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I cannot believe so many complete hipster idiots but these 2,000-4,000$ Macs. You can build your own goddamn computer for less than half the price that will perform as well if not better.
And then no warrenty (not that Apple's is any good or anything...)
but really, I personally don't know the first thing about building a computer, or what components to get for a build... and I'm a pretty technical guy. I could only imagine this is even more the case for some 20 year old college chick who just needs a really high quality machine for graphic design school or something, and is totally clueless about what is even in a computer that makes it fucking work.
Overall, I'm the least bit surprised people go for Apple's stuff. Plus, it looks pretty cool and minimalist.
So impractical. While it looks nice and the unified heatsink is an interesting design, expanding it is incredibly inconvenient. I know apple has a raging hard-on for thunderbolt, but how are people going to use PCI cards? Put them in an enclosure and connect using thunderbolt?
It looks nice now - it won't look nice when it has to have multiple external enclosures connected to it.
i went from a computer science faculty at one university and transferred into a interactive arts and technology faculty at another.
HOLY SHIT in the one faculty i had kids trying to mock me for running all my applications needed for classes on my mac and was set up for dualbooting if i had to, telling me i had no idea how to use a REAL computer on my fancy new unibody macbook pro back in 2008.
compared to being a goddamn god at mac/pc/linux, having kids asking me how to install programs, being absolutely clueless about any sort of inner workings of osx or computers in general, so many of them just KNOW that they absolutely NEED a mac to do all their work.
not sure if youre being sarcastic about apple's warranty/applecare. personally while i have had huge headaches dealing with issues when i first got my mbp back in 08, since then i have had every single component of my entire computer replaced short of my motherboard and monitor, at zero charge, included a complimentary data recovery service (quoted $600 for the service before they informed me it would be covered) because one of the techs who was dealing with my computer missed the note about replacing my harddrive that failed its s.m.a.r.t. status check, which soon after failed, and then in less than a week had all of my data from the failed harddrive recovered and moved onto a brand new apple had installed.
I've just heard horror stories about applecare, that's all. I never even had to use mine when I was under applecare on my computer - which is probably a testament to the build, since I have worked this thing HARD for the last few years.
you don't NEED a mac to do work, but if you're going to be doing visual arts shit, then why not.
I think a lot of it is also a taste of jealousy amongst some people... who can't afford a mac or anything. I know the appletards are annoying, but Apple as it is, does make a pretty solid machine, you have to admit. My ex for one, used a really shitty Dell. Always complained about how bad it was, when my Apple machine never gave me a hiccup. And then she'd hate on me for my 'fancy spancy machine' and jokingly call me a macfag haha.
i actually cant say i have ever heard of many, if any people having issues with applecare. while my initial experience was a headache, my biggest problem was dealing with a tech who fucked up on his end and didnt do his job right.
no you definitely dont NEED a mac, and there is no reason not to get one, but i am talking about the people who say that they absolutely have to use a mac because they 100% need a macbookpro or else they will not be able to do work properly and as a result, drop out of school and fail at life.
i absolutely love my macbook pro, and will continue to buy apple products until i purchase one that i do not love. i have my mbp since 2008 when the unibody design was released, and it still keeps up, if not out preforms many macs and other laptops that my classmates use.
after 5 years of owning it, i am getting ready to upgrade, now i am just waiting for the mac book pro refresh in oct/nov
For a while I had my mbp dual booting ubuntu and os x, just cause I could and cause I like to mess with stuff. But it amazes me that so many people know so little about computers, when they use them every single day. And I'm talking about college kids. I'm not like building my own stuff from scratch, although I'm somewhat familiar with the components. But like some kids don't even know how to do basic shit. People don't even change like their desktops and other settings and stuff.
i'm thinking of getting an macbook air 13" for college, I might be going into some computer science classes and was wondering what os they used mostly... probably depends on the school..
