The only other annoying thing about the MBP in Windows is a lack of tap-to-click, although I suspect this is a driver issue, it wasn't fixed in Boot Camp 1.4 but I hope it will be soon. Also the MBP runs insanely hot, I haven't decided whether to strip down and reapply the heatsink grease, but since the case is the heatsink and it is getting hot surely means it is doing it's job.

Andy, that Dell system should be compared to a MacBook, not a MacBook Pro. To compare to a Pro you should configure a Precision or XPS system. In every case I've tried, for both MB and MBP comparisons, the Dells are between $50 lower to over $200 more expensive.

The D630 only has a 14.1" screen. If you configure it starting with its BEST configuration it already starts at over $1500 and still only has a 1.8GHz processor and a crappy edition of Windows. I can't configure one up now because when I click on a number of the small radio buttons Dell's lovely site produces error pages saying something it wrong with the config.

The Dell machines get just as hot internally, but with their plastic cases you may not feel the heat as much. Intel is the primary culprit for the heat unfortunately - thermal grease application issues aside.

Damn, there must have been something funky going on with the Dell US website this morning. I honestly did get a figure of $1,589 when I speced a 2.2Ghz, 2GB, 120GB D630 on there this morning.

In fact when I speced the "LatitudeTM D630 BEST" option this morning the 2.2Ghz and 2GB were the standard included spec.

So my claims about the relatively cheapness of the Dell were based on crappy data. The prices are in fact very close. Though don't forget that the Dell includes those 3 year warranties, support and insurance. Apple charge $349 for a 3 year warranty on the Pro.

I was ready to believe that the Dell was $400 cheaper than the Apple, because the Dell is much cheaper in the UK than the Apple. For example in the UK the Dell D630 and the MacBook Pro speced the same comes out at £1,000 for the Dell vs £1,449 for the Apple (partly because on the UK Dell site you can opt not to have the 3 year support, accidental damage).

So in the UK a MacBook Pro is £450 more expensive that the D630 and the Dell comes with a 3 years next day on site warranty (the Mac has 1 year of non-onsite warranty).

Painfully, £150 of that £450 difference is because Apple charge you £150 extra to go from a 120GB 5400 rpm disk to a 160GB 7200 rpm disk...

The only reason I used the US sites/prices was because I thought it would be more relevant to more people.

However I can't agree that the MacBook 13 inch is directly comparable with the Dell D630, the D630 is much closer to the MacBook Pro 15 inch than it is to the MacBook (apart from the 1.3 difference in screen size).

For example:

- the MacBook 13 is not available with a 7200 rpm disk
- its screen is only 13.3 inches
- it's resolution is only 1280x800 (compared to the Dell and Pros 1440x900)
- it doesn't have dedicated GPU RAM (both Dell and Pro do)
- it only haves 64MB of GPU RAM (Dell and Pro have 128MB
- it only has a 667Mhz front side bus (Dell and Pro have 800Mhz)
- it only supports upto 2GB of RAM (Dell and Pro both do 4GB)
- it doesn't have a card slot

Well a rather crappy thing I've found is that my current Novatel S720 EVDO Card won't fit into the new ExpressCard slot on the Macs, which means I would need to purchase the new EX720 for $330. That sorta blows. The M1330 comes with with the older Express Card slot which I suppose it could be argued is a bad thing but actually works for me right now.

The better graphics card is really making me like the MBP though. I think I need to spend some more time with one today at the store. You would think the whole being able to run Windows thing would be something they would try to sell you on at the store but they didn't have one machine in the place that was running both OS's; and there are like 40 Macs in the place.

Another thing the Dell doesn't have is the iLife suite of software, which really is good enough to warrant being figured into the price. I know that iTunes is a free download for the PC, but the rest of it isn't. I would personally argue that iMovie and iDVD alone close the price gap by a few hundred dollars, and if you do photography, I have yet to find a free photo organizing tool that I like better than iPhoto (especially the new '08 version).

Hmmm, every time I threw my collection of photos at iPhoto on my Mac mini it churned for a few hours then died.

No doubt any free photo organising software that Microsoft decided to give away would also wilt the same way as iPhoto.

I haven't looked at iPhoto '08, but Google's free Picasa blows away iPhoto '07. It's faster. It scales to massive photo collections. It supports a wider variety of image editing operations. Now if only Picasa ran natively on a Mac...

