mac book pro advice pls

Beedub

Lifer
 Sutton Coldfield
hi guys Saturday/Sunday im going to go and pick up a mac book pro with 17" screen, just wondering am i going to be able to jump straight in and use this thing confidently or is it going to be a slow learning curve, im used to windows based units....
also also my stuff is backed up online from a windows pc, whats the likely hood their will be an issue when it comes to downloading things like my pics ect ect??

finally any other advice on the mac book pro??? is it worth the money?? it seems expensive compared to other high end laptops on the market...?? just alittle general advice, review would be great please, this unit will be at home, work and litterally never be turned off, so it needs to be very reliable.
 
No its very easy, it will be a learning cuve bcause things are in different places and the flie system works slightly differently. Also you have a dock instead of a start menu. But you will get used to it very quickly if you are computer savvy. Makes the computer experience much more enjoyable. I find myself a lot more productive on a mac.

Shouldn't be too much problem macs are designed to work with PCs now. As a mac user for the last 7 years I never want to go back and im sure youll feel the same pretty quickly.

I had a 17" found it cumbersome and heavy for a portable machine, but you cant beat the screen was fantastic. Swapped it for a 13" MBP, plus I can add it to an external monitor if needed. But also have a Mac Pro and a couple of iMacs. Depends what your use for it is, im a graphic designer and photographer so a 17" was my first mac through Uni and I used it as a desktop mac, but then got a Mac pro desktop and the 17" wasn't very portable so was useless to me the 13" filled my needs for on location work and then it seamlessly syncs with my mac pro for my needs. Very reliable had over 7 macs in 7 years with 3 being long termers over 3 years service each, 2 laptops 5 desktops. Three iMacs for work and another for home use and the Pro. Using them in a professional environments (getting banged heavy use etc) and they all work flawlessly the only thing I have had replaced is the disc drive.. but these are crap in all laptops as dust gets into them easily. Also had a few batteries once they get to 500 cycles they are useless. But now replaced the disc drive with a second HDD and put an SSD in the original drive bay so got 1.25TBs of data in it which helps when showing clients work etc.

They are very reliable in my experience, unlike the windows machines I have used. They also stay quick for longer than PCs without a format but still do a format maybe twice a year just to make sure data is organised and the machine is running at peak efficiency. But I have TBs of data running through these machines a year so best to have the data all linear without any gaps. Once you know what your doing it doesn't take much longer than 2hrs and most of that is letting its do its thing by reading writing and installing. But usualy have a back up drive which has been cloned with a fresh install and back up the original data and write back on top makes the process easier.

Im ready for a new MBP tho and im going to go for a MBA 11" as powerful as my MBP now and very portable and I dont need it to be a powerhouse as I use a desktop for important stuff. Looks cool clients are impressed. Just waiting for them to upgrade it. The screen is great, fantastic resolution, hope they add these screens to the rest for the lineup.

Obviosuly just my opinion but I use these machines in a tough environment and they get my :thumbsup:
 
Can't comment on the the Macbook but I have an iMac as well as a DELL Win 7 laptop. Different things to learn on using the Mac to a PC, espcially when it comes to installing and uninstalling programmes, but you soon get used to it. I also always used Windows and I'm a system administrator at work for a Windows based network, but after experiencing the Mac, I would take one any time over a PC!! It's never gone wrong in almost 2 years!
Whe the DELL dies, I will replace it with a Macbook. :wink:

Your pics should be OK and any Office files you have will work fine with Office for Mac.
 
Worth the money. Pain free computing and will handle all you throw at it. Lion is a great operating system and if you buy a copy of Windows for £30 you could dual boot as a Windows machine should you ever want that. Fast learning curve. Strong resale value too. I had a 13" MacBoook Pro for 2 years - bought it for about a grand, sold it two years later for £700.
 
I have been on mac book pro for years I currently have the new 15" which is way more capable than my mac pro lol... I work with audio so it does get thrashed all day and I (touch wood) have never had a problem.


Depends what you are using to backup.

It is probably worth booking a one to one session with a mac genius for when you pic it up. They will be able to show you the ropes and how to use the OS.
 
Have you thought about a 13" MacBook Air as you don't switch it off and with a solid state drive is incredibly fast, downside is the size of the drive (256GB) and the price. What you do get is one of the finest bits of portable computing money can buy with a decent battery life.
 
Before I retired about a year and a half ago I was the in house system administrator for the company I worked for. I have a long back ground with Windows, Linux and Novell. About a year before I retired I made the switch to Apple starting with an iMac. It is now almost 3 years old and has never locked up or done anything funky. When I retired I has to turn in my HP Laptop which I used for both business and personals use. I liked the Mac operating system so well at that point I purchased a MacBook Pro 13 inch. I have since upgraded the HD and Memory which was very easy to do. My Mac Book Pro 13 inch is perfect for everything I do except video. The screen is too small for editing and it's too slow for export and encode the video. The iMac does that task just fine.

