PC (Windows) Vs Mac

[Hobbit]

Don’t be misled that an Apple PC will work like an iPad or IPhone .

It’s sort of like windows, but significantly different.

A windows laptop with a SSD hard drive will give you very similar performance for a chunk of dosh less.

This times 1,000,000.

On the back of having, first, an iPad Air then upgrading to an iPad Pro I bought a MacBook Air Thinking it would be as good as the iPad Pro. i5 pro etc. Each to their own but 22 months later I sold it and dug out the HP i7 I’d kept.

The only thing I miss from the MacBook is the battery life.

 

[Tashyboy]

Fish, not sure if it is any good, but type in apple uk on your browser. Go to the bottom of the page and click on refurbished and clearance. Got mine from there and saved some serious wings. But not sure on prices now.

 

[Leftie]

It may be an overreaction but with my bank card being hacked ............

Sorry Robin, but I fail to see the connection between this and spending around £1k on an Apple machine where you have already admitted that your present PC has ample capacity to do what you want - even though it is Windows XP (one of their better iterations I believe). Or is it that you just want a smaller machine and have been taken in by the hype? You can get the same spec and performance (or better) and possibly compatibility with your present systems without hassle for about half the price.

Just saying ....

 

[PJ87]

Mac's are very good and last a while

My mac is 2011. I have just brought this week a Chromebook to replace the day to day usage of it. Saving it only for game golf really lol

Dont need a Mac anymore but I bought it new in 2011

Has latest me well

Upgraded the hardrive to a bigger one 2 years into it

Upgraded the ram 5 years ago

Other than that been good

 

[Ye Olde Boomer]

I became very proficient in MS-DOS.

I can't say the same, but I muddled through it somehow. Hated those floppy discs that predated the smaller diskettes that nobody remembers either.

I know a moronic wanker who has a massive porn collection on them and on VHS with nowhere to view either. If that's his biggest problem, he should be OK.
(But I doubt that that's his biggest problem.)

 

[need_my_wedge]

I’ve worked in the computer industry since 1981, seen a lot of change, first internal hard drives we had were 5MB and took two men to lift them in on rails, if you weren’t careful, the weight would tip over the mini system, which was the size of an old phone box, and was lucky if it had 256MB of memory. I worked in CPM before moving to DOS, and then to Windows and eventually Linux.

I'm not sure a jump to Apple from Windows is necessary, certainly not on the cost of Apple kit. As others have said, you can get good/ equivalent spec pc’s for half the price. Moving from XP to Windows 10 will be a change in itself. Even though I have an iPhone and a iPad, my work and home desktops are both Windows, I wouldn’t bother changing to apple if you’ve been stuck with XP for so long, save The cash and upgrade to a Windows system.

 

[Fish]

sounds like youve made your mind up so go and spend twice as much as you need to buying a macbook

That's very condescending Steve.

I haven't made my mind up yet hence which is why I'll go to the Apple Store to learn a bit more about these Mac's today, otherwise I'd have pulled the trigger on one online yesterday.

Wife switched to mac and is totally sold. Everything just works and works well. Guess part of it is because apple only need to write software that works on their brand whereas windows needs to work with hundreds of different component manufacturers. What I will say is every Mac has lasted until she has wanted an upgrade, non of the slowdown and lag that she got over time on windows laptops

This is what is highlighted in the write up within the link I placed on my thread early doors, it was this and the ability/speed to address issues quickly that got my attention, by doing updates and repairs both remotely and by visiting a store, for free!

This times 1,000,000.

On the back of having, first, an iPad Air then upgrading to an iPad Pro I bought a MacBook Air Thinking it would be as good as the iPad Pro. i5 pro etc. Each to their own but 22 months later I sold it and dug out the HP i7 I’d kept.

The only thing I miss from the MacBook is the battery life.

I blame you Brian, you sold me your iPad, and in association with my iPhone they're the best 2 bits of kit I've ever owned or used.

I had a Windows based Dell laptop with my large Dell PC package which ran off an additional server when I had my other business, the laptop got infected in some way, became dead as a door nail, still have it I think somewhere but nobody could open it again to load new software, even Fragger couldn't help and was stumped, this was a bad experience and one I don't want again!

Fish, not sure if it is any good, but type in apple uk on your browser. Go to the bottom of the page and click on refurbished and clearance. Got mine from there and saved some serious wings. But not sure on prices now.

