anyone interested in swaping a used (working) macbook?

Brigitte · Post by **Brigitte** » Mon May 19, 2008 6:47 am

buying a used computer can be risky so I was wondering if someone in Germany/Europe might have a retired macbook "lying around" that works and is interested in swaping it against whistles? Please let us know offline, will be happy to hear about one and can always call back then.

Thanks a lot
Brigitte

breqwas · Post by **breqwas** » Mon May 19, 2008 8:28 am

You do not need a mac.
I'm serious.

I'm a mac user myself, but my macbook is not mine but corporate, and I have my own reasons.

General user does not need a mac. It costs a lot, all mac-specific peripherals cost a lot (keyboard for $80, battery charger for $100, etc...), and it does not give anything "special"- only "cool" design and "cool" marketing.

Brigitte · Post by **Brigitte** » Mon May 19, 2008 8:42 am

Thing is that everyone is telling Colin he should go for a Mac for the music and the photos so I am stuck a little bit, he has an old PC that I want to take away from him but need a replacement. Friends who do systemadmin tell him to go for PC, musician and photographer friends tell him to go for Mac, so I thought a used Macbook might do to see if it is what he really needs and if he can adjust to how it works...

Brigitte

fruladog · Post by **fruladog** » Mon May 19, 2008 8:52 am

Anecdotal information: my daughter was just admitted to the photography program at California College of the Arts, probably one of the top 10 fine arts colleges in the U.S. They made it very clear they are a Mac-only college. I can't offer any info about music, though.

breqwas · Post by **breqwas** » Mon May 19, 2008 8:56 am

There are no things that can be done on Mac and cannot be done on PC (unless you need stuff like unix shell or mounting ssh volumes, like me). But there are lots of things that can be done on PC and can't be done on Mac.

Photographers and musicians tend to appreciate "coolness" more than techy guys, that's why they answer what they answer.

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Mon May 19, 2008 8:59 am

I wouldn't worry too much about peripheral cost, especially since you're
talking about a laptop (which has a built in keyboard and touchpad). Plus,
you can use PC peripherals with a Mac... The MacOS does seem to be a
little easier to deal with when pluggin in new peripherals. Sometimes PCs
need a bit of tweaking to work properly with some devices, and I haven't
yet noticed that on the Mac.

breqwas · Post by **breqwas** » Mon May 19, 2008 9:07 am

Yes, MacOS deals with peripherals better than XP, but there are plenty of macos-incomparatible devices. E.g. my usb-scanner and printer at home work with windows and even with linux, but not with mac.

But most problems come from software. The most simple and basic thing - office. MS office for mac is old and bad. OpenOffice is even worse. I ended up running Office for Windows under Parallels Desktop - that's OK, but damn slow.

Almost the same about all other stuff.

Brigitte · Post by **Brigitte** » Mon May 19, 2008 9:39 am

breqwas wrote:Yes, MacOS deals with peripherals better than XP, but there are plenty of macos-incomparatible devices. E.g. my usb-scanner and printer at home work with windows and even with linux, but not with mac.

But most problems come from software. The most simple and basic thing - office. MS office for mac is old and bad. OpenOffice is even worse. I ended up running Office for Windows under Parallels Desktop - that's OK, but damn slow.

Almost the same about all other stuff.

I shall be the "techy" and handle hardware and everything, and fortunately have all device-SW for both PC and Mac for printer etc. as well as some sw-tools... although there is office on his PC, other than outlook nothing ever is used, he would only go online and work photos and music on it. It would be a trial really to see if it is as good as he is told and if not, well then we have to see.

Brigitte

I sometimes wish I had kept one of the Mac-Clones I had when I worked for Motorola when they were making these, but I gave them away as I was too worried about changing over, at least I would know now how they worked .

Aanvil · Post by **Aanvil** » Mon May 19, 2008 10:39 am

Bah this mac vs. pc thing again.

I'm running 25 macs (mostly iMacs and Mac mini) currently at my office. Most of these machines are for editors and writers and the needs are basic That means Office/Word, Quark (we'll eventually move to Indesign but no need for it now) Firefox and the MacMail.

Word works just fine and were are talking 8hr a day use.

Everyone prints of a couple Xerox 5500 and a color 7400. There are also a few local epson scanners and printers at a few of the machines. No issue with the drivers what so ever.

I've been buying 3rd party USB keyboards and mice when ever tea or what ever gets spilled. These are "PC" keyboards.

