So can anyone highlight the advantages and disadvantages of owning a MacBook. I am considering purchasing a MacBook pro or Air. My requirements are that it can be used for office applications and for streaming movies etc.. Is it possible to play flash on the Macs as this has to be one of the most annoying limitations of my ipad. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, you can download Flash player for a Mac. As for the rest, hard to say – I personally really like OS X, others hate it.

My requirements are that it can be used for office applications and for streaming movies etc.. Is it possible to play flash on the Macs as this has to be one of the most annoying limitations of my ipad.

For office applications, streaming movies and wanting flash….save your money and buy something Windows based.

I love OSX and my MBP, but it’s hard to recommend above a Windows laptop for the purposes you’ve listed.

If you run VBA in Excel (e.g. via an add on) or want Access databases then I think the mac struggles. The one heavy Excel user I know that does this has to drop into windows on his mac to do it

If you don’t then I think all is good

I have been told that you can run windows on a mac as some kind of partition, is this true ?

Office Excel for Mac Is crap IMO loves macs but office is a bloated pile of steaming crap. The less I have to use it the better.

However there isn’t really an alternative, Pages, Openoffice etc are only sort of compatible.

Mind you Macbooks are very nice and Windows 8… well…. i would take mac offics over that any day!

Edit

I have been told that you can run windows on a mac as some kind of partition, is this true ?

Yes, two methods, dual boot or virtual machine via parallels or similar.

I run windows on a macbook and it works just fine aside from the odd keyboard issue due to the windows and mac keyboards not being exactly the same, there is normally a googleable solution though so not a big deal. The mac either boots up as a mac running Mavericks or as a PC running windows. Neither appears to interfere with the other.

Yes, the mac laptops can download and use flash content. movies will be no problem, we use a mac mini as our media centre pc attached to the TV and download and stream all sorts of media files.

Yes, you can use microsoft office on the mac.

These were my decisions when i bought my Macbook (I already owned a high-spec PC, btw)

Pros:
Build quality is excellent (Although competitors have improved, still the case)
After sales support is excellent (Have tested this, it really is excellent. Whole motherboard replaced for free – was outside of 3 year Applecare warranty too.)
Life expectancy is generally good
Screen quality is above average vs other brands
Gets you huneys (Results inconclusive for myself, YMMV.)

Cons:
Expensive
Some software compatibility issues (less the case these days)
Proprietary charger

There are a few ways to run Windows programs within OS-X as well as ways to boot Windows on a Macbook, but neither are particular straight forward last I checked (which was a number of years ago) and not for the “less technical user”.

Had my MBP for 3.5 years now, really happy with it. Can see it lasting another 3.5!

What people have said above, I have a MBP for work, and I have a 2007 White Plastic Macbook of my own which is a little long in the tooth, but still runs a lot of the latest software, and is still useful.

I think if you are buying into the whole apple eco-system – iPad, iPhone, macbook, iCloud etc. then there are benefits to buying into the whole thing – my contacts exist everywhere on all my devices built into the basic build of the OS etc. as a small example, calendars another, but if you don’t need office, then the keynote/pages across iOS and OSX is really useful.

@j5kol – do you have any other Apple products like iPhone, might you I the future ? If all you want to do is run Microsoft Office and stream movies I’d say buy a Windows machine. You can run a windows partition but it makes the machine run badly and really needs 8GB ram min so extra expense. You can buy Office for mac but it’s not full featured, do you need macros in Word and Excel. I am 100% Apple (computer, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV) and would never go back to Windows (was using that rubbish for 25 years as you “had to”). The Apple equivalent of Word is free and very good. Excel equivalent is adequate for home use only. Apple products work very well together which is why I asked the question about whether you own or might own other products. If you go Apple I would get 8gb RAM as later upgrades are difficult / expensive. External drives are getting better and cheaper so you need not max out internal storage, a 256ssd will be great, IMO 128 isn’t big enough. The new Mac Pro is so light it takes away some of the “wow” factor from the Air.

Remember that if you want to run windows on a mac then you need to buy both Parallels/BootCamp AND a copy of windows afaik

Yes, you can use microsoft office on the mac.

But even as a Mac owner of 15+ years standing, if this was my main reason for getting the computer I wouldn’t get a Mac. I have latest Office (one benefits of the lamented Tech Net) and it’s just confusing and a bit slow compared to my work laptop 2010.

Yes, two methods, dual boot or virtual machine via parallels or similar.