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Sorry Robin, but I fail to see the connection between this and spending around £1k on an Apple machine where you have already admitted that your present PC has ample capacity to do what you want - even though it is Windows XP (one of their better iterations I believe). Or is it that you just want a smaller machine and have been taken in by the hype? You can get the same spec and performance (or better) and possibly compatibility with your present systems without hassle for about half the price.

Just saying ....

XP is no longer supported, so I'm restricted in some things I want to do and open on my PC, it's also much slower at times (major pain) as it struggles to receive as good a signal than my iPad or iPhone's do, I've had this looked into and again the compatibility of a much older system (hardware) keeps getting highlighted.

Security is a major concern for me, I want to trust in a system that I'm using for my business and personal use, I don't think that my old hardware and running old outdated software is now filling me with confidence, so I need to address this now as my new business is growing quicker and faster than I envisaged.

So I've not been 'taken in by the hype', I'm actually seeing and experiencing differences between an older windows driven Dell PC (Vostro 220) which was linked to my own Dell server (Poweredge T100) and was all singing and dancing in its time, and ran a large business, and Apple devices first hand.

Not having my towers and PC taking up a corner of the living room and dining table would be nice, and obviously a laptop is portable, which would be good on my business and golf travels, but that's more of a bonus rather than a kicker.

I've looked into upgrading to a latest windows software and keeping my hardware but that won't remove some of the negative experiences I've encountered previously with Windows, nor will it address the speed which I need when I need to quickly respond to queries and quotes or take a payment over the phone, all of which I need the confidence of doing quickly.

At times when the PC goes into full slowdown halfway through a customer call, I have to quickly switch to my ipad, I don't think that will change if I just upgrade my software. Maybe my Dell hardware can be tickled also, I can research that this morning, but do I want to start throwing band-aids at half the cost or more at older hardware or start a fresh?

Mac's are very good and last a while

My mac is 2011. I have just brought this week a Chromebook to replace the day to day usage of it. Saving it only for game golf really lol

Dont need a Mac anymore but I bought it new in 2011

Has latest me well

Upgraded the hardrive to a bigger one 2 years into it

Upgraded the ram 5 years ago

Other than that been good

Was upgrading the hard drive and RAM costly, and did you find it necessary but worthwhile at the time.


Thanks for all the replies so far, I am leaning more towards an Apple, mainly because the confidence and non-issues I've experienced with my iPad & iPhone over the last few years which I use heavily on the road and at home daily.

I don't want to keep having to buy and upgrade software and I'm worried about the time it can take to address window based bugs.

I think my hardware has seen better days, I think it's around 13 years old now, I'm sure it can be upgraded to become more compatible, but I'm not convinced that could be the answer, or cost effective.....

So, if as some of you have advised, looking at a windows based laptop, what would it be, and why, taking into consideration this is for business and personal use, and how often do you need to upgrade software or invest in extra security and at what cost?

 

[GB72]

I think that is another point, all my wife's apple gear connects and talks to each other seamlessly.

 

[Fish]

I think that is another point, all my wife's apple gear connects and talks to each other seamlessly.

This would be a bonus, it's not a deciding factor but is obviously appealing, I don't have that available to me currently with my current PC so if I didn't go down the Apple route I wouldn't be missing out on anything I had before.

 

[Fish]

I've dug out the Dell laptop I had which got infected some how and died, its a Vostro 1520 which matched all the hardware I had installed at my business at the time, it's looks almost new!

I haven't got or can find the charger otherwise I'd see if it charged up again and look into seeing if this could be brought back to life.

Anyone got a genuine Dell charger knocking about?

 

[fundy]

I've dug out the Dell laptop I had which got infected some how and died, its a Vostro 1520 which matched all the hardware I had installed at my business at the time, it's looks almost new!

I haven't got or can find the charger otherwise I'd see if it charged up again and look into seeing if this could be brought back to life.

Anyone got a genuine Dell charger knocking about?

yes i have but not all dell chargers fit all dell machines annoyingly, welcome to borrow it to try

 

[Fish]

yes i have but not all dell chargers fit all dell machines annoyingly, welcome to borrow it to try

Happy to pay for postage to get it to me, 19 Suffolk Close, Coventry CV5 7JB.