The Intel Integrated is also available on the D630 with the same 1280x800 "WXGA" screen (Dell sucks for not listing resolutions clearly). In fact if you configure the middle system to come up near a MacBook basic system it comes out to $1077 versus the Mac's $1099. You get 3 year MAIL-IN warranty, not on-site and not over night. Plus you get super-shite build quality, no camera, no remote, no DVI, no firewire, no gigabit ethernet that I can tell. Of course you do get the slightly bigger screen and slightly better Intel integrated gfx (though still crap like the Mac's). If you put Vista Ultimate onto the Dell it increases the price $50 to $1127. That would still leave the comparison fair since only Vista comes even close to Mac OS. If you buy the Mac in September you'll likely get a free upgrade to Leopard as well.

The software suite is a great example as well. On the Dell you'll get a boatload of malware and other stuff to uninstall - if experience is any indication. On the Mac you get a software suite which Apple sells for $79 but is easily worth three times that.

Anyway, bottom line is that in the US and Canada the prices are generally negligible for system that are "sort" of similar.

Photoshop isn't an ideal Photo editor though. And I mean that in both senses of the word, editing in terms of choosing images from a larger selection as well as editing as a form of retouching and correcting. Great for composites, but for general photographic work it's a PITA.

You'll notice that everyone is rapidly switching over to using Aperture and Lightroom for their workflows. Non-destructive editing and correction is where it's at.

That's why I was looking for something that could both organize AND handle the more common adjustments. Lightroom blows away iPhoto for management/organization and of course adjustments. I chose it over Aperture as well, which was much slower, took up crazy amounts of hard drive space even with previews turned off and had the most asinine concept of organization anyone could possibly ever invent.

Apple have been making some pretty decent looking interfaces lately, but some of their conceptual choices leave me puzzled.

I've always disliked iPhoto and from what I've seen of the new version I can't say anything significant enough has changed to alter that opinion. I'm not even looking for a high-end nor professional workflow. I don't work with photograph for a living, but my modest amateur needs just aren't satisfied with iPhoto.

I've got over 10k images in Lightroom at the moment. It's a lot faster than Aperture was, though it still shows some stress. Its slideshow functionality is useless for live slideshows and only suitable for rendering out a show for inclusion on DVD or to make a PDF or something. Maybe on a Quad G5 it would be reasonable.

Lightroom is missing Smart folders but I can live with that until they add the feature. The 1.1 version of the product introduced a number of features that would have prevented me from ever adopting the 1.0 version (including significant changes to its image management).

I'd like to see some additional correction/adjustment tools added that are well suited for a visual person, not a mathematician or accountant. LightZone has some retouching features that are simply the cat's ass. You *must* watch these videos.

I'd also love to see support for HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging in Lightroom in the future. I'm just starting to experiment with that and at least the ability to stack images is great for collecting the multiple exposures that will eventually become the single HDR shot.

I've loaded Lightroom with a keyword library of over 10000 entries it's worked fairly well. iPhoto's keywording seems rather weak, though this is one area of significant improvement with the newest version.

We're a bit off topic. I'm likely going to write an article about Aperture and Lightroom at some point in the near (I hope near) future, based on my experience with both. Some of the comments I've seen on the net, including one-week test runs with each, have been somewhat useful, but not brutally honest enough about some basic features that make a huge impact on adoption of this type of software.

My biggest gripe about Lightroom is it's made by Adobe. I also use other of their programs, but luckily Lightroom is something new and not encumbered by so much of the garbage and 20 year old legacy UI BS still present in Photoshop and Illustrator for example. Microsoft seems to take all the attention away from Adobe when it comes to discussing monopolies and how one company can ruin so much other decent software.

Ok, back to buying Dells and Apples.

Did you take a look at the videos of LightZone I linked? I can't explain how badly I want that functionality in my non-destructive workflow. I would also love B-Spline support in Illustrator and an exact duplicate of all Illustrator path tools in Photoshop. I won't hold my breath though, because with the exception of new modules such as ACR you mentioned, Adobe programs and UI are (as I mentioned) 20 years out of date. As of CS2 there was virtually no parity in UI between any of their applications - it was still painfully obvious they were all made by completely different vendors. Their original roots in third-party acquisitions have left their indelible marks which Adobe either seem incapable, or unwilling, to remedy.

