OT: I think I need a new Laptop.

It's not like they have to last forever. After 5 years they are obsolete anyway.

Fraser

It may be for running Windows, but it'll still be running the MacOS side of things perfectly well. (My wife has a 6 year old design Apple Powerbook that runs the latest OS almost as well as my 1 year old iBook, plus there's the 6 year old iBook that's still fine and the 7 year old iMac that's also running the latest OSX with no problems).

So there hasn't been much in the way of hardware design changes in the mac world in the last 6 years? Not much to be proud of. : P

Fraser

Ah, you're forgetting the predictable response of "it was so good in the first place it didn't need changing"... :)

Oh look. As I said, the MacBook (iBook replacement) has just been announced. Core Duo processors, 13.3" Widescreen, 60Gb HD, Combo drive, Wireless and Bluetooth - and one hopes, a similarly robust construction to the iBook.

And £749.

Hardly breaking the bank, is it... especially for a dual-core system.

Richard

Reasonable prices courtesy of Paul and Ringo?

Reasonable prices courtesy of Apple's existing price structure. As I said, the iBooks - when comparable to Centrinos, it's only in the last

12-18 months that they have been hard to justify on performance compared to a PC - have always been 'cheap' for what you get as a total package, and 'reasonable' in terms of the actual cost of the computer/outright cost.

It is why I said "MacBooks coming soon" - I know the MacBook Pro is expensive. If you don't need the FW800/Sudden Motion Sensor/metal case/prestige of the Pro badge/high-end (for a laptop) graphics, it looks like a crap deal.

It would have been madness for Apple to lose the £700ish space, though obviously from the G4 to the Core Duo there has been an increase of £100 or so. This will undoubtedly come down in time, but at this stage, it's about on par with Dell's similar (but much larger) offering, but with Bluetooth and more (and arguably better) software included from the start.

Apple Corps. litigation has had no bearing on Apple's prices; the litigation has been ongoing since the early '80s, and is frankly stupid. I never liked the Beatles music much, but their attitude over this has just been laughable - Macca is a talentless pillock, frankly, have you heard that single he released this year?

Richard

Heh, that's a whole nother discussion, but I've just latched on to the amusement factor that it sounds like "Apple Core" :-)

Can't say I have actually - what's it called? I'm a reasonable size fan of a fair bit of Beatles stuff, but equally the non Lennon/McCartney stuff as the L/M stuff, "Something" being a great example of a fantastic song not written by John + Paul.

And it's only £583 if you happen to have a mate who is travelling to the states... I'm tempted to pick one up when I next go over.

If they/you can get it without you getting hit for tax, definitely.

Richard

Does it come with a magnifying glass for the tiny screen? For that much I got a Toshiba with a Duo Centrino chipset, 100gb HDD, Super DVD drive that does everything including DVD ram, Fingerprint scanner, bluetooth, b/g wireless card, 15.4" widescreen with 1680 x 1050 resolution and 1.5 gig of ram.

Fraser

That sounds like a Toshiba Satellite Pro P100 (but, I can only find 17" models starting at £899 ex VAT for a core duo), but the closest match to the iBook in the UK is the A100 - which in the UK costs £899+VAT with

100Gb and the 15" Display runs to 1280 x 800. As for needing a magnifying glass, please clarify, since a 1680 x 1050 15" screen is going to have rather small pixels ;)

Comparing Apples with Toshibas, the Satellite Pro A100 with 60Gb HD and

512Mb RAM and the Apple MacBook middle option with SuperDrive - a fairer comparison there cannot be - gives us:

Cost: Toshiba, £799 excluding VAT (£938.83) MacBook, £765 excluding VAT (£899)

Screen: MacBook - 13.3" Widescreen at 1280 x 800 Toshiba - 15.4" Widescreen at 1280 x 800

CPU: Toshiba - Centrino (Core Duo) at 1.66GHz, 667MHz Bus MacBook - Core Duo at 2GHz, 667MHz Bus

Video: MacBook - Intel 950 shared video RAM Toshiba - ATI x1400 with I think 128Mb + 128 Shared

Video2: Toshiba - "external monitor" (DVI?) 1600 x 1200 MacBook - MiniDVI, 1920 x 1200 (+ Composite etc via cables)

Net: Toshiba - WiFi, Bluetooth (1.2?), 10/100 BaseTX Macbook - WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 10/100/1000 BaseTX

Power: Toshiba - 2:08 hours claimed, normal adaptor. MacBook - Previous models claim 4hrs+. MagSafe adaptor.

And so on, and so forth. The Tosh has better graphics, but is larger and heavier, with (based on models seen in stores) flimsier construction. It can support more RAM according to the spec, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Apple would also take the 2Gb modules. The Apple comes with more software as standard. The Tosh has a card reader and more USB ports, but only 4-pin FireWire; the Apple has 6-pin firewire.

In other words, there's really not much in it at all - and the Apple is far from overpriced. Plus, have you seen the prices of used Apple kit? Apple laptops don't depreciate as much as PC laptops, for whatever reasons.

