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Comment by sandGorgon | Hacker News Reader

hmm - you need to go to 1799$ before you end up with a half decent graphics card and 2199$ for a decent card.

Compare it with a Dell XPS 15 Sandy Bridge - $1049 for i7 2620M, 1920X1080 display, nVidia GT525 Optimus card, HD Camera.

For a first time possible mac buyer (me) - is it well justified ?

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Have you used OS X before?

I pay the Mac premium for two reasons: (1) my laptop is supported by tons of Apple Stores across the country, and (2) OS X is awesome (and since it's Unix-based, I can work in the terminal without a problem). There's also a great reselling market for Macs.

If (1) and (2) don't really matter to you, go with the Dell. I'll pay the extra price to get exactly what I want in my computer.

This... the cost of my computer hardware is basically inconsequential given that these days I'll often get 3-4 years out of it. If I'm using it for work, that's like $2 a day total cost over its lifetime. I'll happily pay an incremental $1 a day for a system that saves me 10 minutes of dicking around and forgo starbucks if that's what it takes.

Justifying choice of your primary work system on the basis of even a $1,000 price difference is generally penny wise - pound foolish. I don't think that's a Mac/Win/Linux issue, just common sense when it comes to work tools.

Well said. Though a cynical contractor could counter that having less productive tools means you get to bill more hours for a given task. Sort of a flip side of the old job creation parable:

"Why are those men digging that ditch with shovels? Wouldn't it be more efficient to use a backhoe?"

"Yes, but this way we create more jobs."

"OK, but if that's the case, why not give them spoons instead?"

Ha. There is always paralells and win xp if you want to be slow. But for the rest of the time i am so fast on os x. I had to do some automation programming and that was the only way to do it.

That assumes you save any time at all. I use a ThinkPad with Win7 and I think honestly say that I lose no additional time vs using a MBP. In fact I'd argue it saves me time as I generally like the keyboard more and I can't stand trackpads (I turn mine off and use the stickpoint -- which I actually even prefer over a mouse).

My point... the $1000 savings for many comes with no penalty at all. With that said, I don't have a Unix environnemnt requirements, which would change the equation in a big way.

I think if you find the Thinkpad / W7 more powerful, you should go that route.

All I'm saying is that if you're planning to make on the order of $250-$300K off using a piece of equipment, $1,000 (or even $10,000, arguably) probably shouldn't be material to which one you choose.

But any dollar not spent on one part of a work setup can be spent on some other part of the work setup, so that kind of thinking can easily come out in the wash.

Day to day tasks, I'm pretty equally efficient in any OS, but OSX's significant "lifetime of ownership" time savings for me has been system maintenance. I've never needed to reformat and reinstall a Mac, and when I've voluntarily done it (hackintoshing), restoring a complete system from Time Machine backups has been absolutely painless.

Major OSX updates have never been a problem either (although I've read accounts of errors happening), I've carried one Macbook from 10.4 to 10.6 without ever reinstalling. I've been burned a couple times trying to do distribution upgrades with Ubuntu, I've never had a Windows install that didn't need an occasional refresh for some reason, and I wouldn't dare upgrade from XP->Vista->7. I've not owned Win 7 long enough yet to determine if that will still be the case, but Windows' history has me skeptical.

Just my experience. The Mac price difference has paid for itself many times over for systems I depend on and family I support.

Depends what kind of developer you are. If you're a developer that requires a posix environment, you're definitely better off in the mac world. Thinkpad with Linux is sometimes an option if you're confident that everything is supported, but very often you'll be wasting time dicking around in the xorg.conf file to get the external display to work properly with certain monitors/configurations.

I'm also a bit surprised that you hate the trackpad -- that's the one thing I love about the mac. It supports many kinds of gestures that just wouldn't be possible on a single stickpoint. For example, I use the 3-finger swipe for navigation in chrome every day, and a 4 finger swipe for jumping to specific apps.

I'm a recent OS X convert and I absolutely loathe using trackpads. So I use a mouse. Big whoop.

(1)That support, in the form of AppleCare costs money, something like $350 at time of purchase. (2)OSX will run on most PCs, it's not specific to hardware anymore. The additional price paid to Apple is ostensibly for attention to detail in hardware and software design.

And the assurance that it will actually work as advertised. I don't want to spend the time and effort to get OSX working on non-Apple hardware. Maybe it will take little time and effort. Maybe it won't. I'm willing to pay to not find out.

