Macbook uses?

Unibody Macbook 2.4ghz:

Is it only made for pretty much netbook stuff:

- surfing the web
- email
- chat
- word processing

And is the screen useless for watching dvd's?

 

A standard macbook?
It has it's uses in... umm...
Yea, you kinda got it all listed....

Screen is good for normal DVDs, not HD though

 

Yup, that's basically it these days.

 

I've seen alot of video's on youtube of guys with the unibody macbooks playing games in bootcamp "COD 4, Oblivion, Team Fortress 2" without any problems.

Plus I also play World of Warcraft on mine occasionally, runs fine, and the unibodys are a bit faster than mine.

 

And the bolded is the clincher, isn't it?

 

Just like any other 13" notebook or smaller is designed for netbook only stuff by your reasoning.

The performance of the 45nm Core 2 Duo CPU in the Macbook will outperform any Intel Atom CPU by miles, and the 9400m graphics is much better than Intel GMA. This means you can run applications such as Photoshop, Final Cut, or Lightroom, or any other CPU intensive task (for example ripping DVDs, running IDEs).

If you think the 13" 1280x800 screen is too small, you could always connect the machine to a bigger monitor. And 1280x800 is pretty good for 720p videos.

 

That unibody MacBook is pretty fast. You could play some games on it, but it will not beat a desktop PC with the latest video card. So no Crysis at high settings. Maybe on low settings.

If you are going to use it more as a "mobile" pc vs. a desktop replacement, then you should be satisfied with the MacBook.

 

i would say the current 9400m macbook is what a notebook should be, small and powerful(just enough). too bad it came with a lower-than-standard screen. intel video card is a pity.

 

To some (that means me, and I guess quite a bit others), there's much more to a laptop than the speed of the CPU/graphics card. To someone like me, it truly is a supersized netbook. And although it will run, say Final Cut Pro, I'd have trouble getting my stuff into it, since it has no expresscard slot and no firewire. Same goes for the bigger MBs (slot is useless, and so is the chip used the fw-port). Those, I guess, are simply horrendously oversized netbooks. Heck, they even have the gloss perfectly incorporated

 

The MacBook is much faster than a netbook. Netbooks typically only have single-core 1.86GHz Intel Atom processors and a terrible integrated video card. You could do some pretty heavy multitasking and run many resource-intensive applications on a MacBook, plus the MacBook is thinner than a typical netbook.

 

There are more parameters to consider than CPU speeds.
It's true that the MB is thinner than a typical netbook. It also has less ports than a typical netbook and it has a much larger footprint which translates into more volume and weight.
A good thing about it? Well, there's more vertical resolution, and the keyboard is larger than a 10" netbook's ditto.

 

How is that a clincher? Means when I wanna get my stuff done and love using the OS I have OSX. If I wanna play around on some of the games I already have copies of I can run bootcamp for my games. So I get the best of both worlds.

 

The Macbooks can do MUCH more MUCH better than ANY netbook...

people claiming its just as good as a netbook is only talking about how they would choose to use it. thats like me saying that a $10,000 Dell Workstation is just as good as a $500 desktop I homebuild, cuz it plays all my games great, all my email, and internet stuff...

how useful a computer is depend on the user...

 

Talk about twisting the facts
Did I not tell you that with the occurence of the unibodies, without firewire on the small one, with nonworking firewire (Agere chipset) on the bigger one and a nonworking expresscard slot on the bigger ones (under osx with a fw adaptor in the slot), the computer is as useless to me as a netbook. Less useful, in fact, because I can count at least three netbooks with a working EC slot.

That does in no way mean my needs can be fulfilled with a netbook, it means that the hardware an OS limits me so much that I can get as much or more productivity from a netbook. However, take a look at my sig. Computer number two fulfills most of my needs, and with a (working) expresscard-FW adaptor will fulfill all of them, allowing me to actually do my work. Something I wouldn't be able to do on a MacBook, just like I wouldn't be able to do it on a netbook.

It's the clincher in your post because Apple use the same hardware as anyone else, and when you tried to state how "capable" the MacBooks were, you used an example where people used bootcamp (aka. booted into another OS) to make it "capable".

 

In your particular situation, a Macbook would be as useful to you as a netbook. However, you should not generalise, otherwise you might as well say that an 1984 Apple II is as good as a Sun Fire V440 server, because they both cannot run Windows.

 

It's not generalising. The thing is, that I'm not asking more of it than I used to. I'm not asking that it should do something it couldn't do before, and I'm not asking it to do anything else but "just work" as intended. That is not at all the same as your analogy.

I am aware of the CPU/GPU/HDD is far more capable than a netbook, and that is has a bigger screen and keyboard, but even the USB connection is slower under OS X than under windows, which frankly makes the netbooks a better choice hands down – unless you don't connect anything to your computer except those iTunes-tie-downs (iPhones and iPods).

Is it a harsh way of stating things – perhaps, and in some ways a bit exaggerated, but except for size (which isn't necessarily a good thing), I can't see what I could do on a MB I couldn't do on a netbook. Sure, it will render PS-files much faster, but if I were to use PS, I would work on real photos, and I would want to get them into the computer as fast as possible and preferably without loose adaptor dongles and whatnot.

Is my case "special", then? No, I don't think so, even though I recognise that my field of work (mostly audio) is rather small - a niche in a niche - but no matter what I can think of I use a computer for, many of those things means I have to get something to and from the computer, and everything has a deadline (I'm competing with people who doesn't have to spend their time figuring out workarounds constantly).

