.

gak0090 wrote:You keep your technology for 10 years? How is your flip phone doing?

Awesome tale, but let's get back to those Pros, shall we?

clanecks wrote:To simply put, a MBP of inferior specs will still be useful 5 years later, while a PC of superior specs will end up in a landfill somewhere after 3. It has everything to do with the combination of software and hardware, and not hardware alone.

Like it or not, MBPs simply last longer.

I built my desktop in 2006 and I bought my laptop in 2007. Neither of them has ever had a single issue whatsoever. The laptop was $300. It went through my entire college career and then turned into my DJ laptop. It's had drinks spilled on it and again, not a single issue. I can run a full DJ suite as well as ableton (albeit not both of them can be loaded down with VSTs) no issues, and my desktop still plays every modern shooter just fine. I replaced the hard drive with SSD and I improved the video card, but otherwise it's still stock.

So no, actually, you're wrong here.

I've had one of these for a couple years now. I boot camp it to W7 64. It makes a great windows machine. However, early on when I first had it bootcamped, the machine would lock up constantly. It took me a while to figure out that the o/s was not controlling the fans at all, and it was overheating. I downloaded a freebie command line utility to control the fans and stuffed it in a bat file to turn on when the o/s boots. No problems since. I edit video on this thing and the screen resolution with the extra pixels helps. It's a nice machine.

inkycatz wrote:Awesome tale, but let's get back to those Pros, shall we?

I guess this is why I don't get any quality points anymore- just too argumentative.

gak0090 wrote:I guess this is why I don't get any quality points anymore- just too argumentative.

I still believe in your ability to get them.

Keeping myself on track, if I needed a laptop for personal use, this seems like one I'd consider.

I did some research on the dual vs quad cores prior to buying my 17 inch on 1 Nov.

If you're just going to use your MB for web browsing, emails, watching videos and light photoshop, you'll do fine with the with the Dual Core. It will even launch the apps faster than the Quad Core most of the times in normal use.


If you start using FCP or Photoshop, your Quad Core will be faster since it's using all 4 cores while your Dual Core is stuck at 2 cores when processing your what you're doing.

For normal day to day use, the Dual Core will surpass what this machine is intended for.

Once however, you decide to do something more complex, then the slower Quad Core will be faster because of all 4 cores are doing the work for you.

CuzzinMerl wrote:
I switched to Macs about 10 years ago for two primary reasons: the incessant attacks on Windows machines and the fact that Windows would bog down every 6 months or so and need to be re-installed.

I will agree that windows does have more security issues, not because OS X is impenetrable - but because windows has a larger market share, this will explain that concept http://www.howtogeek.com/76628/online-safety-who-says-macs-dont-get-viruses/. Windows bogs down every 6 months and you have to reinstall it-> this is a total fallacy. The only thing that is problematic to slowing down PC's is the crapware that comes with it, or the crapware that users install. The OS does not have any issues on its own.

$1500 for a laptop?

This is a joke, right?

This is my first MAC so I cannot really comment on the PC vs MAC war. I must say that in college I didn't understand dropping so much money on a laptop, but now that I have a job that gives me monetary flexibility, Apple products appeal to me.

I made my last Dell last 6 years. However, they replaced the hard drive on it 5 times. Each time the hard drive failed, I had to do my own hard drive recovery. NOT FUN. If you have the dell support that comes to your house to complete repairs, the repair aspect just becomes an annoyance rather than an expense. If I didn't have that I would have been screwed.

This is my first MAC. But I have never heard of anyone having issues with the ones they purchased. Knowing that my machine won't bog down every month due to some new strain of PC virus some geek made in his moms basement makes me happy.

