Which lap top is better and why

[mainecoon lover]

Windows Vista or Mac airbook ?

Will be looking at a new one next year and i told dh i would like a Mac airbook. He asked why and i just said coz

So you techno guys let me know why i need to ask for an airbook over vista.

[Claire]

I can't vouch for an Airbook as I have a Macbook but I can highly recommend it. Is it the Airbook that doesn't have a disc drive?

[daveann]

got vista on my laptop and i like it. mine is jsut a HP laptop

[josh.p.]

Mac mac mac mac mac!!!

The macbook air, hmm... not sure if I'd reccomend it unless you truly needed it for the size and portability.. Its lack of disk-drive can be a problem really.

The macbook pro is about £100 more expensive, but has a disk drive and much faster specs!! I would also reccomend the normal macbook, you just can't go wrong!!!

[Taja]

Windows Vista is an operating system, which can be used on a desktop or laptop. I don't like it--it's unstable with some of the enterprise software I have to use for work.

Others love it.

Haven't used a Mac since the early 1990s! Absolutely no help there.

[Keith]

Well there are many reasons why a mac may suit you better, some tangible and some less so

Macosx is almost certainly the newest "from the ground up" (sort of) mainstream operating system in the world. Apple decided to ditch its old stuff and start again to make a genuinely robust, reliable, easy to use OS. That gave them some pain when they dropped the old stuff but has proved great in the longer term. Windows by comparison suffers from having to support all the old apps and indeed now, when they want to swap to 64bit, they're feeling pain because of it.

Macosx can run windows apps alongside the mac ones. Same screen and everything. Windows, although technically capable, can't run macosx and its apps because Apple look to see if you're on a mac before they run. Now some may think thats unfair but any way you cut it, you can run both windows and mac apps on a mac, but only windows apps on a windows machine. So the mac is more flexible.

The design of the laptops is unparalleled in my experience (and I've got a lot!). They work as you'd expect, close the lid, it goes to sleep. not in a few minutes or if it feels like it, near immediate and it wakes up just as fast. Windows doesnt (although the next version of windows7 may be better at this, vista is RUBBISH at it).

They look good. 'nuff said? the design of the apple devices is important. You get the feeling that people sweated over the design of the apple machines whereas the pc folks bought a box, threw some kit in there, coloured it beige and stopped. If you're brand/design aware, Apple is where it's at and I can't think of a single windows machine that comes anywhere close.

Simple to use. I got my mum a windows machine years ago and she's done so well with it (making me eat all my words and thoughts about how she'd never use it) but it's all been pretty normal web browsing stuff.
I gave her a macbook for Christmas and on christmas day having never used one before, she took photos with the inbuilt camera, was editing them in iphoto, emailing them to me and published a website all without me saying a word to her. Indeed since then, she's often been emailing ME things I hadn't found

To finish with my mum's words not mine, "they both do the same things but I like how the mac does them much better"

[josh.p.]

Erm... Keith... I think you where meant to put "Josh" rather than "Mum" on that gift tag

[Keith]

[PsychoAlice]

How about we start at the basics....what are you going to do with said laptop?

[catrancher]

I agree with Keith. Strongly.

However, Sarah has a point. What are you going to do with it?

The real question here is what's better for your needs? Vista or Mac OS X? Never mind the airbook bit. That's just one of the Macs that Mac OS X can run on. Not really germane to this discussion. We'll address that later.

If all you're going to be doing is email, web surfing, etc, either platform would work. Although Mac OS X gets points on this for reliability and safety.

However, if you're going to be doing more than that; creating graphics, editing pictures, making movies or music, then Mac OS X wins pretty much hands down. Included with all new Macs is the iLife suite of applications; iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, and GarageBand. If your desire is to do anything that falls within the purview of these applications, then the contest is over. Go plunk down your money for a Mac.

So, just what do these applications do? Try this very basic list:

• iPhoto - catalogs and organizes all your digital pictures. Provides some editing capabilities (color correction, crop, straighten, etc.). Non-destructive editing. If you change a picture and don't like it, you can revert back to the original. Lets you order prints, books, cards or publish your pictures to the web.
• iMovie - create movies of your videos, iPhoto pictures, almost anything. Add special effects. Add a music sound track from your iTunes library. Prepare them for sharing on the web or create a DVD for playback on your DVD player/tv.
• iDVD - take your iMovie projects and add chapters and special navigation effects to them. Burn them to DVD for later playback. I use iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD on all my vacation pictures. You won't believe what you can do!
• iWeb - create your own website or sites. If you have a .Mac (now it's .me) account, you can publish to your web site with one click of the button. Create photo sites, blogs, travel logs to share with friends, family and the world.
• GarageBand - if you're a musician, would like to be, or if you just like music, GarageBand is the tool for you. Record your guitar or your keyboard or your voice, add accompaniment, fine tune it to your hearts content and then publish it. Or burn it to a CD. Don't know how to play a guitar or a keyboard? Use GarageBand to take some lessons! Use it to create a podcast.

I don't know of any suite of applications in the Vista world that provides so much and works so well without spending a significant amount of money.

Now that I've pontificated as long as I have, you'll probably get the impression that I'm a Mac fan. You're right (but you probably knew that). So, that brings us to the Macbook Air. My opinion? Cute machine.

Do I want one? No.
Why not? Doesn't have a CD/DVD drive, slower CPU, etc.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice machine. I just think that for a little bit more money, you'd be happier with the Macbook Pro. It's much more capable. Like Josh said.

Anyway, I think I've gone on long enough. I'm sure you do too!

Tom (.... evangelism off)