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laptops are cool because they can go everywhere. that's pretty much it. i dunno. laptops are so powerful now, i don't see any advantages to having a desktop unless you have like a home office or something...

i've used all the major OS's and as much as i loved being so cool and diy'ing everything on linux it was a huge pain in my ass. i wasn't cool enough to know how to program shit so a ton of my stuff didn't work with it. every time i get linux it only lasts for like a month before i get sick of it.

i use mac now which i love, except on windows it was so much easier to pirate stuff/find a free program to do whatever. windows XP was pretty much the shit all around. hate the new vista, windows 7 shit, it sux.

however i bought a refurbed macbook and it is kind of a piece of shit. the os has never let me down though. yeah, the screen on my macbook has a big black chunk in the middle that is black and won't work, and for the price they want to fix it i am just going to wait to buy a new one this summer or smth...

and a lot of my keys don't work. i have to ctrl-v everytime i want a period. when i press the 0, a forwardslash comes after it (wtf?), when i press ), a horizontal bar follows. if i press ctrl while a page is loading, it stops loading the page. etc. i hate this thing sometimes. i had less issues with a super old dell i had before this. that thing was a brick.

oh can i talk about how my macbook chargers (the old magsafe ones) CAUGHT ON FIRE TWICE? TWO SEPARATE CHARGERS? yeah, they did that. love the new chargers though.

unownunown wrote:laptops are cool because they can go everywhere. that's pretty much it. i dunno. laptops are so powerful now, i don't see any advantages to having a desktop unless you have like a home office or something...

i've used all the major OS's and as much as i loved being so cool and diy'ing everything on linux it was a huge pain in my ass. i wasn't cool enough to know how to program shit so a ton of my stuff didn't work with it. every time i get linux it only lasts for like a month before i get sick of it.

i use mac now which i love, except on windows it was so much easier to pirate stuff/find a free program to do whatever. windows XP was pretty much the shit all around. hate the new vista, windows 7 shit, it sux.

however i bought a refurbed macbook and it is kind of a piece of shit. the os has never let me down though. yeah, the screen on my macbook has a big black chunk in the middle that is black and won't work, and for the price they want to fix it i am just going to wait to buy a new one this summer or smth...

and a lot of my keys don't work. i have to ctrl-v everytime i want a period. when i press the 0, a forwardslash comes after it (wtf?), when i press ), a horizontal bar follows. if i press ctrl while a page is loading, it stops loading the page. etc. i hate this thing sometimes. i had less issues with a super old dell i had before this. that thing was a brick.

oh can i talk about how my macbook chargers (the old magsafe ones) CAUGHT ON FIRE TWICE? TWO SEPARATE CHARGERS? yeah, they did that. love the new chargers though.

If it's under a year old, they'll fix those issues for free. Either contact Apple Customer Service, or stop by an Apple Store. Refurbs have the same warranty that brand new Macs have, so you should be covered. The keys thing sounds odd. You might want to go into System Preferences>Keyboard, and restore defaults. Reinstalling OSX might help as well - although having to back everything up isn't much fun.

Regardless, call customer support, or go into an Apple Store. Even if it's out of warranty, it shouldn't be much to fix the keyboard. The screen would likely be a couple hundred, which isn't too bad to get another few years out of it.

it's out of warranty.

i tried that, i also tried resetting the pram and a ton of stuff. reinstalling the OS is pretty much the only thing i haven't done. i haven't talked to them about the key thing though. honestly, i'm getting a new laptop probably before i go away to school this year, so when it broke (about half a year ago) it wasn't a big deal.

unownunown wrote:it's out of warranty.

i tried that, i also tried resetting the pram and a ton of stuff. reinstalling the OS is pretty much the only thing i haven't done. i haven't talked to them about the key thing though. honestly, i'm getting a new laptop probably before i go away to school this year, so when it broke (about half a year ago) it wasn't a big deal.

If you can get it fixed and it's in good shape otherwise, you can easily get what you paid for it.

Hell - I had a white MacBook before my MBP, and after a year with it, I still got what I paid for it when I sold it on Craigslist.

If I were you, I'd still talk to them about the keyboard issue. It might be an easy fix, or something they can fix for cheap.

I use a laptop for the following reason.

I am lazy.

My computer sits next too me on the couch and that is where it stays until my fat ass moves elsewhere.

I switched over to Mac's a 3 years ago and went through 2 Imac's a MBP and an IPAD. My Ipad and MBP work for what I need them too, I have been impressed with my MBP as it has yet to give me any problems for almost 2 years of hard abuse.

However I don't really care at this point and will probably switch back to a cheep OEM PC when the MBP dies. No offense to the mac, I love operating system but have yet to use 80% of the software that comes bundled with it.

laptop + external HD

its the only way to do it in these go-go modern times

my observation based on 20 years of making my living on computers is that laptops are still more expensive, less reliable, and don't perform as well as desktop machines. in my most recent job my coworkers experienced regular and major problems with their Windows laptops, which got the typical business treatment of being hauled around everywhere. when i was telecommuting i had a big, expensive laptop which i treated with great care, but was still kind of fussy.

that said, if i was going to buy a new computer today i would get a MacBook and max it out. with a house as small as ours it would be really helpful to free up the space that's taken up by a permanent computer station, and i could do that if i had wireless in the portable. not to mention that i could take my tracks with me and work on them while i'm stuck at the DMV.

