Uncreative Labs

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 22 Location: near myself

Ultimately i'm looking with interest to new Macs. In fact i'm attracted by design and a sort of "garanted quality" in materials. I have some old Macs and they are nice computers but using always IBM-like computer i still prefer them. What do you think? Could you live only with a Mac-Intel?
Rolling Eyes

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Intel Macs are no different then any other x86 PC made today. I believe that the macs are built in the same buildings that make DELL or Compaq computers and have the same build quality.

I know plenty of people with new x86 macs with hardware problems, so the build quality these days is about the same as everyone else.

You can buy a new mac and run windows on it just fine.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

It's true that the components that go into the new "mactels" are pretty much the same as many other systems. Though, if running OSX is your goal you don't have much of a choice. I'm not really sure how well OSX runs on a regular X86 system, but it sounds like it is fairly hardware specific and you probably need specially patched software in order to update your system. I haven't really been keeping up on "hackintosh" systems, so you might want to check that out.

Personally I wouldn't bother with an Apple desktop...but I really like their laptops...especially the ones that come in aluminium enclosures. Though, I liked the G4 stuff a bit better since they tended not to get so hot. But, I guess the heat thing is a problem for everyone these days. Some people claim that the Crapbook Pro is too expensive, though at the time I bought mine I found it cheaper than similar high-end offerings from other companies. Though, things may have changed since then.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I read that the core of the mc os-x (leopard)
is indeed compatible with pentium 4 cpus.
BUT apple puts in hardware related Hooks so it will not run on regular intel machines.

There are stories that Apple corp may offer a version that will run on Intel-based pc;s.

some hackers have claimed it is a fairly easy patch
but some who have seen it say that there are still some incompatibilities and " rough edges"

You will almost always pay more rfor a Mac than rfor a PC, remember Apple has changed the cpu used several times. :Leaving users stranded.
Unless thay have changed their ways, it will require
new software.
but you can usually run windows on a Mac
under an emulation that might be slow.
Then you will have all the windows problems on a Mac.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Windows runs on macintosh pretty well since Apple switched to intel CPUs. It no longer needs to emulate the CPU, it uses "virtualization". However, other parts of the PC may need to be emulated. For office work virtualization is very good. For playing games, it may not work as well. Parallels wrote some code in their software which supposedly gives it direct access to the GPU. From what I've heard it's supposed to be pretty good for playing games. But, I haven't tried it so I can't confirm or deny.

For playing games, dual booting is probably the way to go.

Joined: 01 Oct 2004 Posts: 169 Location: behind you!

Right now apple is shooting themselves in the foot. If I want a macintosh that can run 3d games well and is upgradeable I have one choice, the Mac PRO. Now I'm not sure about everyone here but I'm not crazy on the idea of spending $2500 on just the tower then have to spend another $500 on a display and then upgrade the ram to 2gb (bump that to 4gb if I choose to run windows within OSX). I know people try to say macs are now on par with the pc but I strongly disagree. I spent about $1500 on my current desktop and an equivalent mac would set me back over $3000 (I'd still have to buy a copy of windows, so we are talking close to $3500). Simply not worth it for me as I have no need for OSX.

Apple badly needs to get their bloody priorities straight and bring back a low cost and upgradeable desktop for the average person (who really needs dual dual cores or dual quad cores when a single dual core is overkill in most cases). Though even if they fixed every problem I still would not buy. I build my systems and I don't see apple ever allowing me to do that.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Apple is smart marketing their machines to people who will pay extra for a trendy image. There is no way Apple could compete with the likes of DELL and HP in the commodity computer marketplace.

Joined: 19 Oct 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Lynnwood,WA

I don't think Apple will take more of the marketshare of average users until their systems becomef fully standardized. Sure they are "trendy" and "hip" and kinda "new age", a lot of it to do with being different, but most of the end users I talk to don't give a flip, they just want something that works, and works fast. I don't think they are any better or worse machine than any other manufacturer, they're just different enough to not be called a PC, but same enough to make a stir afer having been running off of 68000 series derivatives for so long.

Apple is already an alternative, allbeit an expensive and non-standard one. It has been for years.