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Advice on next laptop please - MacBook driving me *CRAZY*!


BikerMooFromMars
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My dad and step-mum kindly bought me a £1k MackBook Air because my old laptop was literally dying on its arse and I needed a reliable laptop for work - I was to pay back £500 @ £50 a month (I am working for their company), have only paid £100 so far. Big things were meant to happen - I was asked to become a franchisee next year etc, but for many reasons the job isn't working out (mainly to do with epic mileage on bike since working for them, most jobs are too far away, I need hundreds of pounds worth of new properly waterproof gear if I am to sit on the bike all winter, not making enough to justify it, rah rah) and I am now returning to dentistry in just over a week. (May return to work for dad next year when I have more stable finances with a full time job etc - depends how it all goes). 8-)


ANYWAY - I feel obliged to pay them back the full amount now I'm not working for them. But this laptop is driving me CRAZY and I'd rather not have it! I'd have asked them not to get me a Mac - and they know that haha - and I know my dad would be happy to have this laptop back - they are expanding their offices soon and they are Mac Whores :lol: . I can't use my external hard drives with this, which is a big issue for me, I despise the way it organises photos, Word keeps crashing on me when working and doesn't autosave...and I don't want to be in debt to them, I'd rather they benefitted from the situation seeing as things haven't worked out.


...I'm after a Windows laptop up to £500 that is lightweight, fast to start up (I LOVE that about the Mac!), and can deal with a fair amount being used at once and with speed - will largely be using Photoshop, Picasa, Word Documents and interwebs 8-) . If anyone has a great Windows laptop they use and can recommend that fulfils my criteria I'd love to know, or if anyone is knowledgeable about them and can recommend that'd be awesomes!


TMBF - Thank Moo Biker Forum! :mrgreen:


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why not just install Windows on the mac??

I have 13inch Macbook Pro that i run Windows and OSX on


My bro said that yesterday, never knew you could do that. I just would rather not be in debt to anyone...though the old man did say he'd be happy for me to carry on paying monthly and not really got £500 spare for another laptop haha. It is great with everything else.


I am no computer geek...guessing that's gonna be hard to do. And I'd have to pay for some expensive software...or know someone that could do it 'the naughty way' or something haha...which I don't. Well, except my brother who lives in Bournemouth, and wouldn't wanna hassle him, rarely get to spend time with him as it is! :|


EDIT: Can't you buy Windows laptops/PCs loads cheaper with similar specs anyway - in which case why do you run Windows on your Mac that I assume you chose to buy, whereas I had no choice? :mrgreen:

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Problem you'll have is that a cheap windows laptop will feel cheap compared to the apple.


I'm not an apple fan, but they do make good quality laptops which is why i bought a macbook pro.


Pretty easy to setup windows on a Mac. The setup wizard does most of it for you. You just need to get hold of a copy of windows which if bought legitimately won't be cheap :(

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Problem you'll have is that a cheap windows laptop will feel cheap compared to the apple.


I'm not an apple fan, but they do make good quality laptops which is why i bought a macbook pro.


Pretty easy to setup windows on a Mac. The setup wizard does most of it for you. You just need to get hold of a copy of windows which if bought legitimately won't be cheap :(

 

It is unbelievably fast and light and it's amazing how fast it starts up - literally open it and it's on. Battery lasts *forever* and I watch the battery life increase minute by minute when charging via mains - I swear it gets to full charge under an hour.


Ok...I'll ask my bro but doubt he will be able to help me unless I met up with him. Was hoping there'd be a computer geek into laptops who could tell me about an amaxing £4-500 laptop that is as fast as this and not a friggin Mac haha! :mrgreen:

Thanks

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yep, macs start up instantly, windows takes ages...

dod what i do. if im just surfing, i open the mac and its instant on, open a web browser and surf...

If i need to do something in Windows, i open Parallells Desktop and launch my copy of Windows.

I can then run Windows apps alongside Mac apps. its pretty cool.

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yep, macs start up instantly, windows takes ages...

dod what i do. if im just surfing, i open the mac and its instant on, open a web browser and surf...

If i need to do something in Windows, i open Parallells Desktop and launch my copy of Windows.

I can then run Windows apps alongside Mac apps. its pretty cool.

I have no idea what you are talking about :lol:

Paralells laptop?

