? about apple - Page 3

I'm sorry again, Yale. No hard feelings at all. It was entirely my fault.

Your going to NYU, sweet. I will be attending Poly Tech in september, i will also be buying a Sager.

Where in new york are you?

Ghosting happens to an extent on all LCD's. I actually have an old CRT monitor that "ghosts."

Wow, congrats.

What are you gonna major?

Alright, I'm going to have o stand up to this Bazoo charater.

I recently bought a Toshiba 5205-703. My sencond choice was the Sager 5560 from PCTorque.

Let see how my computer compares to the new Powerbook:

-Better Processor (2 gig P4 vs 1 gig G4 - all independent analysis I have seen says a G4 about equals a P4 of 150% of the G4's clockspeed)
-Better vidoe card (GFGo460 vs 440, both 64megs)
-15" vs 17" screen, but due to the aspect ratio of the Apple screen, there isn't a big difference in surface area (whether one likes one aspect ratio or another is a metter of personal choice- I prefer the standard). My Toshiba has a high quality LCD panel as well (400:1 contrast, 25ms response, wide angle). Maybe the Apple does too.
-I have USB2 and Firewire, I think the Apple has both too? Anyway, I think it is a wash.
-Both have bluetooth.
-I think the HD is the same, 4200 rpm, 60 gb.
-Both have DVD-R writers.
-The toshiba looks quite nice, as does the Apple.
-Battery life is good on the Toshiba- over 3 hours. It is quiet. I know the Apple excels on both these points as well.
-The Apple is somewhat lighter, although the Toshiba only weighs about 7 or 8 lbs, not too much in my opinion.
-Windows vs OSX, they are comperable. If you refuse to see this fact, you are completely biased in my opinion.

Now, I would say the Apple is a fine machine. And, believing as I do that a product's relative merits should determine its price, it should be priced in the same range as the Toshiba. But in fact it is over $1000 more ( I got mine for $2060)! This is where it falls apart for Apple. This is their B.S. business model- charge through the ass for equipment you can get in a PC for much less. This is how they survive despite a 3% market share in the U.S. and 2% worldwide, because dummies will pay much more for equal or (for their desktops) inferior harware. It's a damn joke. I don't like Microsoft's monopolistic practices, but within its own domain, I contend Apple is far more a abusive monopolist than M.S. (monopolizing hareware as well as OS's, no other OS's for Apple equipment, etc.).

This is my statement on the matter...

well, tyranous (sp) stated before...it's all preference. the Mac 17" screen is pretty nice, i have to say.

Sure, they're more expensive, but it's a Mac! To Mac lovers, that's all that matters.

The problem comes from the conflict; my school bought a "computer lab," basically about 15 iBooks on a cart. Everyone in the classroom had trouble because they were too used to PCs...even here in Cupertino, sadly.

Yeah, Near Apple HQ, like my "location:" says.

I think the macs have some extra thing that gives them something extra; does anyone know how many bits the data registers are on a mac?

A 2GHz Pentium 4 is far short of a 1GHz G4, when in power saving mode especially. I had that EXACT same toshiba. It was horrible. The best part was the sound. The video performance was far worse than my 15" powerbook (radeon 9000), and the screen had some sort of blue smudge. I returned it. The reason your toshiba gets the battery life you say it does is because you are in a power saving mode. That clocks down the processor so that a 500mhz g4 would outperform it, let alone a 1ghz one. Anyways, the fact that it's a mac is what matters. The fact that I can have a laptop which SEEMLESSLY runs UNIX is what matters. regardless of how close to perfection you get with any PC, you cannot ever get linux running perfectly. Something always refuses to work. Plus it's difficult to use laptop-only features like downclocking and power management on linux. You need to enter terminal commands. On a mac, i just go to the system prefs. Anyways, like i said, I'm strongly considering a sager. I really like the power, and I really like how close to seemlessly I could get linux running. I also like the idea of a tv tuner. I don't like the weight. Anyways... your argument saying that toshiba is an equivelant machine reeks with invalid points. Just giving the fans what they want.

-Gumpan

That "something extra" is an L3 cache. A 1GHz L3 Cache running at 1MB DDR is a VERY good performance enhancer.

by the way... WHY the toshiba? They are not powerful compared to the 5660. The sole advantages are the DVD burning and the nice speakers.

DVD burning may be what they're after; Sager doesn't yet offer this.

L3 huh? Wonder why the pc world hasn't thought of that.

By the way, "PC" is supposed to include Mac, technichally...so what would you call the whole AMD/Intel set?

L3 really doesn't add much.... too much routing through the Memory Controller (even Apple's fast one).... If it could work like Intel's L2 Cache it'd be much better... but comparing processors, it's just plain slower!

I have to disagree with you atbear. The 800MHz G4 Powerbook (with L3 Cache) destroyed the 800MHz G4 PowerMac (No L3). That was the sole reason. Every benchmark, give or take 3d, was better on the one with the L3, by far.

Honestly, the reason I prefer mac is not the hardware. It may be the DESIGN of the hardware, but the actual hardware itself, I agree, is not as powerful ( I wouldn't say inferior, as it has advantages relating to mobility. ) The reason is the OS. I have no DLLs to manage. I have no registry to edit. I have no uninstallers. I can install an application by dragging its icon to the folder I want it in. I can drag and drop text rather than copying and pasting. I can drag and drop pictures right from my browser. I can use Sherlock and Watson. I can play Payback (lol). I can zoom into the screen as much as I want. I can take a snapshot of the screen without running any utilities in the background. I can manage my touchpad without any utilities in the background. I can do it all relatively simply. That's the advantage of a mac.

That's great Bazoo,
Windows has similar features that only Windows has... they equal out!

Are you talking dual G4's?

BTW, I wanted to say that I admire your language skills! You speak better English than some people who have it as their first language!

No, I'm talking about Single processors. The Single processor laptop VS the Single processor desktop.

Anyways, languages kind of come naturally to me. I work as a translator, afterall. I speak over 10 languages fluently, so it makes me some decent money , especially for an almost 21 year old (my birthday is on the 23rd of Feb!). Anyways, thanks a lot... I appreaciate it. Like I said, the hard part is spelling.

List some of these windows-only features if you don't mind. I'm very interested. By the way. "This software runs on windows and not mac, nananananana" doesn't count

-Gumpan

Registry edit for one... customizations galore if you want.

Dual button mice- right click (but I think I saw where you got yours to work like Windows?).

Start Menu (not really all that great, but I DO like it a lot).

I didn't really mean that Windows had "Windows Only" features, I mean that Windows has its strong points too. And also most of the stuff that Macs can do, Windows can do too (example, plug and play capability). I'm sure others can add more, it's late!