 

I use my Macbook everyday for work & at home for play.
The average day includes:
* Playing with 4D images... editing, rendering, video export in Photoshop, ImageJ etc
* My complete music library (over 100Gb)
* iPhoto library (1000's)
* Diary/lab book with iCal
* Lots of Office08 usage writing papers, putting figures for publication together etc.
* Watching TV/movies/DVDs at home (hooked upto a projector)
* Email n' web
* So all in all lots of multitasking.

Could a netbook do these things. No not for me. I tried lots instore, and after about 5min I was frustrated by the small keyboard, trackpad, and screen. For me the macbook is a great size & weight for taking to and from work with enough power to get all I need done, without being too small for all day use.
a

 

I fully agree with this. IMO, only the buyer can decide if a MacBook is good enough for his/her needs.

 

i think you are misunderstanding. I believe you that your having this problem, and its not as useful to you as a netbook would be. The problem I have is you overgeneralizing in many places and saying it is no better than a netbook. That statement doesn't imply anything about your usages, your basically saying in all cases that Macbooks are no better than a netbook. Maybe English isn't your first language, and I am reading things differently than you mean them, so I'm just trying to point out that for your uses this is true, not in all/most cases.

 

My aluminum macbook is great. Provided you do not need firewire or expresscard the machine is an engineering marvel. I have 4GB ram and a 500GB HD in a very small 13.3 inch platform that is very thin. I run Windows Vista Business under bootcamp and it scores a 5.1 rating which is stellar performance wise for such a small laptop. If you use OSX and windows, it doesn't get much better. If you only use windows then I wouldnt suggest it. My only complaint is that I love both OSX and VISTA and I find myself switching between the OS's way too much and I have tried all of the different platforms such as vmware, parallels and virtualbox and the performance is just not good enough to move from bootcamp.

 

I am saying that, although I examplify my opinion with my own specific needs, that the hardware and crippled OS (yes, it's crippled), has by now become as limited as netbooks. Yes, it's possible to run something demanding a faster CPU/better GPU, I'll give you that, but my argument is that a macbook will only be satisfactory if you have no more needs than what a netbook can give you. To me, a computer is so much more than cpu and gpu-speeds.
It's functionality.
And even though I don't have any use for, say, a dedicated keypad, I recognise that this is a really useful feature. Speaking of which, Apple even removed the num-lock "keypad" on recent Macbooks, which were present on earlier generation computer, they have removed what-its-name display port (as you can see, I don't know much about those things personally), they have in effect removed any and all choice for FW for people working with audio, they have removed quite a bit of choice for pro video people (no fw on the smaller, more portable MBs) and so on.
In fact, by now, they have removed so many physical features all the while crippling the os, that _overall_ it has less potential than a netbook. That is my point. Of course, if all you (a general "you") want is to connect you iPhone and/or iPod, the MB and MBP is much better. But the moment you want to work with real photos, real audio (in particular), or even video, there are much better out there. Things that actually work, even though some of those choices might be a bit slower, but at least they work.

Final Cut Pro is a joke. They did a great job, and really did something for the industry, but Apple not fixing pressing problems AND nixing firewire was not a good move. It doesn't matter much that a product is capable of running something, if it's impossible or nigh impossible to get the stuf into the computer to begin with.

CS4: Although not Apple's fault (alone), but CS4 on a mac is 32bit, whereas you can get the same suite as 64bit on windows. Yes, I can boot into windows, but apart from license isssues, what's the point in buying overpriced crippled hardware to run another OS in order to do your work? Connections are important, and the implementation of same is eqully important. It doesn't matter that I have a 250BHP engine in the shed if I have no wheels it can push whereas I can do most of what I want to do with a small car with an engine with a miserly 100BHP. It's slower than what the same car with 250BHP could do, but that big engine is sitting in the garage, so it will do nothing. I can't live by theory, benchmarks, listen to the roar, or anything like that. I actually have to go somewhere (to stay in the car-realm).

 

ok,name few things that you want but can't do on your macbook?

also,please,can you tell me the difference between 32bit and 64 bit photoshop?

 

I have already mentioned quite a lot. Not just in this thread, but also in this:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=372677

In all honesty, I wasn't thinking about PS, but audio and video.
But why should I need to tell you the difference? What kind of pseudo argumentation is that?
You try, rhetorically to focus on one thing, in an effort to toss the ball over in my court, all so you can get away with ignoring almost the entirety of my post and the arguments in it.
But, anyway, here it is:
RAM and thus the ability to work with bigger files.
Now, could you stop the red-herring efforts?

I can't help but wonder if you actually read the posts, or simply look for something you can rhetorically attack in an attempt to find a small thing that might not be aboely correct and thus, by extension, "prove" the rest wrong. Lo-gi-cal-fal-la-cy.

 

It sounds to be like Persnickety has reached a stage that is beyond reasoning. It is clear that a Macbook does not serve the needs he requires from a computer, but it also seems that he is convinced beyond any doubt that a Macbook is as useful as, or even less useful than, a netbook for everybody.

Such preaching of hatred is severely frowned upon at NBR, and disciplinary action will be taken against your forum account should you continue to create posts solely for the reason of dismissing arguments put forward by other members because they differ from yours.

Please remember that there are many other people out there that have different needs than you, and that don't mind some things you might find unbearable. Your actions can be seen as flame baiting, which may result in a permanent ban of your forum account.