Gearmond wrote:laptop + external HD

its the only way to do it in these go-go modern times

i agree. plus external hd's aren't that expensive anyway

I'd say go with a desktop unless constant portability is a serious need. Desktops, generally, are cheaper, perform better, last longer, and have bigger screens than laptops. That said, if you need to do work on the go, there is no sub for a laptop or netbook.

smile_man wrote:GET LINUX, SAME THING FOR $0

Gonna have to disagree with you here. I LOVE Linux, and have used it since around 1998. But it's just not the same user experience as OS X. And that's what it all comes down to for me: the user experience. I prefer OS X to any operating system I've spent time using, which includes Windows, Linux, Solaris, OS/2, and even BeOS (which is/was killer).

I'd rather have the UI that makes the most sense to me at the expense of having my applications open up a few seconds slower than on Windows or Linux. Life is short, but I have enough time to wait a few extra seconds a day. What I don't have time for is a shitty interface that makes me angry and is counter-intuitive.

But of course, user experience is very subjective, and everyone should experiment to see what suits them.

Noise... wrote:As for Linux, it may work on a similar base system, but good luck finding decent software that works on it. It's a great OS for people that love to waste time with command line bullshit, "open source" programs that are free because no one in their right mind would ever pay for them, and lack of support for even common pieces of hardware in a PC.

Wow, it's been a while since you've used Linux, I assume. The last time I had it running (on a laptop), the system configured all the devices out of the box (including wireless) and I had Word and Photoshop running natively on it. You should give it another shot. It's come a long way since the days of the text-based installer.

macbook ftw mac desktops ftw everything else GTFO

culturejam wrote:Wow, it's been a while since you've used Linux, I assume. The last time I had it running (on a laptop), the system configured all the devices out of the box (including wireless) and I had Word and Photoshop running natively on it. You should give it another shot. It's come a long way since the days of the text-based installer.

Yeah, it's been a few years. I tried out a version of Ubuntu, and another distro that I don't remember. I couldn't get my Vaio's hardware all working properly, and had a lot of issues with it - forcing me to go back to Vista until I got my first MacBook.

I'm happy with OSX, so I probably won't make the switch over to Linux again, but it's very good to know that it's come along in the past couple years.

Out of curiosity, what distro did you use?

Noise... wrote:Out of curiosity, what distro did you use?

The last one I had running was Ubuntu. But before that, I tried several distributions before I settled on Debian. I had that machine running a web and ftp server (in addition to the normal desktop stuff), and I had a record uptime of 168 days! That's not bad for residential power grid with no power backup.

Ubuntu is *getting there* in terms of coming close to the OS X experience. But I don't think anybody is going match OS X until they standardize around a few small sets of hardware, and of course nobody but Apple is willing to do that. Integrating the OS with the hardware is where all the edges get smoothed out, but it's a big trade off because you can't just use whatever new whizz-bang thing that comes out (until it's been integrated, that is).

culturejam wrote:

Noise... wrote:Out of curiosity, what distro did you use?

The last one I had running was Ubuntu. But before that, I tried several distributions before I settled on Debian. I had that machine running a web and ftp server (in addition to the normal desktop stuff), and I had a record uptime of 168 days! That's not bad for residential power grid with no power backup.

Ubuntu is *getting there* in terms of coming close to the OS X experience. But I don't think anybody is going match OS X until they standardize around a few small sets of hardware, and of course nobody but Apple is willing to do that. Integrating the OS with the hardware is where all the edges get smoothed out, but it's a big trade off because you can't just use whatever new whizz-bang thing that comes out (until it's been integrated, that is).

I was running an early version of Ubuntu Studio. Way early. I liked the basics, but couldn't get the kinks worked out after a month or two, so I had to ditch it. Had my hardware played nice with it, I would have continued using it for sure. You can't argue with 240MB of RAM usage and 2% CPU usage in Ubuntu compared to 1.5GB and 23% in Vista.

Debian was one that I wanted to try for a while, but never did. I still can't remember the second distro I used, but it didn't even last a week before I wiped it. It was a smaller distro - I remember something about it fitting on a flash drive?

I love Linux Mint (improved Ubuntu) for Linux.

But, I really dig Windows 7. The taskbar is fantastic. I tried virtualizing OSX just to substantiate my hate for OSX... I really hate the dock, and the hardware is way more expensive than even the deluxe PCs. I don't get what the big deal is....

The biggest thing going against Windows is that other companies make the hardware. So there's a mix of good and shit. And people tend to compare $400 PC laptops with $1000 Macbooks... (And, to be fair, the specs of the $400 PC will probably be better, overall-- but the design will be cheap).

Desktops are more powerful. Look at the specs of stuff. All the desktop stuff is actually more powerful. But I always go for laptops. They're just nicer to use and more than powerful enough.

Back to the OP's dilemma: Have you considered building your own Hackintosh?

http://www.hackintosh.com/