I'm not yet shooting RAW but will once I get some new photo equipment. Right now I don't even own a camera and have just gotten by using my fiancee's 4MP HP P&S and for the past 4 months, my brother's Nikon E8800. By the time I can afford to spend on body + lenses I'll probably be looking at the D200's replacement. I'll also be needing a replacement for this PowerBook of course. If I buy a Dell though, I can probably save $50 and use it toward the camera... Hehe.

Had to tie back to the original topic.

Damn, that's too bad (about not being able to see the videos). You have to find another way to check them out. The technique they show for region-based enhancing would have been completely appropriate and likely amazing for the image sample you posted.

Our 2+ year old Inspiron 9300s are still going (very!) strong here. Wonderful machines, though a bit large for airports and the like. The Latitude X1 (2.5 lbs) serves rather nicely for extended travel, though!

We also now have an Inspiron 9400 with a Core2 duo CPU and other, lesser differences.

All of the machines, except for the X1, have 2GB (2 x 1GB, dual-channel) of DDR2 in them. Just last night, though, I picked up a cheapish 2GB stick of DDR2 to play with. None of these notebooks claim compatibility with 2GB sticks, but that doesn't mean it won't work.

It works in the X1, giving a 2GB total there (rather than the 2.2GB I expected, with the 256MB it has soldered onto the mainboard), and it also works in the 9400 alongside one of the 1GB sticks, for a total of 3GB. The BIOS appears to have left dual-channel access enabled, despite the mismatch in sizes, speeds, and brands of sticks. So it's all nice and fast there, too.

Gotta try it in the 9300 next, just for the sake of completeness.
EDIT: Just tried it, and the BIOS only recognized the first 1GB of the 2GB stick.

-ml

Another thing I've noticed has to do with WiFi on the Inspiron 9400.

It has an internal PCIe slot for a wifi card, and originally shipped with a Dell (Broadcom) A/B/G card installed. Those now work fine with Linux, but I replaced it anyway with a new Intel ipw3945 A/B/G card.

The Intel card out-performs (range) the Dell/Broadcom card by a fair bit.
Well worth the $40.

Cheers

So I didn't get a Mac.

After much consideration and late night forum reading, I realized that a MBP probably wouldn't be a good fit for me. At first, I thought it would be great to be able to boot into Windows whenever I wanted, but then I realized that if I had that ability, knowing me, I would probably constantly boot into Windows and then whats the point of having a Mac?

Also, although its a really sweet machine, there just isn't enough there to make me switch. Its great if you're a creative type, but I'm just not. Also, I'm not sure if anyone has been to a Mac Store recently, but someone needs to tell those people to tone down the hipsterness a little bit.

Anyhow, I picked up a Sony FZ180E.

I headed out to Frys and Microcenter Saturday evening to see what they had available. I wasn't really impressed with any of the offerings until I saw the Sony. Its slim and relatively light, powerful and it has an insanely nice screen. Battery life is so/so and the hard drive is only 4200rpm but I think I'm going to upgrade it. The lack of internal bluetooth is also a bit of a downer.

My biggest gripe however is the massive amount of preinstalled bloatware. It significantly slows down the machine and its sort of a pain in the ass to get rid of. I tried PC Decrapifier but it didn't really seem to get much. Get this: the laptop comes loaded up with Spiderman and Spiderman 2 SOMEWHERE on the laptop. The files take up about 2.6 GB of space and the only way to get to them is to basically pay for the movies via a link on the desktop. For shame Sony, for shame.

So yeah I'm still working on tweaking it but all in all, I'm very happy. Its pretty damn powerful for a laptop of its size.

Anyone have a link to a decent, very small usb dongle?

Take the Sony back. Seriously.

Slower processor. Slower graphics. Lower resolution screen. Slower Ethernet. No Bluetooth. Un-powered Sony-style mini-firewire. Heavier. Thicker. Comes with Vista Home (ugh!) BUT... Same price. Ok, there's a rebate on the Sony right now for $100. But you can easily find a 15% discount on the MacBook by using an alternate store interface.

The Sony does have these things beyond the Mac: Blue Ray Disc. SD/MMC slot. Larger capacity HD as default. 1 extra USB port. HDMI connection without the need for an adapter. S-Video connection without the need for an adapter.

My very well educated guess, based on my own experience and reports from others in situations similar to yours is that with a Mac you would find yourself booting less and less into Windows. There's no need to be any kind of creative type to use Mac OS. You don't have to have a creative bone in your body in fact.

