Sony VAIO SZ Vs. Apple MacBook Comparison Review

If you want to call me clueless for my own personal preferences, I can't see a real point in continuing the discussion. For what it's worth, Tiger and Panther were never bugfests for me in my personal use (even the initial versions). I'm not discounting that there weren't problems, just that they weren't the horrible experiences for me.

Also, just to explain, I only use OS X at work currently. My home computer is a Windows XP machine that I built, and it generally works fine, although I've had a fair share of problems with over the years (of course, this is probably because I'm clueless, I guess).

All I can say is that I generally find OS X to be more pleasant to work with, for the most part; I primarily use MS Word, Photoshop CS2 and TextWrangler and BBEdit for text editing, so I don't have any particular demanding tasks that I use my computer for. I just like the OS X environment more.

Again, I would maintain that "better" is a matter of personal experience. Clearly from your situations, you've had a lot of problems with it and thus OS X is not better for your needs. For my needs though, OS X is "better" for me. That doesn't mean I can't deal with XP; as I mentioned above, XP is my sole operating system at home right now. I will probably not own a personal Mac OS X machine until the upcoming MacBook and MacBook Pro revisions. And I will probably set up a dual-boot of Vista when I do get them.

-Zadillo

 

Should I make a list here, starting with such basic things like disappearing BT keyboard in Tiger etc, seriously?

You're free to guess...

However when I said XP is very stable since SP2 it also meant to say XP was a total bugfest beforehand, no question about it.

Fair enough. I don't because I hate every UI. They all sux including XP or OS X - and latter is the worst for me.

Vista is a waaay overhyped, bloated OS, I'm using it for months now.
Just realized yesterday that the greatest-latest MS OS' copy progress indicator by default doesn't tell me the name of the file it's copying/moving...

 

Fair enough.

I'll admit I haven't spent much time with Vista; my only hands on experience with it has been playing around with it last weekend at CompUSA with some of the new Vista laptops they had. I can't say much about long-term use or anything, but my initial impression of it at least was fairly positive.

-Zadillo

 

Vista would be a fine upgrade between $50-100 but it's completely ridiculous for hundreds. Plainly arrogant, disgusting ripoff.

 

I'm guessing the pricing perhaps made more sense with some of the stuff that had been planned and then removed like WinFS, etc.

 

As I was reading this thread I felt the need to share my hands on experience between both the MB, MBP and the Sony SZ (330 specifically).

Sony SZ:
Light weight.
Dedicated GPU on the fly.
Doesn't scuff or fade as badly as the MB (black).
YOU CAN UPGRADE THE CPU! (This was the deal breaker)
The LED LCD back light does make for a better picture.
PCMCIA and Express port.

We have MB and MBP in use by our security department. The biggest problem we have is soldered CPU. The cpu upgrade in the Vaio takes about 30 minutes to complete. Also, the hardware from the 1 series remains the same up to the current 4 series. So, as we've bought new SZ laptops with faster cpu's the older models with 1.66Ghz C.D clients wanted C2D chips. The Mac required us to buy all new hardware just to get the C2D chip.

MB

Stronger Wifi signal.
Smaller footprint.
Slot Load CD/DVD

I personally like the look of the MB over the SZ. If I had the resources I'd duplicate the case and throw in the SZ hardware less the DVD drive. I personally enjoy OSX, not as much as my customized Gentoo DR17 OS but both have their ups and downs. If you compare the performance between OS X 10.4.8 and Gentoo with Enlightenment E17 and functionality I'd pick G-E17 however some hardware like my EVDO card don't support Linux but does have MAC drivers.

Bottom Line:

If you want a MBP - GLOSSY screen, with the ability to upgrade the cpu, dedicated GPU option and less weight than the MB go with the Sony. You can find the SZ330 with T5500 cpu, 512RAM on Newegg for under $1200, upgrade to 2GB $180 when you want a C2D 2.33Ghz processor you can when they're more affordable instead of investing in a new laptop.

 

Just out of curiosity, for the clients that had the older Core Duo-based SZ's, what exactly did they need to upgrade to the C2D CPU's for?

Either way, I would think the ultimate deciding factor would probably be OS X.... I mean, either you do want OS X, and thus you would mainly choose between the MB and MBP, or you don't want it, in which case the SZ is a pretty logical choice (unless your dedicated GPU needs are more demanding, in which case the GeForce 7400 doesn't specifically compare to the X1600). But either way, the SZ, the MB and MBP are all pretty different I think.