Laptop vs MacBook

[Makemedoit]

Hi. Can you recommend the best laptop or MacBook to get. I want something for work/pleasure to complete documents etc and use the internet. Not for games. Am clueless so don’t know where to start!!

I have a 2012 Macbook Pro which still works beautifully after 8 years, although it hasn't had extremely heavy use.

Only downside is that I no longer have an iPhone and it won't let me back up photos on it from an Android phone.

If you need to work on documents you might want to check whether the laptop comes with Microsoft Office preinstalled. The Apple equivalents of Microsoft Word, Excel etc aren't compatible with other operating systems, if I remember correctly. You can get Office for Mac, but it's quite expensive. I bought mine for a tenner through a Civil Service scheme, but otherwise it's at least 100 quid I think.

I have an old MacBook Pro. They are really great. And I love it but it now 10 years old. I am buying a windows one as I need windows for a work platform.

For most uses such as internet / word / general admin watching videos a MacBook Air would be fine I think. For anything like gaming or creative / design a pro wiuld be better.

I asked the tech guys at work for a spec for a windows one and they said as a minimum spec

8gb memory
512 ram Solid state disk drive (ssd)
i5 processor or above

I just agreed

If you have apple things and want something fun go for a MacBook.

If you have office 365 for work you can get office using that for free.

I really like Dell laptops, Macbooks will be a lot more expensive for, what you want one for, no gain.

I had Dells for work for 9 years and never had an issue, my personal one is an inspiron 15 5000 with an i5 cpu, touch wood, faultless.

Just get as much memory as you can afford, 8gb min and a 512 SSd drive.

You can buy Dell's direct and when the free warranty expires, and they send you the price to renew, negotiate! i got on site 12months for less than £40.

No i don't work for Dell.

Unless you use Office & use Excel formulas/PowerPoint extensively, LibreOffice (freeware) will open and edit every type of Office 365 doc.

Macbook for sure. Mine's lasted 10 years and still going strong. In that time people I know with PCs have had to buy several new ones, so it's well worth the money.

This one's no longer true - I work quite happily between Macbook/Windows/iPad versions of Office - the only real issue is that there's no Publisher for Mac which depends if you use that or not.

I love my Macbook - I love Mac OS and how I can just work seamlessly between my phone, iPad, macbook and even the apple TV box - but I'm an Apple addict and you DO pay a premium for their stuff over what you'd pay for a Windows laptop.

In terms of what to buy - I have an MSI brand windows laptop I use for gaming which I'm really impressed with (although Windows still irritates the shit out of me and my Mac is definitely my machine of choice). If you DO end up going the macbook route - AVOID the old Intel based models - you want one of the Apple Silicon based ones - M1 were the first models, M2 are the most up to date stuff - but I have an M1 based one and it is fucking FAST!!! Not really worth paying more for a Pro - the Air models are really good enough unless you really really really have an aversion to the Air shape (I hate it) or love the old touchbar in the 13 inch M1 Pro models.

I use Microsoft Office on my Macbook, but I prefer Pages, Numbers, Keynote - you can always export something made on an Apple programme to the appropriate Office one, so that's not an issue. Preview for PDFs is a joy compared to anything on Windows.

I have a super high spec HP laptop for work and it's MUCH better than my own macbook.

I have a MacBook for home and I'd recommend 16mgb. I had Microsoft for Mac installed when I bought it.

I've mainly got it because I'm a bit addicted to Apple products and it's compatible with my iPhone. They are good for creatives.

But I think a laptop is just as good - maybe better.

It mainly depends on your budget - pretty much all laptops will be able to handle web browsing and some document editing. I think at the cheaper end a chromebook will be fine for that, but limited for much else.

Any PC laptop would also work, price for these can vary a lot, depending on the speed, storage space, graphics and how pretty it is!

Macbooks are seriously good-looking machines, they do seem to last longer than PCs, the base specs will be better than cheap PCs, and if you have an iphone they will work well togther. You do pay a lot more for this though. I have a macbook bought by work and I do love it, but don't think I'd buy one myself because I'm cheap 😆