Are Macbooks worth the money? Honestly?

GoldenI

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Nov 11, 2010
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After doing a fair amount of research, I have arisen to the following points on Apple, as a brand.

- Their customer service is impeccable.
- Their components are of excellent quality.
- The "Macbook Pro" works almost flawlessly.
- It does not get infected with viruses.

How much truth is there to this, from experience? Is it REALLY worth spending the extra dough on? Here are two laptops I am looking at purchasing, for school, and for gaming...

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/samsung-samsung-15-6-2nd-gen-intel-core-i3-2350m-laptop-300v5a-s07ca-black-300v5a-s07ca/10199306.aspx?path=6c69c727636298a866ec7ede2dd7e66den02

Samsung 15.6" 2nd Gen Intel Core i3-2350M Laptop (300V5A-S07CA) - Black

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/apple-apple-macbook-pro-13-3-3rd-gen-intel-core-i5-2-5ghz-laptop-english-md101ll-a/10178817.aspx?path=e3808295cb1e8e6fecc56c658ecc5c98en02

Apple MacBook Pro 13.3" 3rd Gen Intel Core i5 2.5GHz Laptop - English

As you can see, a $700 margin between the Samsung laptop, and the Apple laptop. I am in a bind. The logical portion of my conscience is screaming to get the first one, because of the 750GB HDD, 6GB of RAM and the GeForce graphics card.

I am still debating, because of Apple's flawless customer service, and FutureShop's horrible customer service, where I had to wait (two times) for them to fix a product that would take them five minutes to fix, at the kiosk. This was exemplified by the employee going in back, and taking a part from one of the drawers, and adding it to the motherboard. Of course, it took a LOT of arguing and frustration for him to do the task.
 
The basic components often come from the same source. As in Intel CPUs. Apple does not make their own hardware.

Anyone not hiding under a rock should know that any computer (or computing device) is at risk from Malware. Apple (Macbook or iPhone, iPad) are no exception.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/25/mac_crisis_malware/

 

daship

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Apple computers are getting lots of viruses and will only get more as popularity grows. I would prefer a similar specced ultrabook over any macbook, and I do use windows and OSX.
 

v90k

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1. Apple's customer service is fine just as long as you fall in with there ever so retard product warranties. For example not long ago people who bought a iMac had the yellow screen issue. Apple's response to that was to have it fixed by 3rd party repair thus costing there customers inconvenience and time. Now if I purchased something new and was defected, how hard would it be for a company just to exchange it.



2.There components are just like any others that can be found in other computers(i.e. Intel, Nvidia, AMD, etc. The premium price tag comes from the name and aesthetic design of the products. If your a form over factor person and like there designs then its all you.



3. Macs almost run flawlessly because of the design of the OS. Other than that everything else is just overpriced.



4. Correction, less susceptible to viruses vs a PC because of various reason. Again the design of the OS and the difficulty to make malicious software for the platform plays a factor. Take the flashback trojan for example. So many people thought they were safe from viruses and malware that this trojan had time to season in the computers and spread. Even 3 months later, given that viruses are big news in the mac community, i still run into a lot of mac users that don't even know what it is or does. No computer is safe from malicious code.

so like the first poster said the real answer is maybe. It's really up to you. And from experience I personally wouldn't buy Apple because of how over priced it is.
 

userxvi-JOE

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Jul 29, 2012
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The bad parts:

Macbooks have bin in a constant state of declining quality since 2009, now that jobs is, RIP there is no reason to make quality products any more other then being able to make as much money as possible for the investors.

MAC no longer makes SPARC processors into their computers, this is kind of a big thing if your a professional who wants to Design graphics, art and some types of Music/sound art.

Some people consider mac flawnters snobs.

Horrible track record, Suing other companies to keep their goods off the shelves just long enough so their superior product misses the rush, its all just business right?

All they do is steel other peoples creations, modify them into an apple product and then Patent whore the thing, little inventors, artists and writers cant fight it.

The good parts:

It looks appealing, pretty and cool with a Nice brand name!

The software is VERY fine tuned, being able to take advantage of hardware quite nicely compared to Linux or Windows.
 

azathoth

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Jun 25, 2011
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- Their customer service is impeccable.
- Their components are of excellent quality.
- The "Macbook Pro" works almost flawlessly.
- It does not get infected with viruses.

1. This always depends, sometimes they can great, sometime they can be a bunch of asshats. This is pretty much standard for every OEM.

2. Their components are mass manufactured in factories like foxconn, again like most others.

3. The OS is great, nobody can deny this. The Mac OS usually does 'just work', but this is mostly part of how closed it is. None the less it works great with minimal to no configuration by the user.
(Some call it streamlined, some call it idiot proof.)

4. This is absolutely false, Macs can get infected just like Windows based PC's, there is no magical immunity to viruses from owning a Mac. Infact recently the malware attacks on macs have been on the rise. The malware base follows where it can achieve the most targets.
-Summing it up, they are both vulnerable to viruses.


Now the price, I find this is absolutely unjustified. The cost of a Macbook is ridiculous, it's usually $800+ more then a windows PC based counterpart with the same specifications.

HOWEVER, feel free to buy a Windows based laptop that you can turn into a Hackintosh, and enjoy the good OS, without the markup in price.
 

mousseng

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Apr 13, 2012
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The only thing I can say about the quality of Macs is the touchpads on their laptops are absolutely stellar. All the Toshiba/HP/Dell/Acer/Asus touchpads I've used can't even compare to its accuracy, responsiveness, and overall good feel and function.

Apart from that, I don't consider any of it to be worth the price.