3rd option, under WINE but it appears to be a bit of a nightmare. Parallels or Fusion VM is the best bet, agreed.

Flash won’t be a problem, it’s just iOS that had that ah restriction IIRC.

Happy MBP (and in fact MBA) owner here.

I develop .NET applications (so need Windows OS) but a lot of stuff I have is, and always has been, under MacOS – historic allegiance — so in the end rather than having dual machine, I defaulted to a high power MBP and dual boot (and also run Fusion for testing on VMs). Old MBP is now with daughter, rMBP is current dev m/c, and have just got a refurb MBA for backup in case anything goes awry with the main machine.

They hold their value pretty well too, I’ve had a Mac mini and an old G4 PowerBook for a long time, only recently flogged them and got a reassuring amount of cash for both.

@kcal I have a late 2009 mini with recent 8gb ram a WD Scorpio black 750gb 7200prm drive what do you think I could get for them ? Thinking of new mini if there is a refresh or an iMac.

The Apple equivalent of Word is free and very good

LOTS of comment on the internet that would suggest otherwise so tread with care. Apple have significantly stripped back functionality of their iWork suite (word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software) to make it a comparable experience on mobile, desktop and browser/cloud. What some of us might consider “core” features are now missing e.g. mail merge. Check the reviews.

Removing all the other pro/con arguments. I have found the build quality of the MacBooks to be exceptional.. Having had various mid/high end laptops for work I bought myself a MacBook Pro in 2009. It is still running everything you mentioned without a hitch, OS X Mavericks runs without issue, I even removed the SuperDrive, added an SSD and ‘fusioned’ them together and that gave the whole thing a new lease of life.. It is suspended when not used and has only been rebooted a couple of times since I did the Mavericks update on day of release.
Even now, 4+ years on, the battery is good for 3-4 hours of the kind of use you are considering.

My experience is that Windows laptops are, in the main, built to a price point and build quality is always the first thing to get cut as they are only expected to be used for a couple of years. MacBooks are more expensive for a reason and it’s not the nefarious ‘apple-tax’ that everyone goes on about.

Remember that if you want to run windows on a mac then you need to buy both Parallels/BootCamp AND a copy of windows afaik

Bootcamp if free and comes installed from the factory. You don’t have to use Parallels either. VirtualBox is free and perfectly capable. But yes, you’ll need a Windows license.

@stilltortoise Pages is absolutely fine for me, it does all I need for home and in fact office use. I love the fact I don’t even need to have my mac with me, I can create a document on iCloud.com at work on a windows machine and share it with my Apple devices.

@jambalaya — 2009 mac mini – I guess first port of call would be eBay to see recent auctions, but got to be in (low) 100s of pounds? off top of my head I hasten to add!

For reference, I had a mac mini from 2005 at latest, still managed to sell that for over £100 over a year ago, and I think £60 for the 2004 G4 PowerBook.

@Highlander I agree with you about build quality and longevity including running the latest OS platform, however you’ve been lucky with your battery. Fortunately they aren’t too expensive and Apple are good with customer service so often you don’t have to pay even out of warranty. In my family we’ve had 5 machines, 3 of which have needed new batteries one after 14 months also two new chargers due to power supply failure and known design fault with connector wire. The good news is all computers are still in daily use, the oldest white mac book is from 2006

I read a report a while back that the results of a test comparing different Windows laptops, the one that came out on top was a Macbook Pro running Windows. So you don’t necessarily have to put up with OSx if you don’t like it, Windows runs just fine, or run Windows and OSx in dual boot for the best of both worlds.

For work I use a Win 7 laptop and at home have a Macbook. Now i’m used to OSx I much prefer it. I’ve found no limitations to the Mac version of Office, but then again i’m not doing any heavy VB work, and often work on files I’ve created on my work PC and visa versa.

wobbliscott – Member

I read a report a while back that the results of a test comparing different Windows laptops, the one that came out on top was a Macbook Pro running Windows. So you don’t necessarily have to put up with OSx if you don’t like it, Windows runs just fine, or run Windows and OSx in dual boot for the best of both worlds.

For work I use a Win 7 laptop and at home have a Macbook. Now i’m used to OSx I much prefer it. I’ve found no limitations to the Mac version of Office, but then again i’m not doing any heavy VB work, and often work on files I’ve created on my work PC and visa versa.

Lots of Windows apps don’t honour the DPI setting properly, hence Retina Macbooks are a bit of a PITA to use on Windows.

