Interesting... I have been in the IT Infrastructure business since 1992 and that is the first time I have ever heard of "Windows' built in real-time scanning provisions". So you're basically saying that any Windows user that has anti-virus software installed with real time scanning only has the ability to use 60% of their processor? Wow!
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Macbook or Dell XPS convince me!
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Interesting... I have been in the IT Infrastructure business since 1992 and that is the first time I have ever heard of "Windows' built in real-time scanning provisions". So you're basically saying that any Windows user that has anti-virus software installed with real time scanning only has the ability to use 60% of their processor? Wow!
I can't remember exactly how you get to it, but right click on My Computer > Properties and Performance (can't remember the exact tab layout at the top) and there's a tick box somewhere. Breaks AVG though, gets stuck in a continuous loop of crashing and re-opening...
Wow, you paid too much. Sorry dude, I have to disagree, I was at Best Buy just last weekend and saw the new XPS 1330 and 1530's and at first sight they looked nice. After I put my hands on one I totally see why the price is cheaper on the Dell. Nothing has changed. The only metal used on that machine is the cheap looking brushed metal palm rests. The rest of the computer is of low quality plastics and the keyboard has what looks to be metallic spray painted keys and the paint on the lid is of low quality as well.
The one thing nice about the all aluminum MBP's is that they will have a much higher resale value down the line.
I have had a Powerbook G4 aluminum since 2003 and it still looks like I just took it out of the box. The Dell's not gonna look like that after a couple years of ownership. A couple of friends of mine have Dell XPS notebooks that they have had for a year and they look worn and they take care of their computers very well.
The truth of the matter is when it comes time to sell your old computer the Dell XPS will have a much lower resale value than the aluminum MBP.
Another thing for the OP (if he hasn't bought is notebook yet) is that a dual boot machine like the Macintosh will always be a plus when it comes to resale value. Many people prefer to try OS X but are stuck using Windows and just the fact that your MBP can do both (supported) you'll get more money for it.
haha, so many fanboys are talking out if their bums. I was actually in the same debate and I was going to go for the xps M1330. I chose the macbook about two weeks ago. I've had powerbook G4 12" before and OSX is just a much more pleasant laptop environment. My roomates all have dell laptops with vista and they always have a problem i need to fix for them. Their dells always have problems like dvd drives not working, the screen will hardly stay up, their battery life is 15 min, blah blah blah. even my family all have dell laptops.
Apple laptops IMO have a much greater quality, my powerbook lasted 5 years and the battery was still good when I sold it and it was running leo decently nicely for an 867mhz processor. If you are looking to game, forget the Macbook though but if you already have pc, why not get a mac? OSX wakes up right away when you sleep the laptop, vista takes my roomates ages they always end up having to restart their computers cause their wireless screw up. In OSX you don;t have to worry about buying antiviruses every year and scanning every week. The Dells feel very floppy as well and the macs just look so clean and they are so thin. Its also not fun having t spend the first hour of usage of your new dell removing all the junk software they pack in there
The MacBook keyboard is sick, spaces is key for a laptop, the screen is nice and bright, the software for a mac is fun, as stupid as it sounds, I highly enjoy frontrow and I jsut hooked up my guitar to garageband and its so sweet. Its nice to have a change from windows and not having to call india whenever you have a technical issue, which for me is a huge deal. If you already have a windows desktop, jsut get the MacBook, its worth the extra money. I always have my vista powerhouse for gaming and whatever else i need windows for.