(1) That support, for the first year of my laptop's life, is complimentary. The $350 is worth it when it extends the life of my 2006 MacBook to 5 years.

(2) Are you seriously suggesting I buy a Windows laptop, screw around with it for hours/days, and install a buggy version of OS X so I can save $300? No thanks.

this is not a rhetorical question - would you say that a similarly priced Dell warranty cover (what we call CompleteCover in Asia: it includes accidental damage protection) is worse than a walk-in Apple Genius support ?

Dell's coverage is usually next day onsite.

Personally, I've found Dell's next day onsite service very impressive. BUT the laptop in question needed such service so often that I would never buy another Dell without evidence of a major change in their operations.

(Not to mention that at one point their online service guys told me our harddrive was not salvageable and recommended reformatting it. I ignored them and less than 12 hours later had backed up the entire drive using a Linux Live CD.)

Never owned a Dell, but support for my Compaq (I know, I know) was absolutely terrible. Others could probably answer this question better.

As a Linux user I find it funny when OSX is compared to a Unix OS since it has a terminal. That's like saying Nextstep (what OSX is based on) is an acceptable OSX

OS X is a fully POSIX compliant operating system (as opposed to Linux, which is not fully compliant). It is officially branded as Unix. I don't understand what you mean?

Aside from OSX -- I wonder how many people on HN actually have much dealings with a real UNIX (a Solaris or AIX etc).

I would hazard a guess that *nix means Linux to a large % of the population.

POSIX is irrelevant, Linux is POSIX compliant, no-ones bothered to pay the money for the piece of paper the important thing is the tools.

The main thing lacking from OSX is a package manager, in Linux its build in. On OSX you have to use 3rd party ones. Just look at mark pilgrims 'how to install mysql on ubuntu' for an example of how It Just Works on Linux and on OSX you have to tweak lots of config files.

Then your complaint is not "It's not Unix." It's really "It's not Linux."

There is no package manager built into Linux.

There are a variety package managers to choose from on Linux (apt, yum, portage) just as on Mac OS X (which has MacPorts, Homebrew, and Fink).

Perhaps you are thinking of apt, a popular, slick, "best of breed" package manager that is native on exactly one of the many Linux distributions: Debian. It is technically "third party," though "built in," on other Linux distributions like Ubuntu, which is based on Debian but not the same thing as Debian.

Anyway, packaging is a mess on both Linux and OS X. Even on Ubuntu and Debian you have to go outside the built in packager for a truly good experience in certain cases, e.g. Ruby via rvm; Rails and other ruby packages via gem; Perl modules via CPAN, etc.

Yes, OS X would be better with a package manager other than the one built into the App Store, but a lack of one does not make it Not Unix.

Balls to semantics! :) If you install Linux on your machine, you get a distro and you get a package manager. It's not third party to your OS it comes with you OS, your OS is installed with it, you OS is upgraded with the package manager. You only need to use the package manager that comes with your OS (i have never had to use yum while on a debian os). None is true on OSX.

The OSX package managers are not as good as apt (the one package manager I have a lot of experience), in the same way Nextstep is not as good as OSX. The fact that you need to have more than one installed and use for different software (my experience working with fink afnd macports in OSX tiger days) shows that its not as good as apt

Fink is apt, and it is by far the worst of the three package managers available for OS X.

Do you need Apple specific software? If not, go with the gear at a good price that lasts long. I had a Dell business grade laptop, Compaq, and a 13" macbook pro. Dell died twice and was repaired on their dime, Compaq lasted 8 years and still works except the sound card burning out, and my 3 year old macbook, is a-ok as well. Compaq was $1150, Dell was $1500, and the MBP was $1350.

For my software dev, all of them worked well. For gaming, they all sucked.

I do my software Dev on Mac OS X. I am a backend systems software engineer working on daemons that run in the background on top of FreeBSD. Mac OS X helps since it is so similar to FreeBSD it makes it easy for me to test on my own laptop, and I have access to all of the tools I need to do my job in Terminal, such as mercurial, python, easy to install open source software using MacPorts and whatnot. On Windows I would have to dick around with msys, and cygwin, also I would be vastly less efficient because of having to deal with various inconsistencies and possible issues because the code I just wrote might not compile correctly on a POSIX system.

Yes.

I was a first timer on the first unibody. I still LOVE it. I've never loved a PC, Dell, Sony, HP, ACER, Lenovo or otherwise. Part of that is OSX. I find it so much better than Windows, even after having using Windows most of my life.

