Question from a Thinkpad user part II

I have a Thinkpad (T60) that I have not been that happy with. Work uses PCs. Once before I tried an Apple and it did not work out. Some of the concerns I had then seem to have been resolved.

Part of the reason I am thinking about an Apple is that it is a good quality computer and if I need a repair, I can just walk it in. Let's take the worst case, working with the Apple software just does not cut it, I can just run Windows in Bootcamp and be where I would be with a PC anyway, right? Just want to make sure I am not missing anything.

 

Well honestly these are not good reason to buy a Mac.

First, the MacBooks will run windows but they are not optimised for it and you will find battery life for example under windows is about half what you get under the Mac OSX. It wont be as snappy in performance either.

Second, actually several makers of PC laptops have better repair situations than a Mac. For a mac you will pay 349 bucks to extend the Apple care to 3 yrs. And for that you haev to take the unit in or ship it in. In contrast, Lenovo or Dell will sell you for about 200 bucks a 3 yr on-side support plan where you just stay iin your home, office etc and technician comes to you next day guaranteed and fixes the unit right before you. They also sell for another hundred bucks accident protection that Apple wont sell you.

I myself am considering buying a macbok but at the end of the day the reasons have to be the actuall qualities of the laptop eg the macbook has the best in class screen and touchpad of any laptop out there. Those are good reasons. But if you are convinced it will break, or if you not sure you will like it.....well dont buy it.

 

Dell's $200 warranty in "IN HOME" after remote diagnostics meaning you have to wait on hold, hopefully get someone you can understand on the phone and then go through a bunch of steps to prove there is a problem. Also if you buy one of their higher end products the price increases.

You said the Mac didn't work out for you before so maybe you should explain a bit. I find that I don't miss Windows at all but everyone uses their system differently.

 

You said the Mac didn't work out for you before so maybe you should explain a bit. I find that I don't miss Windows at all but everyone uses their system differently.[/QUOTE]



Well, I had a few issues. One the MacBook got very hot (the new ones seem better). At the time I used Palm software, and the Apple version of Palm was pathetic. At the time there was not a dedicated Word program for Apple as I recall, which there is now. I gather there are no longer issues of going back and forth for wordprocessing between Apple and a PC.

I have not been that happy with the Thinkpad, which I view as the top of the PC line. With the Apple I can see what I am buying ahead of time, and they are always highly rated. If I new for sure what I was getting with a Thinkpad, I would probably buy one, but I don't....

 

Office macros (vbscript) and certain automation stuff is not available on Office Mac. Also, if your office is very Microsoft heavy (whose isn't), it's a little harder to achieve that seamless Microsoft integration.

I have to loan my PC laptop to my boss for hours each week so that he can get his work done that he cannot do on a Mac. We're talking about integration issues between MS Office and Sharepoint when not using Internet Exploder. He has Fusion installed with Windows Vista on it, but half the time, it hangs on him and then (of course) he blames Windows for the problems. He picked his poison...

 

I'm with ya here man. When it comes to work, you can't put a price on seamless integration.

I cannot rely on Google apps or OpenOffice unless it can guarantee that the document I'm looking at will look that way when I open it up on a client's machine. I can go around opening each of my docs in Office "just to make sure."

 

Beware of low-end consumer opinions.

The MBP's do look as though they're solidly screwed together, and honestly - if the oft-failing quality control isn't having a bad day - it can be. The issue though is that they're not engineered for the kind of duty cycle that the Thinkpads and other mainstream line-of-business machines are. The other problem is that while the support may be delivered with a smile and in (actually English / Irish / American) English, the net effect of Apple ownership can be more downtime than anything else, especially if you buy a business-targeted machine price-comparable with an MBP delivered with onsite support.

While it may be fun to commune at the Temple of Apple for the first few times, when you have to go there time after time to book in your machine because it is not engineered for your (perfectly reasonable from a non-industrial-use standpoint) use and support is arranged for people who aren't for the most part aware what real business computer systems support is, it can get pretty old very quickly.

 

Go with a Toughbook if you are worried about the machine breaking.
Certainly worth a look.
They are not all big and armoured but they are built better and with parts that Panasonic makes themselves mostly so they can be assured of quality control.
You get what you pay for.