We’ve gone completely Mac / OSX at home. The Macbook Air is a work of art, possibly the finest laptop ever designed. After using Macs, everything else just seems so hamfisted, like it was designed in a rush, in the dark, in a garage, our of random bits left over from something else….

It does seem odd that there is yet to be a Windows laptop with a comparable touchpad to those on the Apple Portables.

…and this is going back to the early ally Powerbooks.

The Apple screens are also in a league of their own, the viewing angle is much higher than normal laptops and the contrast and brightness much better as well. Basically everything about them is just better….

I jumped on the mac bandwagon some years ago and I’m hooked. Initially I was interested in the multimedia aspect but I didn’t really get too far into that. However, although I use my machine for fairly mundane stuff I wouldn’t go back to a Windows PC. I like the interface, the browser and mail integration, synchronisation with other devices. The build quality is superb, the keyboard and trackpad the best I’ve come across. Some people snipe about the price or about macs being flashy. but buying something that’s nice to use is considered normal when it comes to cars or bikes, so why not shell out a bit extra for a computer that’s beautifully made and nice to use?

Yes I accept I could get the same functionality cheaper on a Windows laptop, but I’m not going back. Oh and as far as I can tell, Office for Mac looks exactly like Office 2011 on Windows that we use at work.

Pages is absolutely fine for me

…and possibly millions others too. It’s a lovely tool for basic page layout stuff and simple documents. I just wanted – needed – to point out that v5 has been stripped right back. Even happy users of previous versions of Pages are bemoaning the dumbing down of the new Pages. There are many unhappy users…

Screen Shot 2014-01-17 at 15.35.32 by stilltortoise, on Flickr

The only thing pages has for it, IMHO, is the ability to jump between iOS and Mac devices. The downside of this, to allow for functionality to work from the Mac to iOS is the dumbing down of the software.

The Apple screens are also in a league of their own, the viewing angle is much higher than normal laptops and the contrast and brightness much better as well. Basically everything about them is just better….

Outside of the Retina screens, I would say some of the high end Samsung and Asus screens are bloody lovely.

I don’t know this, but I suspect, if you are prepared to spend the amount a mac laptop costs on a windows machine you will get a good laptop. The problem is you can buy cheap windows machines and unsurprisingly you do get what you pay for.

The only real difference is that the mac will have a secondhand value even a decent windows laptop won’t.

overkill for word and watching movies? the retina screen is fantastic but there must be windows laptops for half the price that can do the same?
i use a maxed out rMBP for video editing/grading/transcoding and retouching big 5-10gb files in photoshop but £2k to watch a bit of netflix and do a spreadsheet?

a gaming laptop with a decent graphics card would probably suffice.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet but why not simply use Open Office instead of Office?

My iMacs at work used to have Fusion and it worked fine….still does on one of them. I took it off the other machine so I could see if I could run everything on a Mac. I could, so I left it. The only reason Fusion is still on the other machine is so I can run my old iMagic!

Have a MBP (retina) and it runs Win7 64 bit just fine via Parallels.

but £2k to watch a bit of netflix and do a spreadsheet?

You can get a Macbook Air for £1k and it will be the lightest and most beautiful laptop you’ll ever own.

I would say if you can sneak a base level Macbook Air 13″, with 8GB ram upgrade*, through the edu store. Then it’s worth it. Especially as you get 3 yr Applecare thrown in.

…also, go through TCB, and get another 3%** off.

*£868 with ram upgrade.
**£27-ish

.. worth looking at the refurbish store outlet as well – my 13″ MBA is through that, it must have been a semi-custom build as it was a fairly fast i7 processor rather than the i5 above..

Thanks for all the responses, I finally went for the MacBook Pro 13″ 8gb Ram with Retina display. Well impressed so far, love how damn quick the thing fires up. Can anyone recommend any worthwhile apps/games ?

I love the level of overkill that machine is giving you….but if you can afford it, then why not have nice things 8)

Can anyone recommend any worthwhile apps/games ?

Depends, sort of apps are you looking for?

To get you started, I will suggest:

Radium for internet radio.

Yoink for dragging and dropping files between apps/spaces.

Popclip for iOS style context specific actions when you select text.

The Unarchiver for…erm…unarchiving archives.

Day One for journaling if that’s your thing.

Tweetbot for Twitter.

Alfred is an app launcher and so much more. Needs the powerpack to unlock all the functionality.

Better Touch Tool allows you to map gestures/hotkeys.