I went with the Apple MacBook Pro 17" FC024LL/A model that was posted on 1 Nov because it had a good price entrance point for me ($1319) and I couldn't find any major negative reviews. It have the I5 vs the I7 processor, but I don't think that is a huge issue. I am not a video or photo editor; I mainly bought this PC for common every day use. I will not be using the machines to its max intended potential. I do however work in R&D and technology development, therefore I stare at screens on a daily basis. Having a larger screen was a must (my eyes will thank me for it later). With that being said, the screen is AWESOME! I probably could have bought a 15 inch model and been happy, but as you know boys size does matter, and now I am satisfied.

The apple care and the option to extend the apple care is also a plus.

I have nothing negative to report as of right now, however this is only my first week running the machine. I have installed Microsoft Office and Adobe CS5.

I will report back in a year from now and tell you how my MAC ownership experience compares to my PC experience.

]Not eligible for OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date Program[/quote]

no biggie its $20 if you gotta have it

williamske wrote:

I made my last Dell last 6 years. However, they replaced the hard drive on it 5 times.

You realize that the HD's they use in PCs and Macs are all the same (hitachi, seagate, WD...). If you had to replace the drive 5 times, there is probably a pretty good chance that you may have been responsible for those failures. what kind of environment is your laptop in? If you are getting excessive vibration while the platters are writing you'll get HD failure regardless of who makes your laptop. If you are tough on your stuff, I recommend getting an SSD harddrive. This will be tougher and faster regardless of what laptop you own.

clanecks wrote:To simply put, a MBP of inferior specs will still be useful 5 years later, while a PC of superior specs will end up in a landfill somewhere after 3. It has everything to do with the combination of software and hardware, and not hardware alone.

Like it or not, MBPs simply last longer.

Simply not true, I am currently on a 3 yr old Dell Studio that has no problems and I will still probably have for at least two more. BTW it has a touch screen already. I was thinking ahead apparently in 2009 when I wanted the highest specs with a touch screen laptop. For far less than is being charged for this Apple MacBook Slo.

How do you get the Apple Care/extended care?

Yes you can get a PC with "comparable specs" much cheaper but it simply will not be of the same quality. Theres a lot more to a quality laptop than 8GB Mem, an i7 processor, and a big HD. Don't get me wrong, they do make PCs that match the performance and longterm durability of a MBP but by that point the cost is comparable and you should get which ever works best for your applications.

By refusing to make a $500 Mac that would be worthless in 2 yrs Apple is making sure that their name is only associated with products of the highest quality and performance. They arite the OS, they build the hardware, they set the price. Total product control does more than allow for a high selling price, it protects the company from being associated with less than quality products. Windows OS will continually be beneath Apple in the public eye until they make sure their product is only sold with hardware that can fully support its functionality. It's called quality control and Apple has it.

Does the price match the quality? Maybe, maybe not. They put a price on their products and like it or not, enough people are willing to pay it, that Apple has quickly become one of the top computer/cell phone/mp3/tablet companies in the world.

williamske wrote:

These will be sold out by 12pm.

Looks like your crystal ball was all wrong

yeawuteva wrote:Looks like your crystal ball was all wrong Big Boy!

The one I bought on 1 Nov was sold out by 11am. I guess they have more of these. Either way... weirdo

williamske wrote:The one I bought on 1 Nov was sold out by 11am. I guess they have more of these. Either way... weirdo

past performance is no indication of future performance.

williamske wrote:I did some research on the dual vs quad cores prior to buying my 17 inch on 1 Nov.

If you're just going to use your MB for web browsing, emails, watching videos and light photoshop, you'll do fine with the with the Dual Core. It will even launch the apps faster than the Quad Core most of the times in normal use.


If you start using FCP or Photoshop, your Quad Core will be faster since it's using all 4 cores while your Dual Core is stuck at 2 cores when processing your what you're doing.

For normal day to day use, the Dual Core will surpass what this machine is intended for.

Once however, you decide to do something more complex, then the slower Quad Core will be faster because of all 4 cores are doing the work for you.

This sounds good but it's not really true in real life. My 17" Quadcore Macbook pro outperforms my Dual Core 17" Macbook pro on every single benchmark test. The Quadcore opens apps faster, boots faster, and even simple web browsing is faster.