Ed

 

For the record,I only posted this once,don't know what happened,sorry.

 

True, but even the thinkpad's QC sucks now since Lenovo bought the brand name from IBM. So QC will be no worse on apple than it is for the current bunch of thinkpads.

As to the Toughbooks. Yes, I know someone who has owned one and swears by it. And SHE abuses it quite often. (I think she takes glee in it).

 

I very much doubt it. Lenovo will have to really hit rock bottom for that to happen.

 

well as a heavy toughbook user, gonna have to agree. Downtime due to hardware is next to 0, now are they pretty to look at .... depends on your taste.

as for abusing them for fun, hey whats WRONG with washing it off in the sink or using a stack of 4 to prop up a car for an oil change?

true, in my situations I need almost 1 spare Mbp for every active one, never had to do that even with the cheapo lenovos, just 2 spares per 8

 

Many thanks for the feedback. That was very helpful.

 

P.S. I note that 2/3 of T 400 users give it a thumbs up, where as over 80% of MacBook Pro (15 inch) give it a thumbs up....

 

most users are happy cause when it breaks they do try to fix it and will normally replace lemons. And yes their support personel are much more polite then Dell or HP.

For me I have to account for downtime and any machine that is down for 1 week a year is a major PITA. a machine down for 8 weeks in 3 years is a nightmare.

 

For me I have to account for downtime and any machine that is down for 1 week a year is a major PITA. a machine down for 8 weeks in 3 years is a nightmare.[/QUOTE]

Your Apple was down for 8 weeks in 3 years?!

 

Many of MY MBP's have gone down repeatedly and I have had to send them off for repair.

Some units when I take into account them being sent back to head offices, or time removing data to transfer to a backup machine sometimes hit 8 weeks downtime in the first year.

Of 47 active units at the 2-3 year stage only 6 have not hit the 8 week mark yet, admittedly none of these machines are babied, they are moved around alot and used like any other latop normally is.

If you have an Apple store near you downtime is usually less but we dont have a good one anywhere close.

 

Nothing is close buy in Canada....

 

well except for open space, good looking women and bars ....... Lots of those close by

atleast shipping times arent usually too bad though usually 2-4 days

 

Ya'll do have great bartenders. Gotta hand that one to ya.

I wonder why Apple doesn't offer accidental coverage anyways. Extended warranties in general are quite profitable.

 

no idea, I get alot of accidental coverage for toughbooks, ASUS, Dell and Lenovo machines... never know when a new staff member is going to do something REALLY stupid

 

Both of them do work. My wife uses them to do her office work on my home laptop. But in any case Microsoft just announced web version or MS office suite, didnt they? So that aint an issue against buying a Mac.

 

Web edition of office isnt all its cracked up to be.

hmmm no access, or outlook, so its another stripped down version of office .. big deal dont we have enough?

http://apcmag.com/microsoft-releases-preview-edition-of-office-web-apps.htm

 

You quoted the wrong guy / post.

 

I've had some bad luck translating powerpoint slides and tables with GoogleDocs. I sent them a few docs and they sent them back with revisions. I opened them up and was thinking, "OK, were you drunk when you made the revisions? Or maybe you had one too many pain pills."

I shake my head thinking, "Why oh why must you be the only person on God's green earth to not have access to Microsoft Office?'

 

everyone has different experiences... a place where I used to work had multiple IT offices to handle taking care of machine all day, every day. Hardly any machines were Macs... probably about 500 to 600 machines, with well over 10,000 total computers (don't you love big government installations)... but percentage wise, there were usually much less issues with the Macs than with the Windows machines, which were mostly Dells and HPs.... but a bad month could really upset that since just a few more dead Macs could really throw off percentages a lot... all that said, I'm really surprised there are a few people here that claim Apples die and have problems so much, because its been very far from that in my experience.

But when it comes to support, especially business side... I don't care how much people say Apples support is so great, I find it near the bottom. They hardly offer anything, you have to lose the machine for a week to mail it in, or drive it somewhere yourself... then they don't always find the problem or fix it right and the machine still doesn't work. That happens with all brands, but at least most of the others will have parts on hand and come out and fix a machine onsite within 24 hours. I really dislike Apples support and their warranty options... but I love the machines so I put up with it.