I was planning on dual booting whatever os would be best/what i'd use for programming and stuff,
other thing is the new '13 airs have a lower frequency processor so i'm trying to gauge if the $150 processor upgrade is worth it.
was going to get a refurb but they don't have any at the moment.
Dual booting a drive that is under 500gb is stupid. Granted, you can set your bootcamp to 20gb just would suck, youd have to run an external constantly with an air.
Your point is spot on and I hate it. Someone has to take control of the ignorant and wealthy market. Oh well. I am of the opinion that anyone who really knows computers could never use a Mac. They limit you so massively in every aspect other than basic tasks. You can't change anything, you can't mess with the hardware, its basically a locked system for those who want the basic functions of a computer. If that works for you, good for you I guess.
Your point is spot on and I hate it. Someone has to take control of the ignorant and wealthy market. Oh well. I am of the opinion that anyone who really knows computers could never use a Mac. They limit you so massively in every aspect other than basic tasks. You can't change anything, you can't mess with the hardware, its basically a locked system for those who want the basic functions of a computer. If that works for you, good for you I guess.
definitely not worth it on an air, unless youre doing something incredibly specific, in elmexicano's instance, you might be able to get away with partitioning just enough for the os and coding applications, strictly coding and using really small filesizes, or running the os+extra harddrive space and saving everything to an external and keep it with you at all times as eheath said.
however, it entirely depends on what programs you are being expected to run, and what youre going to be coding. for me, it was mostly java coding in my first year classes (before i transferred out of comp sci haha) for which i used eclipse, but there are plenty of coding applications you can use, but be warned, if you try to use something that isnt standard in your department, there is a very high chance that you will not have any support/troubleshooting to the same degree that another student working on the preferred program.
talk to your department about it, or look up course syllabi (?) to see what programs and coding/work you will be doing, that will give you an idea of wether or not you will be able to use an air/dualboot/buy a windows laptop
blows my mind how little some people know, mac or windows. i find it weird that people do not have a natural curiosity to explore something they use almost every single day in many cases.
@dingosean definitely, when the back to school promotion is going on is generally when ive seen the best deals, as they are getting rid of their remaning stock to prep for the refresh. or at least that is the trend ive noticed in the past few years.
@ribss not disagreeing with you, but what is it that you feel limited by aside from the hardware? what cant you do software/os-wise?
Was going to get a refurb with a 500GB SSD, 8Gb of ram, but they don't have any air refurbs atm so the New ones are it 1.3 GHz will probably be fine.
or I could get a refurb or new 13" pro with a nice sized solid state
Definitely want to avoid using an external drive atleast for a couple years and 500GB should be good..
Not to sound condecending, but do you know what PCI slots are? They're those (generally) white slots on your motherboard, and the new Mac Pro has zero of them.
Good luck putting new graphics cards, internal PCI SSD's, capture cards, or the many other useful PCI cards on the market into the Mac Pro.
I'm starting to think this is growing thing in society. Which is bad, if you ask me.
It has no pci slots? Last thing I PCI'd in my desktop was usb 2.0 ports. They make an awful click that makes you think you broke the card last I recall. So what happens when they make like usb 7.2398984 or something, you have to tear out the usb 3.0 or whatever they're on with that and dump the new one in? Can't just put it in the pci anymore?
i partially disagree, restriction is not good, but restriction is good for those who cannot restrain themselves. just because you CAN do something, doesnt mean you SHOULD do something.
@dr zoidberg:
i agree. while i have yet to upgrade my mbp, that doesnt mean i do not want or need the ability to, right now i am running 4gb ram (the most you could get at the time) and it has been sufficient, but i do plan on installing more dependent on if/when i upgrade to the next refresh of mbp. the same is going to happen with the current mbp's and of course mac pros. while 16gb of ram is a fair amount today that doesnt mean that it will be tomorrow, next month, or next year. computing power grows exponentially (moores law) so that mac pro/mpb/mba/windows pc/windows laptop/whatever is an amazing piece of technology today, that will not be the case down the road.
what apple is doing with their entirely integrated hardware can be seen as planned obsolescence and a money grab when you are forced to upgrade your entire rig rather than plug in some new ram/processor/graphics card/whatever at the same time, it allows apple to upgrade everything for each release, and improve upon the user experience as a whole.
