[Closed] New laptop (Apple) questions from a luddite

I am firmly of the view that you need one "proper computer", so I would be against the idea of iPads only.

My setup is Mac Mini, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV. The Mac Mini spends its time between being connected to the TV (as you say as the monitor) or in use a desktop with a normal (cheapish) monitor - it's hard to work on big documents for long periods sat in front of the TV. The setup works really well for streaming media and does the Apple TV FYI.

A new Apple laptop will cost about £1,000-£1,200 (you should get 8GM RAM) and may indeed be overkill. You can get a Mac Mini for half that but have to add keyboard and mouse and screen and its due (hopefully) to be updated soon.

Finally, why do you say the Apple laptop has reached the end of it's life, is it an old white one ? It might be more "upgradable" than you think. What model ?

As an aside I don't use Word or Excel anymore. IMO the Apple world processor Pages is better (for most normal documents, it doesn't do things like Mail Merge but who does that at home ?) and I don't do complex spreadhseets so Numbers is fine too. The Apple apps work accorss all devices (phone, ipad, computer) and you can even access them from a iCloud.com on a windows machine.

Second hand? I bought a nice 15" i5 MacBook Pro for £600 a couple of years ago on ebay and it's still going strong. I'd say you want a 'proper' computer as well TBH.

depends what you use a laptop for.

office for ipad is suprisingly good actually, miles ahead of the apple offerings which are nigh on unusable on the ipad.

Thanks for the comments. The current laptop is a G4 bought new in April 2001! Recently it has really started to struggle with various websites and takes around 2 minutes to open excel. It has given sterling service but I think it is due retirement.

Have a look at a Macbook Air - they are just beautiful pieces of kit.

What do you need 'compatibility' for? Your needs don't sound too demanding. Might be worth considering a PC or Chromebook for the pretty significant cost savings. Both will do what you need. Shouldn't be any issues talking to iPhones

I'd second the suggestion for a Macbook Air (and that's it's always worth having a 'proper' computer about). Some of the upcoming features that interface iPhones with OS X look interesting to me (ability to send texts from the Mac via bluetooth etc.). YMMV.

Thanks nickjb. I wasn't sure how easy it was to back up iphones etc on non apple equipment but I guess you just use itunes for windows.

I bought our first laptop, G4 PowerBook, in 2004. Still got 'some' cash for it when I sold it a couple years ago, but it as said gave sterling service for all but last couple of years.

MBA through Apple refurb'

iTunes for PC works fine, think you can get iCloud on them as well. You can definitely get more performances for you money than with an Apple laptop, you can get a pretty good PC these days for < £500. However, I would get yourself down to PC World or similar and have a look at what they're like as there's no point saving money if you hate the interface / style of the things.

Total cost of ownership of an Apple computer isn't actually any higher than a PC (longevity + resale value) so buying a PC is a false economy.

Not entirely sure a Chromebook is a good idea as a suggestion, especially if you want to run things like office on the computer. All comes down to how much you want to spend and what you want to get out of it. As you seem comfortable with Apple kit, suck up the cost and get another one. Most people seem to be happy that they last a good while without losing too much performance.

Thanks all. Good advice there 🙂 and lots of food for thought. I'll have a chat with the good lady wife then we can go out for a play on various systems and devices. Cheers 😀

The current laptop is a G4 bought new in April 2001!

@cupra do you know any students, they get 15% off which is hard/impossible to replicate otherwise. Also as above iTunes for windows will do your backup. As you have other devices though the benefits for staying within the Apple eco-system are worth it. I would rather buy a used MacBook in your situation than a new Chromebook etc if budget was the driver.

What is this 15% off of which you speak? I know loads of students 🙂

Edit - found it, and it applies to staff as well.

No, you still need a laptop I think. We're all apple too and I've an old Macbook. I use the iPad for 99% of stuff, but still need the Macbook for photo's and managing itunes across all the devices - we've got a mixture of media content so its not all purchased from iTunes.

If all your media is purchased via iTunes and you only take photo's from an apple device and pay for extra cloud storage to store all your photo's and other docs then you probably could get away with just an iPad as all your media would be avialable off iTunes whenever you need it, all your photo's can be stored in the cloud along with docs you create.

Total cost of ownership of an Apple computer isn't actually any higher than a PC (longevity + resale value) so buying a PC is a false economy.

I'd be (vaguely :-)) interested to see the sums behind this. Might be true for cheap and nasty (BSO-equivalent) laptops, but for a similarly specced Dell / Thinkpad / Vaio that hasn't had "SuperSpeedUp Pro" or similar junk installed (which is more prevalent in the PC market) longevity would be similar I'd have thought. Maybe Apple owners just look after their kit better.

I'd be (vaguely :-)) interested to see the sums behind this. Might be true for cheap and nasty (BSO-equivalent) laptops, but for a similarly specced Dell / Thinkpad / Vaio that hasn't had "SuperSpeedUp Pro" or similar junk installed (which is more prevalent in the PC market) longevity would be similar I'd have thought. Maybe Apple owners just look after their kit better.

A few years ago* I sold my 3 year old G4 Powerbook on eBay. I got £950 for it, paid for in cash by a rather lovely Finnish girl who proceeded to ask me out and have lots of sex with me. Until anyone can match that with their windows POS I declare Apple the winner on re-sale value.

* OK, it was 10 years ago

Total cost of ownership of an Apple computer isn't actually any higher than a PC (longevity + resale value) so buying a PC is a false economy.

