Poll: Finally geting a new laptop - Mac or PC?

[ReservoirAngel]

So the stars have aligned (by which I mean I've reached a point of desperation with this) and I'm finally going into the market for a new laptop. I figure given my current one was low-end tech when I bought it 5 years ago and has now degraded to the point of having to use an external mouse and keyboard to make it not try to sabotage my every desire, it was about time.

Thing is, I know sod all about laptops or the technology involved with them. So what do you do when you know sod all about something? Ask other people who actually do have even half a clue what they're on about.

So here's me asking you: Should I go for a Microsoft PC laptop or a MacBook of some description?

Some information about where I'm at right now:

1) My current laptop is a PC. A Compaq Presario CQ60, to be precise... I know, don't judge me.
2) I am very much NOT a techie sort of guy. I couldn't tell my arse from the hardrive of a computer or me elbow from a stick of RAM.
3) The main things I shall be using it for consist mainly of intenet browsing, downloading stuff, watching videos, listening to music, and doing a lot of word processing. so basically, gaming is not on my priority list for this thing.
4) My financial situation is not great and I'd be dipping into some savings to get this thing, so I can afford a bit but not massively decadent pricing. So I'd ideally like to get as good a machine as I can while keeping it under £1000... if that's at all possible, that is.

With that in mind... help!

Please?

Also, please try to give actual specific suggestions instead of just saying PC or Mac, because just saying that doesn't give me much clarity given there are probably hundreds of different laptops each of those answers could encompass.

 

[Albino Boo]

Mac laptops are not good value for money and they have worse graphics by and large.

For £1000 you should be able to pick up something with the spec like

i7 4700MQ cpu
16gb of memory
1TB hard drive
Nvidia gt 760M graphics

You need at least a gt760M graphics card in your laptop for gaming.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

I'm not looking for gaming capabilities. This will get me castrated by the master race, but I have a console for gaming. I don't need a PC for it.

 

[Hoplon]

best bet is to get a £350 and then upgrade the HDD to an SSD and add more ram, which would spec it to ultra book performance territory. As much as i approve of Mac's build quality they are fantastically over priced.

While I know you are adverse to changing parts, these are Lego parts, or should be.

 

[Slenn]

I'm primarily a Mac user. Now while I don't know anything about what graphics are for today's PCs, Macintosh has probably one of the slickest GUIs and its gaming selection has expanded much larger than it ever was before (or at least more popular titles are being released for it). And its graphics are fairly sizable. I use mine for drawing with a Wacom Tablet on Photoshop. And what it provides is all that I need.

However...
Since you've indicated that gaming isn't your priority and that you're not very tech savvy, you might just want to get a small laptop PC. A Mac user recommending a PC? The irony! Well, the payoff from paying an atrociously huge sum of money for a Mac has been reduced since you don't really want anything in the way of gaming, editing videos, or digital art programs.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

I probably should have specified a touch more. Gaming capality isn't a priority in that I'm not going to go out of my way just to get a machine that's good for gaming. But having some gaming capacity would still be a plus, it's just not a necessity. So it's not the priority, but I wouldn't turn it down if I could get it without too much extra cost, faff and nonsense.

 

[Uhura]

PC or Mac

Why are you considering getting a Mac? Have you used Macs before?

 

[ReservoirAngel]

PC or Mac

Why are you considering getting a Mac? Have you used Macs before?

Yup. Quite liked them actually.

Then again at the time I was still using my current Vista-running 5-year-old failure of a machine, so maybe it was a case of anything looking good by comparison. I never put all that much thought into it, really.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

If you're on a tight budget like you said, and you'll have to be dipping into your savings you're much better off getting a PC. Macs are great computers, but they're also horribly overpriced for what they offer. You can quite easily get a PC with the same specs as a Mac for 1/3 of the cost, and even load up one of the Mac operating systems on it if you really want.