My OCZ's Vertex 4 can read/write 550 megs a second but the 2010 17" has slower memory, a slower CPU, slower floating point, slower GPU and a slower SATA II bus that hampers SSD's to 250 megs a second. You won't get 12 second boot times with the 2010 dual core no matter what SSD you install even Dual Raid SSD's with one in the optical drive bay will be bogged down.

You can run 100 different benchmarks in both single and multiple threads and 99 of not 100 will be faster on the newer quad cores. Also the Core i7 Quad cores with the faster floating point and thread sharing are not really running at 2.2-2.4 GHz as the Turbo boost is instantly on when the cpu kicks in and 3.3-3.5GHz x 4 is the real processing speed.

Keep dreaming if you think a 2 year old dual core Macbook Pro is faster then current or even last years Mac book Pro quad cores regardless of task.

4GB of RAM and a two year old CPU in a $1480 (refurbished) laptop?
ಠ_ಠ

williamske wrote:This is my first MAC so I cannot really comment on the PC vs MAC war. I must say that in college I didn't understand dropping so much money on a laptop, but now that I have a job that gives me monetary flexibility, Apple products appeal to me.

I made my last Dell last 6 years. However, they replaced the hard drive on it 5 times. Each time the hard drive failed, I had to do my own hard drive recovery. NOT FUN. If you have the dell support that comes to your house to complete repairs, the repair aspect just becomes an annoyance rather than an expense. If I didn't have that I would have been screwed.

This is my first MAC. But I have never heard of anyone having issues with the ones they purchased. Knowing that my machine won't bog down every month due to some new strain of PC virus some geek made in his moms basement makes me happy.

I went with the Apple MacBook Pro 17" FC024LL/A model that was posted on 1 Nov because it had a good price entrance point for me ($1319) and I couldn't find any major negative reviews. It have the I5 vs the I7 processor, but I don't think that is a huge issue. I am not a video or photo editor; I mainly bought this PC for common every day use. I will not be using the machines to its max intended potential. I do however work in R&D and technology development, therefore I stare at screens on a daily basis. Having a larger screen was a must (my eyes will thank me for it later). With that being said, the screen is AWESOME! I probably could have bought a 15 inch model and been happy, but as you know boys size does matter, and now I am satisfied.

The apple care and the option to extend the apple care is also a plus.

I have nothing negative to report as of right now, however this is only my first week running the machine. I have installed Microsoft Office and Adobe CS5.

I will report back in a year from now and tell you how my MAC ownership experience compares to my PC experience.

Thx for your comments. It is my fav in the string! Not from a super-techie but from an every day consumer like me :-) I fully agree with everything you've said. I have had two MBPs now, but I only upgraded because I wanted a 15 vs the 13 that I had. Little Mac is still going strong with my sister. I've bough MBs for all my kids now and have had no problems with any. Before switching to Mac I had purchased at least a dozen PCs, from Dell, Gateway, HP, Acer, etc, all the latest and greatest at their times, and ALL frustrated the living crap out of me. When I started back to school myself, and my two month old Dell XPS crashed, I had finally had enough and went to Mac. And I have never looked back! And I convert everyone who will listen. I am a casual daily user, email, web browsing, word processing, and photo stuff, and find these specs more than adequate. You get what you pay for and these things just don't seem to quit :-) I'm in for one for my grandkids.

nmchapma wrote:
By refusing to make a $500 Mac that would be worthless in 2 yrs Apple is making sure that their name is only associated with products of the highest quality and performance.

Using your argument:

1) Today I buy a $500 PC, you buy a $1500 Mac.

2) I keep my PC 2 years, then buy another, keep it for 2 years, then buy another.

3) It is now 6 years later and I have spent the same amount of money as you, but my computer is 2 generations newer than yours which likely means it's many times faster than yours, e.g. mooreslaw.org

4) While my computers have become faster and faster over time, yours has become slower and slower when running modern applications. Remember we both spent the same money. Your computer may have started out better, but it ends up being worse the longer you keep it.