There is a small but quick learning curve. If you were comfortable with working with Windows and did not need outside support you will find Mac very easy to work with and learn. I would also recommend looking going to an Airport Extreme for Wi-Fi. Open Office is an excellent replacement for MS Office and it is free. There are a number of us on this forum that use Mac so lots of help here if you need it.
 
I am in the same situation at the mo and going to move to Mac and a MBP (although not a 17" one!). One thing to point out (and why I am holding off on my purchase) is that a new model is due out immanently with rumored re-design, retina display, and new Intel ivy bridge processors. Although the 17" is looking like being discontinued so if you are adamant you need one that big get in there quick.

more info..... http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro

Ali
 
wow some really knowledgeable people in here, thank tom, everyone really... ok ill pick this up this weekend/monday and let you know how it goes..... i can however say the design externally of the thing is just beautiful, i was worried it may be a downgrade from my previous packard bell ipower machine which was the absolute business interestingly it was just starting to show signs of issues before it was stolen, im really excited about picking up the mac but was slightly worried as i need to jump right in and get my payroll setup on it, also at home it will be editing videos ect ect
The 17" unit did feel really heavy but due to my s**t eyesight i find that a 17" screen with the font bigger really helps me, so its defo the 17" unit im going for.... i wont lie however the price makes me itch alittle but its something that really gets used in my home heavily and also something i take with me to work.

whats the best word program that can run documents that were originated from windows based programs??...

any other items to recommend picking up while im their to get the best of out it??
 
Well the 17" has a higher resolution natively so everything will appear smaller, but you can jack the font up and make icons bigger ect and if need be reduce the resolution. You can also install windows on it as a dual boot or as a virtual machine so best of both worlds.

Microsoft Office is available for mac.
 
tomscott said:
Well the 17" has a higher resolution natively so everything will appear smaller, but you can jack the font up and make icons bigger ect and if need be reduce the resolution. You can also install windows on it as a dual boot or as a virtual machine so best of both worlds.

Microsoft Office is available for mac.

ok... lool forward to settling into mac life :-) really interested to see how this integrates with iphone and ipad when i eventually get them back.
 
Beedub said:
whats the best word program that can run documents that were originated from windows based programs??...

MS makes a version of MS Office for Mac. I've never used it. Open Office has always worked fine for me and is capable of opening/editing saving MS Word doc in a number of formats including MS Word format.

See: http://www.openoffice.org/

What program are you using for payroll?
 
Make sure you get it with a SSD (solid state drive). Seems expensive, but worth the investment plus a backlit keyboard if not standard is a godsend in low light conditions.

Having run SSD's shortly after they came out, they hardly slow down over time unlike their IDE counterparts.

J
 
I use an open office program call NeoOffice its pretty good much quicker than MSO. Wouldn't buy an SSD from apple tho buy one yourself and install it, really easy. They charge a huge premium and are slow in comparison to third party. The 17s come with a backlit keyboard as standard too :thumbsup: The newer MBPs have sata 3 so you can put one of the newer quicker 550mb cheaper alternative SSD with a sandforce controller keeps them quick without using garbage collection as often.
 
for payroll i use moneysoft ....

http://www.moneysoft.co.uk/

doesnt mention its not suitble for mac, looking forward to collecting it, hopefully monday latest :-)
 
Beedub said:
for payroll i use moneysoft ....

http://www.moneysoft.co.uk/

doesnt mention its not suitble for mac, looking forward to collecting it, hopefully monday latest :-)

If you are going to continue running MS Money you are going to need to run Windows on your Mac. If this is the only Windows application you will be using take a look at a program called Parallels...

See Link: http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/
 
yeah ive definitely got to run moneysoft... ive got years worth of data that dictates i stick with it really but its a great program..... can i ask how youve determined id need a windows setup to run moneysoft??

edit; just saw the FAQ section :-)


so do i basically install this as normal and when i click it on the desktop it'll open in windows??? of course once ive installed parallels?
 
ok well im usin my new mac book pro...

wow what a machine... it simply is the best pc ive ever used.... i love it. soo pleased with it, thanks for the heads up on this one guys, alot of money but well worth it......
 
guys any advice on disk maintenance?? i used to use the defrag and cleanup with windows regularly..... anything similar on the mac??

also can anyone recommend any must have software??
 
inkey$ said:
Worth the money. Pain free computing and will handle all you throw at it. Lion is a great operating system and if you buy a copy of Windows for £30 you could dual boot as a Windows machine should you ever want that. Fast learning curve. Strong resale value too. I had a 13" MacBoook Pro for 2 years - bought it for about a grand, sold it two years later for £700.


Yep. I had a MBP, bought it for 2.5K, kept it for 4.5 years and then sold it for £875. Any other 4.5 year old laptop would have been trash material but mine sold easily. Once you go Mac, you never go back ;)))
 
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