MacBook advice for a lifelong Windows user?

[viccat]

I'm considering getting a MacBook as I'm feeling so frustrated with yet another Windows laptop having problems after just a couple of years of use... I've heard especially the refurbished MacBooks (direct from Apple) are good value and generally last a lot longer?

I'm clueless about anything Apple though having always had Windows laptops and Android phones etc. although I do have an iPad... What's a good MacBook to look at? I use it at home 99% so it doesn't need to be particularly light or portable (but I don't want a desktop computer either!)

I use my laptop a lot (mostly work from home so I'm easily online 10+ hours a day) - mostly email/internet in general, Word, Google Sheets (shared with others)... I also use Adobe Illustrator occasionally.

As far as I can tell the refurbished ones are absolutely fine to consider as they come with a good guarantee?

No advice on longevity but in terms of moving between the two systems I’d say the following.

The Mac versions of Microsoft software are now much closer to the Microsoft versions and have virtually the same functionality. Very occasionally I find something obscure that I can’t do in excel on a Mac but far less than in the past. I would recommended paying for them (I have an Office 365 subscription) rather than using the Mac equivalents (Pages, Numbers, Keynote etc) because learning a new system is reallly annoying!

I’ve had no issue logging into clients’ Office 365 online folders etc if that’s important to you.

There is no Delete key on a Mac keyboard, only Backspace. You can delete by doing fn + backspace. This is vaguely irritating.

I had one for a year. It was a dream to use, light, beautiful to stroke and had fabulous battery life. BUT it was totally unusable in my work setting because any interface with a system (printing, shared drives) had to go through a clunky app which reduced functionality of programs to the point of futility. Eg PowerPoint, print all slides or none, no way of choosing; Excel, whole spreadsheet, or none and no scaling options. Shared drive - no search function.

So, if you're just using at home, not via any networks, could be a really good choice, but otherwise I would avoid.

I used one the other day and gave up. I was trying to download bank statements from an on line bank account and upload them into some accounting software. I got my HP laptop out in the end. I love my iPhone but it's a no for a Mac from me.

I have had a MacBook Pro for 6 years now and it’s still like it’s brand new. I’ve never had any issues with functions not working and used it a lot during my PhD. I did lots of programming on it and image editing and it coped brilliantly. I have Office on it, but check that everything you use is available as I tried to get Publisher recently and they don’t make it for Mac.

I use a MacBook Pro at work . It took a bit of getting used to but now I’d find it difficult to go back to a laptop.
I particularly like the screen display , it’s so much easier on the eye.
I have office on mine. iMessage, Facetime etc is great.

That’s a bit bizarre, Gini, I do that kind of thing quite frequently!

@thislido we couldn't find Downloads. Nothing we did would bring it up. Frustrating

I have everything Mac and have for years but I won't replace my current MacBook. The longevity used to be excellent but since the 2015 models has been awful and sadly anything before that is now too old.

I'd get a better windows machine.

@GinisLife for anything you can't find, Command Key (swirly symbol) and space bar together brings up Spotlight and just type what you want to find. It's also the quickest way to launch any programme you want to use!

I switched to Apple in 2015. My four year old Macbook pro is still as functional as it was then. I use it heavily for typesetting software, audio, graphics etc. and it copes brilliantly.

My experience of PCs is that they start gradually slowing down from the outset. It's almost imperceptible, then by four years down the line you realise that everything's a little clunky battle.

The biggest thing though is that Apple's customer support is fantastic. I had a serious problem with my Macbook (I inadvertantly encrypted my harddrive by setting a new password I couldn't remember when DD was a couple of weeks old) to the extent I couldn't access anything and the tech support at Apple, both in store and on the phone, was invaluable. They worked and worked at it until they restored everything for me from an external harddrive that I'd been backing up to but had developed a fault (not Apple's fault).