All these macs work flawlessly 98 percent of the time.

The biggest reason for me to use macs is that I don't have to worry much about infection/trojan/spyware issues (which I very much do have to worry about with my personal PC and the few I do run at the office.

OSX is rock solid. Its just is.

That means almost ZERO downtime for the staff and VERY little IT time and money spent.

Its a huge savings to me.

I buy the mac, pull it out of the box and it goes.

They are silly easy to manage so I believe that someone looking for a machine that is not too tech savy Macs are the perfect choice.

I made my folks get them. I spend little time on the phone with my mother about computers now.

This is almost an Off Topic thread now I suppose.

plunk111 · Post by **plunk111** » Mon May 19, 2008 10:52 am

Nobody's mentioned the fact that a MacBook allows you to run in either world, OS X or Windows. I use mine for both and find that Windows runs faster on the MacBook (usually) than comparable PC laptops. The dual-boot facility is free (via BootCamp) if you're willing to re-boot or relatively cheap. The only downside is that you DO have to buy Windows. Most of the people I know that have both running tend to use the Mac side more.

Pat

P.S. We aren't THAT much off topic!

Brigitte · Post by **Brigitte** » Mon May 19, 2008 10:53 am

Aanvil wrote:Bah this mac vs. pc thing again.

This is almost an Off Topic thread now I suppose.

thanks for your input on running the things... still on-topic as I would like to swap one for whistles, keys do not matter...

Brigitte

Post by **Dale** » Mon May 19, 2008 11:59 am

I have a basic, white, 13-inch MacBook which I love. It's the first laptop I've taken to. It's on my lap, a lot.

It boots into Windows upon request. I have the Parallels software, but can't find the time to install it.

There are some apps I use on the Windows side for which I've never found a suitable substitute in the Mac world, and so I'd say I'm on the Windows side maybe 25% of the time.

I like the Mac OS for its simplicity and the incredible stability (Only once or twice in a year have I had the Mac equivalent of the blue screen of death.) It also boots SO much faster than Windows.

Overall, though, I like the laptop's size and configuration. It's lightweight. I like being able to do both Mac OS and Windows on it.

But, I'm not a Mac person in the sense that I find it easier to ACCOMPLISH things with a Mac than with Windows. In fact, I have to say I dislike Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. A lot. More and more I'm using web apps for the functions I used to use Office for.

For awhile I was saying that if I was to buy a family member a laptop, I'd buy a MacBook. Not sure I feel that way now. It's more of a toss-up for me than it was when I first got the Mac.

Paul Reid · Post by **Paul Reid** » Mon May 19, 2008 1:46 pm

breqwas wrote: Photographers and musicians tend to appreciate "coolness" more than techy guys, that's why they answer what they answer.

It's not "coolness" - it's function. Apple has also supported the creative community for over two decades - the Windows platform has jumped on this train only recently.

I have both systems - I prefer Apple OSX. As far as software goes - you are correct. There are lots of similar programs for MacOSX and Windows. Apple, however, has bundled with their operating system a few very good intermediate programs like Garage Band, iPhoto, iMovie etc... that are simple to use and produce excellent quality results - at no extra cost. Windows does not.

But there are lots of things that can be done on PC and can't be done on Mac.

This I just don't get, maybe you could qualify this?

Cheers,

breqwas · Post by **breqwas** » Mon May 19, 2008 3:58 pm

This I just don't get, maybe you could qualify this?

There're lots of win-specific software. The examples most whistlers know are AbcNavigator and AbcExplorer - their mac analogs are much weaker. I have to run them via Parallels.

Brigitte · Post by **Brigitte** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:18 am

After a turbulent summer the old needs come to life and urge again, so I have started actively looking again for an affordable Macbook for Colin, meanwhile done some more research and decision for Mac is fixed for him and laptop/transportable, due to the photoworks preferably with a bigger monitor, does not matter if G4Processor or the new ones, actually G4 would be perfectly fine, knowing that Motorola made them.... Maybe someone has upgraded to a newer, faster, bigger Laptop and one "spare"... preferably I would receive one from the EU so there is no importing problems from outside EU, German customs is very efficient and NO parcel goes unnoticed. Swaps could be arranged in time for Christmas still....

Thanks for looking
Brigitte

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anyone interested in swaping a used (working) macbook?

anyone interested in swaping a used (working) macbook?

still interested in a swap :-)

One year with a MacBook.

Re: still looking (swaping) for a used macbook... resurrected