Laptop or MacBook pro?

[steady1]

I switched to Mac and won't go back!

Me too! I bought my first MacBook Pro last year and love it.

As others have said, students can get a substantial discount.

[KBPhoto]

As others have said, students can get a substantial discount.

I think 'substantial' is a slight exaggeration. I just ordered a new custom iMac 27": the educational discount was just over £100.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have the money than give it to Apple, but its still less than a 10% discount.

[steady1]

I think 'substantial' is a slight exaggeration.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have the money than give it to Apple, but its still less than a 10% discount.

A standard 13 inch MacBook Pro is £140 cheaper with the higher education discount. (£859)

I guess it depends on what you call substantial.

[KBPhoto]

A standard 13 inch MacBook Pro is £140 cheaper with the higher education discount. (£859)

I guess it depends on what you call substantial.

That's more substantial. For me, anything that saves 15/20%+ is substantial enough.

Most of what I saved went on buying an external Super Drive so that I can instal software and copy CD's to iTunes (I'm still old fashioned in these respects).

[littleade]

Hi chaps,

Quick update for all of you who were kind enough to post a reply. Looks like she's going to opt for the 13" mac pro without retina display but the faster 2.9ghz one.

Her HP is on it's last legs by the looks of things- it's running very slow plus the screen's on the way out too now, so rebuilding that isn't an option- we had it serviced before she went back in September and they got it running as fast as it would go so it's not as if it's not been looked after or something we can do to 'save' it

With her student discount she can get this plus Apple's equivelent to word and the latest version of CS Photoshop for 1228.... gulP!

For those wondering why she needs CS PS (plus a reasonable camera if you've seen my othe post gulP x 2) although she's doing textiles she's building up a fashion portfolio, so is photographing the clothes she's designing and using PS to 'put them on' to models etc to show how they would look if they were being worn.

P.S. as you've all been so helpful, I passed this on and she made some complimentary comments about Briskoda, much to SWMBO amusement!

[KBPhoto]

It's been noted several times that Briskoda is a costly place to reside...

Not just for cars!

[ColinD]

Time for me to hide then

Wise choice, the retina is pointless if you have a normal screen and having looked carefully at one, on the 13, not a lot use away from a screen. The 15" just about, but no way I'm dropping 2k on a laptop (yet).

News the other day , there was a price drop, not sure if it hits the non retina models.

[TriggerFish]

Open Office is free, is it's of any use.

[KBPhoto]

Open Office is free, is it's of any use.

Can you get that for a Mac?

It's been a while since I tried it (on a PC) and found too many issues with comparability with the rest if the world (at least the ones using MS Office).

I've had no such issues with MS Office on a Mac.

[TriggerFish]

You can certainly get Libre Office at least (an offshoot of Open Office since Oracle took them over) as a lecturer was using it earlier today on a MacBook.

As for full compatibility with the later Office versions - I'm not 100% as to how good it is as I get Office 2010 FOC via uni, so I've been using that.

I guess it's worth a try, given it's free, before spending £*** on MS Office for Mac.

[James I]

I have a mac book pro, love it, also got an iMac that too is great, went to Amazon and bought an 8gb memory kit for each for about £30, so mac book is on 8 gb ram and imac is at 12gb.

As for office, PM me I might have something you will be interested in.

I also run open office, LR 4 and CS 6 aswell as microsoft office.

Forgot to mention I bought my mac book off Apple refurb site, £899 instead of £1200

[littleade]

The deed is done, 2.9ghz 13" macbook pro with 8gb of ram, word equivelent and CS6 plus 3 years warranty, 1 year phone support. She's happy, I'm not looking forward to the next credit card bill. I even had the chance to do the dishonerable thing as the credit card company rang up to check if it was a fraudulent activity!

She wants to pass her thanks on and is pleased I joined Briskoda!

[ChrisWerrett]

I'd probably go for a mac as they generally seem more reliable for media applications. If you were going for a windows laptop i'd spend a similar amount to what you'd spend on a mac.. most high end laptops have a similar build quality to a macbook and superior performance.. I'd have a look at Asus, they do some seriously nice Ultrabooks if you're not to worried about loosing the disk drive.. Some of the tablet/laptop hybrids which are about are also really good! especially seeing as windows 8 is designed with touch screen devices in mind!

Personally I'd stick with windows, but then i have a ridiculously powerful home made gaming PC which can do just about anything so i'm probably a little biased :p

[littleade]

Oh after seeing the cost of the Macs I tried to convince her she needed a PC, believe you me!

Thing is TBH I think she's made the right choice, simply because in the section of the industry she wants to work in after she gets her degree the Mac is the standard and if you turn up with anything else it puts you on the back foot straight away. Also because a lot of the industry does freelance work it makes sense to go with what's used most as the client will want the output and if you don't have a Mac you probably won't get the commission. The 3 year warranty was a nice surprise too, bit like finding out my vRS had climate rather than air con!

All the best

Ade

['daiking']

I don't have any professional requirement for a Mac but I had convinced myself that I would get one earlier in the year but it suffers from classic scope creep. You start out looking at the basic models and decide that as it costs so much anyway you may as well get the proper version. So instead of looking at a grand, you're up tot he £1500 mark for a 15" macbook or 27" iMac. However I've backed away from it when I think I probably wouldn't notice much difference from a £400 windows machine and a thousands pounds in my pocket to spend on well, anything. That said I am trying to fill my life with possessions that have an obvious quailty to them and will last, which is where a macbook is miles ahead of a cheap windows machine.

I'm still undecided.