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Comment by jimbokun | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how the screens compare.

I know when I bought my MacBook Pro, it had a higher pixel density than most PC laptops with similar screens, and that got lost in a lot of comparisons. Slimness and weight are sometimes also overlooked. PC notebooks equally slim or light as the Mac equivalent are often more expensive than the Mac model.

Does that $699 PC have equal or better pixel density to the equivalent Mac model? Is it as skinny?

(I honestly don't know. It's been about 3 years since I last looked.)

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I bought a Dell M1330. It is:

* Lighter than the Macbook (but there's not much in it)

* Same screen resolution (1280x800)

* Slot-loading disc drive, but with a DVD Writer

* Nvidia 8400M compared to Intel X1300 graphics

* Had 1gb more memory

* Had 40gb bigger hard disk drive

It does, however, lack 802.11n, and the Macbook is marginally prettier. The kicker is that the M1330 was £130+ cheaper than the Macbook equivalent even after factoring in the educational discount.

There really is no way of spinning it - Apple's hardware is, and always has been, comparatively expensive, and in exchange you get Mac OS X. Apple has never competed on price. If one day I can afford to spend £700+ on a laptop I'd certainly consider buying a Mac but until that point I'm happy with my mid-spec PCs.

Battery life?

From what I read, ~2.5hrs vs. ~3-3.5hrs - not altogether unexpected considering the significantly more power hungry graphics card on the Dell.

That's still not bad.

But it doesn't run MacOS X which means you can't run all the Mac apps.

If you read, I did actually say that.

FWIW, I intend to install some flavour of Linux (likely Ubuntu) when I get around to it. All the applications I use tend to be multiplatform these days so I'm OS neutral - there's honestly no application on any platform that I'm reliant on and I like it this way.

I'm reliant on being able to test in as many browsers as possible, and unfortunately, this is where I run into the not quite dead monopoly, because I still have to test stuff in IE. And yes, I can run it on my mac, but I still have to buy a copy of, sadly, Vista. I dislike intensely having to pay that monopoly rent.

If it helps, Microsoft provide free Virtual PC images of IE6, IE7 and IE8 for compatibility testing. Only downside is they time expire after a few months when they provide a new version and you'll need to convert the virtual machine to another format to run it on Mac or Linux.

Download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21E... and info on converting them can be found at http://blog.mozmonkey.com/2008/vpc-ie6-ie7-ie8-on-mac-os-x/ (it suggests you can use Zipeg to decompress the files meaning a Windows PC isn't required at all).

Actually that looks really useful. Thanks!

And a few hours later, I can verify that it works quite nicely too. Again, thanks very much.

like what, firefox?

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