I've been soldiering on with my trusty, or is that crusty, G3 powerbook for a number of years now but I am becoming increasingly tempted by the Macbook. I use a G5 day to day and it's fine for the webstuff I do, in fact it's perfect, I don't use Photoshop or any of the Adobe products so don't care that it's not 'Intel' ready.

Just how good do you think your Macbook is?
I think the MacbookPro is a waste for me IMHO, it wont be my day to day machine.
Macbook allows extended desktop and has AP/BT built in and with a 1gb of RAM and superdrive what more could I need.

All I really want i to surf, watch a DVD maybe, be able to tweak my websites whilst sitting on the sofa... I am really running out of reasons to not get one and at £750 for the basic (no SD) it is pretty good value. The added bonus of running windows means I can ditch this 500mhz Dell heap and have a nice clean, mac office again...

Any comments anyone?

Been developing Apps and websites now for over 15 years using only Macs so I don't need to be told how 'cool' they are

Any gossip about new machines? What will WWDC bring I wonder apart from Leopard...
Would also like a 20gb iPod Nano camera phone with web and wifi if it's not too much trouble Stevey J old bean.

 

Hi Rich,

MacBooks seem superb, apart from the discolouration problem people are having (approx 20%) from what I hear - search on the web and see what you think. Apart from that they seem excellent value and genuinely quick. I have the Pro and love it!

Cheers!

Mossman

 

http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/27/s...re-discolored/

 

that's awful about the staining

I'm currently going through the same process (going from an albeit broken G3 Pismo) and am looking at the MacBook (high end) or the entry-level MacBook Pro....

After looking at those piccies, I'm not too sure about the keyboard
That and the staining would put me off tbh.

Granted, it will be faster than the G3, and by a long way, but bear in mind (in my case, insurance) the G3 Pismo was THE pro PowerBook. Therefore, like for like is the MacBook Pro..........

However, in your post, you state you will be using it as the "weekend" computer... probably will be perfect for you, however, try one first. Do you have a reseller by you or a PC World?

Dan

 

go for the macbook, it will be great, forget about the discolouration its only a small number that claim to have it. Personally it doesnt put me off but thats me

 

I love my macbook pro, the earlier ones were a little flakey (slightly dodgy build quality) but the later ones are good.

And the Boot camp side of things is even better

 

If you're only going to be using it for occasional use then I'd probably go for a macbook rather than a macbook pro. If you compare the Macbook to even the most powerfull PowerPC iBook, the macbook is a fair bit quicker.

The other fact, as mentioned by others is that it's really two machines in one, as it'll run OS X and XP, be it via bootcamp or Parallels Desktop for Macintosh (fantastic bit of software, gives you a virtual machine environment)

As for WWDC, well, the latest big cat is going to be previewed (*cough* I'll comment on it when the dev preview turns up *cough* - did someone say something? ). It's thought that the Mac Pro desktops may be announced as well. However, this mentioned that there's a new Intel chip being launched on the 26th June and someone had mentioned their XServe was put on hold and parts would not arrive until June 26, so perhaps the Servers/Pro Desktops might appear sooner.

One also hopes that WWDC would see Adobe and MS release Universal/Intel Only versions of Creative Suite and Office, though I somehow doubt that as I've not heard of Beta's being around, private or otherwise, and it's been mentioned previously that Adobe won't release until fourth quarter 2006 or first quarter 2007, and it's for these apps that the Pro desktops would really be used.
Having said that, who knows how quickly a Pro Desktop might run the app via Rosetta, it's possible the speed might be comparable to the fastest G5 Tower, in which case, you'd lose nothing in speed as it stands, and then things would really fly when the Uni/Intel versions come out.

 

I'd be surprised is the new servers are here, give that around 2 months. Pro desktops, well I think they may be sooner and that will cuase panic buying on G5s for sure !

The main downside of the MacBook is the shared graphics which won't be a problem if you are not gaming or doing anything graphic intensive.

If you are looking at Bootcamp also have a look at Parallel also as its a little more user friendly in some respects. We've had some good feedback on Bootcamp and one customer found an iMac with Bootcamp was much faster than his 3Ghz PC workstations that we bang up to date !



AllanB

 

I currently use my PC laptop occasionally for my work. I tend to use an old iBook G4 for the web at home - small, light and long battery life.

I'm looking to replace both machines with one Macbook. The only thing that puts me off is the discolouration and some reported heat problems - though I think thats mainly the Pro.

(I'll also be getting a Mac Mini for a Media centre - just got a feeling they'll up the specs soon)

 

I guess the problem is you are always trying to wait for the 'next' step in technology but sadly these days with Apple, each step is now closely followed by the next, I think I'll hold fire until after WWDC and Leopard.
Do we have any thoughts of when Leopard will be released. I guess it wouldn't be a surprise if WWDC attendees were sent away with the release version.