@ :40
what apple does, in my opinion, is the exact opposite of this. they didnt just toss in a new processor/harddrive/ram to make it faster, they redesigned the entire computer from top to bottom, case and all.
apple has always done a fantastic job at providing top notch user experience and interaction design, and thusly, their hardware reflects that attention to detail as well
well that's not an opinion, it's a statement that happens to not be true
also yeah bumping this old thread...just cause i just read that the mac pro will start at 2999 as people thought. big LOL at the people claiming it would start at 5 or 6, youre fucking high
Quad Core 3.7 (please)
12GB of RAM (lol)
Dual graphics cards 2gb vram each (overkill)
265gb pci-e flash (cool but again, overkill)
I build a desktop for $1200 that has...
3.2 6-core i7 (overclocked to 4.0ghz)
16gb of ram (150 to go to 32gb, mac pro you'll probably pay $400 for them to solder it to the motherboard)
gtx 660ti 2gb vram (plenty of video card for ANY pro application)
120gb boot drive (not as fast but equally as useful)
the more expensive mac pro compares to my desktop and its $3999...
Not $6k but honestly I expected more like 8 core or 12 core with 64gb of ram, but seeing the stats $3-4k makes more sense but still 3x how much it should cost AND you cant even upgrade it.
i couldn't argue any of this if i wanted, youre totally right
i just knew from the start how unlikely it was that they'd sell for 6k or more.. especially when mac seems to be moving away from the pro demographic
also, i dont know if your post is partly in response to my comment to the dude about macs being only for rich ignorant folk, but if it is: i would never try to defend apple for most of the shit they do, there's no denying theyre way over priced
i just think it's silly when people actually think the ONLY reason anyone would buy apple is for coolness or out of ignorance. i know plenty of pros who are very tech savvy but prefer macs (mostly for media stuff obv) and simply don't need to worry about a few thousand dollar difference in price
No this is true, I personally prefer MaxOSX over windows 7. My new job I just started everyone uses imacs or mac pros and I was the only one with windows. I hackintoshed my computer for work (mostly networking/sharing functions) and now im so happy im using OSX again.
If any professional these days is tech savvy, they can hackintosh a $1k-$2k desktop build and it will be 100x better than this trashcan mac pro. If i walk into an office/studio and see this new mac pro im gonna turn the fuck around.
right well i agree with everything you said but there are many pros who are "tech savvy" (dumb semantic term lol) but have no interest in building their own hackintosh whether it's because they're too busy/don't care/have plenty of money and/or don't have the know how
to put it more simply, i'm not defending this computer at all but people gotta realize that not everyone has the same agenda and priorities as them
e.g. the bio lab i used to work at will definitely pick one of these up-- they use macs for lots of good reasons, and don't care one bit about hackintoshes or saving 2 grand, their minds are on other more important stuff
12GB of 1866MHz ECC memory is rather expensive. 256GB of PCI Express storage is also expensive. The Xeon E5 CPUs also is rather pricey. For $2999, you’re getting a damn good computer.
I quite often agree with you here but don't do these price comparisons based on consumer-level gear from Newegg. Of course you can get 12GB of cheap, RAM for $200, or an i7 for $400. But when you spec using Xeon E5s, 1866ECC memory and dual FirePro GPUs, you realize the price on the new Mac Pro is actually totally reasonable.
Hell, the equivalent system from Lenovo with less ram and worse graphics card is more expensive.
This isn't marketed at the typical "home" buyer. It's a "professional" workstation. I'm sure production houses and professional publications will eat the things up, especially given the totally reasonable price point for a Professional machine with such specs.