Apple laptops IMO have a much greater quality, my powerbook lasted 5 years and the battery was still good when I sold it and it was running leo decently nicely for an 867mhz processor. If you are looking to game, forget the Macbook though but if you already have pc, why not get a mac? OSX wakes up right away when you sleep the laptop, vista takes my roomates ages they always end up having to restart their computers cause their wireless screw up. In OSX you don;t have to worry about buying antiviruses every year and scanning every week. The Dells feel very floppy as well and the macs just look so clean and they are so thin. Its also not fun having t spend the first hour of usage of your new dell removing all the junk software they pack in there
The MacBook keyboard is sick, spaces is key for a laptop, the screen is nice and bright, the software for a mac is fun, as stupid as it sounds, I highly enjoy frontrow and I jsut hooked up my guitar to garageband and its so sweet. Its nice to have a change from windows and not having to call india whenever you have a technical issue, which for me is a huge deal. If you already have a windows desktop, jsut get the MacBook, its worth the extra money. I always have my vista powerhouse for gaming and whatever else i need windows for.
I will agree with the resale value part. That is with any PC. However I tend to disagree with you on the Dell quality aspects. It's my first Dell so I can't speak to longevity. I have had several Macs and as I said in my prior post I do like them, but for portability and flexibility and what the machine comes with, I don't see how you can say the machine I got was over priced or as you stated a rip-off. Also considering you will never give a PC a copmplement just because you prefer mac.
Ummmmm. I'm the fanboy? I was simply posting my opinion for the OP. I also said that I too like the macs. So how does that make me a fanboy? Maybe you should read your own posts and realize who the REAL fanboy is.
Maybe they're thinking of My Computer > Properties > Advanced tab > Performance Settings > Data Execution Prevention?
angrygofler i don't know what the rest of the specs of your notebook are did you get the LED screen, 8400GS card and the 7200rpm HD?
If you did and you compare that to the price of a MB it makes the MB appear rather expensive for the specs that it is.
I thought about downgrading to a MB but when i priced one up price wise it was just not worth it and i would end up paying more to buy the MB compared to what i bought my notebook for and my notebook has better specs.
I own a XPS M1330 one with a glossy white lid and i think it looks great. I don't have a problem at all with Vista but it is nice to be able to run both operating systems. I don't even have any anti virus software installed anymore and i doing just fine without it. I am careful about the sites i visit and what i download.
As to the resale value of the Intel Macs they are not so good as the PPC Macs used to be. The best way that you can get a good return for your money is to sell just before Apple refresh a line and to buy a student model also. If you pay full rrp your hit won't be that far of how it would be if you bought the more expensive end notebooks like Sony or the XPS notebooks.
I bought a MBP and then Apple updated the line the market price of my notebook when i bought it was £1,700 about four or five months down the line when i was trying to sell it i was struggling to even get £1,000 for it and i saw some going on ebay for less than that. I was so happy when Apple took it back and exchanged it for a new model as my hit would have been to great for me.
I don't know that many people who pay full rrp to Dell if i sold my notebook now i wouldn't lose to much on it because i got it for a very good deal in the first place.
If you did and you compare that to the price of a MB it makes the MB appear rather expensive for the specs that it is.
I thought about downgrading to a MB but when i priced one up price wise it was just not worth it and i would end up paying more to buy the MB compared to what i bought my notebook for and my notebook has better specs.
I own a XPS M1330 one with a glossy white lid and i think it looks great. I don't have a problem at all with Vista but it is nice to be able to run both operating systems. I don't even have any anti virus software installed anymore and i doing just fine without it. I am careful about the sites i visit and what i download.
As to the resale value of the Intel Macs they are not so good as the PPC Macs used to be. The best way that you can get a good return for your money is to sell just before Apple refresh a line and to buy a student model also. If you pay full rrp your hit won't be that far of how it would be if you bought the more expensive end notebooks like Sony or the XPS notebooks.
I bought a MBP and then Apple updated the line the market price of my notebook when i bought it was £1,700 about four or five months down the line when i was trying to sell it i was struggling to even get £1,000 for it and i saw some going on ebay for less than that. I was so happy when Apple took it back and exchanged it for a new model as my hit would have been to great for me.
I don't know that many people who pay full rrp to Dell if i sold my notebook now i wouldn't lose to much on it because i got it for a very good deal in the first place.
I know I'm probably going to get tempbanned for this, but this guy is so full of lies I have to straighten some things out.
