Buying a new laptop

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I'd replace Dell with Lenovo myself

As would I.  I don't particularly trust Dell's consumer line and never really have.  The higher end professional stuff is ok, though, and the support for them is much better, too.  Not really thrilled with HP, either, for that matter, other than maybe some of their higher end stuff, for similar reasons.

My base model MacBook I'm using now was actually pretty reasonable for what I got at the time, largely because Micro Center had a semi-permenent $200 off deal on them for some reason.  The other ones I was looking at at the time (mostly mid-range Asus and Lenovo models) were fairly comparable for something of similar quality and only slightly higher specs.  Of course, now that Apple's discontinued the cheap model, no such thing is available anymore.  Between that and the scary things going on in OS X 10.7 (if I wanted my computer to use the iOS interface (which I don't) I'd get an iPad), I'll probably just end up with a nice ThinkPad next time around at this rate, because they've largely retained their level of quality over the years.

If your scared about some iOS UI changes added to OSX, I'm surprised your not running from Windows 8 which is attempting to be a universal OS with Windows 7 phone interfaces added into it.  I have windows 7, but am not crazy about the idea of the phone's UI being added to it....we'll see the closer they get to release date.

just sayin  

King

[Nalgas]

If your scared about some iOS UI changes added to OSX, I'm surprised your not running from Windows 8 which is attempting to be a universal OS with Windows 7 phone interfaces added into it.  I have windows 7, but am not crazy about the idea of the phone's UI being added to it....we'll see the closer they get to release date.

I'm somewhat concerned about that, too.  Win7 is actually the first version of Windows I genuinely like for general purpose use.  I liked NT4 and Win2k enough for what I used them for at work, but for personal use at home, I was never really happy with anything until 7.  That's a bit of an understatement.  More like somewhere between despised and grudgingly tolerated, depending on which version and what I was doing.  Heh.  Anyway, aside from the continuing lack of a satisfying Unix layer and the occasional things that have persisted so long without being updated that they've become anachronisms, Win7's finally pretty ok, so I'm a little worried about them screwing with that.

However, there is a major difference.  Apple is very "You will do it our way or no way at all!" about things.  They will probably change even more stuff in 10.8, and the stuff that's optional in 10.7 and can still be reverted will probably no longer be an option at that point.  The advantage of that approach is that you can maintain a relatively consistent platform and institute changes fairly quickly, even on a rather large scale, whether it's hardware or software.  They seem to take two years for things to be introduced/optional, two for them to be mandatory, and then after that whatever they replaced isn't supported anymore.  You can still use it, but you're on your own.  Great if you like shiny new things, specifically their new things in the form they present them, but it can get frustrating if your needs and theirs go in different directions, especially if you're a power user of any kind, and especially if you're a developer.  It worked well for me for several years, though.

MS, on the other hand, tends to bend over backward for developers and for backward compatibility, so I have a feeling that there's a much better chance of whatever crap they throw in being avoidable or disablable.  You can still disable Aero and all the associated features and switch back to the rather painful Windows Classic theme in Win7, if you really want, after all, along with most of the services and whatnot it normally runs.  Even if not, Win7 will be supported for much longer than 10.6 will be; I'm pretty sure the new MBA won't even run anything older than 10.7, and I doubt anything else that comes out from now on will, either.  They do keep sort of making attempts at winning people over over the years with various features and heading in different directions, but I think they still realize that one of their biggest strengths is the massive army of developers for their platform, so hopefully they'll keep that in mind and keep something usable underneath whatever crap they're putting on top.

If all else fails, I can always go back to Linux or something.  Heh.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

That's how Apple has run and many people are rather happy with that.  Its a constantly evolving system and for me, I rather like that idea and have liked it on the mobile phone/pad.  Though I'm not sure how I would react if my desktop did that, since I don't have an OSX system.  Had Windows 7 not been as good as it was, I would have probably looked at an iMac.  As it is, I only use their mobile technology, which I've been more than happy with. 

Can't deny, $30 for Lion is a whole lot easier to swallow than a 3-tiered pricing scheme that is confusing and not very clear on what exactly you, the user, are getting.  And I'm tired of the MS Office suite, which feels like its been going downhill since 2000.  Most of the recent changes I can see have been visual, but not even in the good way.  It seems to get slower and more confusing each edition we get.  But because the rest of the world still uses them, we still have to have these office suites...a vicious circle.  About the only one I use is Word now, and its overkill for what I use it for. Wordpad would work for the papers I write. 

As for the backwards compatibility, well, I think the majority of users are still using Windows XP.  So in a way, they have to, or risk angering a lot of people.  But I get your point and your right, that is certainly nice. 

King

And holy moly did we go off on a tangent. 

[Nalgas]

That's how Apple has run and many people are rather happy with that.  Its a constantly evolving system and for me, I rather like that idea and have liked it on the mobile phone/pad.

Yeah, I know plenty of people who are very happy with it, particularly on their phones, but also on their computers.  It suits some types of people/usage situations better than others.  I was very happy with it for a long time when they didn't screw with too much that I relied on, because I could actually have a Unix system on a laptop that all my stuff would run on but still have proper power management and wireless networking and everything without spending three weeks dicking around only to give up in frustration (Linux was fine on a desktop back then, but not so much on laptops usually).

Can't deny, $30 for Lion is a whole lot easier to swallow than a 3-tiered pricing scheme that is confusing and not very clear on what exactly you, the user, are getting.  And I'm tired of the MS Office suite, which feels like its been going downhill since 2000.  Most of the recent changes I can see have been visual, but not even in the good way.  It seems to get slower and more confusing each edition we get.  But because the rest of the world still uses them, we still have to have these office suites...a vicious circle.  About the only one I use is Word now, and its overkill for what I use it for. Wordpad would work for the papers I write.

Can't argue with any of that.  I hate the pricing and activation and all of that nonsense for MS products.  I've never really liked Office much and don't have/install/use it if I can possibly avoid it.  Their developer stuff is pretty decent, but in general I don't really use much of their stuff other than the OS itself.

As for the backwards compatibility, well, I think the majority of users are still using Windows XP.  So in a way, they have to, or risk angering a lot of people.  But I get your point and your right, that is certainly nice.

In my opinion, they've actually erred too far on the side of compatibility, historically, which is what has caused a lot of the security problems of the years.  They could stand to drop things that are 20+ years old and clearly broken and a known serious hazard before someone does something horrible with them, not after.  Well, at least they changed their attitude about that after XP.  Apple goes too far in the opposite direction, though, where things are dropped almost immediately.  It's kind of depressing sometimes how much easier it is to get old Windows/DOS software and games running on OS X than it is to run old Mac stuff.

And holy moly did we go off on a tangent.

Isn't that kind of a requirement around here?  Heh.