9thwotw, *definitely* not an Apple astroturfer, right? My CRT iMac has neither performance nor practicality, but darn it's so purty!

Quote from: grnidone on June 14, 2012, 05:35:07 PM
Many many Mac users are graphic creators/ video makers etc.  So a monitor with extreme detail would be something that is very practical as they'd use it all the time and would really need the detail.

I'm not sure that has been the case for a decade or so. It is certainly the brand image that they like to maintain, but that is a very very small share of their now massive market.

QuoteSo your saying that every non-'apple user' does not need or lust for performance and practicality? Wow.

No, please engage brain and read what I posted again - then point us all to where I said, or even implied, this.

'Practicality' (in the 'real world', or 'any' world IMO) was not Apple's 'main' target with this computer.
It is a performance machine perhaps, and it is certainly in line with Apple user ideas of 'stylish'.
It is also undeniably expensive.

These guys seem to think that 'practicality' isn't really its forte:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-displa/
.. rightly, or wrongly, described as 'Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable'


It is a performance laptop aimed at a niche market.

My point remains, 'performance', 'style' and even 'usability' are words that could be used in conjunction with this laptop.

'Practical' and 'Practicality' not.. the price and features, (and possibly the repair-ability issue, if the article linked to is to be believed), are way beyond 'practicality'.

@grnidone:

QuoteMany many Mac users are graphic creators/ video makers etc.  So a monitor with extreme detail would be something that is very practical as they'd use it all the time and would really need the detail.

... niche users - where this still applies, they are clearly not 'average joe', 'real world' users. It supports my original statement though - practical only when applied to a niche 'apple' user base, not universally.

The wired post is just opinion by a guy who is worried about his business or job. 

2kg leaves me with 12kg of carry on allowance on flights that's more than my current plastic MacBook leaves me with.
7h battery life is 4.5h more than my current MacBook. I can probably go away for a weekend and not bring a charger.

What's more important, a changeable battery which will only last 6-9 months like many of dells and hps offerings, or a non-changeable battery which will likely last 2+ years?
Who actually upgrades ram? Just buy the one with 16gb and it will be fine for a few years.
For extra storage use externals. There should always be backups of ssd drives anyway.
AppleCare is fantastic. I'd rather leave the machine I run my business froms maintenance or repairs to the experts and indulge my desires to take things apart to my bikes, car or desk top pc.

@hungrygoose

QuoteThe wired post is just opinion by a guy who is worried about his business or job.

nah it isn't - it may be 'opinion by a guy who is worried about his business or job' but it is not 'JUST' 'opinion etc' unless you are able to discount his argument.

Quote2kg leaves me with 12kg of carry on allowance on flights that's more than my current plastic MacBook leaves me with.
7h battery life is 4.5h more than my current MacBook. I can probably go away for a weekend and not bring a charger.

Well done then - as a Mac user, you find it practical.
That was exactly my case.

There are far cheaper laptops that offer the same or better battery life, and that weigh less too.
A typical buyer will have already discounted these as their preferences for style and performance mean that they prefer the Apple brand.

If you look outside the 'Apple' field, you can easily find more 'practicality' - but 'practicality' is never the main reason that people opt for Apple, as detailed already. There is nothing wrong in making a choice based on performance, or style - or in making a choice based on the practicality of your chosen laptop for your specific circumstances for that matter.

Apple aim for style and cachet - they aim to sell 'premium' at premium prices, and they do it well.

Practicality in the majority market is not their main aim for this laptop. 

Ok fair enough

I have looked for computers comparible to say the 13inch pro but never find anything with the reliability, easy to get repaired, or battery life.  That is where I am coming from, I can't see anything even close.  When spec'ing a thinkpad up to similar levels to a mbp they always end up more expensive.  There may be cheaper or longer battery life or higher performance models but IMO there isn't anything with all 3 + the style


What is your weapon of choice?

Quote from: hungrygoose on June 15, 2012, 11:51:48 AM
What is your weapon of choice?

This is mine

Beats any battery life on the market!!

Count me among the Apple fangirls. I carry an Air these days, and my desktop is a 24" iMac that's about three years old.

Apple's biggest attraction for me is the ease of use inherent in their software.