You'll find that Dell & Apple probably use DVD drives from the same manufacturer; pretty much all laptops use Matsushita drives now. Also, when was the last time you tried inserting an 8cm CD or a business card CD into your Mac? Yeah you can't, whilst your Dell friends have no problems. And what happens when your DVD drive breaks, or you want to upgrade it? Not a chance, yet fairly trivial for Dells. Lightscribe, BluRay? Not in a Mac anytime soon.
Complete BS. On the other hand, my MacBook arrived with a busted screen.
More BS.
What, now you're attacking your own family?
You are so full of crap it's making me laugh. Even if you shelved a li-ion battery for 5 years without any use at all it would still be substantially degraded. Also, again, Apple batteries use the same cells as most other batteries (Sony, Sanyo, etc.).
Maybe because the PC handles everything just fine? What the hell is the point in buying a Mac if your PC does everything just fine?
My Vista machine wakes up instantly from sleep.
You know why nobody writes viruses for OS X? Because nobody cares. It's not worth it.
When I got my MacBook I had to spend several hours removing all the crap Apple junked in there; I removed over 6GB of rubbish. Buy a PC from a decent company & it'll be more streamlined than any Mac.
It's frickin' useless for coding.
OS X was about a decade late in introducing that feature.
Frontrow has nothing on Windows MCE.
Not everybody is as dumb as you. Also, in my personal experience, I have never had a problem with Microsoft's call centres, whereas Apple's call centres have lied to me & insulted me.
You show your ignorance. A properly configured anti-malware program will scan all things real-time, including files, web pages, etc. Just because today's CPUs are blazing does not mean they don't get wasted on things like this. Calling me a "fanboy" does not change the truth.
I should also add that I don't know that it takes up that much processing power, but the fact is, it takes some processing power. Watch a program like Avast constantly scan as you're simply surfing the web. You may never notice the hit on a current processor (solo, duo, or quad), but the small hit is there. So yes, the same processor in a Mac will be slightly more "efficient," since none of its threads are wasted scanning every little thing you do.
I personally like Vista. If i had to go back and do it all over again, I might have to say that I'd have gone with an XPS.. actually, my next laptop will probably be the XPS1330.
I hate to admit it, but if MS could get rid of the bugs with Vista (which will happen, either by SP2 or Windows 7), it'll be about on par with Tiger.
I hate to admit it, but if MS could get rid of the bugs with Vista (which will happen, either by SP2 or Windows 7), it'll be about on par with Tiger.
I did get the LED screen 8400GS with 128MB and I did get the 160GB 7200RPM drive. I really love the thing
While you've got some concepts right, your conclusions are incorrect. Anti-virus software requires a nearly negligible amount of CPU time on current computers -- as they have for some years.
The error you make is assuming that real-time scanning means constant (CPU intensive) scanning. This is not so. When an email arrives, it is scanned in real-time, as you say. But that takes a fraction of a second. And there's not a constant flood of emails that keeps the scanner busy, dominating the CPU. Likewise, checking a webpage requires a tiny bit of the CPU; web pages are refreshed every few seconds at most so this pings the AV software quite infrequently.
An AV program is going to be largely dormant, as there's normally not much going on that needs its attention. Sure it takes a bit of CPU, but it's of no concern during normal Office work, and even for the vast majority of engineering and science applications.
One reason I bought a Mac is because there is (currently) no actual virus risk -- I don't even run AV software. But Windows computers certainly aren't bogged down by AV software. That's just wrong information that shouldn't be spread.
Yup Macs are good. No need for anti-virus.
If you are unfortunate to have to deal with windows in a consistent basis, you would know that almost all anti-virus programs has: scheduled daily scans. The computer slows down noticeably when that happens.
Also, run benchmark on the computers. Same computer, same processors, same ram, same harddrive, running windows xp scored only 85% as the running under OS X. [geekbench]
I'm ok with that assessment. I wasn't even suggesting that it used a lot of CPU power and, with multi-core, it becomes less of an issue altogether.