 

[sneakypenguin]

For what your gonna be doing, honestly I'd just go to best buy or similar tech site, find something around 400 bucks with the best reviews. That said if you don't need need the portability a desktop is by far the more efficient option.


googlefu http://www.cnet.com/news/the-great-500-laptop-challenge-57596579/4/

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/mobile-computing/laptops/top-laptops-25-best-laptops-in-the-world-706673

 

[Uhura]

Yup. Quite liked them actually.

Then again at the time I was still using my current Vista-running 5-year-old failure of a machine, so maybe it was a case of anything looking good by comparison. I never put all that much thought into it, really.

Ok, I was just wondering if you have any particular reason to get a Mac. Because, as Dirty Hipsters pointed out, Macs are great computers but they are expensive too and I don't know if it would be worth it to spend your savings to get one if you don't really have any particular need or preference for Macs.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

Yeah if Macs were cheaper this conversation wouldn't be happening, I'd have already got myself one and set about ritualistically burning my current laptop in the back garden while dancing around it.

Also, and I don't know how much this is worth in terms of tech advice but my brother works tech support and essentially was raised by computers and when he learned of my situation he gave me one bit of advice: "Avoid Windows 8."

Not having used it or even really bothered to look into it, I have no real opinion one way or the other of Windows 8 but computer advice is always one of the few things that I actually bother to listen to the guy about because more often than not he will know what he's talking about.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

For what your gonna be doing, honestly I'd just go to best buy or similar tech site, find something around 400 bucks with the best reviews. That said if you don't need need the portability a desktop is by far the more efficient option.

Portability is kind of a thing for me, given I have literally no easily accessible flat surfaces in my room that aren't already filled with games consoles, so a proper desktop is rather out of the question for me.

 

[O maestre]

sorry voted before I saw your post. If you don't plan on doing anything serious, like work or anything intensive then go with a mac, they are expensive leisure computers.

I'd still say a pc but if you just want entertainment and no hassle then get a mac. You have very little control over the machine so you can't inadvertently fuck anything up. If you use your laptop for anything related to studies and you are studying sciences or engineering, then don't get a mac, your fellow students will hate you, I cannot tell you how many software compatibility issues we run into when working with apple people, it always ends with them having to use the uni computers for serious work, or worst just spectate while we work.

 

[Alfador_VII]

PC is much better value for money, so unless you need Mac OS for something specifically, I'd go with a PC of some sort.

 

[Vausch]

PC or Mac

Why are you considering getting a Mac? Have you used Macs before?

Yup. Quite liked them actually.

Then again at the time I was still using my current Vista-running 5-year-old failure of a machine, so maybe it was a case of anything looking good by comparison. I never put all that much thought into it, really.

You can install the Mac OS on an intel based PC now rather easily, plus you can upgrade it and it will actually be worth the price. Macs with equal specs to a PC tend to cost almost twice as much. The only thing they have going for them is retina display but there are several ultrabooks with the same (or better) resolution.

 

[O maestre]

I'm primarily a Mac user. Now while I don't know anything about what graphics are for today's PCs, Macintosh has probably one of the slickest GUIs and its gaming selection has expanded much larger than it ever was before (or at least more popular titles are being released for it). And its graphics are fairly sizable. I use mine for drawing with a Wacom Tablet on Photoshop. And what it provides is all that I need.

However...
Since you've indicated that gaming isn't your priority and that you're not very tech savvy, you might just want to get a small laptop PC. A Mac user recommending a PC? The irony! Well, the payoff from paying an atrociously huge sum of money for a Mac has been reduced since you don't really want anything in the way of gaming, editing videos, or digital art programs.

lol I recommended he get a mac specifically for not gaming and for lack of tech savy. A mac user doesn't need to know much about computers due to user access being restricted. I don't want to get into a war here but if I was going the simple leisurely route I'd defiantly go with an apple product.

