intel Is Here

[sjor]

Powerbook renamed= MacBook Pro!
iLife 6!
This is the thing we've all been waiting for.
MacBook Pro 4x faster than Powerbook!
iMac 2x faster!

Plus, it's a different intel chip to the ones we know, i think.

:macos:Apple:macos:

[piratePenguin]

MacBook Pro

Crappy name IMO. I would expect better from Apple...

[worker201]

Sounds like an interesting chip.  Not quite as fast as the G5, it seems, but pretty damn fast for a portable.

[hm_murdock]

I've already had one peecee apologist bitching. He enjoyed trying to punk down the MacBook Pro's Magsafe power cable.

"It's just a magnet! Anybody can do that!"

So I ask him, "Well then why didn't they? Why didn't Dell do that already? If it's so fucking easy, why hasn't someone done it? Oh, that's right... they're CHEAP AND SHITTY."

Thing is, now that Apple's done that, Dell and Alienware and all the other sheep are going to come and make something that looks the same, but is made of shitty silver painted plastic, and has some "safe" connector that's nothing but a ripoff, and use Core Duo procs and the PC press is going to be like OMG LOOK HOW WE GOT THE SAME THING!!

But it will be too late. This is what the computer world's been waiting for now for a decade. Apple's return... and a true imminent threat to the PC. Fortunately it's all rolled into one nice little package.

Goodbye PC with your shitty BIOS, hackneyed Plug and Pray, and piss poor hardware design.

I'm not going to miss you.

[Lead Head]

I've already had one peecee apologist bitching. He enjoyed trying to punk down the MacBook Pro's Magsafe power cable.

"It's just a magnet! Anybody can do that!"

So I ask him, "Well then why didn't they? Why didn't Dell do that already? If it's so fucking easy, why hasn't someone done it? Oh, that's right... they're CHEAP AND SHITTY."

Thing is, now that Apple's done that, Dell and Alienware and all the other sheep are going to come and make something that looks the same, but is made of shitty silver painted plastic, and has some "safe" connector that's nothing but a ripoff, and use Core Duo procs and the PC press is going to be like OMG LOOK HOW WE GOT THE SAME THING!!

But it will be too late. This is what the computer world's been waiting for now for a decade. Apple's return... and a true imminent threat to the PC. Fortunately it's all rolled into one nice little package.

 Goodbye PC with your shitty BIOS, hackneyed Plug and Pray, and piss poor hardware design.

I'm not going to miss you.

Why are you mocking the new apples?

[worker201]

Why are you mocking the new apples?

Methinks you missed something - JJ hasn't mocked Apples since Puma.

Of course I have said it before - the PC companies have been fucking with you for years.  They put in 2 pieces of futuristic hardware, and fill the rest of your box with cheap junk from old 386 Packard Bells.  And they tell you that this is the best hardware out there, and point out how much cheaper it is than a Mac.  Well, if 3/4 of the hardware is 10 years old, of course it is going to be cheap!  Try building a decent PC yourself, and you will find that it is pretty damn expensive.  For starters, you'll find that a decently bussed mobo is a lot of money.  Most of the hard drives you find at BestBuy are crap - the good ones are much more expensive.  And of course the economics of scale mean that you don't get a 20% volume discount for your homemade machine.

When someone says PCs are cheaper than Macs, what they actually mean is that a cheap shitty PC is cheaper than an average Mac.  Well, that makes sense, doesn't it?  Go out and price Intel Xenon machines with speedclocked busses and hard drives with decent seek times - see how much they cost.  Macs don't look overpriced anymore, do they?

[piratePenguin]

Well over a year ago, I built this computer:

80GB 7200RPM Maxtor (IIRC) HDD
AMD Athlon XP 2600+
MSI 52x32x52 CD-RW drive
LG DVD drive
A-Open nForce4 motherboard with onboard GeForce 4 MX, firewire, USB, sound
A nice small case with 350W PSU
256MB RAM (IIRC PC2600, but I'm not sure)

It's a nice PC, and it cost me 300 euro. The keyboard, mouse, monitor and speakers I already had. I got the motherboard and the CPU second hand, something that couldn't be done so easily with Macs.

If I went for a Mac, I'd be paying twice as much for a Mac mini. EDIT: no, I wouldn't. They didn't exist.

No thanks.

[hm_murdock]

Methinks you missed something - JJ hasn't mocked Apples since Puma.