I want to be able to use my external hard drives...got well over 500gb pf photos, documents etc[...and I haaaate photo organisation, it's shooo annoying!/color] :crybaby:

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I got offered a Mac at work last week, my response was a very swift and emphatic "Noooooooooooo" with shaking of head and hands :lol:

 

Why?


Here's an excuse to live up to your screen name... Gimme a moment. I'll make popcorn.

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Hahahahaha you know not what you do good sir! But anyway, short version is that I was an avid Mac user back when there were actual advantages to using them for creative work, their business model changed dramatically as did their market niche, and I'm smart enough to know that the company's IT budget will stretch a lot further if I have a similarly specced PC... Which is why I also gained the full Adobe creative suite, a self calibrating 27" Eiso monitor, and an intuos pro graphics tablet in the last week :mrgreen:


Swear to god, I instantly lose some respect for anyone who says they use a Mac for creative work because they're better for it. That changed back when they dropped the PowerPC cores! Nowadays they're all about product image and simplicity and all that guff. Good computers? Probably! Good creative tools? No more than any other! Good balance of price and performance? Hell no! Macs are two things, on my eyes; computers for people who want something quick and easy, or for power users with little to no technical knowledge (mugs) who believe the hype :lol:

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LOL, got to agree with most of that... Ive not found anything you can do on a mac that you cant do in Windows, infact i can do much more in Windows than i can with OSX.


Im an IT consultant - I need powerful, small, portable machines with high resolution screens and long battery life.

At the time i bought mine, the Macbook Pro Retina was the best option on the market - it cost me about 1800quid i think with the (then) top of the range config (2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU, 8GB Ram, and 256GB SSD) but 13inch retina screen meant it had higher screen resolution than my old 15inch windows machine, meaning i could fit loads of stuff on the screen at once and not have to scroll about.


The build quality of Macbooks is superb - i still havent found a windows machine that feels the same - not been looking though as the MBP running Windows is perfect for my needs - I just wish it had a full windows keyboard (Insert, delete, print screen, break, page up, down etc etc)

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Sorry, only just seen this thread.


We buy Cheap ACER laptops for staff (I look after I.T. in a school). You could buy one for around £400 and buy an SSD for it which will make it so much quicker. These laptops get used daily and pose very few issues considering the use they get. Extended warranties are not expensive either if you want piece of mind.


Get something with as much RAM and preferably Windows 7 downgrade license and preferably i5 processor if budget allows.


Purchased 30 of these last year and only failure so far has been a keyboard I suspect got on the wrong side of a hot drink.


Let me know if you're still considering this route and I'll have a look for some decent options.

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I had lots of laptops both Windows and Mac and I found that Apple stuff lasts longer, runs more on batteries and suffers less from cr@apware that is loaded from shop/factory.


I can suggest the following:

- copy your stuff from the USB drive somewhere else (best on a Windows PC) and reformat the USB drive using ExFAT file system. Copy the stuff back to the USB drive. You can now use the drive both on Mac and Windows.

- download XEE - http://xee.c3.cx - not the App Store version - it's a small picture viewer and you can just browse the pictures on the USB drive. No need for iPhoto or other apps (but once you get grips with iPhoto you'll probably like it).

- If Word for mac crashes is because of either the file is corrupted or Word needs an update. You can also repair the permissions using the disk utility, sometimes it helps.


Most important is to remember that Windows and OSX are different operating systems and some things are done differently. Once you get going on a Mac, you'll just keep going.


I would struggle finding a £500 laptop that is light like a Macbook Air, has the same processing power and lasts a day.


If you go the "Windows on Mac" way - forget the full day battery life!

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Thanks Dav3y and ApolloMozart - really helpful replies.


You know what - I think Apollo and Joeman are right. I'm not gonna like another laptop as much as this - it is amazing how fast it is, I open it and it's just on - no waiting, it's so lightweight, I have a funky cow bag protector for it :lol: , it holds battery forEVER, it charges up SO fast...also I don't have spare dosh to buy a new laptop yet - paying my dad monthly is easy, and he doesn't mind...


...You know what, I'll just buy a terabyte external hard drive (my 500mb one is full and I have 5 other epic old external ancient ones to empty, and all the other guff on my ancient laptop!).


Thanks, my decision is made! :thumb:

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Lol, I knew that would happen...

But who has external drives?? Cloud storage is the future... Stuff you Dont access on a regular basis, get it uploaded to the cloud and ditch the external drives - they are accidents waiting to happen ;)

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