 

[Fish]

Question:

Is the hard drive the main engine, I've just been reading on changing old hard drives to SSD one's, if my old Dell laptop which is/was on Windows 7 can charge up again, could I swap the hard drives over and then load new windows software on it?

Or is it much more involved and not cost effective, in other words, by the time I've done all that, I might as well have purchased a new laptop?

 

[fundy]

Question:

Is the hard drive the main engine, I've just been reading on changing old hard drives to SSD one's, if my old Dell laptop which is/was on Windows 7 can charge up again, could I swap the hard drives over and then load new windows software on it?

Or is it much more involved and not cost effective, in other words, by the time I've done all that, I might as well have purchased a new laptop?

depending on how old the laptop is, yes you could replace the hard drive for a SSD (and prob add some memory) then reload a clean version of windows 10. Unless what you have was excellent its likely to be a false economy and would be better off with a new machine imo

 

[fundy]

Happy to pay for postage to get it to me, 19 Suffolk Close, Coventry CV5 7JB.

Arghh, just realised that laptop never managed to leave Milton Keynes and come with me, still with one of my poker mates

There are plenty of chargers on the evilbay/amazon

One in Coventry for a tenner
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/for-Repl...549751&hash=item2a70d93a09:g:hh8AAOSw8w1X2e1k

 

[Fish]

depending on how old the laptop is, yes you could replace the hard drive for a SSD (and prob add some memory) then reload a clean version of windows 10. Unless what you have was excellent its likely to be a false economy and would be better off with a new machine imo

It's a Vostro 1520, I had it built by the guys who put all my hardware into my store, which was quite extensive at the time, I could link from my laptop to my office from anywhere, I had the biggest of everything possible within it, XP hadn't been long launched and was the favoured/latest software, but it died on me after only a couple of years due to an infection, I then tried to take it back to a previous date, eventually tried to take it back to factory settings etc and all kinds of other things, took it to a so-called computer store then when I couldn't load any new software onto it, and they couldn't do anything with it, so it's been sat in my spare room for about 10+ years!

I can see I can get a SSD hard drive for less than £100, and the reviews from some are excellent, but is that the main engine? If a laptop traditionally dies, is it likely to have been the hard drive, or........

 

[Fish]

Arghh, just realised that laptop never managed to leave Milton Keynes and come with me, still with one of my poker mates

There are plenty of chargers on the evilbay/amazon

One in Coventry for a tenner
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/for-Repl...549751&hash=item2a70d93a09:g:hh8AAOSw8w1X2e1k

I've got one of those, but like that one it's not genuine, so I'm suspicious it might not charge.

I found Dell where a little like Apple and some things didn't work if they were not genuine and only 'compatible'. I haven't got the mains lead though which has a small specific sized 3-pin connector, much smaller than the 'kettle' ones.

 

[fundy]

It's a Vostro 1520, I had it built by the guys who put all my hardware into my store, which was quite extensive at the time, I could link from my laptop to my office from anywhere, I had the biggest of everything possible within it, XP hadn't been long launched and was the favoured/latest software, but it died on me after only a couple of years due to an infection, I then tried to take it back to a previous date, eventually tried to take it back to factory settings etc and all kinds of other things, took it to a so-called computer store then when I couldn't load any new software onto it, and they couldn't do anything with it, so it's been sat in my spare room for about 10+ years!

I can see I can get a SSD hard drive for less than £100, and the reviews from some are excellent, but is that the main engine? If a laptop traditionally dies, is it likely to have been the hard drive, or........

Based on that I wouldnt even try bothering to revive (unless theres info on it you want to reuse), technology has moved on greatly so think youre right to buy new.

The difference an SSD makes to a windows machine is eyeopening to me, my machines now boot up in 10 seconds or so and everything runs faster and smoother (assuming no other bottle necks with processor/memory/graphics etc).

 

[Fish]

Whats the difference between these, other than £179.00?

The only thing I can spot is the 4MB Cache and 8MB Cache, what exactly is that, is it memory?

Can't see the RAM, or is that called something different on these?

What else would I need, everyone seems to be pushing Microsoft Office 365 Home..

https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/...5lHDJVtlBLzxPzHcZkMaAh_pEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=8EX04EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

 

[fundy]

RAM is the overall memory, in both cases is 8Gb on those machines

The cache is (I think) the memory capability on the processor which affects how quickly the processor can use the memory

The price difference on those 2 is mainly for the difference in processors and partly size of hard drive that I can see