I am pretty much the same way. I got a 13" mb a bit before the unibody was announced and the got the 15" in late 2009. Great machine and still very fast. I LOVE it and am amazed at how useful it is to have a computer that you trust to come out of sleep so quickly and that has good battery life. I only wish I have the 15" with the higher resolution screen.

Your configuration is about $1600, not $1049. Did you actually try to configure it?

http://d.pr/jSut+

You did the 2720QM instead of the 2620M he specified, and added a few extras (windows ultimate, 750gb hdd, etc). What he claimed is almost true, except he missed that the $1050 model's display is not 1920x1080, you have to pay an extra $150 for that.

very true - my mistake. I could, however, be very much on the mark - if we account for the frequent coupons that Dell puts out.

The Dell XPS is a desktop-replacement laptop. Fast, but bulky. I doubt it has wonderful battery life. It's probably got a cheap case. Resale value will be low.

Comparing Apples to Apples, you might look at high-end Sony laptops. The MBP 13" close to the S series, both in price and quality. The F series (big, bulky powerhouse) is much cheaper, and has much better specs - but it's a desktop replacement (like the Dell XPS 15).

Apple doesn't make desktop-replacement laptops. It doesn't even make desktops! I wish it did - I'd love a $1500 Apple mini-tower, and a $1000 MacBook (not Pro) 17", but it's just not going to happen.

It doesn't even make desktops!

Huh? What about the Mac Mini, the iMac and the Mac Pro?

Only the Mac Pro is a true screenless tower.

It's pointless to discount the Mac Mini because of its form factor. Put it in a cardboard box if you want it to look like a tower.

It's valid to discount the Mini because when you buy a Mini you are paying for several very significant features that are lacking from a typical desktop. If you want to make a fair comparison to the Mini, look at home-theater PCs that will be similarly small and quiet.

I don't follow how being a better desktop disqualifies the mini from being a desktop?

Does it have a discrete GPU, or one that shares the system's memory?

Can you upgrade the GPU?

Can you add extra hard drives?

Obviously not everyone needs those features, but some people do. And not everyone wants to pay for workstation parts (like the Pro).

The mini, by virtue of using low-power laptop chips and other techniques to reduce its size and power consumption, will always have a higher cost than a budget tower with equivalent clock speeds but a 250W power supply built by the lowest bidder, loud fans, and other commodity parts.

If all you are looking for is a cheap tower machine built from commodity parts, any of Apple's offerings will require you to pay a significant amount for features that you don't want, because the Apple machine isn't meant to be a generic box or to compete with generic boxes. The Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro all target niches that are different from the low-budget, ultra-low-margin desktop market.

It's really no different from saying that the MacBook Pro is an overpriced desktop - of course it is, because it is more than just a desktop. Apple doesn't make ordinary desktops, much to the consternation of almost every hacker who wants an ordinary desktop (but not a workstation) with a good unix-like OS. If Apple did make a generic ATX form-factor box, nobody would take exception to the idea that the Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro are in different categories.

OK, you're right. It seems that small form factors (Mini) and all-in-ones (iMac) are generally classified as "desktops". Though workstations (Pros) are not.

By "desktop", I meant "towers, mini-towers, and those horizontal towers that used to prop up CRT monitors". Computers that you could stuff high-end (but not workstation) video cards, and quad core processors into.

It's only recently that the iMac used "desktop" parts, and not "laptop" ones, isn't it?

"horizontal towers" = pizza boxes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_box_form_factor

I'm also interested in becoming a 'first time mac buyer'. As such, I have some questions:

- Do these offer a significant enough improvement over the last generation to justify not buying a refurbed older model? - What's the real conceptual difference between the three models? I know it's not just screen size - how do they differ in intended use case? - I want a laptop I can lug around everywhere and curl up on the sofa with as well as sit at a desk. Is the 17" too big for that?

- Do these offer a significant enough improvement over the last generation to justify not buying a refurbed older model?

Depends on what you do: if you do anything that's heavily CPU-bound, the answer is "yes." If you don't, the answer is "no."

If you want to see all three, go to an Apple store. If it were me, I'd probably want a 13" with an aftermarket SSD and an external monitor at home.

No, just get an older model off ebay.

Or Apple refurb. That's what I did, and it saved me nearly 20% off retail.

I got a refurb 13" 2 weeks ago, probably as they were clearing out stock. It's a really nice machine, solid in all the ways it should be. And it was only $1k.

My US$.02:

- Unless you need the higher processor speed or the Thunderbolt port, previous gen refurbished should be quite a deal.