I am merely suggesting that, because it is always on, there's always a small amount of CPU and memory dedicated to the purpose of anti-virus.
Besides, if you're on this board, you're on the nerdy side of computing. Everybody seems to need that extra bit of speed. They need that 2.6GHz chip because the 2.4GHz isn't cutting it. They need that 800MHz FSB because that 667MHz bus is just too slow. That being the case, they should also need that extra bit of memory and CPU back from the anti-virus program, since it could be put to much better things, like GarageBand or Adobe CS3.
This is all opinions. you ppl are saying dell is better at the same things that others are saying that macs are better at. everything depends on your individual experiences and the computer you got off the assembly line and that doesnt represent the entire company.
It comes down to your needs and wants. If a budget is a main concern a pc is better option clearly. get your hands on each potential computer, play around with it, use the programs that you will use everyday on it and see what is better for you.
It comes down to your needs and wants. If a budget is a main concern a pc is better option clearly. get your hands on each potential computer, play around with it, use the programs that you will use everyday on it and see what is better for you.
Refurb Dell
I just placed an order for a refurbished xps 1330. with a wife and two kids, cost is huge. additionally, the xps 1330 has a graphics card. well, here is what i got:
2.0 C2D (T7250)
2 GB RAM
160 GB hard drive
128 graphics card
CCFL screen (2.0 mp camera)
1 year warranty
all for $1029. i could have spent another $100 and picked up the 2.2 C2D with more cache, but honestly i doubt i will be able to tell a difference most of the time.
at home i have a 1.6 CD mini which i love, no doubt about it. but for work, i have to run native windows apps all of the time. and the xps is actually a half pound lighter than the macbook.
check out the dell outlet, you can save a few hundred dollars at least. the dull edge of technology is much cheaper than the bleeding edge (because this is a mac forum i suppose i have to point out that "dull" is not a reference to a similarly named PC manufacturer).
thedudeabides
I just placed an order for a refurbished xps 1330. with a wife and two kids, cost is huge. additionally, the xps 1330 has a graphics card. well, here is what i got:
2.0 C2D (T7250)
2 GB RAM
160 GB hard drive
128 graphics card
CCFL screen (2.0 mp camera)
1 year warranty
all for $1029. i could have spent another $100 and picked up the 2.2 C2D with more cache, but honestly i doubt i will be able to tell a difference most of the time.
at home i have a 1.6 CD mini which i love, no doubt about it. but for work, i have to run native windows apps all of the time. and the xps is actually a half pound lighter than the macbook.
check out the dell outlet, you can save a few hundred dollars at least. the dull edge of technology is much cheaper than the bleeding edge (because this is a mac forum i suppose i have to point out that "dull" is not a reference to a similarly named PC manufacturer).
thedudeabides
Even if that is true (which I doubt; you don't cite your source & I expect that even if you did I would soon find that it was an extremely superficial analysis rather than an in-depth comparison of a wide range of PCs & Macs) it's completely irrelevant as for the same price you get much more powerful hardware from a PC than a Mac!
Mac Mini - £399
1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
80GB hard drive
NO monitor
Dell Inspiron 530s - £399
2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory
250GB hard drive
19" LCD
I sure as hell know which one I'd choose!
I personally don't care about comparisons between processing power because they don't consider usability, and usability plays a large role in productivity. Arguments about hardware and OS performance alone are probably more relevant for servers.
I'll choose Mac OS X over Windows XP/Vista any day. I currently have both Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro and Dell Precision M90 laptops. The Precision M90 (running XP) sits mostly idle these days. Even if it were a lot faster than my MBP (it isn't), I still wouldn't favor it.
I'll choose Mac OS X over Windows XP/Vista any day. I currently have both Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro and Dell Precision M90 laptops. The Precision M90 (running XP) sits mostly idle these days. Even if it were a lot faster than my MBP (it isn't), I still wouldn't favor it.
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