Time saved and stress reduced are not things that hardware junkies know how to measure, though.

Its well known method of preventing homosexual tendencies too?

Sugar Daddies don't normally work that way..

Quoteeasy to get repaired

debatable - 'easy' if sending back to Apple is the chosen option, which is perhaps not as 'cheap and easy' as many other laptops.

Quoteor battery life.

That isn't an issue - there have been other laptops with 7 to 8 hour battery life at least since 2011. There are laptops with 25 hour battery life (slice batteries).
There was a Toshiba at looked at last year (forgot the model, easily found though) that had 8 hours battery and weighed just over 1Kg - was pretty cheap as I recall. Would be lower performance, obviously, but then that isn't the issue here.

The difficulty is always to get the balance of performance, screen size, weight, battery life and cost in the right combination for the target market.

When performance is set at the high end, the target market isn't usually the 'practicality' market.

Quote.. but IMO there isn't anything with all 3 + the style

Exactly my point - discount the perception (and, IMO, entirely subjective issue) of style, and there is plenty of choice. Ditto the other features. Depending on how you define you parameters, it is always going to be possible to isolate this as the only relevant choice.

QuoteWhat is your weapon of choice?

I probably don't fight in the same space as you.

I hardly ever need to travel, and when I do I have a tablet with keyboard that gives me a good days battery life for most things I need to do.

I found that there was never any time when I needed to rely on battery power to do serious  work, so I went for a relatively high spec laptop that performs at close to desktop levels.

I have linux as the main OS, it boots in less than 11 seconds (and could be optimised for less, if I turned off a few bits of linux that I don't really need).
I have never had the need to see when the battery goes flat.

It looks like sh*t, but it works great and its looks don't earn me any money anyway

It is far more than most people would need for 'practicality' - but it is practical for my specific niche requirements.

I think that long battery life 'full spec' laptops are not as much an issue as they were, the tablet revolution has changed that, at least temporarily.


@buckworks

QuoteCount me among the Apple fangirls. I carry an Air these days, and my desktop is a 24" iMac that's about three years old.

nothing wrong with that - I have an 6 year old desktop PC running Linux just fine - would be scrap as a Windows 7 box, should be in a skip, but I can't bring myself to get rid - it has no significant missing functionality.

QuoteTime saved and stress reduced are not things that hardware junkies know how to measure, though.

That's a bit of a sweeping statement.
The big difference, I think, is that 'hardware junkes' (I am not one of those) simply do not feel the same levels as stress over hardware or software issues, so it is a non-issue for them.
'Time saved' is (perhaps ironically) something I spend a lot of time on - but I see it as an overall business system. I use Linux, my wife uses Linux, but my business partners and Elves need to be using Windows - overall, that is the 'time saving' solution. There is still too much software that we need to use that will only run on Windows. I can emulate windows on Linux, as you can on a Mac as well of course, but some of the ..ermm... 'marketing' tools  we use really only work well when ran natively.

For my specific needs (and, may I stress, I KNOW this is not the case for many of you), Apple falls somewhere between Linux and Windows, so not really a time saver for me or my employees.

re:  Time saved over hardware...

That's exactly why I went Mac years ago.  The damn things just work.  Without a lot of work to make them work.

Quote from: grnidone on June 22, 2012, 03:59:00 PM
re:  Time saved over hardware...

That's exactly why I went Mac years ago.  The damn things just work.  Without a lot of work to make them work.

What the hell were you all doing to your PCs that they never worked? Not picking on grnidone in particular (sorry - easy quote), but they "they just work" argument is such a crock. My computer just works. In fact the room I am in now contains 11 Windows machines that 'just work' and one frecky linux box which would be better described as "just does what it does".  Honestly, you don't need to give them CPR or anything to get them going in the morning.

Rooftop

A few years ago my PC seemed to always have viruses, was slow, crashed a few times per day, needed reformating, would randomly have boot errors.  This was just around the time Vista was released.  When I switched to Mac I had zero issues.  Now tho I am on a PC and have had zero issues so it seem windows has caught up there.  But pc manufaturers support seems a lot less than apples from the stories I've heard.

Never had any of those problems with any computer on any OS, and I've used a few! Maybe I'm blessed