Do I need a MacBook?

[TalskiddyTreacleMiner]

I'm in the market for a new laptop I think. I say I think because i have an iPad which I use a lot, but I don't find it great for office type stuff - Word, Excel etc.

Over the years we've got through loads of Windows laptops as they seem to slow right down after a couple of years. The current one has got a failed motherboard and isn't worth getting fixed.

So I'm thinking of throwing a bit more quite a lot more money at a new one and am specifically looking at the latest MacBook Air with the M1 chip. Friends who have Macs tell me they last for ages and when I add up how much I've spent on cheapie Windows ones, I could probably have bought a Mac only once in that time.

But do I need one? I want one, but it seems such a lot of money to spend when I already have an iPad. I can afford it due to a recent windfall but I can't seem to justify it. Tell me how great, or not, Macs are!

@TalskiddyTreacleMiner

Just ordered! Plumped for getting it direct from Apple in the end. John Lewis still oos, and I looked at Stormfront's Facebook page and the reviews were terrible. Should be here by 9th Feb so will report back.

Isn’t that a long time for it to take to come?

I have multiple very good Windows machines in the house - so I'm not comparing with a £300 cheapie here - I have a gaming laptop and gaming desktop running Windows.

99% of the time though I use my Macbook Air (I got one of the last of the Intel ones). It's just nicer to type on and I quite often airdrop things between my iPad to scrawl on with my Apple Pencil, then drop it back to my Mac to work on. No it doesn't have the brute power my gaming laptop has - but I didn't buy it for that - I bought it because my gaming laptop weighed a fucking tonne and I just wanted something light and portable that I could chuck in my bag and take with me, and worked well with my iPad I use a lot. I love it - would love it a lot more if I got to use it for actual laptop purposes instead of being stuck in the house - but at home I tend to hook it up to a second monitor as an extra screen.

Also mentioning the wonder that is Sidecar where you can use your iPad as a second monitor. It's fucking epic.

@SoVeryLost

According to the Apple website Big Sur is compatible with 2013 machines onwards only.

WitchesGlove it's ok, I can be patient. I'm hoping it will come sooner though! Looking online it seems like Apple err on the side of caution then deliver sooner in many cases.

We ordered Christmas presents directly from Apple, they arrived ahead of the time suggested.

Enjoy your shiny new MacBook, I bought one in October and still stroke it happily (it replaced a 12 year old MacBook, which is now serving a friend’s son through lockdown learning). It lasts all day on a single charge, I’m online teaching, recording, uploading to YouTube etc so I’m really pleased. They last forever!

I got a MacBook Pro from work. Hated it from the offset. Which made me sad because it was very pretty and I really hoped that I'd be a mac person because macs seem cool. I couldn't figure out any of the shortcuts, everything seemed back to front, all my Google search history was "how do you do x on a mac...".

The stupid butterfly keyboard (which apple have now thankfully done away with) jammed and three of my keys were practically unusable. Sent it back to work who said they would send replacement. Took that opportunity to ask for a windows laptop. It is amazing. I love it. Was like putting on a nice comfy pair of slippers. Admittedly its a £1500 laptop so you'd expect it to be pretty decent.

I have never owned an iPhone or an iPad though snd have been using Windows PCs and laptop since 1993 so I was probably never going to find a mac particularly intuitive.

Curry’s seem to have some amazing deals at the moment in MacBooks. Are they worth looking at or is there something fishy going on given how cheap they are?

I’ve had mine for 5 years and I f***g hate it. It’s a nightmare to download software and the lot on it.

Trading for windows at some point this year.

Don’t get me started on the shortcuts!!

Genuinely perplexed by the love on this thread as I hate mine. It’s slow, constantly spinning it’s stupid rainbow circle while I grind my teeth, or updating itself for hours.
How it’s not been thrown at the wall I’ll never know - that’s probably the only benefit of spending so much on it.

But reading this thread makes me realise I must have bought a lemon.

@thelegohooverer

Genuinely perplexed by the love on this thread as I hate mine. It’s slow, constantly spinning it’s stupid rainbow circle while I grind my teeth, or updating itself for hours. How it’s not been thrown at the wall I’ll never know - that’s probably the only benefit of spending so much on it.

But reading this thread makes me realise I must have bought a lemon.

I don't think you did get sold a lemon. For mac book people, the devotion to them is unwavering and they are willing to see past their flaws. A couple of colleagues had the same broken keys issue I had but just resigned themselves to it whereas, for me, it was just another thing I couldn't deal with.

Perhaps if I had never ever used a computer before then, perhaps, the mac book would seem more intuitive. But, personally, I'm so used to Windows, I just want to be able to know exactly how to do stuff and do it quickly. A macbook, whilst pretty, is just an obstacle to efficiency. To me at least. A mac user would feel exactly the same when presented with a Windows machine.

Till recently I worked on both Macs and Windows machines depending on the client, switching every few minutes as needed. It wasn't really that tough although I didn't help myself by using a Mac keyboard with the PC which did drive me a bit nuts.

I much prefer the Mac Finder, especially the columns option, and ability to preview with spacebar.

But there were a few things I preferred about Windows such as the ability to instantly set a window to fill half the screen, and another window to fill the other half. I ended up installing something on my Mac that does similar, but it would be nice if that was just built in.

Throughout my career I've switched between Macs and PCs. My oldest daughter is a Comp Sci major and she went from Mac to PC and back to Mac. She also uses an iPad in lectures to take notes, and to read all her course books.

@thelegohooverer

Genuinely perplexed by the love on this thread as I hate mine. It’s slow, constantly spinning it’s stupid rainbow circle while I grind my teeth, or updating itself for hours. How it’s not been thrown at the wall I’ll never know - that’s probably the only benefit of spending so much on it.

But reading this thread makes me realise I must have bought a lemon.

In our house we have 7 Macs between 5 of us, and none of them do this.

You could try wiping it and starting again from scratch but it shouldn't do this. It sounds like a lemon to me.

Do not get the Mac love (don’t hate it just don’t think it’s amazing) and I’m on my second - first one died and fixing it was £££. I have a highly rated Windows HP spectre for work and sometimes use my Mac for work too. The Teams functionality is a little more limited with the Mac but it’s improving - processing speeds are no different. Apart from getting used to slightly different ways of doing things I honestly wouldn’t promote one over the other and they are around the same price. If you compare a Mac to a much cheaper windows laptop it’s going to be a no brainer but be fair - compare it to a HP Spectre or similar.

@thelegohooverer

Genuinely perplexed by the love on this thread as I hate mine. It’s slow, constantly spinning it’s stupid rainbow circle while I grind my teeth, or updating itself for hours. How it’s not been thrown at the wall I’ll never know - that’s probably the only benefit of spending so much on it.

But reading this thread makes me realise I must have bought a lemon.

I get that stupid rainbow circle - and I get freeze on flicking through Apps - I have to reboot frequently.