Anyway, of the other notebooks that were out there, the Sony is probably the best all-around choice next to the MacBook Pro.

LOL. You really love yer makes don't ya?

On top of the list that Bruno points out, your Sony has a 1280x800 screen where the Macbook Pro would have a 1440x900 screen. On the face of it it doesn't sound like a good deal. But on the flipside, it would be fun to watch 720p Blu-ray movies on your laptop... I think that is all it has over a Macbook really.

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Also, I'm not sure if anyone has been to a Mac Store recently, but someone needs to tell those people to tone down the hipsterness a little bit.

Oh yeah totally. In the London Brent Cross store I went into a few months ago the crowd of people, bright white decor, crisp lighting and loud music made me nauseous and I had to leave after just a few seconds.

For my needs, the difference in the processor and video card are pretty minute. There might be a bigger difference in the video card but from what I've been reading on the notebookreview forums, they are pretty comprable with some people even getting 8600 benchmark scores with the 8400 (with some tweaking). To get the 256mb 8600 I'd have to get the 2,499 MBP.

The screen resolution is a pretty big difference but the LCD on the Sony is pretty amazing. They've got some xbrite crap they incorporated from the Bravia tv's that really makes it pop. As far as size, the MBP is not insanely smaller than the FZ1, they are basically in the same ballpark. The lack of bluetooth is definitely crappy but I don't think I'm going to miss the 1000BASE-T too much. On the other hand, having a portable blueray player with HDMI out is pretty sweet. Also, I tend to backup a lot of stuff so the Blueray writer should also be nice.

Quote:

What does being creative have to do about buying a computer?

Well the fact that half of their selling point seems to be all the crazy, wacky creative shit you can do on your laptop. When they constantly throw that in your face, its gonna get the customer thinking about how much of that stuff they actually do, at least it got me thinking about it. Well it turns out I dont do very much blogging, music making, video editing or photo editing. So the fact that it comes installed with all these great and powerful software titles doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I'd be paying for but not really using them.

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I switched because doing common computer tasks was easier in the sense that I didn't have to deal with operating the computer as much, and could just get work done

I guess I'm just not a very hardcore computer user because I found that the stuff I needed to do was pretty straightforward in XP. I don't think I've ever been one of those users that found Windows to be overly burdensome for my own personal needs. Drivers did their thing for the most part, programs behaved as expected and went shit went wrong, I was usually able to figure it out. It'd be great if I were uber enough to just drop into UNIX and do what I need to do cause Macs are just cool like that but I'd have no idea what I'm doing.

Quote:
Plug in a camera, and photos get pulled off it and organized. No manual folder management, etc.

I'm not exactly sure how iPhoto does it but I'd just like to take this space to give another plug to Picasa. Managing my wifes pics used to b a pain in the ass but they've made that program pretty retard proof and now even she is uploading her albums to Picasa and whatnot without any assistance. Pictures come in from the camera and get nicely sorted in Picasa.

There are definitely a couple of things that I'm envious of in the MBP but not enough to make me want to switch.

My current laptop is a Sony from back before Macs went with (1) Intel and (2) high-res LCDs. I've been reasonably happy with it, with a few exceptions:

It came with XP Home. This ended up being a pain and I reinstalled with XP Pro. Good luck getting drivers for the Sony-specific stuff to work if you do that. I finally got most of it working, but the thing that changes power profiles when you plug/unplug the system has never worked since the upgrade. And they told me that since the system was sold with Home, they wouldn't support me trying to get Pro to work. Without a doubt the worst tech support I've ever dealt with.

You're right about the bloatware, however, I found that the biggest performance improvement came simply from defragging the hard drive. It was something insane like 80% fragmented out of the box. After a defrag, the computer was far, far, more responsive.

I'm currently on my third battery. It has been a while, so that's probably not beyond the pale, but just so you know that if you want to keep it for a while, make that price concession. With a healthy battery, the life is pretty decent. Hours at least.

Honestly, the only thing that would in any way keep me from getting a Mac when I upgrade is the one-button mouse.

As far as Bluetooth goes, I'd wait for this adapter to come out. (Check out the cool PCCard-stored mouse, too.)

DUDE that bluetooth adapter and mouse are awesome! The adapter is exactly what I've been looking for; I'm so getting it when its available for sale.

The mouse would be perfect too except for the fact that these new laptops use the smaller express card slot! I would be putting my order in right now if I had the older size slot.