Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by Dominic »

No, but it is annoying, like "holib..." no on second thoughts, I am not going to post a list of all the words I find annoying. Knowing you lot I will be bombarded with them. :)
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by PeteandSylvi »

PaphosAL wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:44 am
PeteandSylvi wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2017 3:43 pm
Hudswell wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2017 2:34 pm Pete, have you had any Apple products?
No, nor BMW, Mercedes or Dyson.

But before you tell me not to knock Apple's products without using them let me remind you that I have not knocked their products only their corporate greed, overpricing and lack of corporate philanthropy.

Pete
Well said, Pete! Now I'm going to try and quote you as a kindred spirit, without getting my arse bitten off, LOL!

I was proud of the BMW and Mercedes cars I've owned over the years (all s/h). Until I drove from UK to Hungary and back many times in the 70's through to 90's. Once, I even went to Pafos and back in my 88 BMW 520i, back in 1992...

Other posters are spot on here! Most of the lower end Mercs in Germany and Hungary are TAXIS. Most of the lower end BMWs in Germany are the equivalent of a Ford Escort or Vauxhall Astra, in other words- they wouldn't turn an eye in the street over there...

The only show-stopper motor we ever drove to Hungary in was a 1986 Renault Espace. Everywhere we stopped, peeps would gather and want to examine it's every little detail- underneath, under the bonnet, inside (swivelling seats) and so on... Great fun!

As for Dyson vacuum cleaners, yes, I bought one donkeys years ago for an extortionate (at that time) £200. After a couple of years, one of the wheels fell off... I could see that it was a design problem, there being no flat washer between the wheel and the 6mm circlip holding it in place on the axle...

Dyson wanted £24 for a new wheel kit at our local vacuum cleaner outlet. I thought, sod that! I bought half a dozen 6mm circlips and flat washers from a local motor accessories shop and fixed it myself for 80p, with ongoing spares!

Not long after, something else major went bust on the the Dyson Vac. Planned obsolence? No problem, into the black wheely bin went this pile of Dyson vacuum cleaner shite...

TRUE STORY

Someone driving down the A4 near Swindon at 2am one morning was fascinated to see all the lights lit up in the Dyson showroom. It was the the cleaners, using HENRY vacuum cleaners, LOL!

That's what I went out and bought, £100 new. Used these hundreds of times on various fire alarm jobs in the past. Served us very well for 10 years now at home. Long reach hose and stainless steel quality tubes - a class act! Plus filters still easily available and cheap!

Cheers- AL ;)
Thank you for confirming what I wrote about BMW's all those years ago. In the UK they were given a basic specification at very high price and then had the specifications upped at even higher prices and margins when people wanted electric windows, foglamps etc.

Your Dyson story matches completely the history of their products. When introduced the Consumer's Association reviewed them in Which? and concluded they worked very well but could not be recommended because they were so unreliable. The other measure I had of this was at boot sales. We used to go regularly and suddenly saw a spurt of Dysons appearing for disposal at a too young age. Dyson's mastery of marketing (remember all the patents he used to boast? No-one asked about Electrolux or Hoover patents did they? But Dyson boasted patents so they must be good!) and greedy pricing led to an increase in prices across the board for vacuum cleaners in the UK. He also opened his factories with UK development grants and as soon as the required period for the grant expired fired his production staff and shifted production to the Far East. Of course he put a spin on this regarding lower costs, market access etc and for this piece of disgraceful behaviour he was to be eventually awarded a knighthood by Brown's Labour Government. Dyson's reliability reputation got so bad that eventually he introduced a 4 year guarantee which together with a remarketing effort seems to have convinced the naive public once again to keep buying his overpriced and extremely ugly products.

Your view of Henry Vacuum Cleaners matches mine. A simple design, works well and has a superb motor. So good that when I was partner in a screenprinting business for some years we used cheap Henry motors as vacuum pumps instead of purchasing the hugely expensive "proper" ones.

