Buying a new laptop and need advice.

[debelfish]

We are stuck between MacBook Pro and Windows 8 machine. I know we want i5 or i7.
We have two kids starting high school next year. We want a disc drive to load software. We already have two iPads in the house and three iPods.
Our biggest complaint about the last PC we bought was Vista, we were burned with that clunker. With MacBook Pro I feel like we may be overbuying for our needs. I am ready to spend on the MacBook just wanting to see if I am making a mistake.
Any recommendations?

 

[descovy]

We converted to a MacBook Pro last year. Very happy with our purchase. We have the 13" basic model. Best buy has them for 10% off on a regular basis.

You mentioned needing disc drive for loading software. Of course it has that, but I find a handy feature of the MacBook is that you can buy software through the App Store! We get iTunes cards on sale all the time, and with so many apps that are free, it's been a great feature that we hadn't even considered.

I was leery about the price, but the more I talked to people who had MacBooks, the more I realized they are holding up well for years.... Twice as long as PC laptops.

 

[Judique]

We converted to a MacBook Pro last year. Very happy with our purchase. We have the 13" basic model. Best buy has them for 10% off on a regular basis.

You mentioned needing disc drive for loading software. Of course it has that, but I find a handy feature of the MacBook is that you can buy software through the App Store! We get iTunes cards on sale all the time, and with so many apps that are free, it's been a great feature that we hadn't even considered.

I was leery about the price, but the more I talked to people who had MacBooks, the more I realized they are holding up well for years.... Twice as long as PC laptops.

How many years do they hold up?

I'm about ready for another laptop.

 

[wallawallakids]

I also made the switch to a macbook pro. I LOVE it. It is a great machine. It replaced our old PC and I don't miss it at all. Apple is so much easier and also you don't need to constantly update virus protection. Our PC was so bad about that. Good luck.

 

[descovy]

How many years do they hold up?

I'm about ready for another laptop.

Lets put it this way, I was looking for a resale MacBook for my kids to use.

MacBooks from 2008 are selling for $500-700.
PC laptops from 2008? Scrapped for parts

Amazon, eBay, Microcenter sell used apple MacBooks if that is something anyone is considering....

 

[ssawka]

I replaced my Mac PowerBook @ 7 years with a Mac Air. Portability was the most important thing to me, so I went with the Air.

The best thing about a Mac is that you can see use windows if you get a copy of VMWare or Parallels.

 

[SueInBoston]

we completed our pc to mac jump last year and very glad that we made that decision. I was a PC girl for 30 years but got tired of the constant updates and window unreliability. We also had ipads, iphones, itouches before the macbook. The initial cost was high as we replaced 4 laptops but we did it one by one. We still have one pc left that I need to run Quicken, I need to get that move over the Macbook as well, just haven't had the time to look into it.

 

[luv2mickey]

I replaced my Mac PowerBook @ 7 years with a Mac Air. Portability was the most important thing to me, so I went with the Air.

The best thing about a Mac is that you can see use windows if you get a copy of VMWare or Parallels.

Is Parallels easy to use, I want a Mac computer but need to run Internet Explorer for work.

 

[natfrac]

Our last Mac Book lasted 7 years--it still works, but we retired it because it was too old to upgrade to the latest OS. Before that we had an iMac for years (bought when they first came out). We will never buy anything else.

 

[Fyrefly]

Don't get a Windows 8 machine unless it will have a touchscreen, it's optimized for that. Personally I favor Windows 7, its miles better than Vista if you can get it on a new machine still.

Personally I find Windows machines more versatile and a lot of people that seem to be in love with Macs are comparing the cheap $500 PC to the $2000 Mac. A high-end PC should perform just as well if not better and you should make sure for school the kids won't need anything that doesn't work on a Mac.

 

[ssawka]

Is Parallels easy to use, I want a Mac computer but need to run Internet Explorer for work.

I haven't actually tried Parallels. I use VM Ware because I get it free through school. VM Ware is very easy to use, and you have your choice of how you want to use it. You can either use it as a separate environment (like a separate computer) or you can use Unity mode which means the Windows apps will open in separate windows on your Mac desktop.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I have a MacBook Pro, and it is great. It might actually be more power than I need. I have wondered if maybe the MacBook Air might be a good idea. If you need a DVD drive for the MBA, it can be purchased separately.

Seems like the Pro is more bang for the buck, but Air has a certain coolness factor. Actually I do not think I have used the DVD drive in my MacBook Pro.

 

[ssawka]

It depends on what you want a laptop for. If it's to replace a desktop, go with the pro. If you want ultimate portability, get the Air.