- The 15" high res (1920x1080) is the sweet spot for portability and desktop use. I have a 17" now, and it's really just too big. When I bought mine though (late 2007), the 15" didn't have a high res display. If I were buying one now, it would be the 15" 1080p or the 13" Air (ultraportable).

Where are you seeing 1080p on the 15"? I have the last-gen 15" with the anti-glare upgrade, but was disappointed only to be able to get 1680x1050, so I was pretty excited at the prospect of that much higher a resolution. Looking at the site, though, the upgrade is still just 1680x1050.

I think I'll just continue to hold out hope that the rumored refresh of the Air line, offering Sandy Bridge chips, comes in June.

That said, I agree; if you don't specifically need quad-core or Thunderbolt (which does look pretty cool), the previous generation is very solid, and I'm quite happy with mine.

Really interested in your feedback of the 1440 vs the 1680 on the 15" screen. I spend lots of time in iTerm/TextMate doing web dev. My current MBP 1440 is ok for me, but thinking I should go higher this time.

Will the fonts be too small? (hey, I'm not that old but concerned I'll be 'leaning in' to a screen where everything is too tiny).

Personally, I don't think they're too small. I moved to this machine from a ThinkPad x61 tablet (12.1", 1400x1050 -- just shy of 150 ppi, as opposed to 128-and-change on the MBP), so it's actually a step down in pixel pitch for me. FWIW, I tend to live in the terminal, too.

(That said, part of the reason for the upgrade was that I was starting to notice some "leaning in", myself...)

No direct experience with the 1440x900 screen, so I can't offer any sort of meaningful comparison, but you'd have to make a very compelling case (say, sub three pounds) for me to consider a screen with anything under a vertical kilopixel. (And even then, I'm holding onto a sliver of hope that the Air refresh will bring a higher-res display along with whatever other goodies...)

EDIT: sloppy proofreading.

Good catch, I swore I saw that they offered 1080p on the 15" but Apples site says otherwise. That said, I have the 17" with 1680x1050, and it's plenty of pixels on a laptop.

Here are where I see the use cases for the different sizes of MB Pros:

13": you do work on the laptop, but you also do a fair amount of travelling. In this particular case, the MB Air is also quite good.

15": you do quite a bit of work on the laptop, including connecting it to an external monitor, but would still like the laptop screen as a second monitor. This is definitely the best all around option, especially if you do some travelling/commuting but not all the time.

17": you need the extra screen real estate for something like video editing/graphics editing while on the move. Other than that, it's a bit bigger and heavier than most people find comfortable.

I think many times a big chunk of the price difference comes from the display on Apple laptops. Someone with more knowledge on this could probably explain it better, but I usually notice a better viewing angle and brighter, more vivid colors.

In addition to that you've got the battery life, the thinness and the great touch pad

I think they use s-ips screens in the 15" and up. Not sure about the newer 13" but the older one was tn which is junk. A lot of manufacturers use tn which has probably the lowest quality of the different types of screens.

Nope. They have all been TN so far. Just better quality TNs. I've been wishing for an IPS on a Macbook for years. Looks like this update didn't bring any change to that matter.

I believe the last commercially available IPS laptop was the think pad t43p. The actual plant making 15" IPS panels shut down. (EDIT: wow, thank you! (I forgot about the T60p, but that's also discontinued; the HP EliteBook having a 17" is amazing though...I may have to get one of those!)

The T60p also had one, and the Thinkpad tablets at least through X200t had an IPS (Flexview) option. It doesn't appear to be an option on the more recent tablets.

"I believe the last commercially available IPS laptop was the think pad t43p."

There are one or two commercially available -- see here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4049/hp-elitebook-8740w-ips-on...

The x61 tablet had one, too. One of the many reasons I stuck with that machine as long as I did.

I bought a mac for the first time about 3 months ago (a 13" macbook air). This is after being an IBM guy for years. I gotta say I'm very satisfied with my purchase. The hardware build quality is great and the support is top notch. I had an issue with my logic board, brought it in to an apple store, paid nothing and walked out with a fixed computer two days later. The lack of a 2-4 week turnaround time is wonderful for repairs, and the unix OS is really nice. I dont think I'll switch over to a mac desktop, but for laptops I'm sold.

I've got a 15" dell xps with a core-i7, total piece of shit. Build quality is crap, broken hinges and keys. The battery holds 2/3 of original charge after 6 months. Overheats due to acpi bugs not reporting the temp correctly. Bulky.

Really miss my thinkpad. Never again.

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