Pete
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by PeteandSylvi »

Royal wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2017 10:04 pm Once upon a time, we used a BBC B Computer which could only interact with us via a command prompt and string code. Along came Apple in 1984 (yes - 1984) and the Mackintosh was born. It changed computing forever with its user friendly Graphical User Interface which made our documents look like sheets of paper and files look like..well, files! The Market was changed forever and Windows was quickly produced as a competitor to the Mac OS. That's an interesting version, now let's pad it out a bit via Wiki: Windows 1.0 is a graphical personal computer operating environment developed by Microsoft. Microsoft had worked with Apple Computer to develop applications for Apple's January 1984 original Macintosh, the first mass-produced personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) that enabled users to see user friendly icons on screen. Windows 1.0 was released on November 20, 1985, as the first version of the Microsoft Windows line. It runs as a graphical, 16-bit multi-tasking shell on top of an existing MS-DOS installation. It provides an environment which can run graphical programs designed for Windows, as well as existing MS-DOS software. Its development was spearheaded by the company founder Bill Gates after he saw a demonstration of a similar software suite known as Visi On at COMDEX.

Once upon a time all computers and peripherals were either battleship grey or boring beige. Along came Apple in 1998 and the iMac was born - a futuristic looking, aesthetically pleasing console in a translucent ‘Bondi Blue’ colour. The Market took a long time to catch up and make their equipment look anywhere near as good. Absolutely true however the real reason for the look was that Apple could charge 3 times as much. No-one ever refused to buy a PC because of it's colour!

Once upon a time, there were MP3 players. I had one. It held 12 tracks - a full CDs worth! Along came Apple in 2001 and the iPod was born. It revolutionised the Market. Not only could it store 1,000 songs, but unlike any other MP3 player at the time, it was easy to search and play individual tracks immediately. Furthermore, it developed to play videos, read books and much much more. The Market followed suit in due course. You had a low spec MP3 player because there were a multitude of them on the market some with much greater specs. The real reason Apple went this route was because MP3 and it's derivatives are open and available to developers. Apple's replacement was distinctly closed which meant they owned and could control the market at whatever price they chose.

Once upon a time, we all accessed music by buying CDs - so much better than those bulky music cassettes! Those clever enough to know how to ‘rip’ were able to digitise each individual track onto our computers. Along came Apple, and in 2000 iTunes was born which revolutionised the Market by introducing a method to buy digitised music online and store it in a user friendly app on your device. ITunes also allowed us to purchase TV programmes, films books and audiobooks online and store them all on our devices. The Market soon followed where Apple led. The market certainly didn't follow the Apple route as the non-Apple formats are open and available to developers. Itunes was a mastery of marketing. It offered nothing over MP3 and related formats but it was closed thus if you had bought their player, at exorbitant cost, you now had to pay them for the music. In other words Apple, with another masterstroke, had made customers pay them a lot for a device which would then provide them with residual earnings forevermore if they wanted to use the device.

Once upon a time, laptops were large, heavy and cumbersome. Nowadays the Market calls these ‘Desktop Replacements’ but prior to 2008 they were just…cumbersome and heavy. Then Apple came along and Steve Jobs walked on stage with a Manila envelope containing the MacBook Air. The worlds lightest and thinnest ever laptop. With constant upgrades, the Market has yet to catch up with the elegance and simple practicality of the MacBook Air. A fine product if you want to be behoven to Apple's own facilities for using it without any competition, did not want to use CDs or DVDs, and are willing to pay at least 3 times as much.

Once upon a time there were tablets. Remember the DynaPad? The GRiDPAD? The Tandy Zoomer? The Newton Message Pad? The Microsoft Tablet PC? No? Why not? Because in 2010, Apple revolutionised the Market with the first iPad. Some 7 years later with 360 million iPads sold worldwide, it is still a market leader. A market leader indeed with 13.1% of shipments in Q4 of 2016. Of course this means that 86.9% of shipments are not Apple. That's a lot of people saving a lot of money and achieving the same results

I could tell you about how iChat, instant messaging and video conferencing on the Mac OS revolutionised the Market, or how the Apple App Store has 1.5 million apps to choose from and has had a staggering 50 billion downloads, but I get the feeling I'm boring you now. So I'll shut up.