 

Oh boy. Apple's support options. I could rant about that for days. Your summary reflects my views though. Every other company will fix your laptop that day or even mail your the parts to fix it yourself if you want.

Apple on the other hand thinks we are retarded and can't install crap on our own.

 

I've been pretty lucky with Apple support. There is an Apple authorized repair center a couple blocks down from my college dorm and they get stuff fixed within a day or two unless there needs to be a part that they need mailed. When that happens I keep my notebook until they have the part.

The phone support I've also had good experience with. My USB keyboard broke and they sent me a new one even when it was out of warranty.

 

Not all of us are lucky enough to live down the street from a repair center.

 

aka the lucky part

 

Oh no, sometimes they ask us to. Like when we/I (it's my business after all) pay(d, since I've bumped the plans right down and carry everything needed in-house) ~£40K a year for site support, and an engineer fails to turn up.

 

There seems to be some disjuncture between the posts here and the overall feedback from Apple customers, which rank Apples very high for reliability and service. An issue noted regularly in the posts, however, is the importance of having an Apple store nearby (which I do). Apple owners may give the high rankings because most of them can walk their computers in as opposed to mailing it in. If mailing were my only option for an Apple, I would likely by a Thinkpad with an on site service agreement.

 

The type of user also has a bearing, as does the spread of machines purchaseable in those surveys. Apple is advantaged in many ways when it comes to cross-manufacturer surveys - they're being compared for the most part against "a sub-$500 computer that is a piece of junk".

However, scratch the surface of seemingly favourable, or at least not particularly bad reports such as this ( http://gizmodo.com/5406415/laptop-reliability-study-asus-and-toshiba-come-out-on-top) and you'll notice that Apple is being stacked up against companies whose primary sales by volume would be well-sub-$500 pieces of junk. Asus actually comes out spectacularly well in that survey, given what they primarily peddle.

There are no surveys around which truly compares... well, apples to apples. Even assuming they're anywhere near accurate of course - most of them seem to be linkbait / manufacturer-sponsored.

 

Thanks, Vogelbung, that was useful info. Apples to apples, I like it (grin). I am surprised to hear Toshiba does so well.

 

This has been a beef of mine for years. I always thought is was strange $2K Apple computers were being comared to $1K PCs.

I don't see Car and Driver rating Lexus against the Chevy Malibu. They are going to be rated against cars in that price range, like Infinity.

 

Nothing you've said passes basic logic 101.

If these things are all "junk", then why isnt Apple ahead of them on the survey? Itr should be all the more reason why Apple would look better. But they dont - the look worse.

Besides Apple doesnt manufacture anything at all. it is companies like Foxconn and even Asus that actually put together the products that carry the "Apple label".

Even less logical was the person above that said $2,000 laptops should not be compared to $1,000 ones. I mean just because GM slaps a "Hummer" and a fancy body label on a GMC chassis, should this mean that its invalid to compare the reliability of that product to a GMC Silverado or Ford Explorer SUV? Go figure..

 

/headpalm/

Yes. What you said. Some of us don't have Apple fanboi logic in this subforum, which is why you may be confused.

$2K laptops from Apple should be compared with $2K laptops from other manufacturers. And it should come out in the surveys that $2K laptops from Apple have lower reliability than $1K laptops from other manufacturers. What some (or at least one) of us are saying is that comparing a manufacturer who primarily sells 'sub-$500 computer which is a pile junk' (this is a tweak on an Apple/Jobs quote, not something that the poster made up) against Apple would be painting Apple in an excessively favourable light, without additional info which clearly indicates the breakdown of the classes of laptops sold - and that by comparing by-manufacturer figures only, it continues to place Apple in leagues they have no place in reality, regardless of what some of the more rabid enthusiasts here and elsewhere believe.

I would agree with Jobs in that it is impossible to make a sub-$500 computer that is not a pile of junk. What gets me is why Apple can't make an over-$2,000 computer that is not, relatively speaking, a pile of junk either.

 

I agree. A sub $500 is going to be a machine I can't depend my paycheck on. However, a $2K machine doesn't automatically mean can depend on.

 

There's no many surveys and information out there right now. It's hard to know which is providing the best information. The devil's in the details, which are rarely provided.

