I made the switch a few months back from a Thinkpad to the Macbook Pro. Haven’t had a single regret - absolutely LOVE it, Windows screams on it. And, you get to play with OSX which is also a treat.
Hitting “ctrl-click” for right click isn’t that big of a tradeoff for me, I typically use a bluetooth mouse anyways.
“Plus, I’d be stuck with a tiny screen.”
The screen size on the MacBook is exactly the same as other 13.3" laptops. 
" the Windows operating system places a limit on the size of individual virtual memory allocations.
Under Windows NT4, 2000 and XP, the upper limit is slightly less than 1 gigabyte."
I’m not sure that’s true. The virtual memory available is 4GB, per 32-bit architecture. 2GB of that is per process and 2gb is shared amongst all the processes by the system. So the process can request up to 2GB of private virtual memory.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=555223
Most of the benefits from the current crop of 64-bit processors come from the threading system and the cache from what I understand, not the ability to address huge (16TB I believe) amounts of RAM.
re: HPs being ugly monsters. I just bought an HP laptop and it looks pretty good. I’m also an iBook owner so I have a great design for comparison. 
It’s got pretty blue lights, no ports hanging off the back. No parallel port at all, 3 USB ports, media readers nicely integrated on the side. The case looks nice. Turion 64 procesor, 1GB of RAM, 100GB HD, dual-layer DVD burner for $65 less than the base Macbook.
“What’s amazing is that 64-bit PC laptops have been available for some time now, and Apple chose to jump right in there with the pre-doomed 32-bit version. It seems astonishingly short-sighted.”
Ian, keep in mind that Apple had the foresight to make sure their flagship OS ran on both PPC and x86 for a number of years. I can’t believe that a company thinking that far ahead would jump ship to a doomed architecture, slap their head, and say “DOH!”.
re: right clicking - ironically enough, you can right click under OS X. Hold down the button for a second and the right click fires. At least under OS X.
JonG - re: “Boutique operating system that can’t even run Windiff”. I pity you if you are still using that. I’ve pitched my diffing tent in the KDiff camp and I’m enjoying a beautiful view with a river full of steelhead ripe for the picking from my tent. But that’s a little like saying Windows sucks because it doesn’t run iPhoto. Yeah, so? There are other photo managers under Windows. There are other diffing tools that work on more than one platform.
“Why? Because Inspirons regularly have a $750 off coupon that every non-moron can find by a simple Google search.”
I hear this argument a lot. So, presumably, its perfectly okay with you that Dell is screwing every grandma or grandpa, kid, or any other person who isn’t particularly tech saavy or prone to coupon searches?
They have, in essence created a whole pricing struture designed to ream laypeople.
Look, it would be worth using a Mac instead of a Windows PC even if they were slower, just for the OS. Now that they’re not slower, there’s just no reason not to. I am not going to quibble about a few hundred bucks here or there when I’m talking about my computer, which I use for hours a day, every day. Quality matters.
I just noticed this is ultraportable category…
I don’t consider 5-6 pound laptops “ultraportable”. The two hallmarks of an ultraportable are ~3 pound weight plus or minus a pound, and no optical drive.
These are ultraportables:
http://www.gateway.com/products/gconfig/proddetails.asp?seg=hmsystem_id=nx100x
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/small-but-heavy-samsung-q35-notebook-162178.php
We’re just talking about regular old mainstream laptops here.
with only a half a gig of RAM
I don’t include memory costs, because only the gullible and/or disgustingly rich would ever buy memory from a first party vendor. Gouge-o-rama!
Memory is super-easy to self-upgrade. Current newegg pricing for a 1 gigabyte SO-DIMM of DDR2 memory is ~$75. So you’re looking at $150 to populate the two memory slots on the average laptop. If the laptop comes with a fixed minimum amount of memory standard as a SO-DIMM, you can sell that on eBay to offset that $150, too.
Interestingly, I don’t see any 2gb SO-DIMMs for sale at newegg… so I guess that whole “four gigabytes of memory in a laptop” concept will remain a pipe dream for now.
“…with a $600 operating system (the only thing that’s good in it)”
How do you come up with the $600 figure for OSX?
only one thing is important : to have good tools
and it’s what apple is providing
it’s why people are buying them again and again , years after years even if they are not “standard” , even against the “pc” industry.
all arguments are fuss , bias, useless. let people use the tools they want.
I’m not sure that’s true.
It is, in practical terms, according to the vendor. Remember memory gets fragmented, too, just like a hard disk. They’re the guys writing the software, and I’m sure they don’t want to spend time on the x64 edition unless they have to.
Their support calls on the “out of memory” issue have doubled in the last 12 months:
http://www.panoramafactory.com/pfactory64.html#howbig
This is no doubt due to the increase in image size /megapixels for current cameras. Imagine stitching together a panoramic image of twelve 10 megapixel images…
Anyway, the point is that current 32-bit computers can’t really use 3 or 4 gigs of memory effectively because of the addressing and architecture problems.
