<p>My son bought a mac last summer before freshman year. It was the first Apple product in the family since our old Macintosh purchased many many years ago. We are a PC family mainly due to price.
Most pleasant surprise about Apple. Son’s harddrive had a problem last week. Brought it in to the authorized repair place. Two days later laptop back, new harddrive. Cost = 0</p>
<p>latetoschool – I would go ahead and make your purchase if you need a laptop right away. Any announcement that’s made on Monday will be for a future rollout. And the existing laptops are really great anyway. I got a MacBook Air for my 50th birthday and I LOVE it! Go ahead and get what you want.</p>
<p>Well - I don’t “need” a new laptop - I “want” a new laptop. This will replace my personal laptop (a Sony) that got drowned a few weeks ago. The Mac looks good, feels right and I’m reasonably sure I can figure out the operating system, and the software - although I understand I can buy and install Microsoft Office any time, if it should turn out that I don’t like the Apple software for spreadsheets, etc. </p>
<p>After looking at Sony, HP, etc., the prices aren’t all that different, really…I’m really tempted to just buy it today…</p>
<p>Hi again. Now that I’ve used my new Black Mac for a couple of weeks, I thought that I’d fill you in on my opinion as a pc user converting to Mac. I can honestly say that the novelty of the Mac has worn off after the first two weeks. It’s a nice laptop and the operating system didn’t take long get used to. If I were to do it over again, I’m pretty sure that I would go with another Windows laptop over the Mac. Other than using for art/music/photos, the Mac seems a bit limited. I dislike “Pages” because you have to convert everything to “windows friendly” in order to email to another pc user. I did install Office for Mac and prefer it because the documents are compatible with pc users. I don’t like that Mac doesn’t have a “system restore”. Mac does have “time machine” but you have to purchase an external hard drive to use it or pay for online storage of your files. The Windows system restore seems more convenient to me. I’ll probably just use the Mac now for pictures and keep my Dell Vostro laptop as my main computer. I know this sounds stupid but Mac should include a Solitaire game.</p>
<p>You can add WindowsXP to the Mac using bootcamp. Get the latest Pogue book.</p>
<p>I could add Windows xp but doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of getting a Mac! It seems silly to buy a Mac to use windows. I might as well just use my pc. Well, as I said, the novelty has worn off for me. Web cam with photobooth was fun in the beginning ( I can see how young kids would love it). I prefer the windows “create a restore point” and “system restore” over the Mac “time machine” (have to buy an additional external hard drive to use it). I prefer Windows Office because it’s more compatible with other computers when emailing documents. Windows pc’s just seems to have more flexibility (easy to find programs in stores, more compatible in terms of “communicating” with other machines, easier to create documents that can be viewed when emailing). I kind of feel as though I bought into the hype of Mac thinking it was “so much better than pc’s with windows”. I’ll use my Mac as my spare laptop. Funny thing is that even my son who always wanted a Mac is now happy that he didn’t get one for college. I know the Mac people out there will come down hard on me but after using my new Mac for a couple of weeks, I still prefer my Dell Vostro. I wanted to like the Mac more but realized that Windows works better for my computer needs.</p>
<p>I totally agree with you about missing solitaire!! And system restore. But after using the Mac for over a year, I haven’t needed the system restore. Yet. Fingers are crossed. In general, I feel that the Mac is cleaner as far as installing programs and also in uninstalling the programs, when that is necessary. I would say, give it a few months, and maybe you will like it better. I really don’t think I drank the Kool-Aid, but I really do like my Mac. I was a 100% PC’er, and now I wouldn’t switch back. Hang in there!</p>
<p>I’ve used Macs for 18 years and have never needed a “system restore.” That’s right. I’ve never had a Mac crash its hard-drive or lose ANY of my data in nearly two decades (that’s six Macs either at home or office). I’ve also had one virus total… happened about 10 years ago. </p>
<p>My new MacBook, purchased in January, has never crashed on me. I’ve learned that its programs are now somehow compartmentalized so that when one very occasionally locks up (such as Safari) with the dreaded ‘spinning wheel,’ I just force quit that program and reopen it rather than powering down and rebooting the entire computer. Brilliant!</p>
<p>if you look in widgets there are games- also Chess is in the application folder.</p>
<p>Sell it and get your kid a Thinkpad.</p>
<p>the thinkpad does look interesting…if you can afford it.
[Lenovo</a> ThinkPad X300 - Notebook Reviews by Mobile Tech Review](<a href=“http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X300.htm]Lenovo”>Lenovo ThinkPad X300 - Notebook Reviews by Mobile Tech Review)</p>
<p>Maybe I was going through “windows withdrawal” or something. I was using my new mac for about 2 weeks straight and then booted up my Windows laptop and realized just how much I missed it. I’m not giving up on the Mac because I really do want to like it at least if not more than my previous pc’s. One of my kids needed a new printer so we went to Best Buy today. We ended up buying two–one for him and one for me (will work with my Vista machine as well as my new black Mac). He set his up in about 15 minutes and BOOM-it works like a charm. Hopefully, I’ll have the same positive results when I find the time to install it on both my Vostro and Mac. </p>
<p>Thanks for the widget idea. I’ll have to check it out soon. At the moment, we’re whipping through the house with the mop/broom/etc. in anticipation of a visit by one of our older son’s college friends.</p>