I'm curious, unless I missed it, in what way has your T60 failed to live up to your expectations? The T60 is held in pretty high regard by ThinkPad enthusiasts.

 

Just received a MBP for work and I can say that I am about 95% integrated with the Microsoft world. There are only 2 things I cannot do: 1) Connect to Office Communication Server and 2) Connect to the VPN.

I was extremely surprised how decent the integration was with Sharepoint, Office, and Exchange. However, without Visio and Project, I still have to remote desktop into a Windows PC to access those software. My office also use InfoPath, but I have no need for it and so I can't provide any feedback on that.

 

Crossover Mac officially supports both Visio and Project... or you could use a virtual machine... better than having to remote desktop.

 

Thanks. That looks a lot like Wine.

 

You mean you have to pay for that?
It is based on Wine and Wine is free...
What a joke...

 

Well at least CodeWeavers gives back to the Wine project, unlike some *cough* Cedega*cough*. Some may find Crossover easier to work with. I've had both on my machine before (managed to nab a copy during the Lame Duck challenge. I may just buy a copy again some other time).

 

Crossover for Mac is based on Wine.. Wine is free...

Crossover Mac is more than just Wine though.... they officially support many apps, they have specific work arounds put in for certain apps, their builds of wine do run differently. Also on the Mac they Have their own custom build of an X11 server to run Wine in that runs Wine very well, unlike the sucky Xquartz/X11.app Apple has on Macs.... theres things theirs can do that you simply cannot do using free Wine and X11.app.... besides better performance, the biggest one is they support full RANDR which lets games in Crossover switch between full screen and windowed, as well as adjust the resolution. This is something you cannot get in Wine on a Mac without Crossover....

I make a program called Wineskin, made for using open source Wine to make ports and wrappers for Win based software to run on Macs... I know Wine and Crossover very well, and sadly, Crossover is worth the money difference between it and using normal free Wine.

 

So what issues are you guys referring to w/ Bootcamp?

I need to do 3D modelling in Solidworks, and I'm about to make the Thinkpad -> MBP jump as well. My plan was to install Windows 7 64-bit, is this not possible?

 

its possible.

you need an external mouse to do competent 3d work in general, and you will need to use the external mouse in general in windows (pretty much) because of the wonky windows trackpad drivers. you will also need to be plugged into the wall while working in windows 7 x64, because the battery life is pretty poor.

if you can deal with those caveats, the macbook pro will be a competent enough machine for your needs coming from a thinkpad.

you don't want to do serious 3d modeling work in crossover. of course, in my opinion, you don't want to do nearly anything with crossover. i have found that windows ends up making more sense for me as far as trying to run windows softwares.

 

As I started law school this past August, I switched from my white MacBook (2006 model) to a ThinkPad T400. I had an iBook G4 before the MacBook, and I love the Apple way of life for a while.

However, the iBook had to be sent to Apple twice for repairs, and took almost two weeks both time (from shipment to receiving it again). Also, the white MacBook had a few issues which required it spend a couple days in the Apple store. I barely ever moved it, and first the case cracked. Then, the keyboard on the new case has sticky keys (all of them, not sure what was up with that).

My T400 only had one minor problem, an overly-noisy key, and Lenovo sent me a new keyboard overnight (3-year next-day warranty plan). I didn't even have to send them the old one, and zero downtime.

Also, based on the way I treat the T400, my MacBook would have been dead 20 times over. Lenovo T series laptops are tough.

 

What were the repairs for?

Apple hardware always sucks in their first 2 or 3 iterations, whether is the iPod or Macbooks; I'm hoping by now, they got their formula down right.

 

The iBook was put together improperly around the latch, and the latch (or clasp) did not function properly. There was also a gap in the plastic as a result. It took two tries of sending it to Apple for them to fix the latch, and the plastic gap was never fixed (even after a supervisor saw photos of it via e-mail and said, "That's definitely not put together correctly").

My MacBook did the infamous plastic case cracking thing near the trackpad. Apple replaced the entire top piece (keyboard, trackpad, etc.), and now the keyboard keys get stuck down for no apparent reason. Also, the new keyboard is noticeably cheaper feeling than the old one.