MacBook Pro

**edyzmedieval** · 11-13-2016, 17:04

Which is why I'm definitely looking to purchase an 2008 MacBook Pro for a very good price.

**Husar** · 11-13-2016, 18:34

One of my biggest issue with Apple is that they make almost everything else incompatible or a hassle to use, so they try to get you to buy everything from Apple. I used to have an iPhone, but I stopped thinking that I need or even want to spend 800€ or more on a new phone every two years. Using that thing with iTunes on Windows was terrible for two reasons:

1. iTunes on Windows is sluggish, way more so than it would have to be given what it does. Of course it runs smooth on their machines because, well, they want to make you buy everything from them as I said.

2. If I just wanted to sync a small file that was not a readily accessible photo (the photo storage is available as a USB drive, I had to synchronize EVERYTHING. This often meant it would make a backup (and often hang up during that), then synchronize a ton of upgraded apps and more. So just throwing that file onto my phone before going to the uni could be impossible as it would require literally 30-45 Minutes to synchronize (maybe not if you religiously do it every day or week)...

It just seems like they want you to completely buy into their ecosystem, so if I can't pick and choose, I'll stay out of it entirely. Not to forget that the system is pretty useless as a gaming system, you can't just upgrade the GPU after two years AFAIK and so on.

If someone loves to buy a 2000€ machine to write e-mails on it or actually needs it to convert and edit videos, good for them, to me they offer nothing that doesn't seem to work better in Windows. And in my desktop I can also upgrade my GPU without having to buy a completely new system for another 2000+€.

The route of buying older ones may be fine if you just use it for work, of course.
Wouldn't want them to go bankrupt either by the way, I'm just personally not a fan of their all or nothing approach to compatibility between devices. The additional gadgets that are compatible to Apple devices utilize some interesting tech and concepts, too, but they're also usually only available for premium prices in their category...

**Beskar** · 11-13-2016, 21:14

Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

Which is why I'm definitely looking to purchase an 2008 MacBook Pro for a very good price.

A nearly ten year old Laptop? Ouch.

**Xiahou** · 11-14-2016, 03:57

Originally Posted by Beskar

A nearly ten year old Laptop? Ouch.

IIRC, it uses a Core2Duo CPU- definitely a little old, but throw in plenty of RAM and an SSD upgrade and it should be a nice low-cost alternative to someone who wants an Apple.

I've become something of a fan of buying second-hand premium laptops at a bargain price.

**Husar** · 11-14-2016, 14:53

Originally Posted by Xiahou

I've become something of a fan of buying second-hand premium laptops at a bargain price.

That's very tempting, but unfortunately a decent ultrabook (light, up to 14") with dedicated graphics (e.g. RX460) doesn't really exist yet, at least not for a reasonable price. My current 14" ASUS S400CA was 700 or 800€ new and still works fine. I wouldn't want anything heavier, but it would be nice to have a little more than HD4000 integrated graphics sometimes. I don't see why an additional low-end-to-mid-range graphics chip should lead to a price hike of about 1000€ though.

In mysemester abroad I had to deal with the HD4000, at least it was good enough for World of Warships with low to medium settings and older games like Civ V and so on. A Full HD screen also couldn't hurt, but back when I bought it that was hardly available.

The biggest issue is that even this 14" Ultrabook feels really heavy when you carry it for longer periods, so for the Uni I often prefer to just take my 8" tablet, which also comes with a full Windows OS, but obviously lacks a bit more in the performance department (not required for the uni anyway though).