To worker you will listen. Save you he can! I've been a Mac guy for a long time. Dating back to a Power Mac 7200/120 and then later a 6500, to an iMac G3, and on and on... I ragged on early releases of OS X hard... because they didn't live up to promises. It's been several years now that OS X went past promises and is now delivering on wishes.

Re: all the random numbers and stuff that piratepenguin posted.

Who cares? Can't run Mac OS X on it.

Oh yeah, don't bring up OSX86... it's unsupported and PPC binaries won't run on it.

[worker201]

It's a nice PC, and it cost me 300 euro.

I don't know much about exchange rates.  But I do know that a G4 Powerbook would spank that box from here to Christmas.

Nothing against you.  And honestly, nothing against x86 architecture either.  It's Compaq and Hewlett-Packard and Sony VAIO that are the real criminals - they go to amazing lengths to keep their prices within a certain range, even if it means taking a loss on some parts.  Apple has never done that, that's all I am saying.

[piratePenguin]

It can run GNU/Linux, which is my favourite operating system. I wouldn't run OS X on this even if it was supported and PPC binaries somehow would run on it.

[piratePenguin]

I don't know much about exchange rates.  But I do know that a G4 Powerbook would spank that box from here to Christmas.

I'm sure it would. 300 euro, according to xe.com/ucc, is ~362USD. Get me an early 2005 Mac for that price, even second hand. Ship it over and gimme some benchmarks to run, if you will. The Mac would almost have to be G3 (for that price), and it would be toasted.

And honestly, nothing against x86 architecture either.

Try building a decent PC yourself, and you will find that it is pretty damn expensive.

I don't know what you meant by "decent", but in early 2005 this wasn't a bad machine.

Apple has never done that, that's all I am saying.

Probably wasn't wise to bring in custom-built PCs.

[Dark_Me]

It can run GNU/Linux, which is my favourite operating system. I wouldn't run OS X on this even if it was supported and PPC binaries somehow would run on it.

Macs can and do run GNU/Linux. Also OSx86 as it is called is not meant to be a serious OS for PC's it's done by people because they can, almost everyone who has OSx86 installed dual boots and just plays around on OSx86.

[worker201]

Probably wasn't wise to bring in custom-built PCs.

The main reason I mention custom-PCs is that it is very difficult to find top of the line PC hardware built into any consumer products.  Your PC was clearly built with consumer products, which makes your PC an exception.  Now, if you search around, you can find a workstation with the real top-of-the-line hardware.  These are not consumer products, though.  And they cost more than the most expensive Mac.

So, my argument, in toto: Mac consumer hardware is generally of higher quality than PC consumer hardware.  In order to get PC hardware of a quality comparable to a Mac, you would have to spend more money.  Thus, the common argument against Macs based on price alone is misleading and mostly false.  That's it.

[piratePenguin]

Macs can and do run GNU/Linux.

Exactly, and if I had a Mac, first thing I'd do is install Ubuntu (and later some other distros or G/LFS again), wiping OS X to fuck off. OS X is a cool, simple OS, but that's not my kinda OS.

If I ever got a Mac, and I might, it'd be an iMac and it'd only be because they're so damn cool. But it'll probably never happen, because it'll probably always be cheaper for me to build a PC from parts, some second hand. And I don't mind the tower standing there in the corner, I don't mind things not being cool (holy crap I'm using a probably over 10 year old 15" COMPAQ monitor), but it'd still be cool to have an iMac. Other than that, if for some reason I wanted a laptop (maybe in the future), I'd almost definetly get one of these PowerMac Pros, because I don't like any other laptops I've seen.

[piratePenguin]

The main reason I mention custom-PCs is that it is very difficult to find top of the line PC hardware built into any consumer products.  Your PC was clearly built with consumer products, which makes your PC an exception.  Now, if you search around, you can find a workstation with the real top-of-the-line hardware.  These are not consumer products, though.  And they cost more than the most expensive Mac.

So, my argument, in toto: Mac consumer hardware is generally of higher quality than PC consumer hardware.  In order to get PC hardware of a quality comparable to a Mac, you would have to spend more money.  Thus, the common argument against Macs based on price alone is misleading and mostly false.  That's it.

I agree with that but you said:

Try building a decent PC yourself, and you will find that it is pretty damn expensive.

which I think is false.

That is all.