I Finally Did It

P

Private Citizen

Gawd
Joined
Mar 15, 2002
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After years of wanting one but never going through with it I finally did it. Bought a MBP 13in at Best Buy.

Back Story:
We/ve had an old 400 dollar Toshiba Satellite for probably five years now. It has served it's purpose. Went to Best Buy and bought the Acer Aspire Ultrabook 14in version with touch screen for 700 dollars. Got it home and it was horrible. The screen was so washed out and the touch pad was so sensitive you couldn't do anything with it. Took it back and decided if I want a decent laptop that I was looking for I needed to up my budget.

Next thing I knew I was torn between the 999.99 dollar Lenovo Yoga 13in Ultrabook or the MBP 13in for 1099.99. Since I was already in the one grand range I decided to pull the trigger on the Mac. Holy cow I'm sure glad I did. It is amazing! I can have the best of both worlds with this one. No touch screen but oh well. After using OSX I'm not sure I'll be spending much time in Windows land anyway. Since I'm in IT I'll have to sue Windows some but for everything else I think OSX will do. Only problem is I can't get the wife to let me use it long enough to do anything. She loves it. :D

Anyway, that is my story.
 
Your not wrong. OSX is a pleasure to use for daily stuff. If you need a PC to do everything though (including gaming), not so much.
 
I have a similar story, I recently picked up a 2012 MBA after putting up with more than a few hp and dells. Hands down the best laptop I have never owned.
 
Private Citizen said:
Since I'm in IT I'll have to sue Windows some but for everything else I think OSX will do.
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That depends on what exactly you need to do. If it's just RDP, Microsoft offers a free Mac RDP client, though it's predictably not as good as the Windows version.

If you need to run Windows apps natively, there's always Boot Camp and/or virtualization. Actually, I think Parallels will virtualize an existing Boot Camp partition.
 
Terpfen said:
That depends on what exactly you need to do. If it's just RDP, Microsoft offers a free Mac RDP client, though it's predictably not as good as the Windows version.

If you need to run Windows apps natively, there's always Boot Camp and/or virtualization. Actually, I think Parallels will virtualize an existing Boot Camp partition.
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I've never used Parallels, but VMware Fusion 5 will virtualize a Boot Camp partition for sure. I'm also in IT and between a Win 7 VM and RDP I've never felt the need to have a Windows only box.
 
I have always been a Windows guy and never had any interest in Apple products. My wife has used Mac's and really liked them but for years she was buying HP laptops and they were constantly breaking. Right before Easter this year I was at BestBuy browsing and saw the MBA for the first time and was totally amazed at how nice it was. We had been buying HP laptops as I mentioned simply because they were a lot less expensive. I was so impressed with the MBA that although I had never used a Mac before I convinced my wife to buy it as her next laptop (she didn't need much convincing).

Even though the MBA 13" is mainly her's I use it from time to time for basic stuff at home and absolutely love it! My next laptop will be either the MBA or MBP, I just can't decide on which one lol. My wife and I definitely feel they are worth the extra money as compared to a similar spec windows laptop. My first choice would be the 13" rMBP but since I want one with an SSD the cheapest would be $1,700 which is a lot of money. Due to that I may end up with a MBA but either way I am getting a Macbook no doubt. If I get the MBA then I have to decide between the 11" and 13" models.

I have an Asus Transformer Infinity tablet and my wife has an Ipad and to be honest I just don't enjoy using a tablet. They are just too slow in my opinion for web browsing and with my Carpal Tunnel my hand is always going numb using the touch screen. Although I do like that tablets are very light and small I am kind of looking at the 11" MBA since it definitely is small and light, although still very powerful and has a full size keyboard. The only thing I don't like about the 11" MBA is the somewhat low resolution but I need to check it out in person to see if it looks good enough. My work laptop is an x220 with the same resolution as the 11" MBA and I am fine with the resoltion, it would just be nice to have a higher resolution.
 
leh18621 said:
I have an Asus Transformer Infinity tablet and my wife has an Ipad and to be honest I just don't enjoy using a tablet. They are just too slow in my opinion for web browsing and with my Carpal Tunnel my hand is always going numb using the touch screen. Although I do like that tablets are very light and small I am kind of looking at the 11" MBA since it definitely is small and light, although still very powerful and has a full size keyboard. The only thing I don't like about the 11" MBA is the somewhat low resolution but I need to check it out in person to see if it looks good enough. My work laptop is an x220 with the same resolution as the 11" MBA and I am fine with the resoltion, it would just be nice to have a higher resolution.
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I had the infinity iPad and for some reason it is super slow on web pages. I took it back and got a nexus 10.