“Not the case here, but the funniest is when I see open-source zealots being fanboys of the most proprietary computer company.”
because these “fanboys zealots” (two insult wow) were not fond of "open source’ but fond of good computing.
something opensource brings to them. and a thing apple build and improves upon.
not complicate to understand. for many people, linux is not the point. the point is UNIX. close or open but good UNIX.
“funniest is when I see open-source zealots being fanboys of the most_proprietary_computer_company”
Really? Are Linux zealots fanboys of the Microsoft company (*)?
I had not noticed that.
(*) .wmv, .doc, frontpage/msie, etc. etc…
Buy your PC, be happy with it, but stop the elitist crap. It’s not the nineties anymore.
since I don’t buy $3000 suits, I guess I won’t buy Macs either
But you miss the entire point of the article: Apple laptops are NOT expensive! Even the super frugal Dell Latitude e1505 model that Jon cited is basically the same price, and although it has some perks (larger screen, 1gb base) it also lacks some perks the MacBook has (lighter, camera, “free” OSX option, much better industrial design). So it’s basically a wash.
Apple laptops are not equivalent to “$3000 suits”. Not any more. Even the most pessimistic reader, if they did the research like I did, would have to agree that they have price parity at the very least.
Just a little clarification here: Mac OS X was never a 64-bit OS, if so it wouldn’t run on G4s. The PowerPC versions of Mac OS X are simply 32-bit OS’s that are capable of running 64-bit code with an appropriate processor. Nearly all applications for Mac OS X are 32-bit. Only the G5s were 64-bit processors anyway, so an machine with a G4 was incapable of running 64-bit programs.
64-bit is overrated anyways. The most significant advantage is the ability to address more than 4GB of RAM. As far as applications go, It is mostly used in mathematical and scientific applications, which have a very small market. 64-bit chips often run slightly slower than comparable 32-bit chips in many cases, due to the doubling of registers, data streams, and pointers, but with instruction stream and cache remaining the same size. The difference is small, but the fact is 32-bit processors are often slightly faster than 64-bit processors.
I thought you couldn’t use the camera from Windows yet or did they get that fixed? That’s not really a bonus if you can’t use it.
I think it’s great that Apple laptops are comparitively priced at last. I hope they sell like gangbusters so that PC makers understand that great industrial design actually does sell. Today you either get buisness-class blah or p0wnd-gamer-blinking-LED overdose. The few that try to go for style, like Viao’s, are over-priced. If you can get power AND style for under $2500 then I’m happy.
This whole post is just nonsense. See if you can beat the deal I got on my Dell 1505. Apple can’t touch this for less than $2000. And I only paid $1500.
1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo
2GB RAM
80GB 7200 RPM HD
256MB ATI X1400 video card
802.11 A/B/G Wireless NIC
1680x1050 15.4" high quality screen
I pretty much maxed this thing out for about $500 less than some of the models that Apple is pushing on their web site with much lower specs. You just can’t compare 512MB RAM and a 5400 RPM hard drive with what I got.
Sorry… if Apple can beat Dell in price then there is something seriously wrong with the world. How could anyone even claim such a thing? Are we to assume that Apple has some sort of magical capability to make computers cheaper than anyone else? I’m not buying it. I’d be happy to own an Apple computer and maybe some day I will. But it sure won’t be because of price.
Jon, you could have gotten a MacBook for $1,099:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wo/0.RSLID?mco=69469017nclm=MacBook
13.3 1280x800 display
1.83GHz Core Duo
512mb memory
60GB 5,400 RPM hard drive
Combo drive
I just checked Dell’s site, and a roughly equivalent 1505-- upgrade the processor, add bluetooth, upgrade wireless to a/g, etc-- is at least $1100.
The MacBook is significantly smaller and a pound lighter.
The MacBook includes some useful hardware amenities the Dell doesn’t have, too: camera, apple remote, magnetic power connector, etc…
But Jeff, you forgot to add the $300 off coupon for laptops $999 or more (2$WP$RS0GBXFLL). That brings the price down to $878 (you lose the instant $100 savings). So now the Dell is $200 cheaper.
Dell also has a coupon for $450 off of a laptop of $1499 or more. So if I spec the same laptop to about $1500 and apply the coupon then I will end up at about the same price as the Mac. So now I can get 2GB RAM and a 7200 RPM hard drive included for no more than the Mac costs! Tell me which one you’d rather have? I can personally say that having 2GB RAM and the 7200 RPM hard drive makes all the difference in the world. Yes, my Dell is a cheap piece of plastic. But I knew that going into it. I got exactly what I paid for (and I didn’t pay much).
Seriously people. Do you really think that Apple could ever beat Dell on price? But I just don’t understand why you WANT to compare on price? Just say that you get what you pay for and that Macs are better computers. I’d be happy to agree. But don’t come in here using your “fuzzy math” to try and say that somehow Macs are going to be cheaper. It just doesn’t add up. And as soon as Macs become cheaper, then Dell just drops their price even more to squash them. It just won’t ever happen.