MacBook Pro or MacBook Air?

[endoftheroad]

Originally Posted by Fog Bank

Here is an Apple 20 inch monitor which is refurbished. Prices out at $200.

http://www.overstock.com/Electronics...6/product.html

Combine that with this adaptor from the Apple Store which prices out at $29.

Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter - Apple Store (U.S.)

Fog,
That nailed my display questions. Thanks a mil.
I just re-measured and I could get a 24 in there comfortably if I wanted.

[Fog Bank]

Originally Posted by endoftheroad

Fog,
That nailed my display questions. Thanks a mil.
I just re-measured and I could get a 24 in there comfortably if I wanted.

You are very welcome. Glad I could help. I'll look around for a larger monitor but I suspect the price point will increase dramatically.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by RainDog

........

The only exception is people who are just doing email and web browsing, but if that is all you are doing why would you buy a $1200 laptop? Get an iPad.

I odn't know what an iPad is going for these days, but if that's all you're doing you can get a W8.1 laptop for $300, with a 15" screen to watch movies on a boat and do the internet thing. Only downside is that W machines don't have HDMI outputs for that price, but for $35 you can get Chromecast.

Your boat, your laptop, your choice.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Fog Bank

You are very welcome. Glad I could help. I'll look around for a larger monitor but I suspect the price point will increase dramatically.

Just saw an article in today's newspaper: Monoprice. New guys on the block for certain electronic stuff. I haven't looked into yet myself.

I'm running an almost four year old Compaq laptop, 250GB hard drive, 2G of RAM, and it's fine for the simple stuff. $247 plus tax in 2010, same thing is pretty much the same price today. celeron processor, OMG!!!

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

It's BSD Unix, from the University of Berkeley. Much like Linux yes.

Actually, it's a Mach kernel, from Carnegie Mellon.

[Fog Bank]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Just saw an article in today's newspaper: Monoprice. New guys on the block for certain electronic stuff. I haven't looked into yet myself.

I'm running an almost four year old Compaq laptop, 250GB hard drive, 2G of RAM, and it's fine for the simple stuff. $247 plus tax in 2010, same thing is pretty much the same price today. celeron processor, OMG!!!

We were at Best Buy the other night picking up a few laptops for the Admiral's new employees and managed to get decent deals. We paid about $380 per laptop. Both were open box deals. Before stumbling onto those she was considering an Asus running the i5 processor with a 500 gig HD. The amount of RAM I don't recall. The Asus was selling for $399 I believe.

Thanks for the tip on Monoprice! I'll check them out.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Only downside is that W machines don't have HDMI outputs for that price

and probably come with the beloved W8 as standard

[colemj]

Originally Posted by RainDog

and games, compilers, databases, ......

Quite a few games already require 4 gig min (e.g. Running the game - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W)). That will be 8 soon, and that is minimum, not optimal. I run my VM at 8 gigs, since I need to run Visual Studio and SQL Server in the VM.

If would have no qualms about buying a $500 laptop with 8 gigs of RAM, but a $1200 - $2000 laptop should be able to handle 16 gigs ram minimum. There is just no reason to to support that much RAM and most people will need it long before the hardware goes bad.

The only exception is people who are just doing email and web browsing, but if that is all you are doing why would you buy a $1200 laptop? Get an iPad.

If you are doing all of that, and it is business critical, why would you choose an Ultrabook/Air form factor with all the limitations associated with it? It seems silly to argue the limitations of a particular type of computer when you need a different type altogether.

Mark

[CarlF]

Do you really need a laptop?

Laptops are on their way out except in specialized applications like video editing. While I have an MBA aboard, I now hardly use it. The Ipad is the boat's preferred computer. More reliable than a laptop, much lower power use, cooler, easier to store, much less expensive to buy. The video editing packages are even plenty good for you-tube type productions.

Mine has Verizon cellular that provides LTE speeds pretty much everywhere in the US. I also have a $100 Apple TV hooked to the television so that I can wirelessly stream movies to the TV using Airplay.

I also have a wireless flash card reader with a 128gb flash card for backups and extra storage.

[kas_1611]

Carl raises a very valid point about whether or not one needs a laptop given what you can do on a tablet these days.

Tablets will charge from the ancillary socket (cigar port), are lighter to carry and you can watch a movie on them anywhere. All plus points but if, like me, you need something you can also crunch numbers on, do some basic editing of photos and write a formal letter then you really need a proper computer with a proper keyboard. Yeah I know you can get a BT keyboard for the iPad (other tablets are available) but they kind of defeat the purpose of the tablet in my mind.

At the end of the day it all boils down to what you need to do on the computer and how much you want to spend.

Keiron

[endoftheroad]

Here are a couple reasons,

MacBooks have larger screens than an iPad and are faster than an iPad.

I still have the original iPad, it's slow and it only gets 3G.

Are you saying that there isn't a 12 volt power cord available for the MacBooks?

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

All plus points but if, like me, you need something you can also crunch numbers on, do some basic editing of photos and write a formal letter then you really need a proper computer with a proper keyboard. Yeah I know you can get a BT keyboard for the iPad (other tablets are available) but they kind of defeat the purpose of the tablet in my mind.

At the end of the day it all boils down to what you need to do on the computer and how much you want to spend.

I agree.

Although this could be a generation-gap thing.

Anyone up on gaps these dayds?

[kas_1611]

Originally Posted by endoftheroad

Here are a couple reasons,

MacBooks have larger screens than an iPad and are faster than an iPad.

I still have the original iPad, it's slow and it only gets 3G.

Are you saying that there isn't a 12 volt power cord available for the MacBooks?

I run my MacBook on a 3G wireless (via Mifi) which gets upto 21mbps, which is faster than most hardline broadband connections I've been on around the globe.

The 11in screen is only just bigger than the iPad/other tablets, especially when watching a movie - fine on a plane but I prefer a larger screen when slumming in the saloon of an evening, plus the sound is better from the MacBook (IMHO).

The power adapter I have on my MacBook takes 100 to 240v 1.5A 50/60hz in and converts it to 16.5v 3.65A so it will not run on a standard 12v supply without a different converter or an inverter. Tablets will run from a 12v to 5v USB converter and I have one of these for charging my android phone, my wife's tablet and our BT GPS gizmo.

Keiron

[RainDog]

Originally Posted by colemj

If you are doing all of that, and it is business critical, why would you choose an Ultrabook/Air form factor with all the limitations associated with it? It seems silly to argue the limitations of a particular type of computer when you need a different type altogether.

Mark

I have a MacBook Pro.

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

The power adapter I have on my MacBook takes 100 to 240v 1.5A 50/60hz in and converts it to 16.5v 3.65A so it will not run on a standard 12v supply without a different converter or an inverter. Tablets will run from a 12v to 5v USB converter and I have one of these for charging my android phone, my wife's tablet and our BT GPS gizmo.

Keiron

I have a "cigarette lighter" 12v charger for my MBP/MBA when I am on the boat.

Over the years I have found surfing on the iPad too limiting. Sometimes it's been down to the sites runny flash, other times it's just because the sites are not designed very well for mobile devices. Also they are useless for photos beyond mobile shots. I have not bothered buying anything even to simply download photos from a real camera to the iPad. It might be a different matter if I could download photos from a card to an external drive using the iPad to manage it.

I effectively bought my MBA as a replacement for my original iPad. I did buy a iPad mini for when I want to keep it simple.

On the boat I would probably be happy with a 13" MBA with max memory & SSD plus a Thunderbolt external drive for backups and photo storage. Although if it suited my nav station design, maybe I'd have a 11" MBA and a 17"-21" external monitor