Was looking to get one of these. But not a Mid 2010 model for that price. No thanks.

That is a damn good price. The best that is on the Apple site is $1900. I would absolutely snatch that up if you can afford it.

GenMischief wrote:Am I the only person who thinks pretty much ALL mac products are ridiculously over priced?

Yes. That’s an exceptionally unique perspective.

jstanley1 wrote:Using your argument:

1) Today I buy a $500 PC, you buy a $1500 Mac.

2) I keep my PC 2 years, then buy another, keep it for 2 years, then buy another.

3) It is now 6 years later and I have spent the same amount of money as you, but my computer is 2 generations newer than yours which likely means it's many times faster than yours, e.g. mooreslaw.org

4) While my computers have become faster and faster over time, yours has become slower and slower when running modern applications. Remember we both spent the same money. Your computer may have started out better, but it ends up being worse the longer you keep it.

You're missing out on several key points.

Unless your time is worth less then $8 an hour. You'll find the time saved pays for your investment over and over.

The resale value on Mac's drops very little (example this almost 2.5 year old "refurbished" mac is still fetching $1480) So upgrading every 2-3 years and selling you old macbook is cost very effective and allows you to be at the upper peak of performance.

PC laptops break down and simply wear out more often and are flimsy. I'm always replacing my Kids laptops, power supplies. batteries, keyboards, cracked lids and yet my son and I are on our 8th Matchbook pro without a single failure.

While I own racks of PC servers and several PC gaming Machines I prefer Macbook Pro's for the business world and that's most of my Computer time. I love building PC gaming machines from scratch so I'm not MAC only. Yet I save $10,000's a year in productivity using a Macbook. No Viruses, ease of use, automated backups, machined block of aluminum that is 1000% more durable then a $500 PC laptop. Much more refined, high battery life (7-10 hours), the best quality and ergonomics, whisper quite (fan noise sucks) key's and track pads that are far superior. The operating system is worlds above Windows and yes I've been programming since 1977 and have decades more time on PC's.

Mac's ability to boot Windows or OSX at will really puts it into both arena's. Extremely low service needs, faster booting, "hardware that is standardized" so Apps work flawlessly and no need to manually load 100 drivers (software developers nightmare causing endless bugs). Just the time saved on reboots of driver and security updates saves $100's a year of my time. I like when I boot my Gaming PC and it says I have (68 security updates) LOL

There's more then one reason Apple is the biggest company in US history at $623 Billlion. Eventually they will erode the PC market some to where the market share is closer to 50/50 but having Macs and PC's is great because we need competition for innovation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2191088/Apple-biggest-company-U-S-history-stock-reaches-623-BILLION.html

bbkf wrote:I wouldn't consider it a "freedom" to purchase a new laptop more frequently but rather a requirement. A PC will fall apart much faster than an apple. I have a 2004 macbook right next to my 2011 HP and the macbook out performs the HP laptop in every aspect. The 2011 HP laptop was worth $1200 and now is worth $100 at most. the macbook cost $1000 and is still worth $500.

I have an 2007 HP, and it still works just like the day I bought it. The battery even lasts longer(bought a new, better one) I have an old 2006 Toshiba that works just as slow as the day I bought it too!

I too purchased an Abacus before Jesus was even BORN! and I still use it today. Could use a new floppy drive though.

You know back then, we simply killed people if we disagreed with them.

You laptop-warriors, what a joke!

michaeltherrien wrote:No i-series MacBook Pro has ever looked like this. The brushed aluminum display was on Core Duo or Core 2 Duo MBP's only with front-load CD drives. All i-series MBP's with side-load CD drives have had the black-glass LCD.

I'd hate to say this... I wouldn't buy one.

No, you are mistaking this for a titanium macbook pro. This laptop just has the antiglare option. They sold quad core i7 MBPs through 2011 with this option.