The iPad does get weight for surfing if you are holding it in your hand for long. But the iPad mini and the nexus 7 are nice for sitting, holding, and surfing. Surfing is fast for me.

To get back on topic, I think I want a MacBook Pro as my next laptop. I love that touchpad. However, when are they going to put a digitizer / pen on the screen? This is holding me back as I need to be able to project a screen that I can write on and those seem to be only windows laptops.
 
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Same story man, my wife wanted a new laptop to watch her korean dramas on and use facebook and 2 overpriced HP laptops later (each lasting about a 1 year and crapping out) we bought a macbook pro 13". Before owning a macbook I thought the were such a ripoff for the hardware specs, but honestly the mac works so much better in all the adobe apps and is way more stable than the equivilant pc laptops in the same price range. Plus they give you bootcamp out the box for loading any OS if you choose. I still have my circa 2009 MBP and my newly built i5 desktop, and happy about it.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone.

A few days in and I absolutely love this laptop. I thought the 5400 rpm drive would kill performance but it hasn't. I'm still gonna grab me a nice SSD pretty soon to drop in it but in the meantime I'm not really hurting that much on it. After that I may bump up the RAM too just so I can run some VMs and etc.

Besides OSX itself I think something that I'm really digging is the touch pad. Using gestures has been a lot of fun :D

The screen is fantastic, and the software is just as impressive. Battery life has been adequate too. I really can't say enough good things about the laptop. I'm kinda wishing I would have looked at the MBA too while I was there but you know, that would have just made my decision that much harder and I would have been at Best Buy even longer trying to make up my mind.


My only regret is not doing this sooner! :D
 
Eh...I'm on the opposite side on this one. I've had 10-15 macbooks, and decided the extra cost just wasn't worth it. I would buy another X220 over a MBA or MBP any day, although they get pricey also. But for full disclosure, my laptop isn't my primary machine.

Glad you like your new laptop! The trackpad is definitely the thing I liked the best.
 
I just recently (black friday) picked up my own MBA. Been debating it and at $175 off it was worth it.

So far so good.
 
I think the only fail from OP was going to BestBuy and buying the Mac there. Also dubbly so for being in IT and still shopping at BestBuy.

Congrats on the upgrade.

I would have done a search on eBay grabbed a nice looking unit, throw in some ram (16gb for $70 FTW) remove the optical drive and toss in a SSD. If done right, you probably would come out at around the same price as retail.
 
shyboi said:
I think the only fail from OP was going to BestBuy and buying the Mac there. Also dubbly so for being in IT and still shopping at BestBuy.

Congrats on the upgrade.

I would have done a search on eBay grabbed a nice looking unit, throw in some ram (16gb for $70 FTW) remove the optical drive and toss in a SSD. If done right, you probably would come out at around the same price as retail.
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I always do that for most tech purchases. Not that I really owe anything to you as far as reasoning as to why I did what I did, but Christmas was coming up and it was picture taking time for us. My wife is a photographer on the side and we have two relatives that probably won't make it to XMAS 2013 so we really wanted to have a chance to use the our laptop since our old Celeron Toshiba was a PITA to work with (especially after the Win8 upgrade) editing pics. LOL The screen was cracked too :eek:

To make a longer story short, my wife and our relatives was the driving factor. Waiting a week or more wasn't in the cards for this and it was kinda a last minute decision to buy it that day for other reasons I won't go into. Sometimes life choices run deeper than trying to save a few bucks. Guys, what is wrong with Best Buy?

There is always more to a story. Keep that in mind next time.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great holiday this year!
 
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