 

I got my Macbook 2.0ghz Superdrive White a few weeks ago, its great. Can't fault it one bit. I only use it for surfing as i have a G5 quad for work.

I only paid £790 inc Vat for my 2.0ghz with superdrive!!!! They are normally £890 inc Vat.

Now i rang apple direct and asked them if i bought a Macbook from the USA would there be any problems. The guy said he would do it me for £790 (even my local apple shop was suprised). I said i'd buy it if the guy rang me back the next day, which he agreed to. Great, i thought!

I decided to ring back and just buy it there and then, however i spoke to a different guy who would only do it for £840!!! In the same effin call centre!! No way was he dropping on that price, even though i explained i'd been offered it cheaper. In the end i said no and left it.

I thought i'd try my luck and ring back and see if anyone else would do better, as they all seem to have there own prices. Luck would have it, i spoke to the original guy who offered it me for £790 inc Vat, FANTASTIC!!

So i eventually got my Macbook for £100 cheaper than list price! Apple don't advertise this, so just call them and tell them you want one for £790 like the guy off scoobynet!!

 

The battery on the Pro's isnt quite as good, and they do run hot, but blimey they are quick!!!

The quickest thing you can run XP on i think.

Going to a meeting on Friday with Apple regarding boot camp, i'll let you know if i can find out any more secrets

 

RichB,
There isn't a set date for 10.5 as yet, but I'd have thought Steve will mention the proposed release date when the dev preview comes out in August.

If we look at the schedule for Tiger, it was previewed at WWDC in June 2004, with a dev preview shipping shortly after. It was released on April 29 2005. I'd take a stab that we'd see a very similar timeline for the Leopard.

I'd expect to see a 10.4.8 and maybe even a 10.4.9 between now and then. (I'm waiting, oooh, all of a week before checking the seed updates, where no doubt a seed of 10.4.8 will be available )

Bootcamp is a nice idea, but for me, and a fair few others, virtualization is far better, hence why Parallels is rather happy at the moment by having one of the best VM solutions for the Intel Macs. It's possible Apple might do their own VM thing, as well as bootcamp, and it might be something in the dev preview of 10.5. but that would be a limited release as seeds are ususally dev only, but they could do a public beta of the OS, they have previously, however I think that is unlikley. I'd have expected a similar deal to BC (public beta) to get it tested by as many as possible, but nothing has been seen yet.

 

I'm expecting Leopard around Jan/Feb 07. 1st quater anyway.

I hope they have some virtualisation in there but I'm just expecting an enhanced bootcamp.

I like the idea of virtualization.....but Bootcamp will do for now. So any secrets Olliecampbell...let us know!!

I think the Merom chip is expected September....do you think they'll put them in the Mac Mini?...or keep them for higherend machines....MacBook Pro for example.

 

Apple might do a VM solution, but it'd be trampling all over Parallels, VMWare (they mentioned the other day they have a solution for OS X in the works) and VPC (Yeah right, like MS will ever release an intel compatible version of VPC), and I can't really see them doing that, especially as they are giving a lot of praise to Parallels' solution on their own site, something they probably would not do if they were working on their own VM solution, but who knows.

If you have not tried Parallels, give it a shot, there's a free 30 day demo available.

 

I'm going to give parallels a shot...although it seems only a 15 day trial now.

Never used WMWare or anything before, what sort of speed can I expect? Only ever used Win98 on an early Virtual PC.

 

ooops, just remembered....I don't have an Intel Mac yet

 

Havent been to the meeting yet, but i know that in 10.5 they are going to put in a feature similar to fast user switching but for OS's, so that you can be running X and then switch to XP quickly.

 

Not a huge amount to report, they wouldnt release many details because Steve Jobs is going to on 7th August and they dont want it affecting the share price....


- Soon to be a single 'universal binary' installer for applications so that they work on both mac & windows

- They working very hard on Boot camp at the moment to get the rest of the drivers working, they wouldnt say when for but they did say 'wink wink nudge nudge, theyre working very hard on it'.

- The current boot camp will expire in Sept 2007, i.e. you wont be able to install it after that date but current installs *should* be fine.

- Theyre talking with Microsoft about special licencing for XP with Boot Camp.

- The next gen ARD will be able to control XP in the same way that it does Mac.

Thats it im afraid

 

The ARD bit does not surprise me, as ARD is essentially VNC. However, when they say control, do they mean just screen-share with the XP environment, or will it actually be able to perform some of the other tasks that ARD can in the mac environment, for example, software distribution?

Perhaps bootcamp is going to be released prior to 10.5, hence the hard work going on. They have seen the reaction to BC and the VM solutions, so why make people wait until 10.5 is ready to ship in late Q4 06 or Q1 07, just get it out there for all to enjoy, and perhaps include and updated version when 10.5 ships.

The installer for Mac and windows is somewhat interesting.