I'd be (vaguely :-)) interested to see the sums behind this. Might be true for cheap and nasty (BSO-equivalent) laptops, but for a similarly specced Dell / Thinkpad / Vaio that hasn't had "SuperSpeedUp Pro" or similar junk installed (which is more prevalent in the PC market) longevity would be similar I'd have thought. Maybe Apple owners just look after their kit better.

I'm fairly convinced. Bought a white macbook and have used it almost all day every day of the 7.5 years since. I've upgraded the HDD but other than that it's still on the original battery (just about) and it's still my workhorse. Before that I used a mid-range Dell which lasted about 3 years.

This is all anecdotal of course, but so far that works out at roughly 80 quid a year. Which definitely beats the Dell!

For the first 5 years i was a fully paid up apple convert, although i have to say the decrease in user-upgradeability (sp?) is making me think carefully about what I'll buy in a year or two when it's finally time to replace....

My black macbook lasted a year before the battery died fatally.
Lasted about another 9-10 months with the replacement battery.
Then it got obsoleted by Apple imho prematurely, in terms of OS support. So while it would still work now with another new battery, so does my netbook.

Still, the reason I bought it was that is cost £25 less than the equivalent Dell. Cost per year of usage? I could buy a chrome book every 9 months and still be quids in.

In the unlikely event I bought another Apple, I'd get a MB Pro? one with a real HDD/SSD. MB Air is all soldered on board. If I sell a laptop or PC, I'm keeping the HDD/SSD.

In the unlikely event I bought another Apple, I'd get a MB Pro? one with a real HDD/SSD. MB Air is all soldered on board. If I sell a laptop or PC, I'm keeping the HDD/SSD.

Better hurry then as there is only the 13in MBP that has a user replaceable HD, it's not been updated and will probably be discontinued soon.

In the unlikely event I bought another Apple, I'd get a MB Pro? one with a real HDD/SSD.

Why would you want a slow, power hungry drive?

I have a MBP and swapped to a full SSD for a vast speed improvement....

Why would you want [s]a slow, power hungry drive?[/s] to be able to make your own choice of hardware. Let Apple choose for you

Answer the question then... 😕

Better hurry then...

Why would you want a slow, power hungry drive?

I'd have SSD, and save HDD for NAS personally. Others wonder how I can survive with only a 128gig SSD.

We have moved from windows laptop and airbook to a iMac we love it! Sits in the front room looking gorgeous and does everything required of it. We find the larger screen much better than the laptop and just use the ipad if we want portable. It bluetooths to everything so no real need to move it around, sounds like the same price as a laptop as well at around 1100

I know some people that have a terabyte of music and vids. terabyte SSDs are just about available now (400 quid option on the top of the range MB pro). terabyte HDDs cost pocket money.

Large SSDs are still peanuts compared to the cost of pro video / camera kit, which is where you really need the speed.

What is this 15% off of which you speak? I know loads of students

Edit - found it, and it applies to staff as well.

As per @johnJ above if you don;t need the portability you might consider an iMac, they just introduced a budget one but I would go for next model up at least, again 8GB RAM.

@cupra FYI with the student/staff discount you can get 3yr Apple Care for something like £50 when it's normally £200 which I think is worth it just in case.

Actually anything bought through the Apple education store comes with 3 years warranty as standard at no extra cost (it's part of the conditions of being an official education supplier). The £50 just extends the phone support over the standard 30 days or something.

@timmy's understood but Applecare goes quite a lot further than a warranty

I'd have SSD, and save HDD for NAS personally. Others wonder how I can survive with only a 128gig SSD.

i make do with 500g SSD in a 15in retina but i only keep current jobs (photography and video) on it at roughly half full and back up with chronosync every 10min to a multiple drive thunderbolt lacie (for speed).
keep music on a network drive, i would rather have the working speed of an under used SSD and the fast saves to an external drive, it saves hours in productivity. seems pointless keeping it choc full of media and even more pointless to use a spinning slow HD in a laptop.

@timmy's understood but Applecare goes quite a lot further than a warranty

Really? That's interesting, could you elaborate as I can't see anything on the Applecare description that you don't get with the education three year warranty (other than being able to ring them up and ask stupid questions).

I bought the fastest 500Gb SSD I could find* and it was worth every penny - the speed when processing Gb of photos is unreal compared to the original HD (laptops HDs are always slow speed ones). Makes such a difference.

* Toshiba 512GB SSD Drive Read 534MB/s | Write 482MB/s 2.5 7mm SATA-III

There are still far too many sites that you can't deal with properly on an iPad. Definitely need a proper computer in the house.

My new iMac has the fusion drive combo of fast SSD and large disc in one. My nearly 4 year old macbook must have a significantly slower processor (haven't checked benchmarks) but is indistinguishable in speed since I swapped an SSD in.

+1 for the hybrid SSD/HDD drives. I recently swapped out the drive on my 6yr old Macbook from the 250gb original for a 1Gb hybrid. Boot up times are dramatically improved (but still not a patch on what they were when the computer was new, but still pretty quick by Windows laptop standards). I notice absolutely no drawbacks in speed once the computer is up and running, but then again I don't use it for anything that is data hungry, like video editing or heavy photo gaffing. The cost of high capacity SSD's is just ridiculous in my view. My Hybrid drive cost £80, an equivalent SD would have been in excess of £400 - more than the computer is worth.