Apple.

Cutting edge.

I'm so glad you decided to shut up (your phrase, not mine) otherwise we might have had you waxing lyrical about Apple's cutting edge products like:

Apple III
Macintosh TV
Mackintosh Performa
Apple Bandai Pippin
TAM
Apple USB Mouse, AKA 'Hockey Puck'
G4 Cube
20th Anniversary Mac
Mighty Mouse

Some of which were beautifully designed but unusable, some too unreliable, some completely pointless but all were overpriced and all were failures.


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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by Jimgward »

Happy in Cyprus wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:24 am
Jimgward wrote: Sat Jul 15, 2017 4:23 pmC) Reliability costs me money

I'm sure it's more likely to be Unreliability which costs you money ;)
Of course :(
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by galexinda »

When I bought my last laptop a couple of years ago I went to three computer shops and told them what I was looking for and they showed me all the computers available. I did not give a budget as I didn't want that to influence the information they gave me, even though I did have a maximum I was prepared to pay. I wanted something to use as my main computer (ie not to take out of the home), had a conventional fixed keyboard and screen and it's main use was internet based. Very happy with one I purchased that also has the touch pad option working alongside the keyboard - a bonus at the time but which makes life easier.
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by J B »

galexinda wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:49 pm When I bought my last laptop a couple of years ago I went to three computer shops and told them what I was looking for and they showed me all the computers available. I did not give a budget as I didn't want that to influence the information they gave me, even though I did have a maximum I was prepared to pay. I wanted something to use as my main computer (ie not to take out of the home), had a conventional fixed keyboard and screen and it's main use was internet based. Very happy with one I purchased that also has the touch pad option working alongside the keyboard - a bonus at the time but which makes life easier.
But, you don't tell us what you chose or why! :roll:
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by PeteandSylvi »

Hudswell wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:21 pm Admit it Pete...you are a closet Apple fan but tight.....have you never owned or really tried an Apple product?
If you read the posts properly that question has been very clearly answered.

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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by Dominic »

J B wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:44 pm
galexinda wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:49 pm When I bought my last laptop a couple of years ago I went to three computer shops and told them what I was looking for and they showed me all the computers available. I did not give a budget as I didn't want that to influence the information they gave me, even though I did have a maximum I was prepared to pay. I wanted something to use as my main computer (ie not to take out of the home), had a conventional fixed keyboard and screen and it's main use was internet based. Very happy with one I purchased that also has the touch pad option working alongside the keyboard - a bonus at the time but which makes life easier.
But, you don't tell us what you chose or why! :roll:
Highly likely it was a WIndows laptop. I say that solely on the number of hits from Macs this site gets compared to PCs. Mac users here are a small, but very vocal minority.
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by J B »

Dominic wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 5:24 pm Mac users here are a small, but very vocal minority.
Trying to justify their extra expenditure perhaps? :lol: ;)
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by bromerzz »

I have a 27" iMac, 13' MacBook Pro, iPad4 and waiting for a new 10.5' to be delivered and a couple of iPhones, 7+ and a 6. Reliability, ease of updating a couple of times per year none of that constant don't power off update same installing messaging that Windows users are familiar with.
As for something simple such as changing a battery on an MBP, they are not as difficult to upgrade or replace batteries as is often made out to be. Battery change on a MBP is probably all of 2 mins to do. On one MBP I had the Battery life went from 7hours down to about 2 hrs after daily use for some 5 years so put a new battery in and sold it on for €400 and the buyer knew he was still getting a bargain.
For sure I fall into the category of being an Apple fanboy.
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by PeteandSylvi »

What do Apple users use for Word Processing, Spreadsheets, email, browsers etc. Does Apple supply them all?