For what your gonna be doing, honestly I'd just go to best buy or similar tech site, find something around 400 bucks with the best reviews. That said if you don't need need the portability a desktop is by far the more efficient option.

Portability is kind of a thing for me, given I have literally no easily accessible flat surfaces in my room that aren't already filled with games consoles, so a proper desktop is rather out of the question for me.

If portability is your priority then I might consider getting a surface pro 2, and emphasis on the pro. I have one myself, it is expensive but it is basically a tablet sized PC capable of running everything I throw at it. From Titanfall to Matlab. Besides that it has in built wacom screen, if you ever develop an artistic sense.

The only badside is windows 8 and the price tag, but it has gotten better with the updates. If you want portability and power there is no other product out there.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

Yeah, the very realistic possibility of me utterly wrecking it due to not knowing what I'm doing is a very real fear. With my current laptop the biggest problem it probably has is that it's me using it. If someone who wasn't a moron was given the same laptop the same amount of time ago it'd probably still run like a dream but because I'm a hopeless fool who barely understands what he's doing, I have been proven in the past to be able to utterly ruin a system without even realising until after it dies.

The whole "hard to really fuck up" thing is what made me even consider a Mac in the first place. That and I used to use them a couple years back in my Uni library. They had half the room as Macs, half as PCs and I'd always go for the Macs because the PCs always used to seem to get some kind of sadistic joy out of messing me around whenever they thought they could get away with it.

I looked up the Surface Pro 2 on Amazon and I'm not really that into it right off the bat. Maybe it's just that the photos they use for it neglect to show it but it just looks like a tablet. And while I love tablets, a lot of what I do every day on my computer involves a lot of very fast typing and I can never get comfortable trying to word process on a tablet.

Call me a caveman, but I always need a traditional keyboard in front of me.

 

[dyre]

3) The main things I shall be using it for consist mainly of intenet browsing, downloading stuff, watching videos, listening to music, and doing a lot of word processing. so basically, gaming is not on my priority list for this thing.
4) My financial situation is not great and I'd be dipping into some savings to get this thing, so I can afford a bit but not massively decadent pricing. So I'd ideally like to get as good a machine as I can while keeping it under £1000... if that's at all possible, that is.

Hah, for £1000 you could get a serious gaming powerhouse. For your needs, you shouldn't spend more than £400. That is to say, don't buy a Mac. I'm not a Mac-hater, btw; imo buying a Macbook Pro and installing Windows 7 on it is a good solution for a lightweight, portable, sexy laptop with moderate gaming capabilities. But that's not what you need, and you can't afford that anyway.

You ought to get a cheap Asus laptop (maybe some 13.3" Vivobook); Asus is a great laptop company and you should be able to get a reliable, fairly portable machine for £350. They're always coming out with different models; personally I have a UL30a and I'd definitely recommend it, but I'm not sure if they still make them. The Vivobook should be fine for your needs though. If you for some reason want to splurge so you can do Word processing in the most luxurious way possible, maybe check out an Asus Zenbook and drop an extra £150 for it. If you really want a Mac, the MacBook Air is a good machine, but you'll probably have to spend your full £1000 for it.

Btw, I'm American and using Google to convert dollar prices to pounds, with the assumption that purchasing power is the same here as it is in England.

 

[CWestfall]

Macs are a no-no unless you need some kind of Apple-exclusive software, or if you're planning to replace the OS (which is probably not you if you are a normal user).

My advice, shoot for a nice ~500 pound (I live in the colonies and my keyboard only has a '$' key, sorry) Lenovo. They don't screw around. The build quality is good and the hardware is pretty much the best you'd expect for what you'll end up paying. Those bad boys are usually in the quadruple digits but are frequently on ridiculous 40-50% off sales. If you don't mind waiting for such a sale to come along it's an ideal solution.

Since you've got the cash to spend on quality, you'd be looking for something in their Ideapad line. Y Series if you'd like to do gaming, go for something in the S or U series if you'd rather have portability.