 

[debelfish]

Thanks for your advice! I guess I will order MacBook Pro
online tomorrow. I will say that I tried finding a windows 7 machine but they were mostly sold out, plus I don't want to buy something that won't be supported for long.

 

[kiddisney]

sorry for being a downer on all the apple products - but you need to know what you want to use it for -

apple products are generally for creative things -

if you have anything non-technical it's not that great -

the reason is that apple tries to anticipate what you want - so it's easy to use - but it has no depth -

being an engineer - i have more technical programs & my daughter who's studing engineering also finds that this is true - her school gives out laptops and frowns upon the apple products -

but check out what the schools are recommending before you jump - and what programs they want you them to work with

 

[graceesmom]

I had my last macbook for 5 years and recently upgraded to a Macbook Pro. My old macbook is still kicking, but our daughter who is in elementary school was borrowing my macbook so much for school games and activities that we decided I could get a new one and let her use that my old one. It still works great.

One suggestion for saving a little money is to check on Apple's website for a refurbished one. Last year's model doesn't have retina display, but I saved $300. They still have a 1 year warranty and you can also purchase Apple Care if you want that.

In my opinion Macbooks are worth every penny if just for the service you get with Apple. If you ever have a question, and have to call customer service, someone who can actually understand your question and explain the answer in terms you can understand is on the other end.

If you are lucky enough to have an Apple Store nearby, the Genius bar actually has real computer geniuses working there. Even though the warranty on my old macbook was long expired as well as my Apple Care plan, they charged me nothing when I got a CD stuck in my CD Drive to get it out. And they did it right there in the store. You make an appt. on line and go in and are waited on promptly. I can't say enough good things about the apple support and service. I will never go back to a PC.

My husband does have a PC and I do have to use that for my embroidery editing program. When I purchased the program, it wasn't available for Macs, but it's rare to find a program now that is not Mac compatible.

 

[ssawka]

being an engineer - i have more technical programs & my daughter who's studing engineering also finds that this is true - her school gives out laptops and frowns upon the apple products

This is shocking to me considering that OSX is actually Unix under the covers, which means it can run just about any open source application out there. Techies love their open source apps. For the few things that you actually need windows for, there's VMWare or Parallels.

I am a software engineer, and most of my colleagues love their Macs.

 

[ColoradoDis]

My daughter is a junior in mechanical engineering and has had a MacBook since high school. She's had no problem. One interesting thing is that Macs can also run Windows so for the few software applications that require it, she just boots up Windows.

Once you switch, you'll never want a Windows system again.

 

[tasha99]

I had my last macbook for 5 years and recently upgraded to a Macbook Pro. My old macbook is still kicking, but our daughter who is in elementary school was borrowing my macbook so much for school games and activities that we decided I could get a new one and let her use that my old one. It still works great.

One suggestion for saving a little money is to check on Apple's website for a refurbished one. Last year's model doesn't have retina display, but I saved $300. They still have a 1 year warranty and you can also purchase Apple Care if you want that.

In my opinion Macbooks are worth every penny if just for the service you get with Apple. If you ever have a question, and have to call customer service, someone who can actually understand your question and explain the answer in terms you can understand is on the other end.

If you are lucky enough to have an Apple Store nearby, the Genius bar actually has real computer geniuses working there. Even though the warranty on my old macbook was long expired as well as my Apple Care plan, they charged me nothing when I got a CD stuck in my CD Drive to get it out. And they did it right there in the store. You make an appt. on line and go in and are waited on promptly. I can't say enough good things about the apple support and service. I will never go back to a PC.

My husband does have a PC and I do have to use that for my embroidery editing program. When I purchased the program, it wasn't available for Macs, but it's rare to find a program now that is not Mac compatible.

Not to dis the geniuses who do Apple tech support, but this just makes me think of the Big Bang Theory, and how the genius physicists on that show (okay, mostly Sheldon) like to go mess with the Apple techs who have misappropriated the term "genius."

 

[luv2mickey]

My husband is an Engineer and his desktop and laptop are Windows based but they are company issued, I don't know if he could run his analysis on a Mac. I'll have to ask him, but I do know we have 2 kids in college and a senior in high school and he insisted we buy them Macbooks for college because he didn't want to get those calls saying they had something due and were having issues with their computers.....we sent them with macs and haven't had any problems and are dd has been at school 3 years. Therefore, we are changing all our personal use computer equipment with apple products!

We found the colleges usually recommend a certain computer because they get a kickback and there usually are more Windows based products on campus but that's more because of the cost, they are cheaper. At my kids school when we went to the IT department to get their laptops on network the IT kids actually owned Macs