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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by bromerzz »

Yes those apps are called Pages, Numbers, Mail, Safari and I think I'm right in saying are free downloads.
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by galexinda »

Dominic wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 5:24 pm
J B wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 2:44 pm
galexinda wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:49 pm When I bought my last laptop a couple of years ago I went to three computer shops and told them what I was looking for and they showed me all the computers available. I did not give a budget as I didn't want that to influence the information they gave me, even though I did have a maximum I was prepared to pay. I wanted something to use as my main computer (ie not to take out of the home), had a conventional fixed keyboard and screen and it's main use was internet based. Very happy with one I purchased that also has the touch pad option working alongside the keyboard - a bonus at the time but which makes life easier.
But, you don't tell us what you chose or why! :roll:
Highly likely it was a WIndows laptop. I say that solely on the number of hits from Macs this site gets compared to PCs. Mac users here are a small, but very vocal minority.
I deliberately didn't mention which computer I chose in the original post because I wanted to explain how I made my decision ie criteria, what was available at the time and finally chose the one that suited my budget. Dominic is correct - always been very happy professionally and privately with Windows.
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by J B »

bromerzz wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 6:38 pm On one MBP I had the Battery life went from 7hours down to about 2 hrs after daily use for some 5 years so put a new battery in and sold it on for €400 and the buyer knew he was still getting a bargain.
Presuming MBP stands for MoBile Phone (?) .......... what value would you put on my old iPhone 3Gs if I were to put a new battery in it?
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by PaphosAL »

On a Apple Mac or Win7 thru Win10 laptop or desktop, you can always use the free OpenOffice for WP, SS, etc. It's another Open GNU Linux project, shared and supported for nowt!

Agree with Hudswell, Sophos Home Beta Free AV is by far and away the best protection I've had on my machine here (recently upgraded big time) since 2001. My old XP system unit now reposes in the top of of my wardrobe, until I decide what to do with it, sadly... Has been hacked with malware, to the point of it becoming unuseable. Such a shame that M$ stopped support for this lovely and popular OS back in 2014...

Cheers- AL :)
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by Dominic »

Hudswell wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 9:01 pm Is it just me....or are the "fix its" "do its" install this re install that, malware, etc etc etc...just applicable to those PC fans out there? Save yourselves some grief....buy Apple 😎
You installed Microsoft Office, did you not? Plus Sophos.
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by bromerzz »

J B wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 7:17 pm
bromerzz wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 6:38 pm On one MBP I had the Battery life went from 7hours down to about 2 hrs after daily use for some 5 years so put a new battery in and sold it on for €400 and the buyer knew he was still getting a bargain.
Presuming MBP stands for MoBile Phone (?) .......... what value would you put on my old iPhone 3Gs if I were to put a new battery in it?
JB
MBP stands for MacBook pro as a someone else has pointed out.
As for resale value of an old 3Gs its not worth the expense, an Apple OEM battery would be more than the 2nd hand value would realise. The newer Apple OS don't work with some of the older phones as the firmware is not powerful enough-just leave em in your sock drawer for any future edition of Flog It that might come to your area.
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by Lofos-5 »

This discussion starts to remind of the Brexit debate in the Politics section - only that the proponents interestingly enough cannot be mapped one to one across the two subjects!
Now what would this tell us? E.g. Pro-Brexit and Windows users = dumb and Remainers and Apple followers = enlightened? :lol:

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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by Dominic »

The freedom of Apple? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Advice please. New laptop needed. What is best Apple Macbook or Apple MacBook Air, or a new Microsoft Laptop?

Post by Dominic »

Lofos-5 wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 10:25 pm This discussion starts to remind of the Brexit debate in the Politics section - only that the proponents interestingly enough cannot be mapped one to one across the two subjects!
Now what would this tell us? E.g. Pro-Brexit and Windows users = dumb and Remainers and Apple followers = enlightened? :lol:

A.
While there is a 50:50 split on the Brexit debate, over 90% of PC users on the site are Windows, rather than Mac users.
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