Buying a laptop : Mac or ‘regular’ laptop?

[MyrtlethePurpleTurtle]

For personal use, I have an iPad and an iPhone (plus a 2nd iPhone provided by my employer).

These are great for browsing, ‘light’ emails, online shopping, streaming etc (as well as phone calls and messaging of course). I like the design and the way the devices are connected.

However, for heavier use - eg documents - I use my work laptop and then email them to myself (use of private email at work is blocked).

I will no longer be able to use my laptop for personal use in the next month or so (😔) so will probably need to get my own.

So the question is whether to get a beautiful sleek Mac or a ‘regular’ laptop?

Friends who have Macs either seem to love them (particularly my arty friends) or find them a waste of money where they have a need to work extensively with Word, Excel and other Microsoft applications.

My current work laptop is a clunky LeNovo laptop and I would like my new purchase still to be sleek and lightweight and easily portable.

I was facing exactly this dilemma, and invested in an ipad keyboard and full-sized screen. Work installed the Apple-compatible version of MS Office.

Unfortunately, like you, I’m totally reliant on MS Office and there are many shortcuts, formatting etc that have been lost in translation. I lost patience with it all and spent £400 of my own money on a Windows laptop to supplement the work kit.

Thank you, @drainrat. Impatient as I am to get a swish laptop, I think maybe I had better first trial Windows on my iPad, with separate keyboard, and see how I get on.

Views on this thread seem quite polarised

So I went to the Apple store to try out Windows on a Mac. Whilst the basic commands and shortcuts are the same - eg ctrl + U for underlining, track changes etc, that didn’t apply for more niche commands and it didn’t really have the look and feel of Windows (perhaps unsurprisingly ).

Plus there is no touch screen functionality.

The ‘basic’ Mac comes in at £999 and the one with better battery power at £1,299.

So I don’t think it’s going to be a Mac for me - just really for the functionality of having it synch with my iPhone and iPad doesn’t really seem worth it

Mac fan here! I have office for mac on on my mac, and I've never had any problems with it. Would agree that integration across devices is really helpful - even if its just something like having a diary update on the mac which goes instantly onto the phone. They are pricey, but they do seem to last. I'd also agree that it depends what you want to do. I have a little macbook air, which was absolutely brilliant when I was working away from home and commuting a lot, but has limited storage capacity, but then you can store everything in the cloud.

I have a mac and I hate it. I use an ipad but the macbook is just so different that I just find it a total faff to use. Give me a Windows laptop any day. The macbook is currently sat under my office chair gathering dust

We still have our Mac laptop from 12 years ago,it's been fab. Needs to be plugged in as battery is old but still perfect otherwise!

This exactly. I am typing on a 2010. Works a dream still.

But my cupboard is the Mac laptop graveyard, theres atleast 5 in there from the last decade - the one which pains me the most was the 2017 (bought in 2018) which didnt last 12 months.

The 2017 had the same flex gate issues at the 2016 which was recognised in a court case it was not built correctly. There was recall. 2017 has the same hardware and they refuse to recognise it - and thats when I said no. Never again.

They were all Macbook Pros - very very expensive.

Which I dont mind paying. But not if its going to break for no reason and Apple are going to be shit and refuse to fix anything.

I am never buying Mac Laptops ever again. I nearing a good 20k into their coffers the last decade (exclusively on laptops never minding the rest of our Apple Kit) and all I have is a graveyard of waste to show for it.

I bought DP a windows laptop last christmas. When the 2010 finally bites the bullet I too will be switching to a windows.

(Still love the iMacs (desktops) and ipads though)

Unless you'll use the additional functionality of a mac I wouldn't pay the extra to be honest, I'd stick with a windows laptop.

I'd buy a Mac as like you all my other devices are apple. The beauty of using a Mac with other apple products is that they interstate perfectly. Start writing a document on one device and then finish it on another. Need text that's on your iPhone ? Then copy it on the iPhone and paste it on the MacBook without having to email it from one device to the other.