Good option or not?
I just want a decent laptop, nothing fancy, not too expensive. 1000-1500 euro budget. I'll be travelling with it, and maybe watch a dvd now and then. For the rest just mails, internet...
I've been hearing that Vista is shit and people praising macs, so does anybody have experience with the (regular) macbook.
I have a black Macbook and love it, but it is not my primary computer. I use it when I travel or when I am on another floor in the house. I have a Mac Pro for my main computer at home. As a general rule, I don’t think laptops make for a good primary computing experience, but that’s just me. I am used to working on a big monitor, lots of computing power and endless HD space and RAM. By definition a laptop is a compromised computing experience; the trade off is the portability you get with laptop.
The Macbook is a great second computer for me. But for the purposes you describe (a dvd now and then. For the rest just mails, internet) it should be perfect. Though I would caution that the audio out on the Macbook is very weak. Even at full volume it is the weakest sound of any laptop Mac I have ever used. If you are going to use it to listen to any audio (DVD, music, etc.) you will need to use earbuds or plug in external speakers.
For a first time buyer I would recommend an iMac, but if you do get the Macbook, I would recommend that you buy it online from Apple’s online store so you can configure it to your liking. That is to say, you should buy it with the biggest hard drive they offer (260GB) and at least 2mb of memory. I know that will cost more, but you don’t want cheapest, you want the best value. A penny pinching friend of mine refused to listen to me and bought the absolute cheapest Macbook he could find and now he is very unhappy because it does not have enough memory to do the things he wants to do and he is already running out of HD space. I have had to stop myself several times from saying “I told you so.”
btw, once you get a Mac be sure to use the Mail program that comes with it, and link it with your gmail account or yahoo mail account. When used with one of those services Apple’s Mail program is a great way to read, store, manage, sort, or search your old emails!
Repeated from an earlier post.
I’ve received a few PMs on this and related subjects so I thought I’d save myself some time. If you are new to the Mac (iMac, MacPro, Macbook, Macbook Pro, etc) there are some things every Mac user should have installed that do not come with the computer. You can download them as indicated.
LimeWire
http://www.limewire.com/
With this program you can connect to the gnutella network and share (download and upload) all kinds of files: music, data, software, porn, etc. If you file share a lot it is worth getting Limewire Pro
HandBrake
http://handbrake.fr/?article=download
Rip (the same way you rip CDs) any DVD on to your computer hard drive and watch them when ever you want as a QuickTime movie. Depending on how powerful your Mac is, ripping a DVD can take 10-60 minutes or more. With this program you can customize your rips. For example, you can rip an entire movie or specific chapter/scenes from a DVD. Or you can rip a DVD and include the subtitles (in English or another language). Or rip the DVD in an audio track other than English; this is great if you like foreign films. I have dozens of ripped movies on my hard drive.
Google Earth
http://www.google.com/earth/download-earth.html
Travel the country, the world, or even outer space, without leaving your computer
Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
I like Safari too, but it’s important to have more than one browser on your Mac—just in case you need to try visiting a site with something other than Safari.
RealPlayer
http://www.real.com/
Download the Free Player—not the 14-Day SuperPass trial. It’s not as popular as it once was but Real still represents an audio standard that you need to have installed. NPR, for example, uses Real.
Adobe Reader
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Read any and all Acrobat or PDF files. Yes, the Mac comes with Preview, but Reader is more powerful and flexible.
Microsoft Office
Love it or hate it, you simply have to have Office installed.
Flip4mac
http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm
Import, Export & Play Windows Media on your Mac! Once installed this program will enable you to open video files you previously could not open (like .avi files) as QuickTime movies.
Toast
http://www.roxio.com/
With this DVD & CD burning software you can manage your (data) DVDs like a pro. Toast is a commercial program and while I cannot endorse you obtaining it via illegal file sharing, I can’t stop you from doing it either.