You might have reasons for choosing a Toshiba over the Apple - I can think of some (Apple's continuing lack of PC-card/Expresscard on sub 15" models), but "the Apple is overpriced" really cannot be one. I wouldn't choose the Toshiba because I a: work with Mac OS, but also b: like my laptops to not feel like the hinges are going to fall apart after six months of use, and like to save as much space in my camera bag as possible. If I wanted to play games and only carried my laptop occasionally, I'd probably choose the Toshiba for the better graphics - or if I had the extra cash, the MacBook Pro, since the difference between the 15.4" Tosh A100 with the right CPU speed and the 15'4" MacBook Pro is... actually, Toshiba aren't listing anything with a 2Ghz or 2.1GHz CPU, or graphics as good as the MacBook.

Richard

All fair enough but I was talking about a different model.

Fraser

Yep - I couldn't find the match, but on what I could find, I really doubt that a machine with the specs you provided costs less new than the ones I found.

If you're talking about getting one secondhand, that's hardly a comparison. I can buy a used Ferrari for the cost of a Mondeo, after all. If it's new, tell me the model and I'll see what they cost new here.

Richard

It's a Tecra A7. Definitely not second hand.

Fraser

Okay. So you're claiming - in response to my post about the £749 MacBook

- that you got a Tecra A7: "For that much I got a Toshiba with a Duo Centrino chipset, 100gb HDD, Super DVD drive that does everything"

Tecra A7 has been discontinued here (in that it's showing as "no longer available" in those crappy pricerunner type things), or more likely hasn't been launched here yet. Can't find anyone selling them. Figure I've found is TechBuy at $2,999 (£1215) (discounted - rrp $3080), though that's 1.83Ghz. Apple quote prices on their website including GST, with the MacBook coming in at $1,749 (£708) ($1,590 ex). Your Tecra A7's RRP will almost get you a MacBook Pro ($3,199) (£1,296) - in fact, TechBuy have them for $3050, but are listing 1.83GHz which is either old stock, or incorrect - MBPs run 2GHz and 2.16GHz now.

I see the Tecra M5, which costs £1,536 compared to the similar speed MacBook Pro at £1699 (but the Toshiba is lower spec overall and at leat on their website doesn't show a 100Gb drive upgrade - and if you want the metal case, Toshiba want you to buy an M3 which costs >£1,000 and is only single core). No direct comparison.

The M5 most comparable to the MacBook is the 1.83GHz model, which at £1,291 inc VAT compares quite well with the £749 (inc. VAT) MacBook.

Both have Core Duo at 1.83GHz, both have 60Gb HD, 512Mb RAM and Combo drives, WiFi etc. The Toshiba has better graphics (Nvidia 110 with 128Mb RAM), a slightly larger/higher-res screen. Case durability is even addressed, with "part magnesium casework". They even both have "Sudden Motion Sensor" equivalents.

So nearly £500 more gets you a fingerprint reader and better graphics (better at least in having dedicated RAM, and probably overall regardless).

I think this is getting a bit tedious, but I also think that we can safely say that Apple are far from overpriced (and if you're getting the Tecra A7 for the price of the MacBook Pro, you need to be buying them in bulk and reselling them). They don't have something in the £550 range, but what they offer is very competitive for the money overall. It's a lot easier to quanitify now the machines have the same CPUs as Windows hardware.

And for me, being able to legitimately dual-boot Windows and MacOS X on the same laptop is a huge benefit. My current Windows machine is a lethargic dual PIII-450 Dell I've had since 1998 (elsewhere in the office I have a black PIV machine, but I don't use it, it's for product reviews and isn't allowed online).

Richard

but... if you've /got/ windows you seldom /need/ macos...

Oh, and how do you put a value on a right mouse button...

Lol - Can't remember how much my Tosh Tecra A5 was - got it July last year...

... aha - found order conf in my email - Tecra A5 P-M730 60 gig 512 meg 14.1 wide combo XP pro £653.62

that's ex vat.

Tecra M5 2.17 GHz Core Duo / 80 gig / 1 gig / 14" DVD supermulti / XP tablet / Bluetooth £1299 list. 128 meg NVidia Quadro, gigabit, 11 a/b/g, PC card and Expresscard, and a serial port, arriving 31 May.

How many would you like?

Two fingers. You do know that iMacs ship with a two-button mouse now, right? And you get the second one with two fingers on the pad and click. OS X has always supported multi-button mice ;)

A5 is not an M5 or A7 ;)

And single core... 400MHz FSB... equivalent model now is £599 ex VAT (so £41 cheaper than the MacBook Core Duo 1.83GHz), 1.6MHz Celeron M, 256Mb RAM stock (no price on the site for making it 512Mb), 915GM Express (not even the MacBook's 950)... no sudden motion sensor, no magsafe power cord, no built-in camera or remote, no optical digital audio, no gigabyte ethernet, no firewire power (4 pin, not 6 pin), no DVI...

Looks like a nice, compact little machine - but it's not really comparable hardware. When you got it, though, the comparison would have been far more favourable to the Toshiba.

Richard