I've surprised myself with this one.....

My trusty 5 1/2 year old PC desktop pretty much died on me last month (well, the hard drive died), along with a very slow/old intel core processor (not even one of those dual cores), and a very outdated graphics card.....

So, after a lot of research and debating, I have finally taken the plunge into the world of Apple computing. My iphone4 is serving me well and I don't have any problems with it, so hopefully this will be the same for the Mac.

I've been having a play around for the last 2 hours setting it all up and getting used to it; it's harder than I thought but I'm getting there!




Anyway.... 15.4inch Macbook Pro Retina with Intel Core i7 processor

 

Nice one, young man! I love Apple things, so I'd like to congratulate you on your new buy, or, shall I say, your new toy.

 

more money than sence obviously

 

good buy

 

I've never owned an apple computer, only iPad and iPhones. Do the apple computers and laptops remain as bug free as the iPads and phones? My laptop just seems slower and more snarled up every time I turn it on! Every pc I've had has slowed up in time and needed constant maintenance to keep keep it plodding along.

Be nice to think the apple computers behave like the iPad where after a couple of years they are as slick as the first day you get them out the box.

 

It depends on the software that you load. You have just as much opportunity to install something that doesn't quite uninstall properly on a Mac as you do on other operating systems.

Having said that, I like my MacBook Air, and it is going well after a few months.

 

Obviously I can't comment on that because I've only had mine for 4 hours, but it feels extremely smooth and slick, miles better than my PC Hopefully it will stay like this. Even my internet connection feels faster and there were no problems at all with setting it up.

 

Well of course it is, your old PC with respect was a piece of ****.

 

I run all Apple kit these days, iPhone 4 (5 is on order), iPad and also have a 15 with a fast i7 in it.

I've also added a 256gb SSD drive (you wouldn't believe the difference! Night and Day!) and 16gb of 1600mhz ram. I do lots of work with VM's so the upgrades massively help.

It took me about a month to get my MBP, I wasn't sure when I first started using it.

Lee

 

My MacBook is running just a quick as when I bought in it 2010

 

True

 

I have been using an old macbook 13" early 2008 dual core with 4gb and ssd drive in it, and it has always been fine along with Dell Laptops

I have recently got a Retina MBP with mid range processor and 16gb ram and it is good, not exceptional just good

BUT and this is the big thing that made me choose this is resale value, plus I got it at edu pricing and VAT back its an asset of the company too and with the sale of my old macbook I wont have lost any money on it in 3 years time when it gets sold

 

They look good, but the restrictions compared to a PC and the lack of functionality I find too difficult to work with.

Apple machine with a windows OS ..

 

I have a VM with Windows 7 on it and with the ram and SSD drive, it takes only a few seconds to spin up and with a 3 finger swipe, I'm in Windows 7! (using VMware Fusion).

I don't need Windows for much but I do somethings that are just easier with Windows 7!

Lee

 

Which is exactly what I have. I bought the MacBook Air with 8gb of RAM and an upgraded processor and W7 flies in the magic that is VMware fusion as well as being able to use the Apple OS for browsing and day to day stuff.

 

I have bootcamp with win7, and 2 x win7 vm's and its about 8 or 9 seconds bootup time for win7 LOL

even some of the latest games play reasonably well under win7

 

I love my apple macbook pro but sadly have to sell it now, but even now after 5 years it wipes the floor in speed against my new Toshiba Windows machine. You wont regret buying that laptop.

 

I have a 5 year old macbook was mid range when i bought it new still very effective today but now need to upgrade for i am about to venture into more photo editing and video editing.

 

Welcome to mac,just so long as you don't start kissing apples ***,which is sometimes hard to resist once you've made the change...

 

Nice laptop. Enjoy!

 

As Apple control the hardware and OS software one should expect better integration of the two than with Windows that has to be able to run pretty much any sort of hardware.

I've heard horror stories when it comes to networking e.g. NAS / Sonos. My NAS is from Synology and not running an Apple OS of course. What's the story?

 

Guessing it's the Lion / Mountain Lion AFP or SMB issues. For AFP, it seems Apple disabled DHCAST128 authentication – they reckoned it wasn't secure enough – and a lot of boxes, including most NAS – which seem to use netatalk, a unix AFP service – use that for AFP auth. Turning it back on requires a little terminal trickery, though there is probably an app there for it now.

For SMB, basically you could not get other machines to connect to an SMB share on a Lion / Mountain Lion machine, e.g.; XBMC would not connect to my SMB share on my Mac when it was running Lion / Mountain Lion. It's due to the change to SMB Apple made. You could roll your own SMB using macports and then grabbing SAMBA 3, or just use the excellent SMBUp app which simplifies the whole process (you basically turn off Apple's SMB and use SAMBA 3).

I think by now most NAS companies will have workarounds or detailed instructions for users on how to fix these issues, but when Lion came out, there was a lot of confusion and, quite rightly, gnashing of teeth (though one could say, why didn't the NAS companies spend $99 on a Mac developer program to enable them access to dev seeds on the OS and run tests)

 

Oh, and to the OP, welcome to the fold Don't forget that you can also run Windows on your new machine, be it using Boot Camp (dual boot) or using a Virtual Machine app (VMWare Fusion, Parallels for Desktop, Oracle Virtual Box, and no doubt others).

It is a bit of a change when you're used to Windows, some things don't seem right, but it does start to gel fairly quickly.

I think it goes without saying that if you have problems, post them up and answers should be forthcoming.

 

By far the most annoying feature is the trackpad in windows LOL it is just so poor and gets a bit wayward at times

 

 

Congratulations, you've just bought the table mats for Mrs job's new yacht

 

Welcome to the light side.

After years of viruses, freezing, refusing to do even the simplest of tasks without my MCSE qualified mate coming round almost every time i turned my windows pc on,
i'm now free of all that, i now know how a junky that gets clean feels.

Admittedly maybe some of it was my fault, due to my lack of knowledge, but i don't think you should need a degree in computer science to browse,
print invoices and do basic book keeping.

Everything is so easy with my macbook air and in the almost 2yrs iv'e had it, it's not put a foot wrong and is as fast as it was the day i bought it,
and when i come to upgrade it will be worth something, not off to the tip to put it in a skip.

I know the Apple haters/ computer savvy don't like mac's for various technical /corporate reasons,
but for joe average like me that has no interest in how or why computers do what they do and just want it to work when i turn it on,
Mac's are a revalation, it just does what it says on the tin and keeps doing it day in day out with no fuss or bother.

 

don;t worry, its not your fault your a bit too slow to cope with pc's

wolly mittens for winter are in the post

 

And Mr Gates has so much cash if he drops a grand it's not worth the time it takes him to bend over and pick it up.

You got to love the haters.

P.S, Mr jobs is dead, god rest his magnificent soul.

 

P!ss off, won't be needing them 22 degrees here and zero chance of rain where i am.

Not like grey, wet, smoggy snottingham.